AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/22 - 12/28 Part 2

AEW World's End 12/27/25

Jon Moxley vs Kyle Fletcher 

Jon Moxley is a bleeder.

As stars go, headliners, main eventers, champions, there's probably no one this century who's bled as often and as freely as Mox.

This? This is different though. Usually the taste of his own blood reminds him that he's alive, reminds his opponents that they're in a war.

But even a warrior, a champion only has so much blood to lose and Jon Moxley's been bleeding out for a while now. Maybe he's been bleeding out since he tapped to Darby Allin and Kyle O'Reilly. Maybe he's been bleeding out since he lost the title to Hangman Page. Maybe he's been bleeding out since Adam Copeland lost the battle but won the war, wounding him with a nail covered bat and putting fear back into his heart. Or maybe, just maybe, he's been bleeding out since he made the fateful decision to betray Bryan Danielson.

Regardless of how long it's been, he found himself face to face with one undeniable truth: he had to stop the bleeding.

The only way to stop the bleeding was to cauterize the wound. He had to put himself through a baptism of fire, one where his soldiers had to stay in their barracks, where it was just him against the very best, him against the world. He had to prove to allies and enemies both, to bystanders and to history itself, that he was everything he said he was, that there was truth underneath it all, no matter how thoroughly he'd been exposed, no matter how it felt to be the emperor with no clothes, no matter the Sword of Damocles over his head, no matter how biting winter's cold felt upon his naked flesh. 

He needed to compete in the Continental Classic, but more than that, he needed to win it.

But Kyle Fletcher needed things too.

Takeshita may have been the first member of the Don Callis Family and Okada may be its crown jewel, but Kyle Fletcher is the heart and soul of it. He's the one that makes it a family and not just a stable or faction. Callis is what he sounds to be, a callous, mercenary huckster. Fletcher is young, still developing, still in need of those to support him, not just professionally but personally as well. He believes in the idea of a family, even a family of villains, scoundrels, and rogues. He loves Takeshita like a brother and he's been coming to love Okada as well, but more than either of them individually, he loves the sum of them.

Now, after months of turmoil, Takeshita and Okada were positioned against each other in the other semi-final. One of them would beat the other. But were Kyle Fletcher to beat Jon Moxley, he'd face off against that winner. Yes, he had lost the TNT title. Yes, he had failed to defeat Hangman Page for the world title. Yes, unlike Okada, the International Champion, and Takeshita, the IWGP champion, he had no belt to his name. And yes, he constantly feels the need to prove to the world that he is the future, but more than all of that was this: no matter who won, Okada or Takeshita, were Fletcher be the one to defeat him and win the Continental Championship, then it might defuse the situation, might humble the loser, might restore peace and tranquility to his family. 

He just had to beat Jon Moxley to earn the chance to do so.

So he took this match as seriously as he'd ever taken anything in his life. According to commentary, right up until the bell, he'd been watching tape of Moxley's C2 matches, studying his opponent, looking for any possible edge. He didn't check in with his family members, didn't watch Takeshita battle Okada. Instead, he prepared. When his music hit, Fletcher went out to the ring, unaware of Okada's underhanded transgression, the use of a screwdriver hidden in the turnbuckle pad, that allowed him to defeat Takeshita and secure a spot in the finals.

Like many other C2 matches, they started with wrestling. Moxley is the progenitor of death jitsu, but Fletcher kept pace with him, countering counters for the minute or so they chain wrestled. Perhaps not surprisingly, Moxley blinked first, taking an opening and throwing a chop. That sent Fletcher right out to the floor, slowing down the pace, stalling. In the eyes of the fans, it crystalized alignments. Fletcher had gotten some support as of late, because he is that good, because he is charismatic, because he is sudden and intense, but while Moxley was chomping at the bit to engage, he was not, and that was enough to shift the crowd just a bit more behind Mox.

Fletcher didn't care, though. He meant to throw Moxley off. He had a plan. Moxley chased after him, beat him around the ring, but Fletcher caught him with a body slam on the way back in, a cheapshot. Again, the crowd turned more. Again, Fletcher didn't care (he didn't care so much that he was happy to tell them how little he cared, which just made them respond, getting behind Moxley more). And then when Moxley managed to turn things around on him, the crowd started to respond all the more.

And yet still, Fletcher didn't care. Moxley tossed him out and Fletcher scrambled to keep in it on the floor. So yes, the crowd was backing Moxley for the first real time in well over a year. And yes, it did bother Fletcher, but he didn't care because he couldn't care, because he had to win. It was that simple. And to win, he had to find the exact moment to strike, no distractions, no hesitation. Just goading Moxley in. That happened on the floor, the stairs brought into play. Moxley meant to pile drive him onto them. Fletcher knew it was coming and pulled the stairs back. Moxley's leg ended up between the ring and the stairs and Fletcher charged in to crush it. He knew Moxley's tactics. He knew Moxley's weakness, the ankle that had been bothering him for weeks, a perfect achilles heel to give Fletcher the edge.

Fletcher got down to work, using a inverted deathlock, a half crab, simply wrenching the leg over the rope. He was as unlikable as humanly possible throughout, posing and preening, but he was laser-focused nonetheless. 

But Jon Moxley knew that the best defense was a good offense. He hit a cutter out of nowhere. When Fletcher retreated back to the floor, he hobbled across the ring to dive at him. He chased Fletcher back into the ring, knowing he had to press the advantage, and just like earlier in the match, he ran into a Fletcher slam, this time a Michinoku Driver, escalation playing out before the crowd's eyes. 

