AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 2/9 - 2/15

AEW Collision Grand Slam 2/14/26

MJF vs Brody King

Details matter.

They have to matter. Otherwise what's the point? It's worth saying they matter because there is a prevailing undercurrent in 21st century wrestling that what matters is just to do the coolest stuff or to do the most stuff or to constantly pop the crowd.

That's a broken mindset. The art of pro wrestling isn't to pop the crowd. It's to work the crowd. It's to make them feel something and there's so much more in this world to feel than sheer exhilaration. 

So details matter. And they especially mattered here.

This was a crowd starved for pro wrestling on a big stage, that was just happy to be there. This was exactly the sort of crowd that wanted to cheer for MJF. 

And again, details matter, and sometimes details create limitations. Limitations can, of course, inspire creativity, but that doesn't mean they're not limitations. Max just got squashed by Brody King. They had to plausibly keep him strong here, to make a finish believable (not in real life but in the fictional world of pro wrestling), had to do all this without making the crowd start to go for Max as an underdog despite the size difference. He had to stay reviled the whole way through, in front of a crowd that might be more inclined than most to cheer for him. 

Thankfully, details matter if you make them, and here they did.

The bell rings and Max is immediately on. The crowd, which had been happy to bark along with Brody pre-match, get the F*** Ice chants out of their system, accent and all. Then they lock back in. Good for them on both counts. Good for the wrestlers for navigating the waters. Max takes control of the situation. The wrestlers approach one another and he's gone. That tried and true, time-tested tool of pro wrestling heels, stalling. He basks in the boos, draws chants, rolls back in, yells at the crowd to shut up, which of course has the opposite effect. They lock up, he goes flying. Just like that. Right back out of the ring. A brief pause. He could have milked this longer, but decides to give them something more substantial instead. Max rolls back in, kicks the gut instead of engaging a second time. He mocks Brody's barks and locks in a headlock. Again, details matter. Max gloats about beating people with a headlock takeover. He can't take over Brody though. Instead he gets lifted up, shrugged off. The crowd chants for Brody and Max runs into a clothesline as Brody shouts "C'mon!" Just like that the mood is set, with a clear delineation between the characters. There's no going back now.

This ends up being a relatively short shine, so it's on Max to make the most of it. When Brody hefted him up out of that headlock, he audibly shouted. He's going to make great use of his voice throughout, adding an extra bit of sensation for the crowd to get over everything Brody is doing to him. It's not a constant vocal tic like Mick Foley, but instead additional stimuli used to enhance anticipation before comeuppance. Very few other wrestlers today use it quite like this and even Max makes sure not to overuse it but instead to save it for when it really matters, like he's facing a giant of a man. Brody chops him twice. He writhes and keels over. In between the first and the second, Max shouts "nooo!" Brody hefts him up to the top and tosses him off. Max yells "Oh shit!" in mid-air. 

And then that's it, that's the shine, because Brody goes for a cannonball, misses, and tweaks his knee, the great equalizer. They accomplished so much in just a couple of minutes though. It served them well for the rest of the match.

Here, on the other side of an act break, on the other side of a transition, Max starts in on the leg. He slams it against the post, making sure to play to the crowd in between bits offense, letting things breathe, giving them something other than moves to connect with. Brody tries to come back but the knee won't let him hit the Ganso bomb. Max cuts him off with a chop block. Max hits the Kangaroo Kick (as a heel move to mock the crowd), hits a dive, but gets not praise for it. Brody tries to fight back but is too slow on the senton. He's giving the crowd reason to stay with him, is believably staying in it given his size and his power, but the knee's making him a half step slow and giving Max a simple tool, a wedge, a lever, to cut him down to size. Max uses a knee-bar. Brody makes it to the ropes valiantly. They go the break as the crowd starts singing for Brody.

Max slows things down even more for the break, picking his spots, telegraphing his shots, taking victory laps (including his groin first one), giving the crowd plenty to work with. And of course, like any good heel, he eats just a bit of comeuppance for it. But again, Brody's leg gives out and make is able to dive right through it. Brody's making all of this work just as much as Max is. There is strength in vulnerability and his selling is wonderful. He's a huge man with a giant canvas to work with between body language and the excrutiating look upon his face. A crowd loves a babyface who mows through everyone, but they fall in love with a babyface that has a mountain to climb.

