AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/15 - 6/21

ROH Global Wars Cincinnati 6/18/26 / AEW Collision 6/20/26

Athena vs Syuri / Athena vs Maya World

MD: So, why do we watch?

I've been watching Athena as ROH champion since 2022. In that time, I've seen her defeat Yamashita, Nightingale, Sakura, Sakazaki, Hogan, Starkz, Martinez, Rose, Abadon, Catalina, Persephone, Windsor, and on and on and on, some multiple times. Plus, you might say the heart of the title run, the connective tissue, has been the Proving Ground matches. There have been so many of those. I've seen a lot of Athena. Anyone following ROH has.

So what's the appeal now so deep into the title reign? What made these two matches stand out against everything else last week? 

With some wrestlers, familiarity breeds contempt. You start predicting moves before they happen and while there's a sort of comfort to that, comfort only takes you so far. Athena is the definition of unpredictability. She is volatile, tempestuous. It's at the core of her character and generates the energy that draws you into her matches. But just as important, with Athena, the familiarity you develop gives you a launching point. 

For some wrestlers, it's all about spots and counters. The action drives character. The cart leads the horse. It's all about getting to the big idea with little care on how the match actually gets there. With Athena, character drives everything. Because the character is so good, so dynamic, so engaging, "everything" becomes full of organic, interesting destination points, maybe even more so than those matches that are contrived to get to certain spots. Who she is drives what she does. And she will react differently to every opponent and every situation. 

Knowing her past (encounters and otherwise) with Syuri and Maya made so much difference here. Despite her close connection to Maya as mentor and lack of such with Syuri, there were similarities. Both opponents had gotten the better of her in one way or another, and the list of those who had done so over the last few years is very small indeed. Syuri had successfully defended her IWGP Women's Title against Athena earlier this year. Maya is the one blemish on Athena's ROH singles record, surviving a Proving Ground match. She subsequently took he to the limit in the title match she earned and the Survival of the Fittest that followed. Maya may be billed as the It Girl, but there remains a sense of Final Girl to her as well, the one who might be fated to end the horror that is Athena. It's not quite a prophecy, not quite an inevitability, but it's as clear a possibility as any other right now. And Athena knows it. 

Of course, with Maya there were other factors at play. Her run through the Owen Hart Tournament, a title shot at All In on the line, is a bittersweet Cinderella story. Her brother passed away recently. Despite that, perhaps because of it, she threw herself into her work, becoming a last second substitution for Sareee and defeating Skye Blue to propel her to the semi-finals and to another match-up with Athena. The character of Athena has professed tough love when it comes to her minions. While there always seems to be a self-serving undercurrent to that, it's hard to deny the results, and occasionally, very occasionally, hints of humanity poke out from the monster she's become, though usually only to get swept away by the rage and fury of the fallen goddess. Meanwhile, Athena herself has lost in the semi-finals of the Owen tournament twice. As she carries ROH on her shoulders, she's been unable to reach the highest peaks in AEW. 

And of course, and this would be true if she was facing Shafir or Statlander in main events or Forza or Nixi XS in proving ground matches, Athena is excellent at not just finding the kernels of truth between herself and opponent but in crafting a dynamic character which will create such opportunities in the first place.

It's easy to compare and contrast how these matches played out and see that aspect plain as day. Look at the first few minutes of both. With Syuri, she extended her (yes, left) hand, Syuri took it graciously, Code of Honor met with some respect. Then they went at it, a feeling out process. Athena more than held her own, but Syuri, having the superior confidence and momentum since she won the last match, pressed her advantage. Athena didn't get dominated but she was absolutely on her back foot, forced to be reactive in the face of Syuri's technique, agility, and aggression. It was a bit of a role reversal compared to how she would normally bully around her opponents. It's actually somewhat rare that someone can get a conventional shine on her. This wasn't quite that, but it was far closer to it than usual, and it was fascinating because of that.

