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Welcome to the post AEW Dynamite: Pittsburgh, 11.08.21, in-ring statistics and analysis. This week was all about Britt Baker as she was serenaded, by a beaming Pittsburgh crowd, with DMD chants at any opportunity. We also see Christian Cage setting up two opportunities at Kenny Omega's collection of belts; that's a PPV match too many for me. Additionally we saw Daniel Garcia turn Darby Allin into a pretzel...
However, this week's focus will be Dante Martin and the Sydal Brothers versus The Elite; Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks.
People have been talking about Dante Martin before this match, he has been the subject of pretty viral GIFs on a couple of occasions which is no mean feat in this era of the super-athlete. This match was all about him and his interactions with The Elite. The Sydals were essentially relegated to supporting players however their role in this match is nothing to be scoffed at.
The story of the match was one of a championship-laden team taking on three exciting underdogs spearheaded by a touted young up and comer. When we look at the statistics the established act were taken aback by the potency of this high-flying triumphant. The Elite only managed to dominate the Striking metrics when we look at the main offence categories.
The Elite did also dominate Taunts, Fouls, Tags and Double Teams; the first two acting as a springboard for their babyface opponents in a very obvious manner and the latter two doing the same job more subtly. The cheating allowed Martin and the Sydals to appear to fight from under despite getting more offence as Taunting and Fouls are very easy ways of portraying a confident, heelish force that will do anything to win. Whereas, the Sydals and Martin are not an established trio and this was underscored in the match via quick tags and double team offence, another hurdle to overcome.
What's really interesting about this match is within this dynamic you usually see the heels dominate simple Strikes but not Strikedowns as they are associated with explosive babyface comebacks. The other metric you would usually see the heels dominate is Submission holds to build heat and grisly heelish character. The Elite are playing both traditional heels and their own selves in their current run. They seem to have replaced traditional heel grinding with balloon-popping explosive Strikedowns to crush babyface comeback sequences.
With the Minute by Minute Flow of Offence we can single out Dante Martin more effectively. Dante Martin is tagged into the match at the end of the 2nd minute and part of the way through the 8th. As you can see these are 2/3 of the babyface's biggest offensive periods.
The fourth minute sees Dante unload Dives on everyone in sight in the culmination of the babyface's early explosive offence and forces The Elite to up their game. This started a 3 minute spell where The Elite smother the babyfaces using Fouls to ensure they don't start a comeback, motivated by Dante's three for one Dive and insane hang time Crossbody follow up.
The eighth-tenth minutes were where Dante was really elevated, Kenny Omega cut off a Sydal Brothers-inspired comeback in the seventh minute with a Dragon Suplex for each. However Martin flipped out of Omega's effort on him, tagged in and ran wild. This culminated in some of the most incredible high-risk offence you will ever see on Kenny Omega.
Kenny Omega eventually wrested back control but... The Dante Martin push wasn't over there, he then evaded a One-Winged Angel with almost Kazuchika Okada grace and almost caught Omega with a slick roll up. Omega finally hit the OWA but he and the Bucks hit a Triple BTE Trigger type thing for put him away.
It has been suggested by leading wrestling critics that this was done to put Martin over in that Omega was so scared by his performance that he didn't trust the OWA to put Martin away and was not willing to risk it's reputation. I believe the story was that Omega was so angry at Martin for putting up such a fight he wanted to take things a step further and also wanted to show off their Trio's Finisher. Either way Omega's attitude puts Martin over as a force either way.
This was an incredibly smart way to put over a young prodigy whilst your champion still comes out with his hand raised and Martin was the one to take the pin.
In-ring statistics for the other matches are available below:
- Darby Allin vs Daniel Garcia
- Chuck Taylor, Orange Cassidy and Wheeler Yuta vs Private Party and Matt Hardy
- Kris Statlander vs Nyla Rose
- Stu Greyson and Evil Uno vs The Good Brothers
- Chris Jericho vs Wardlow
