AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/3 - 3/9

AEW Revolution 3/9/25

Toni Storm vs. Mariah May

MD: We live in an age of lore, where the immediate gratification of social media crashes up against corporate created media full of first episode twists, end-of-movie stingers foreshadowing sequels years away, mysteries layered on top of mysteries where every answer just brings forth two more questions. We see it in wrestling too, albeit less in AEW than elsewhere. 

In AEW, much of the storytelling happens in the matches themselves. Even here though, things tend to be bogged down by excess and bloat. Sometimes that manifests in small ways: despite being both poetic and visually brutal, it wasn't enough for MJF to meet his comeuppance from the Angel's Wings; he needed to eat a Buckshot too (no, he didn't). Sometimes it manifests in medium ways: trust me, the Swerve vs Ricochet match really, truly could have ended after the Vertebreaker on the table and the subsequent House Call. They didn't need to go into a second finishing stretch. Sometimes it manifests in huge ways: I haven't actually watched Ospreay vs Fletcher yet, but I'll get there and then make sure to do everyone a favor and not write about it. All too often Chekhov's Gun fails to go off or outright misfires. Elements are dropped, forgotten, overutilized, made blatant where subtly would be more effective. 

Yet here we had a match which cleverly and organically looped in elements from over a year's worth of television, full of what might be considered excess were it not for the skillful structuring and execution, which could have easily fallen to pretention and navel-gazing but instead led with emotion and beautiful brutality. Here we had a match which was theatrical without being forced to be "cinematic," that was artistic in its imagery but trusted in all the strengths of the medium. Instead of using the genre it evoked to escape the stigma of pro wrestling, it highlighted the form instead, enhanced it, shined a spotlight on the sort of cathartic release and dramatic finality that can only come from this violent spectacle that we love so much.

It closed every parenthesis but never in a way that felt like busywork or an obligation. Instead, each easter egg and resurrected plot point, from the image of Toni and Mariah's bodies intersected after the early Sky High all the way to the use of the shoe at the very end, felt like an opportunity that they were able to make the most of. Every perfectly crafted image (Mariah writhing after being crotched on the barricade; the first real look at Toni bloodied, as she blinked her eyes in a shot that would have made Norma Desmond seethe with jealous; Toni laying sprawled as if plucked from a grisly murder scene) contributed to the whole while never feeling fabricated, never robbing us, the viewers, of our suspension of belief and sense of immersion. 

And they hit so many of these narrative marks: the hip attacks (enhanced by the rail, the chair); the finisher stealing which makes more sense in these matches with the two characters playing one another than in any other before it; and yes, the stomach-churning climax: Mariah's trademark champagne celebration turned into a nightmarish horrorshow. There, the match called upon Onita as much as it did a Spaghetti Western, that sense of anticipation (the wrapping with tape, Mariah's determination mixed with fear, Toni's old timey bareknuckled boxer stiff upper lip, the first few ducked shots) leading to deathmatch paymatch of Mariah getting punched in the face and the glass strewn across the mat (which did a great job rationalizing some of the finisher kickouts). 

Everything led back to the hall of mirrors carnival set piece burned in our memories, the top of the entrance where Mariah betrayed Toni. Here, Toni did whip Mariah with the belt, a final act of symmetrical revenge, but once again showed just an inch of merciful hesitation with shoe in hand. Unlike in London, however, it was brief, fleeting, and when Mariah tried to take advantage of it like the unredeemable villain that she was, she brought forth her own final comeuppance. 

It was a masterpiece not just for the violence, not just for the over the top excess, not just for all the references, but for its own restraint. Everything mattered. Everything was done with care. Everything created an effect. Instead of forcing any number of contrived sequences to cascade on top of one another, it gathered all of the narrative opportunities of the last year and managed to deliver upon the full storytelling potential of each and every one. The cart didn't drive the horse. Nothing was done simply for the sake of doing it. At every point, the characters drove the action. As I said, it was theatrical and not just cinematic; full of gif-worthy images, but never meant simply to create them; a payoff worthy of the build, and a bloody classic of a finale to join the canon on the Permanent Tapes.