With Maya, things were completely different, and I don't just mean the fact it wasn't an ROH match so there was no Code of Honor (she was quick to shove Maya down and taunt her with her own M/W hand signals instead). This had more of an exhibition or celebratory feel. A playful feel. It reminded me a little of the Willow ROH match where they hit finishers of previous ROH champs. That had thrown me at the time but this didn't. Here, they went counter for counter, tit for tat, cartwheeling through things, rolling around the ring with cradles. There was a showy element to it. I'm not saying that the character of Athena was taking it easy on Maya, but I do think she was perhaps giving her some rope, was letting her shine. You might call it kindness, knowing this was Maya's moment in the sun after all that she'd been through, but knowing Athena, it was probably more like false hope. She was playing with her food, building confidence so that she could snatch it away. After the fact, she might even claim it was magnanimous, but it would have been her lying to herself, the world, the heavens. She held a grudge against Maya for taking her to the limit three times in the last few months, once literally in the Proving Ground. And perhaps even more than that, she now realizes that there is a chance that she is Cronus, not a god but a Titan, with Maya as the Zeus set to someday overtake her.

Of course, Athena is equal parts wrathful and resourceful and she was able to take over on both opponents. With Syuri, it was on the apron, absorbing repeated knee shots to hit a brutal twisting power slam upon it. With Maya, the moment that she Maya stepped just a bit too far, when her confidence was growing just a bit too much and she was maybe about to get one over on Athena, her mentor squashed her like a bug with her Something Evil variation on the floor. No Koji Clutch follow up needed here. It was all about contorting her, crushing her, and opening the door for the damage to follow. 

And the damage she did upon both opponents looked quite similar. With Syuri, it was a bit more focused. With Maya, it was somewhat more meandering, more playing to the crowd, more rubbing it in Maya's face, but it was equally brutal for both. Yet both would come back and get a measure of revenge. Here, however, is where the matches once again deviated. One of the joys of ROH matches and about Athena's run as a whole, is that there's more room to breathe, less need for commercial breaks to help drive the match (Maya came back right when they were returning from break, for instance). Instead of going down into the finishing stretch, the ROH title match was allowed to have an extra level of complexity. Syuri took Athena off the top rope with a hold and started to dismantle her arm. They were already past the conventional heat segment at this point, but it added an extra wrinkle which would make the remainder of the match more interesting. 

Athena would have to both escape submissions and fight back with one arm. Meanwhile, Syuri would shift her focus to bigger bombs in an attempt to put Athena way. As they fought to the finish, they traded those bombs, including Athena pulling out moves she only does rarely, like a Tiger Suplex. Syuri pushed her advantage (both the momentum with which she started the match with and that gained from the damaged arm) and Athena came off as something of a vulnerable champ who could lose at any moment, deepening the drama. Despite that, she was able to hit one last clutch reversal, slipping through the legs for a pumphandle tombstone, setting up the O-Face and her getting her win back and retaining the title. 

With Maya, things were very different. Athena survived Maya's comeback through familiarity, having an answer for everything Maya tried. Yet, Maya kept coming, her refusal to back down shifting Athena into the sort of reactive state she had been in against Syuri. That ended in disaster for Maya, however, as both women found themselves on the floor, and then up on the guardrail, with Athena getting the best of the moment and driving Maya down onto it with a Rock Bottom.

The match opened up emotionally from there. As it looked like Maya wouldn't beat the count (a 10 count here as opposed to the 20 count in ROH), Athena reached out to pull her in. It seemed at first like another magnanimous gesture, Athena giving her protege (though not minion) a chance to win or lose in the center of the ring, to not squander her opportunity on a fluke. She immediately began to berate her over her brother's memory, however.

Why do we watch Athena? Because she's dynamic and complex. Because she is the roiling ocean, an active volcano, because she is a villain that may not be sympathetic, may not be relatable, but that is all the more fascinating because of her strengths and her faults.

