AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/30 - 7/7
AEW Collision 7/5/25
FTR vs The Outrunners
MD: I had gotten most of the way through the review down below (MD1) and decided that I wanted to see what it would look like if I hit it from a different direction (MD2) so here are two very different reviews of the match. I liked it that much.
MD2: The Outrunners had everything going their way. Oh, FTR had tried both mind games and dirty tricks on them. Of course they did. Dax had done it from the start, pushing for a clean break on the first exchange only to throw a cheapshot on the second. When things boiled over, he ran around the ring forcing Truth to give chase. When they slid back in, Cash completed the ambush by leaping halfway across the ring like a madman. Truth fired back quickly and made the tag but they then dragged Turbo down, cutting off the ring and laying a beating on him.
They wrestled a mini match here, a satisfying few minutes with shine, heat, and, as Turbo reversed a Cash suplex and kicked off a charging Dax to make the tag, comeback. Truth came in hot and FTR pinballed for him, all building to a bulldog/clothesline combo and the set up for the mega powers handshake elbow drop, that itself generally a precursor to Total Recall.
But there was Cash again, flying in out of nowhere, an absolute maniac using his body as a wrecking ball, slamming one Outrunner into the other and down to the floor. Once there, things took a bleak turn as an entirely different match unfolded. After pummeling Truth a bit, they lodged Turbo's leg between the stairs and the ring, crushing it with the force of their bodies. Turbo incapacitated, they turned their attention entirely to Truth, opening him up and honing in on the face, head, and neck.
With a gleeful sort of efficient cruelty, Cash would leave his vantage point on the apron multiple times, running around to jam Turbo's knee onto the stairs senselessly, or, in moments where Truth was able to get a shot in and maybe, just maybe, earn an iota of hope, pulling Turbo off the apron with purpose. For long, grueling minutes, there was no true hope to be found, not even in the face of bravery, toughness, and heart.
Moreover, there was lingering doubt and concern. Let's say Truth, through skill and pluck and luck, might find a way to make it to his corner, might find Turbo actually there, what condition could Turbo actually be in? What fight could he actually put up? Regardless, the hope spots escalated, with as much focus on Turbo's struggle back to the apron as Truth's within the ring. Cash came around again one last time but Turbo was ready for him, only for Dax to knock both off the apron and Truth to capitalize with a roll up, a hope spot of his own that wasn't even about the tag but instead a desperate swipe at victory.
Escalation built up the pressure leading to a volcanic eruption as Dax missed a diving headbutt and Truth pulled himself to Turbo for the tag. But now Turbo had to face off against a nearly fresh Cash Wheeler with one leg and little hope, with only his guts to push him towards glory. He attempted a slam, powerhouse that he is, only to come up wanting. Cash charged in, had he had twice before, now for the kill, but Turbo, in a last burst of defiance, put everything he had into a countering clothesline. Bolstered by the heroic effort, he hefted Cash up for the slam and reunited with Truth. The two grasped hands in a heartfelt gesture of survival and triumph and pulled each other up so that they could finally drive the elbow down. No matter what would come next, that was a victory that could never be taken from them.
But what came next was in their favor! Dax and Cash tried to get an advantage on the apron but Turbo fought them both off and the Outrunners were able to come together one last time to hit a Shatter Machine of their own. This time, however, it was Dax who flew in and sacrificed his body to break up the pin. This last burst of hope turned once more into tragedy as Truth went sailing off the apron after a suplex attempt. As Stokely cravenly grasped Truth's leg on the outside, Cash managed one last reversal on Turbo and FTR hit a heartbreaking Shatter Machine. The Outrunners were defiant to the last but FTR was too much, too cruel, too merciless, too precise, and too underhanded.
If this was a morality play, good vs evil, evil would only grow in power on this day. Yet the light of the Outrunners would give FTR reason to fear their own shadow, reason to fear an inevitable comeuppance that crept ever closer. If it was not around the next corner then maybe it would be around the one after that, even if it wouldn't come in the here and now at the hands of their former friends.
