AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/26 - 6/1

AEW Collision 5/25/25

Top Flight/AR Fox vs RUSH/Beast Mortos/Dralistico

MD: One of my favorite lines is that wrestling isn't math except for maybe when it comes to tag team structure. The idea there is that tags work best when the heat is longer than the shine or everything breaking down in the finishing stretch. That way you build up the drama, bring the crowd up for hope spots, take them down for cutoffs, and squeeze as much pressure out of things as possible before the hot tag. But so much of what I believe in is to set up baselines. Baselines are useful to ensure that the crowd has a certain expectation and reacts accordingly, but they're also useful because once in a blue moon you can subvert them to high effect. If you don't have baselines or if you subvert them too often, then you may create sensation in the moment, but it tends to lack substance and staying power.

If there was a set baseline for tag team wrestling in AEW (and I'd argue that it's iffy at best) this match would have done a great job subverting. It had everything break down right from the get go and only settle down into a sort of heat midway through before everything went wild again. LFI create a special sort of chaos that allows for this, the same way that Abby or Brody might in years past. Here, they ambushed right from the get go, tossing Top Flight to the floor and focusing on Fox. Rush pulled off the pad and they immediately made the exposed buckle dangerously important by having Fox do everything in his power to avoid being slammed into it. Because of their cruelty and hubris in not settling on violence but instead wanting to escalate things, Fox was able to get some space and set up a huge dive train (with Rush plastering Fox on the floor after he crashed into Dralistico and Dante hitting an absolutely crazy dive on Mortos before hyping up the crowd).

The heat then only started when they managed to finally toss Fox into that exposed buckle to cut off the early comeback. Chekhov's Gun loaded and fired to high effect. I would have liked to see the buckle play into things a little more afterwards but it was absolutely necessarily. After the break, Darius took the hot tag and hit his usual hot comeback sequence and everything broke down again, before LFI finally swept them under for a definitive win. So yes, way too much chaos and mayhem instead of building up pressure but by starting with the heels in charge and basically trading in the shine for that extra bit of heat and two comebacks, it all still worked out okay. Still, the more they stick to establishing that baseline, the more an exception like this will feel extraordinary and not just commonplace. 

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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 6: CIBERNETICO~!

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Torneo Cibernetico: Blue Panther/Hologram/Neon/Valiente/Virus vs Volador Jr./Averno/Euforia/Xelhua/Dr. Cerebro

MD: Dean could write about ciberneticos. His style was perfect, bombastic and over the top, throwing praise and emotion and tildes and wild metaphors. He could hone in on all the cool moments and somehow make them seem a hundred times cooler. I'm nowhere near as good at it, but yeah, this was awesome. If you saw this, you know that. I don't think I'm going to have a ton to add to just having lived it. 

I do have some thoughts though. First and foremost, this felt a little more produced than most I've seen, which isn't to say there isn't rhyme or reason for what happens in them. There is, but it all seems a little more honed in on the moment, unless there's a specific feud that it's furthering or leaning upon. When I say focused, there are a lot of things I could highlight. We had exchanges with Xelhua against both Blue Panther and Virus where he got to joust on the mat with them. There was a big elimination moment with Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro in there. Blue Panther got to go up against the world with everyone stooging, feeding, basing for him. Euforia had his moment to shine as he walked like a giant swatting high flying tecnicos away. Valiente got to hit his fireplug tope. Hologram got to hit his that seemed send them flying halfway to the back. It all ended with Blue Panther and Hologram standing together against Volador and Averno and even then there was that great nearfall with the finishers used earlier used in tandom. 

You'd probably get some of that in any other such match but I don't think you'd get all of it. This was a match that knew its audience and catered to it, while still delighting the crowd at the same time. A bunch of things stuck with me: some kid in the crowd calling Euforia "big boy" when he was getting rocked. Virus working so amazingly hard and taking huge bumps considering his age. What an absolute legend. He's my guy. Panther hitting the flip dive off the apron not once but twice. How great Averno's finish still looks. That it's a joy to see Blue Panther and Dr. Cerebro work in their masks (though most of us are so much more used to seeing Cerebro NOT in the mask). Seeing not just Neon and Xelhua in with these guys but also Cerebro and Hologram. Just seeing Panther tough it out and fight through the end of the match. 

So yeah, the only way to tackle a match like this is by listing all the great stuff. I could have probably gone another two paragraphs with just that and then another on top talking about Danielson but, since I'm not Dean, let me say instead that it's really something to be experienced yourself. Go check it out on YouTube if you haven't already. 

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