At first it seemed like she was offering a hand to Maya to lift her up. Then, as she berated her and Maya exploded upon her, it seemed like she was trying to awaken something within Maya, to try to make her fight all the more, to make her the best she could be. Here's where that familiarity comes into play though. That's not what she was doing at all. She was luring her in. It wasn't that she wanted Maya to be able to win or lose in the ring. It's that she wanted to put her down once and for all, definitively. It's not that she wanted Maya to rise up and fight. It's that she wanted her off her game and frazzled. That's why she was able to catch her in the corner and take her down, setting her up for the O-Face. Maybe if the wind had blown a little different or the sun had shined through the trees Athena may have decided differently and found just a modicum of grace. But it hadn't and she hadn't, and now it was time to end Maya.

The O-Face is one of the most protected moves in wrestling. Barring a fluke roll out of the ring or a foot on the rope, it ends matches. That's important. People love surprise kickouts and artificially propped up exciting finishing stretches, but it's so much better to define something, to make it important, to reinforce its importance, and then, when it really, really matters, when you want to make someone, when you want to highlight her journey and put her over the top, then and only then, to have someone kick out. Only then. Only when it matters the most. You build up capital, build it and build it and build it, and then you pay it off. That's the most powerful tool in pro wrestling.

In some ways, that's a symbol for Athena in general. Some people say she takes up too much of the air in her matches, that she overwhelms and eats up opponents, but she always reacts when things don't go her way. She sells it emotionally, because she expects to win, expects to dominate, and so often, lives up to her own expectations, thus creating that expectation with the fans as well. In that regard, she reminds me of Stan Hansen. By enforcing so strict a baseline, it means any deviation from it carries great rewards for an opponent who can step up and force it. 

Athena hit the O-Face clean. She pinned Maya cockily. Maya kicked out. Athena sold it like the shock, the transgression, the offense, the violation to the order of the universe that it was. She had invoked Maya's brother. She had awoken something inside of her. She had thought it would be something Maya couldn't handle, a means to the end that was the O-Face, but it was instead something that Athena couldn't handle, something stronger than her most dangerous weapon, something powered by love and not hate and therefore, something that Athena could no longer tap into or understand, no matter what she might claim. 

Maya got a fluke small package, but Athena pushed her way out. Then, much like Stan Hansen before her, inevitability, hierarchy, maybe even fate upon her side, Athena reared back to hit a lariat of her own. Maya ducked it, tied Athena up, pressed all of her weight down upon her, and heard the ref count three. 

Post-match, Athena embraced Maya. There's no way to know if that would have been the end of it, if she wouldn't have ambushed her if Mercedes hadn't come down. That's part of what makes Athena so interesting after all, the wild unpredictability. Even if she had spared her, it wouldn't have been heroism but instead another streak of false magnanimity from a fascinating villainess. 

So why do we watch? 

The consistency, the variance, the commitment, the familiarity, the unpredictability, the truth and the contradictions. 

How could we not? Why would we ever look away? 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/25 - 5/31

AEW Collision 5/30/26

Konosuke Takeshita vs Daniel Garcia

Konosuke Takeshita is a very special wrestler.

While size is relative when comparing modern wrestling to the wrestling of old, Takeshita clearly jumps off the screen. Whether due to sheer height or the combination of size and his theatrical presence, he towers over opponents in a way that most current wrestlers do not. When it comes to his athleticism, he reminds me of Barry Windham at his prime. There's an electricity to how he moves, to the intensity he brings to the table. Given his size and his proclivity (academic and practical) for the German Suplex, you might compare him to Jumbo Tsuruta but his seething stares and alacrity of motion reminds me more of Riki Choshu. 