As they come back from break, he's able to throw Max out, but he needs the rope to steady himself given his limp. He hits a huge tope but immediately is paralyzed by the need to clutch his leg. Still, we've hit another act break. We're into a comeback. The next portion of the match will be about Brody getting some revenge on Max but not necessarily the revenge he wants (which has to be built to). Max again, makes as much out of everything, selling not just impacts but the associated emotional damage. He tries a clothesline and hurts his arm. He is launched in a back body drop and swears in midair. Brody goes for his second cannonball attempt but Max slips to the apron. That just sets him up for the hangman's choke attempt, but Max is ready and bites the arm. He escapes to the floor, sets up a chair, but Brody catches him first and bites Max's head (immediate balancing of what Max did to him) and hits a cross body onto the chair. And that, finally sets up the cannonball on the third attempt.

He goes for his second Ganso Bomb attempt, but Max is up and over with a sleeper. Brody's knee gives out. Once upon a time, decades ago, we'd see a sleeper like this, with the arm raised three times in almost every big match, but now it's a tool rarely brought out of the toolbox. It allows Bandido to run out, to hype the crowd for Brody, and they pop big, just like they should, as his fist pops up defiantly on the third raise. Just as we've been hearing from Max all match, we now can hear Bandido cheering on Brody, including slapping the mat, telling him he can do it, leading the crowd in barks. 

Despite that, Max cuts Brody off one last time, ready for Brody's (second) tope, hitting a DDT from the outside onto the apron. Max wants a countout win, but it's clear he's not going to get it, not with Bandido cheering Brody on so he goes for a second tope himself. Brody catches him and hits a brutal Death Valley Driver onto the set up chair from before.

If this was a play (and wrestling's nothing if not theater), we're in the fourth act now. The feeling out/establishment of characters/shine, Max's control, Brody's comeback, and now the finishing stretch. It's time to pay everything off. Brody gets them back into the ring at 9 (Max would have taken a countout loss at this point). Max goes for the Dynamite Diamond Ring like he has in so many other matches. Bryce (his ref in almost all of those matches) catches him red handed, just a bit more comeuppance, one that perfectly sets up Brody clocking him and Max ending up on the apron to finally get choked out (second attempt and what a look on Max's face as he realizes it's about to happen; selling). On the third attempt, Brody hits the Ganso bomb but Max kicks out at two. He was awfully close to the ropes and I probably could have used either Max getting his foot on it at the last second or Brody's knee slowing him down a bit more on the pin attempt, but sometimes you need to just yank the rug out from under the crowd without that, I guess (but I'm not convinced).

At this point though, all that's left is the finish. Max recovers enough to sidestep a charging Brody. He pulls down the kneepad, bites the knee. Brody goes back to his well, emotion having taken over. He tries for the Ganso Bomb on the apron (fourth attempt), a literally crippling assault if he were to hit it, then for the Hangman's Choke (third attempt) while sitting on the top rope. In both cases, the knee betrays him. Max is able to hang on to the top rope (desperately, because that level of emotional selling matters more here than ever) and then punch out the knee. Max reverses things into a visually impressive modified tombstone on the apron, and hits the Heatseeker back into the ring for the win.

This match had a lot going for it. Contrast makes the world go round. There was such a physical, mental, emotional, personality difference between these two characters and it meant that there was little temptation of doing things for the sake of doing them, little done just to pop a crowd, little need to try to outshine big spotfests from earlier in the show. They could create something classic and modern and vivid all at once, reclaiming old tricks and painting clear, crisp lines. 

In order to make that work, however, the details really, deeply mattered. Max disengaging and stalling immediately ensured the crowd didn't go for him. They made the most out of a very short shine. They built in a number of callback and foreshadowing spots so that things could be cut off on a second attempt or pay off on a third (or fail on the fourth). Brody's knee was the great equalizer throughout but never stopped him from fighting for the crowd's love, never ground the match to a halt. This was a stop on the road between PPVs, an attraction match in front of a wrestling-starved crowd. They could have gotten away with less, could have coasted. Instead, they shone. They cared, they created something with care, and the crowd cared all the more for it. Details still matter in 2026. In some ways, they matter more than ever. And this match was clear proof of it.