The match continued along these lines. Fletcher would bully Moxley into the corner but Mox would fire out. He'd be unable to get his full weight behind his shots, the leg dragging him down on every exchange. He'd power through and score a point but be ultimately unable to capitalize. Fletcher would shrug him off the top on a ten count punch and as Mox landed on the apron on the bad leg, Fletcher would follow right behind him to drop him on his skull. Moxley would beat the count, if just barely, but even the possibility of redemption through victory was slipping through his grasp more and more with each Fletcher bomb. The blood may have been coming from his tooth of all places, but he was bleeding out nonetheless.

And all the while, the fans started to cheer for Mox more and more.

Yet all the while, one truth never changed: Fletcher needed this just as much as Moxley did. He needed it too much. He locked in a half crab again, this time pulling back with all his might. That opened him up to Moxley's bulldog choke. But he had prepared and as Moxley tried to plant his weight to really lock it in, Fletcher grasped at the ankle. He escaped the choke, but he couldn't quite get the anklelock exactly as he wanted it, exactly how his family member Josh Alexander had taught it to him. He wanted it too badly, he needed it too much. Desperate, nervous scrambling hands meant that by the time he did lock it in, they were too close to the ropes and Moxley was able to escape by the skin of his bleeding teeth.

And as he did, the crowed began to chant.

Still, Fletcher was in control and he stomped Mox in the corner, hoisted him up for his top rope Brainbuster. Moxley had wanted to lay in those ten count punches before, punches often punctuated with a rake of the back and a bite of the face. Before Fletcher had tossed him off. Now as Fletcher tried to finish him, Moxley, bloody mouth and all, gnawed upon Fletcher's head.

And the crowd roared for his effort.

Something awoke in Jon Moxley then, something that had been dormant, been pressed down by his own paranoia and hypocrisy, something that could only be tapped into when the crowd was well and truly behind him. He slipped behind Fletcher, locking in a choke up on that top rope, and then, as if he was leaping into the arms of the crowd with only faith to propel him, he tossed both of them off backwards, hitting a breathtaking, brutal avalanche cutthroat suplex. Moxley capitalized with a lariat and a stomp, but couldn't capitalize further, that effort alone sending pain up and down his leg. Fletcher recovered, hitting a superkick, a half-and-half suplex of his own, and a knee and pressing Moxley's shoulders to the mat. 

Mox kicked out at one and the crowd absolutely exploded. 

Fletcher was shaken but not thrown; he dropped Moxley with a brainbuster and Moxley kicked out once more. He lifted Moxley up to finish him and Mox, stumbling, punch drunk, put both hands up in an act of defiance as the crowd buoyed him with their screams. 

Fletcher needed this win. He needed it badly. He needed it as much as Moxley did. He didn't care how he got it. They had set up the screwdriver earlier in the day, a perfect way around the Continental Classic rules. Callis wouldn't be out there to hand it to anyone. Fletcher was doing this for himself, but he was doing this for family most of all. He knew Takeshita and Okada were facing each other. He knew they were at odds. The last thing he could have imagined however was that one brother would use the hidden screwdriver against another. So when he went to find it and it wasn't there, it wasn't just that he didn't have a weapon to put down Moxley, that the plan was failing. It was more than that. It was the tragic realization that Okada or Takeshita had to have used it against the other, that everything he was fighting for had already gone up in smoke. 

That was the moment he lost.

He ran right into Moxley's choke but was able to survive it. He even survived the Paradigm Shift AND the Death Rider that followed, but those were the last gasps of a man already dead. When Moxley locked in the sleeper, he had nothing left to give. He dropped to the mat momentarily unconscious as the ref called for the bell. Moxley rolled to his knees, pumping his fists to the unbelievable but undeniable elation of the crowd. Fletcher managed to recover enough to get one last petulant shot in after the bell, but it didn't matter.

Moxley had the wind in his sails, having found a warrior's high moral ground for the first time in so long. The pro wrestling gods now supported him, now were fully against an Okada who had broken every code to commit the same sort of fratricide and betrayal and Moxley himself had done a year before. By the end of the night, the circle would be complete once more and a triumphant Moxley would march up and down the ring, speaking passionate, humble words, having stopped the bleeding. 

But just a few days off of Christmas, and with Bryan Danielson forced to witness all of this from the commentary table, everyone watching had to wonder if there might still be ghostly Dickensian chains clanking behind Moxley, just waiting to drag him down, if redemption can truly come from effort and victory alone, or if a darker comeuppance was just around the corner.

It was a remarkable match. There was no way to know that the crowd would go for Moxley like this, that it wouldn't split heel vs heel and just chant for the match and its awesomeness. This was the same arena where Moxley ended Danielson just a little more than a year before. So much of it came down to Fletcher's early stalling, to him being the one to go after the injury, an unsportsmanlike git. Moxley's selling, the way that he showed consequence to every offensive move he hit, carried much of the rest. 

Fletcher made himself as unlikable as possible, giving the fans nothing to latch on to. Meanwhile, Moxley gave the fans everything to latch on to. As he dragged himself up again and again, he pulled the fans along with him, the most gripping thing in the world. It was pro-wrestling that moved hearts and minds, all through the in-ring action, the sort of storytelling which burned right through the black gunk of irony that's covered hearts for years. The crowd gave themselves up to the story being told and let themselves get swept along with it. 

It was beautiful pro-wrestling and especially beautiful for 2025. Just a wonderful match, with wonderful, nuanced characters telling a wonderful, nuanced story. Details still matter. Pro wrestling still works. The magic is still alive for wrestlers willing to give of themselves completely and tap into it and a crowd with no choice but to get swept along for the ride.