The Top of the Mountain (AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/20 - 5/4)

AEW Dynamite 5/22/26 and 5/28/26

The Top of the Mountain 

Darby Allin vs Tommaso Ciampa/Darby Allin vs Brody King

MD: Imagine yourself at the top of the mountain. Not just any mountain. Everest. The top of the world. You overcame injury to get here. You trained. You planned. You paid in both money and sweat. Hard work. People have chased this literal high for centuries. There you are. You made it. You planted a flag. 

You look out upon the world. For a brief moment, you feel one with the universe. You feel at peace. Everything is okay. 

Then you look down.

You realize that what comes next is a climb back down. You realize you have to reenter society. You realize that your communing with nature is over. What's next is life. 

The mountain was a hard challenge, but it was also an easy answer. 

Why live? Why strive? Why fight? Why grow? Why try? 

Because there is a mountain.

What is my purpose?

The mountain.

What now?

Revenge.

Another easy answer. Darby Allin, I am afraid to say, seems to gravitate towards easy answers. Hard outcomes, but easy answers.

The Death Riders put him out, so he spent months fighting them. When he vanquished Mox, it was on to Gabe Kidd who had gotten in his way when he was going after Mox.

And when that was done?

Well, it was time to find another mountain to climb, wasn't it? Mountains are easy. Mountains make sense. 

In professional wrestling, Darby's chosen trade, the mountain to climb is the World Championship.  

So he went off. He planted his flag. He claimed it.

Oh he said that the problem was he cared too much. I wouldn't call his promos heartfelt, but they were raw, a man trying to convince the world that he had convinced himself. I wasn't convinced, but I found them compelling nonetheless. That's Darby Allin for you. Compelling. You don't want to look away. Or maybe you want to but you can't. 

Darby was on top of the mountain again. He was one with the universe. He felt that peace. He found that purpose. 

You could see it on his face. Watch him come down from the rafters to save Kevin Knight after his match with MJF. Listen to the fans chant for him. This is a man who has found nirvana. Who found the easiest answer in the world, even if it he had to take the hardest road to get there.

But this time, there was something different. 

Unlike Everest, he didn't have to leave.

So long as he could defend the title.  

The purpose of a champion is to defend the title. 

An easy answer. No introspection needed. Just blood, sweat, and bruises.

So that's what he's done and that's what he's offered.

Everyone wants the belt for different reasons. For Adam Page, it was redemption. For Jon Moxley it was validation. For MJF, it was legacy. And the challengers want it for different reasons as well. 

The common truth is that they'll do whatever it takes to get it, and that it's up to the champion to define what that is.

"What that is" when it comes to Darby, is escalation. He throws himself at his opponents (literally, as he did at the start of both of these matches), uses his own body as a weapon, and endures, and endures, and endures some more. He is the exception to every rule.

He shatters so many narrative norms, takes so much damage, causes so much damage, does three insane things in every match, comes back and does it the next week. Could he do just one and it be framed to be all the more important? Probably. Is the sum still greater than its parts nonetheless? Undeniably. 

He is excess. He is overwhelming. Yet, it's all grounded in the wear and tear upon him, in the scars upon his body, in the way he drags himself instead of moving. There's a moment in the Brody King match where he just clings on to the protective mat as Brody drags him, pulling it back. I've never seen it done quite that way but it sums up Darby. He hangs on.

How does he win? By pushing his opponents to his level, past their own point of survival. He drove Ciampa to hit the Psycho Driller to the floor, a move that took as much out of Ciampa as Darby. He drove Brody to charge through the barricade. Darby managed to move and it was the beginning of the end for Brody. 

They had size advantages, especially Brody. They had strength advantages. They controlled. But Darby kept coming. He kept taking every risk, kept using his own body. Maybe if they kept their cool, stayed the course, remembered their advantages, they could have defeated him and won the title. But he raises the temperature more and more until he forces mutually assured destruction. He raises the stakes to a point where no one can survive, no one but the cockroaches. No one but Darby.

That's where Darby finds his peace, the only places, at the top of the mountain, and in the dust of annihilation.  

He kicks out again and again, probably too much. It felt like too much in the Ciampa match. It would be too much if anyone else did it. It will be too much when someone else someday copies it. But with Darby, it makes sense, because he is fighting for his life. He'd rather die than lose the title because to lose the title means to fall from the mountain, to be left without answers, without purpose, to have to figure it all out again, to have to live life like everyone else. He'd rather die. He can't bear that. He has to stay on top of the mountain. 

His body will give out before his will does. And we'll watch every second of it. It's a trainwreck in motion, not just one of the body either, not just one of spots and bumps. It's a trainwreck of the soul, and who are we to look away?