AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/23 - 6/29

ROH Global Wars Mexico 6/26/25 (taped 6/18/25)

Lee Moriarty vs Blue Panther

MD: Wrestling is not about making the impossible possible. It's about making the incredible plausible, and on paper everything about this match was incredible. Blue Panther is 64 years old. He's 64 years old with a lifetime of bumps (rolling or otherwise) onto hard mats and hitting and taking dives. He's all that and he's still all this and along with Lee Moriarty, he created such a match. I'm sorry, but that is incredible. 

How then did it happen? Wrestling is the art of using illusion to create emotion, with reality utilized sparingly to underpin it all. For the first third of this match, reality was technique. The illusion? That was Moriarty creating motion as Panther controlled the center and (at first) Moriarty's arm along with it. The arm was barred so tightly, so precisely, hands in the right places, balance perfectly held, Panther presenting himself immaculately, that Moriarty had the perfect base to push off against as he expressed the painful consequence of the hold and tried again and again to escape. 

When he finally did, they opened things up, while still grounding it all in the technique you would expect from a Pure Champion and a true maestro. Moriarty edged a leg in between Panther's own to lock in a cravat. Now it was Panther's turn to sell, his arm flailing with each cinch of the hold. Not for long though as he was able to go behind into a full nelson. Moriarty lifted his own leg up, interlacing his fingers underneath it to give him leverage to break the hold. Then it was a leg pried in between Panther's once more to lock in an abdominal stretch. The game of chess continued as Panther pried off fingers, shot two elbows into Moriarty's leg, and tripped him. Moriarty flowed straight into his next gambit, pressing off against Panther's waist to propel him back up and then up and over Panther's shoulder with a spectacular takeover. 

Technique is well and good, but it's the means and not an end unto itself. With that countermove, Moriarty began to stretch not just his skill but his bluster and swagger as well. Here it was over the top clapping for itself. After a slick pinfall attempt a minute later, it was a gloat to Panther that he almost got him. And then, feigning sportsmanship, he offered a handshake and threw in a bonus kick for good measure. As he took over the Infantry, seconding him, gloated as well, and once he got Panther out, he cemented his control with two explosive topes.

Illusion was underpinned by technique. The different flavor of reality that would come, Moriarty's dives and subsequent superplex, helped serve his heeling, his arrogance, his borderline villainy, as Panther took a stiff upper lip and forced himself to survive. The dives are never the point. The superplex is not the point. They're tools carefully used to help support the underlying emotion. In this case, it was Panther's legendary prowess against the upstart invader. Panther survived through the Border City Stretch, ducked a shot coming in and fired back, and then, with one mighty burst of energy, hyped up the crowed (making the most of the moment) and hit a dive off the ramp. 

Even then, Moriarty had youth on his side, all else equal, and he mounted one last offensive. All else was not equal, however, for Panther had the home arena advantage and, even more important, the advantage of inner discipline, of age and wisdom, turning a seeming weakness into a strength. Moriarty got cocky one last time and Panther dropped him into an armbar for a quick tap. After would come the pageantry and chaos of an assault, a rescue, a celebration, but none of those thing were as impressive to me as the beautiful mix of illusion (down to the mask which hides Panther's age) and reality, both technique and impact that allowed this unlikely match to capture imagination as it did. That's pro wrestling though. It crosses eras and borders, a universal falsehood that reveals inner truths.