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MD1: A remarkable match. I'm going to get right to it. I want to talk about the structure. After some start-of-the-match stooging from FTR (Dax especially) and a really nice momentum shift tease which had Truth chase Dax around the ring and Cash take him out as organically as possible (so much of it coming down to Cash's wildman execution), they played out a very early short/quasi FIP, the sort of phantom FIP you sometimes get in a shine. It culminated with Truth and Turbo going for the megapowers handshake elbow drop. That was broken up. That's important because in denying the fans that moment, it allows the Outrunners to pick up a spiritual win late in the match when they finally earn it (I'd say that they get another in the late match when they hit their own Shatter Machine on FTR but honestly, in this match, the fact that they even came back at all was the sort of accomplishment that is so often just taken for granted in modern tags; let's get into THAT now).
The crux of the match was Truth Magnum getting bloodied up and working FIP with FTR pulling out every Southern Tag trick in the book to build anticipation and draw heat. But what put it over the top is that they had taken out Turbo Floyd's leg with the stairs as part of the transition to heel offense. As Dax was doing some woundwork in the ring, Cash was hitting shinbreakers onto those steps off to the side, out in the background.
Look, there have been tags where the guy on the apron gets taken out both at the start and later on. There are tags with double FIP where a limb is worked over and the initial FIP has to recover enough to allow for the hot tag. There are Japanese tags from the late 80s-early 90s which are built on someone holding out long enough for his partner to recover. I love Tenryu/Hansen vs Rusher/Baba from 89 which is built around Tenryu ambushing Baba with a dive as he's coming down and Rusher getting worked over until Baba is ready to come back. But I can't remember the last tag I've seen with a structure quite like this. I was actually thrown by it completely because I thought they were going to work over Turbo's leg after going out of their way to crush it with the stairs. But that was just in support to the face-in-peril and to set up a level of doubt after the hot tag.
And it was exciting! Not just the match, or the fight to come back, but even the way they put this together excited me. Not only was Truth a bloody mess but Turbo was on one leg. Basically, both wrestlers were in peril simultaneously even though it was a standard tag that followed standard rules and drew within the lines. They would go back and take Turbo's leg out more to cut off hope spots so Truth couldn't make the tag. There were all sorts of possibilities at play here, all sorts of different ways they could have gone with it. For instance, what if Truth didn't get bloodied up until later in the match? What if he was able to make a tag earlier but then Turbo had to fight for another five or six minutes getting his leg worked over? Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday down the line they can come back and do a twist on this and it will feel fresh.
Just as this felt entirely fresh. Compared to most current tag matches which are back heavy (unbalanced in my mind) with loads of spots after everything breaks down post-hot tag, they got in and out of things pretty quickly after Turbo burst in. Every moment felt like a struggle and a triumph though. Turbo came in hot but his broken body betrayed him. Unable to slam Cash, he had to push through it all to hit the huge clothesline (for a huge pop), and then the slam. That led to the truly wonderful moment of the Outrunners not just clasping hands but helping each other up to their feet to hit the elbow. They followed that by spitting in FTR's eyes and hitting their own Shatter Machine before the unfortunate fall off the apron by Truth and Stokely getting involved to ensure the finish.
Just a total masterclass of how to create drama and build heat before paying it off in a way that was very specific to the match. They didn't throw out everything that came before in the name of high spots and sensation. Instead they built the fire bolder and brighter. While some people might see this as incredibly conventional, I thought it was pretty daring in how it pushed the form (within the lines! within the rules! within the norms!). This is the FTR that was so dynamic and exciting as the Revival in NXT and this is the FTR that can still revolutionize tag team wrestling by taking everything that has always worked and push it in new and bold directions. All they need are the right opponents and the right platform. They certainly had both here.
Labels: 5 Fingers of Death, AEW, AEW Collision, Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood, FTR, Outrunners, Truth Magnum, Turbo Floyd
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