AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/28 - 8/3 (Part 1)

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Dustin Rhodes vs Kyle Fletcher

MD: A tale of risk and reward, of moral victories and crushing defeat, of mutual defiance of years, one man defying youth and another defying age, a star burning bright one more time and another newly ascendant. 

Kyle Fletcher's destiny was delayed by weeks, not denied. Dustin Rhodes did the improbable, something that would have seemed impossible 17 years ago, coming out with three belts (two of them ROH titles) and to his old WCW Slam Jam theme.

And they had themselves a Chicago Street Fight, one worthy of a legacy already made and a legacy just beginning. 

Fletcher defied convention (as he defies so many things), out in his pink trunks. Dustin dressed the part in street clothes, but with unmissable knee pads. He'd come off a grueling match with Lee Moriarty the week before, one where the Pure Champion had targeted his knee.

For anyone who thinks that it's just wrestling, that it's just listening to the crowd or coming up with the best spots, that structure and placement (implicit OR explicit, because it doesn't necessarily matter) aren't actually things... well, look at this match and how it played out.

Dustin got the first shot but Fletcher went for a kendo stick under the ring. That backfired as Dustin was able to get it and nail Kyle with it. Dustin tried to use the stairs but Fletcher was able to block and use them instead, hitting a DDT that opened Dustin up. Fletcher set up a table, but Dustin walked away, leaving Kyle to wipe out into it. Dustin finally succeeded on a first attempt, this with the cowbell (which made sense given his natural familiarity with it) but even this was fleeting and illusionary. In opening Fletcher up, his head became slick enough that he was able to avoid a bulldog off the apron, causing Dustin to careen into a table and further injure the already damaged left leg, setting the stage for the rest of the match.

It's possible to think that these spots were just instinct, were haphazard, lacked intent. We can never fully know intent. But the results are clear nonetheless. This isn't a normal match. It's a Street Fight. The stakes are higher. They're life and death. Almost every risk taken backfired, but each one still felt necessary and warranted. By having it all play out like this, weapon shots that we've seen a thousand times suddenly mattered as much as ever and a tone was created that would pay off even more later into the match.

During the break, Fletcher went in hard on the knee, including a half crab and attacking it with the cowbell. He took his time, seething after a rope break and looking to the crowd after the strap assault, blood running down his face. This is what makes Fletcher stand out from his peers, from the generation before him, this basking, this creation of mood. It also covered for Dustin to get his leg up and hit a low shot as Fletcher charged in. Fletcher's petulance allowed Dustin to regain hope.

Hope came in the form of a Code Red, a Cross Rhodes, and of clashing chairs. Again, to put over the importance of the weapon, Dustin tossed two chairs in. Fletcher bit on the trap and Dustin won the ensuing clash. However, he overreached (as they had both overreached so far into the match). Shots to the gut and the back were fine. When he went for the headshot, Fletcher was able to cut him off with a superkick. 

Fletcher followed this up with a short tombstone on the two chairs, a spot that I was fine as a transition/cutoff and not a finish because of its visual execution. It was nasty but didn't have the vertical drop of a normal tombstone (they covered on commentary with Fletcher's knees taking some of the blow, so that's fine too, but it didn't throw me off in the moment). Likewise the subsequent (and spectacular) destroyer off the top through a table. Again, in a normal situation, probably overkill, but here I bought it given how Dustin was worn down and couldn't quickly cover, and that Fletcher really hadn't taken much damage over the last few minutes. 

It was, in many ways, the harbinger for the finishing stretch, a rapid fire set of payoffs to the earlier establishment of weapons being actually meaningful and impactful in this match. Dustin pulled out the tack-covered glove and they fought for a brief moment for the claw (nothing given, everything a struggle). Dustin locked it on and Fletcher was able to escape only by returning the low blow from earlier. Fletcher brought out tacks of his own but Dustin was able to lure him into his snap powerslam onto them instead.

And then Dustin followed it with his big moral victory. A babyface has to keep his pride. A crowd has to feel like the babyface didn't necessarily let them down but instead that the heel triumphed underhandedly or due to a banana peel slip despite a series of victorious babyface actions. Dropping those tacks down Fletcher's trunks, Dustin hit the Unnatural Kick. In doing so, he shifted the tide of fate, drawing Callis to ringside with the screwdriver. In a match with chairs, cowbells, tables, and tacks, the screwdriver had something more going for it, an established history in how it'd been used in AEW, the weight of a violent past and all the power that came with it. It served as the great equalizer, driving Dustin back just as he was about to hit his finish (another small moral victory snatched away), and then, with Callis' help, devastating Dustin's knee. 

Dustin would get one last bit of hope, a roll up out of nowhere, one last small moral victory in the face of overwhelming defeat, and then Fletcher dropped him with a brainbuster and took the place, rightful in his own mind, on top of the TNT mountain. 

It was a match full of spectacular spots, ones worthy of the moment: Dustin's last match before surgery and Fletcher's delayed ascendence, but what made the match work, what will make it  memorable over time was how those spots fit into a matrix of seething and selling, of established weightiness, anticipation, and payoff. All the smoke and mirrors in the world, all of the athleticism or gruesome violence, all of that can mean so much more, as it did here, when structure, character, and care are woven into the narrative of a match. That's what has made Dustin special for decades. And that is, I hope, what will continue to make Fletcher special for decades to come.