AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 11/18 - 11/30 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/26/25 

Jon Moxley has a point.

That's what makes him so dangerous. That's what's always made him so dangerous. He's a multi-time world champion, the creator of Death Jitsu, a man who is willing to go incredibly far to achieve his goals, dubious as they may be.

So what if the emperor has no clothes. He's still the emperor.

So when he says that tomorrow is another day, when there's another fight around the corner, well that's pro wrestling for you, isn't it? The story never ends, usually not until the third retirement at least.

And what a new chapter this is, the Continental Classic, the perfect place to turn things around, to prove he's not a quitter, that he's the ace, the best, an emperor to be feared and respected.

First match: Mascara Dorada, a young lucha lion growing every day into his mantle, yet someone who's been around long enough to smell blood, a clash of styles and backgrounds, glittering light vs grimy darkness.

So Mox did what he did. First, he took it to the mat. The crowd was chanting "You Tapped Out" at him. Time to prove them wrong. Dorada went to the point of Moxley's recent defeats, the ankle, because of course he did, but Moxley, cool and calm, rolled through. He was in control. He was a master practitioner. He maneuvered Dorada into a headscissors but was helpless to stop him as he bounded out with a dexterous headstand.

Cute. Fine. Well and good. Moxley had tools in his arsenal. He shifted gears, let Dorada win that first exchange, adapted, because that's what he did. Mox went to roughhousing, to striking, got a few good shots in, but Dorada was able to roll with it and contorted himself up and around into a 'rana clowning Moxley. Now the crowd was chanting lucha, a little shift of the tide away from Moxley and towards Dorada.

So Mox would just turn up the volume a bit more. He got Dorada down to the floor and hit a rare dive, crashing hard head-first into the barricade. He hit the softer part. Dorada hit the harder part. It was reckless, showed that control was slipping through his fingers, but it worked. It just didn't work well enough. He wasn't going to beat Dorada on flips and dives. The luchador fought back quickly, hit a breathtaking tornillo of his own, and positioned Moxley on the floor beneath the ramp charging at him with a massive dive.

But Jon Moxley had not just a point, but many points in his favor. The emperor may have no clothes, but no one could take his skin and bone and sinew from him. No clothes, one forearm, and he got it up, clocking Dorada as he sailed past. 

Now he was in control. Something had shifted further though. As he leaned down on Dorada, the fans weren't chanting "You Tapped Out." They weren't chanting "Lucha." They were chanting "Dorada." He wasn't an interchangeable mask-wearing cipher. He'd grown in their hearts through the match. 

So Moxley escalated again. He brought the stairs into play on the outside. That, and the time and distance it created, allowed Dorada to come back with spectacular use of the barricade, hitting a cutter over it, and then the ropes, rebounding Moxley and himself back off of them. 

But Moxley always had an answer and this time, with increasing desperation, it was a cutter out of nowhere. Now, as Moxley positioned Dorada into the corner, it all weighed on him: losing the early exchanges, those chants, the recent comeback, all of those losses, the quitting, everything. He started in on the ten count punches, but instead of turning it into his usual bite or rake of the back, he kept punching, and why not? The fans were counting along. That had to feel good, like he wasn't so alone in the world, out there in the ring without even Marina beside him thanks to the Continental Classic rules. Punch after punch after punch as the fans counted along, straight on past ten. Until he overextended and got caught, hefted up in an electric chair position and flipped about into a neckbreaker. 

One moment of weakness led to another as Dorada sat back with a cross arm-breaker. No longer was Mox calm and collected. Now he flailed about in outright terrified panic. Maybe that was the only thing that saved him. He was flopping about so manically that Dorada couldn't lock in the hold. Mox couldn't let himself quit again, not at the start of the tournament, not after Darby and Blood and Guts and Full Gear. 

Seeing red, he rolled Dorada over and punched at his gold mask again and again and absolutely crushed him with a running knee. He went for the Death Rider only to get rolled up. He survived a 450 (because naked or no, he's the emperor, dammit), but was now an unchained animal and he ran right into a spinning kick. At every point here, the vulnerability that Moxley had shown over the last many months primed the fans to think that things could end at any moment. There was an excitement in the air throughout this entire stretch that isn't always present because of that.

Clothes or no, point or no, hypocrite or not, quitter that he might have been, those animal instincts were strong. Dorada went back up top and launched into a shooting star press. Mox got his knees up, all instinct, and wrapped Dorada tightly in a d'arce choke. He was exposed to the world here on the first night of the Continental Classic, and he clung to Dorada's head like a babe in the woods with a security blanket. His desperation was such that there'd be absolutely no escape for Dorada, and instead the relief of escape for Moxley. 

The emperor, his kingdom falling apart, lived to fight another day. That was all that mattered in this moment and Moxley, in denial of so many things, would lie to himself and bask in his victory, ignoring the creeping dread in his heart due to the undeniable truth that Claudio Castagnoli was waiting for him only one week away.