He's a star. He looks like one. He moves like one. Most often, he carries himself like one. Yet, he is a star specifically made for AEW. He balances the brooding seriousness with a super indie excessiveness in his match layouts (for good and ill) and under the surface of it all is that DDT-crafted smile.  In a perfect world, he would be in that Conglomeration opening credits tron instead of Ishii. 

But this is not a perfect world. It's one where the character of Konosuke Takeshita felt spurned by New Japan, spurned by the Blackpool Combat Club and the Elite, where he allowed Don Callis to whisper dark thoughts in his ears on what he needed to prove, on how he needed to prove it, where he went from a young man who found his way to America and fell in love with Cinnabon to the Alpha of the Don Callis Family. What he found, time after time, was that no matter how much he proved himself to the world, there was always something else. He always came up unsatisfied. 

He rose all the way to IWGP Champion, but he was overshadowed by Okada when he walked in to the Tokyo Dome to defend his title. Even that might have been fine; Okada was a legend after all, but despite being stablemates, Okada rubbed salt into the wound again and again and again. Takeshita could find no peace. Then, finally, after defeating Okada for the International Title, his found family turned on him, his brother-in-arms Kyle Fletcher being the one to turn the knife. 

So he stands on his own, reconnected with the fans, holding the International Title once more, but in other, more important ways, alone in the world again.

Daniel Garcia is a very special wrestler. 

All of those things Takeshita has? Garcia's got none of them. He fails the airport test. His music hits and the fans don't quite pop, not really. He's stumbled from one identity to another (in character and out), picked up a sports entertainment dance, lost it. Tried to pop people with triple superplexes no matter how far away that his from his own personal true north. 

But.

Unlike almost everyone else in pro wrestling today, he's move over by the end of a match than he was at the beginning. 

We're trapped in a world where people are arguing that WWE matches should be shorter and entrances should be longer. That sort of world would drive Daniel Garcia to extinction. But he defies it. He gets people to care about what happens in the ring at every moment, not just finishes and looking to the back for run-ins. He gets them engaged in a way that has nothing to do with "This is Awesome" chants or even "bald" chants. 

Why? How? First, he's genuine. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He's relatable. He's not a big superhero. That's his strength. He's a guy who put in the work, who loves pro wrestling, who cares, who picked himself up from a car crash and dragged himself every step up the way to being on TV. You see it in his reactions. You see it in his face. What you see is what you get and in a world built upon fabrication, that stands out far more than any Phoenix Splash or Fosberry Flop ever could. Far more than any triple superplex might. 

Second, he's pays attention to details. He's going to stay on a body part, and when he falls off of it, it'll be due to a character reasons not just to enact some cooler spot. He's going to set something up to pay it off later. He's not going to meander on a side trip. He's not going to do something for the sake of it. He's not going to fall into excess (except for those self-conscious triple superplexes). The thing is, he has to pay attention to details. Other wrestlers can lean on athleticism and pop the crowd again and again and play to the 5* Observer checklist. Garcia can't, not better than them. So he has to build something that stands on his own instead. He builds matches that are timeless, that work in the moment and move the crowd in the right way, that will still work in thirty years even while those other ones fall to the wayside as athleticism continues to advance.

Putting Garcia and Takeshita together led to one of those matches that will stand the test of time.

Takeshita does best against contrast. You give him someone else who is explosive, who will push him to the physical limit, and it often all becomes noise. Garcia was going to push him to emotional limits, to push his body in far more single-minded, driven ways. 

Early on, Garcia's reactiveness gave Takeshita so much to work with. They chain-wrestled to start. Garcia fell prey to Takeshita's superior reach but pulled hair to get out of a headlock and made sure to flex when he turned it into a headscissors. But they both had a chip on their shoulders, and as Takeshita escaped, he stared Garcia down and smacked him on the chest, sending a message. Garcia returned the message, piefacing and paintbrushing Takeshita in the corner before smacking his chest. Then, when Takeshita tried to take off Garcia's head in the opposite corner for his affront, Garcia ducked out of the way. Takeshita held the pose, forearm against turnbuckle, for just long enough for it to sink in with the crowd, a great visual. And then, of course, Garcia ran right into a big boot, because in this match, he was a heel and when it comes time for it, he was the sort that stooges to make the star bigger.

