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Hello and welcome to this week's statistical takeaways from AEW Dynamite; the penultimate episode before next week's Double or Nothing go-home show. This issue looks at Samoa Joe's Big Offence, Konosuke Takeshita's submission concessions, Rey Fenix and Kyle O'Reilly's contrasts, Maki Itoh's foundation for Britt Baker, and Jeff Hardy's struggles in the air.
Johnny 'Elite!?"
As a surprise, Johnny Elite was perfectly adequate. He could lose to Joe without eyebrows being raised or it dampening anyone's long-term bookability but he was just interesting enough to get a suitable pop from the crowd.
This is demonstrated perfectly by his overall stats which sells him as out of his depth. The most interesting stat here is the Big Offence difference (Click here for Big Offence explanation). Although the two men closely spread out total offence, Big Offence which illustrates the wrestler's presentation via the more impactful and memorable moves, tells a different story.
Joe was on the strong end of 64% of the Big Offence; over half of that coming in the form of dominating strikedowns.
DDT's Explosive Star
Top of the pile podcasters; Michael Hamflett, Michael Sidgwick and Adam Wilbourn have been pushing their belief that mirror matches are an over-rated idea and contrast is where it's at. I personally disagree and prefer to see mirror matches like Omega/Pac, Takagi/Ishii or Okada/Tanahashi. Page and Takeshita certainly added to the mirror match cause here with a remarkable set of mirroring statistics.
The notable difference was submissions and this told the story of Konosuke Takeshita. He could hang with Page to an extent but Page was presented as the superior wrestler in that he could ground and control Takeshita a little. This enabled Takeshita's explosive bursts to seem as though he was smashing through the champion's hold on the match as he literally propelled himself at his opponent.
Opposites Attract?
The answer to the sub-heading would seem to be yes. This match is sitting on a 3.82 star rating on Grappl after 101 votes, only behind Page/Takeshita (4.11 from 111 votes). An excellent rating for a TV match, especially one that I personally struggled with at times.
The key difference between the two competitors that drive home their opposition to each other stylistically is the dives vs submission usage. Both men carefully avoided their opponent's metric of strength to ensure the contrast in styles shone through.
Itoh Boosts Baker
The early story of this match was that Baker and Itoh were short lived allies and this was their first meeting since. Baker expected Itoh to allow her to pass on to the Semis without incident. In kayfabe Itoh certainly didn't do this but out with kayfabe, Itoh did an amazing job putting Baker over.
A 77% offence share is a huge margin. It occurred partly because of the shortness of this match and the fact the heel tends to control the picture in picture period of a match. However Itoh went down to Baker quickly enough, without landing a huge quantity of offence but made it look like she was stronger than she was by the force of her personality.
Injuries Ground Hardy?
A 7 minute match isn't ideal in building the prestige of a tournament, however it may have been a necessity after Hardy's car crash of a match with Darby Allin last week. This was underscored by Hardy's dives stat as he managed only one against Cole after his exploits against Allin last week (interestingly, he didn't actually land a single dive against Allin).
There are a lot of concerns about the state of Jeff Hardy's body after decades of jumping off really high things. The numbers suggest there is more to this worry than subjective opinion.
Thank you for reading! I struggled with the wrestling on this episode out with the incredible stuff between Adam Page and Konosuke Takeshita. For more of this, our most built up source is Twitter; @PWMusings.