AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/3 - 2/9

ROH 2/07/25
AEW Collision 2/08/25

Athena vs Carolina Cruz
Dustin Rhodes vs Izzy James
LFI (Rush/Dralistico/The Beast Mortos) vs Ares Alexander/Brick Savage/Jay Alexander

MD: All squashes for my guys this week. So let's talk about squash matches and these ones in specific. A wrestling company should use every tool at its disposal. One of the things that drew me to AEW when I started watching in 2021 were the Dark/Elevation squash matches. I like contrast. I like a baseline that can be used to escalation from. All three of these matches had purpose, function, form. None of them went particularly long (though the ROH match had more time to breathe because ROH has less constraints). All of them allowed some idea or concept to be brought into the world in a way that felt organic and natural and not overly contrived.

Athena's match was at Daily's Place, and had that real Dark feel to it (with a crowd nutty enough to chant Blue Pants at Adam Priest of all people, even as he got over in front of them). It was her first match back after her time in Japan and it reminded people just who she was, that cross-section of intensity, unpredictability, and malicious mirth. She sat Billie down at ringside and made her watch. She menaced Paul Turner. She shook Cruz' hand clean but then assaulted her. And then post-match, she beat her around the ringside area like she was Stan Hansen. Billie interjected but it was both too late and too little (also too little to incur Athena's wrath). So it was a stagesetter to remind people where things stood and hint just a little of where they may one day end up.

Dustin's was reminiscent of one of his last times on Collision, then against Johnny TV. This was to heat him up for MJF and give him an excuse to do a post-match promo. The promo then had been on Jack Perry and him aping Hard Times. The last two or three promos from Dustin have been more from the heart and better off for it. This was only a few moves deep but I like that one of them was the Cross Rhodes because it was a big screw you to MJF for invoking Cody's existence and main event status, just a standing tall babyface act of defiance to show that Max can't get under his skin. I loved the MJF vs Templario and MJF vs Oku matches last year, by far my favorite of his (with the Strong match #3). I'd love that same invading heel champion spirit in Austin, like Flair in Dallas. I think it would work great over the crowd (if, as always, Max is just confident enough in himself to let himself stooge/feed/cheat/heel).

That brings us to LFI. No dissension between the brother and Mortos despite what we saw last week. This was each guy getting one shot in to set up a post-match. They'd focused so singularly on one opponent each getting over a big move, that the other two were fresh and fired back until they got swept under. That led to Komander trying to make a save but falling to the numbers game and Hologram finally getting to make his big return. All functional stuff that will likely set up a match between these guys who are generally used a attractions.

Three squash matches, three different purposes, all character driven and character based and all moving things along in their own way. These matches existing allows for a different narrative effect than just having backstage promos interrupted or having fairly even fifteen minute matches. Every tool at the disposal.