An exciting weekend of wrestling was capped off with the fifth annual AEW Double or Nothing in Las Vegas.
Did we crown a new world champion? And how much anarchy did The Elite and the Blackpool Combat Club get into?
Here are my takeaways from Sunday’s event.
Takeshita helps the Blackpool Combat Club defeat The Elite
Anarchy in the Arena for sure lived up to its name at Double or Nothing.
This match had a little bit of everything. You had a band named Violent Idols playing “Wild Thing” during Blackpool Combat Club’s entrance, then continued to play for a good 10 consecutive minutes in the closest thing I have ever seen to a cold open to a wrestling match.
The lead singer of the band had a peculiar look that raised quite a few eyebrows on social media, but the music ended when said lead singer was double superkicked by the Young Bucks.
Speaking of superkicks, there was an exploding superkick at one point. Someone’s foot was slammed into thumbtacks. Those same thumbtacks were also poured down someone’s mouth. Renee Paquette, AEW interviewer and wife of Blackpool Combat Club leader Jon Moxley, summed up the match in one tweet:
— Renee Paquette (@ReneePaquette) May 29, 2023
At the end of the day, Konosuke Takeshita returned to hit Kenny Omega with a flying knee, which led to Wheeler Yuta pinning Omega to pick up the win.
This was exactly what I was expecting and then some, because I definitely did not expect to see an exploding superkick coming.
This may not be everyone’s taste and I understand that. Some people are turned off by the excessive violence of matches like this or Blood and Guts, which usually features thumbtacks, glass, forks and other various sharp objects. However, I am OK with it when it is used within reason.
I’m not really a big fan of ultraviolence or violence just for the sake of it, but when you have a hot feud between two sides that, in storyline, hate each other’s guts, a little bit of blood can enhance the experience.
But again, within reason. I thought Anarchy in the Arena accomplished that by doing a good job of just dipping its toe into absurdity and nothing more.
The Four Pillars tear down the house
While Anarchy in the Arena may have been the craziest match of the night, the world title match featuring the proclaimed four pillars of AEW was the best pure in-ring contest of the evening.
It was so good that it almost made me forget about the fact that it didn’t close the show and that Anarchy in the Arena did.
It really should not be all that surprising considering Darby Allin, “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry and Sammy Guevara are all capable of wowing fans with their athleticism and MJF is great at telling a story and using sound logic to dictate his decisions.
On this night, MJF used Allin’s Coffin Drop against him by placing the world title on top of a prone Perry. Allin crashed into the belt, which allowed MJF to use another headlock takeover to defeat Allin and retain his title.
The question moving forward is where does AEW go with MJF? Moxley, Omega and Adam Page are all tied up in the Elite-Blackpool Combat Club feud, and I’m not sure who else is just ready to step up and assume the top challenger role.
That is unless AEW slots potentially returning CM Punk into that spot.
Regardless of who it is, it has to be worth potentially putting the match in the main event of All Out in Wembley Stadium.
Two new women’s champions
The AEW women’s division saw a major shakeup Sunday night as two new champions were crowned. Toni Storm defeated Jamie Hayter to become the first woman to win the world title twice thanks to A LOT of help from Saraya and Ruby Soho.
However, that wasn’t that big of a surprise to me, as I predicted as much to happen given Hayter’s uncertain injury status.
What did shock me and many others was Jade Cargill’s undefeated streak coming to an end. No, she’s not 59-1. She’s actually 60-1.
Cargill and Taya Valkyrie had a pretty good match for the TBS Championship, which ended in another victory for Cargill. Mark Sterling then got on the microphone and said that there was no one left for Cargill to beat for the title and that she’d take on anyone at any time.
Obviously, that meant someone was going to answer the call right away. That person was a returning Kris Statlander. In what felt like a Money in the Bank cash-in, Statlander quickly upended Cargill to end the undefeated streak and become the TBS Champion.
There were some fans on social media that pondered why AEW didn’t wait to build up the next match between Cargill and Statlander, but I’m not mad at AEW’s approach. It created an unexpected moment that the fans in Las Vegas actually got excited for, which was not the case throughout the rest of the show.
It also provides Cargill an out even in defeat, as she can say she had just competed in a grueling match and her manager put her in a position to fail by issuing an open challenge right away.
In one night, AEW has two pretty good rivalries on its hands in its women’s division, which I think is pretty good by AEW standards.
If it had my way, though, I would find a way to get Cargill in the world title picture sooner rather than later. I know AEW could create a great atmosphere for Storm versus Hayter in Wembley Stadium if it chose to run that back, but Cargill needs to be in the title’s orbit soon after.
Sidenote: Cargill’s entrance was a tribute to her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, which is a member of the historic Divine Nine sororities and fraternities and is an integral part of Black culture.
FTR produces yet another banger; Chris Jericho & Adam Cole do not
Going back to their days in NXT, Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood have been producing banger after banger in tag team matches.
On Sunday night, FTR produced another. This time, it was with Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal.
As good as their match was Sunday night, I think I have had my fill of watching Jarrett wrestle in title matches in AEW.
On the flip side, I think the “unsanctioned match” between Chris Jericho and Adam Cole was a big bowl of meh, which did not give me high expectations for the tag match scheduled for Dynamite with Jericho teaming with Saraya to go against Cole and Britt Baker.
Wardlow puts on his workin’ boots
I don’t think I am speaking out of term when I say AEW has yet to truly capitalize on Wardlow despite giving him plenty of victories. As a result, Wardlow isn’t quite as over as many thought he would be by this point.
At Double or Nothing, Wardlow tried his damndest to flip the script by putting on a show during his ladder match for the TNT Championship against Christian Cage.
Wardlow pulled out all of the stops, including a Jeff Hardy-esque swanton bomb from the top of a ladder onto Luchasaurus and through a table.
Time will tell whether that performance at Double or Nothing will provide the spark he truly needs, but it will not be for a lack of effort on Wardlow’s behalf.
The vibes in Vegas were lackluster
I’m not sure if it was an audio issue or what, but the crowd in Las Vegas didn’t sound very active for large portions of the night, and I think it hurt the show in some ways.
If wrestling fans learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic it’s that a lively crowd can enhance a match. The wrestling in the ring was good enough to elicit strong reactions, but based on the audio I heard coming out of my TV and the posts I saw on social media, the reactions were frequently tepid.