Takeshita would go for the running boot again but this time Garcia scurried to the floor for a time-out. You could see the panic and hesitation on his face as he did so. He laid himself bare for the world, vulnerable, human. Takeshita gave chase and Garcia went all the way from one side of the ring to the other. When Takeshita made it out to the apron, stomping away, Garcia took the blows (which made this feel less like a planned spot and instead like something more organic, something so important, and something he's so good at), and used the ringskirt to trap Takeshita's leg. 

Garcia attacking the leg and most especially using it to cut Takeshita off would drive the rest of the match. Of course, Garcia did it as meanly as possible, a bulldog, a shark smelling blood. He placed it on a chair on the outside and just stood on it. He refused to reenter the ring until he twisted the ankle one last time. He countered Takeshita's cradle tombstone attempt by turning it into an ankle lock. Likewise with the Blue Thunder into an inexplicable but amazing STF. He caught the running knee and took advantage when Takeshita stumbled on another attempt. Even when he seemingly lost focus, like when he started to pop off push-ups right over Takeshita's knee, he pivoted quickly and turned the motion into a kneedrop to punctuate the final push-up (even as Mox left commentary to yell at him). Focused detail-work. Once upon a time, maybe, you could give the crowd some more rope to work with. With someone other than Garcia, maybe you can do that and even if they don't get entirely where you need them to be, they'll still get somewhere nice and happy. Garcia doesn't leave things to chance. He ties it all up in a bow and presents it to the world, to history itself, like a present. He did that here and Takeshita was happy to go along for the ride, selling, wincing, limping, struggling the whole way.

Which brings us to the real moment of comeback, the elephant in the room, that pile driver.

Oh there had been a hope spot or two first. Takeshita created some distance with strikes but as he turned to hit the ropes, Garcia took out the leg. Then, of course, was the Blue Thunder attempt, where no one expected Garcia to turn things over with a headlock. Garcia had been using the legwork to control the match as the great equalizer, but it was also a key to unlock a door, and he meant to go through it with his pile driver. Takeshita had jammed it once, but he couldn't jam it on the attempt that followed so quickly after. Garcia hit it clean.

And then time stopped. Takeshita slowly, painstakingly, drew his head back, locked eyes with Garcia, rose, struck him down. 

And that's the cardinal sin, right? To "no sell" a pile driver, one of the most sacred and profane of all moves. It's one thing if you're Hawk (maybe not a good thing) and it's one thing if you're Clon and use technique to dull the impact.

Takeshita is neither, but he is, maybe, just maybe, the one guy on the roster who, now and again, should get away with something like this. He's so tied to the notion of fighting spirit, of carrying all of that brooding, seething power within him. He has the size, the presence. He's larger than life. Now and again, so long as everyone else isn't doing it, so long as no one else is doing it, he should get to assert himself and take up all the air in the room.

Rules are structural. They create a foundation where someone like Daniel Garcia can succeed, where everyone does better and everything matters more, where the spectacular can be grounded and have meaning. But they also give people something to push off of now and again, when it makes sense, when it will have an impact, when it turns a wrestler into a star. 

Konosuke Takeshita is meant to be a star and Daniel Garcia is so good at what he does that he can help make someone a star. 

Just as important, the detail work was there. Garcia had targeted the leg the whole match, not the head, not the neck. Those were healthy, strong, vibrant. Garcia had unlocked the door but he hadn't done the legwork (figurative since he'd ONLY done leg work) to drag Takeshita through it. In a different match where there had been bomb after bomb, that might have played differently. I saw people complain about Takeshita's selling as he looked up and pulled himself together, but given the context of the match, it more or less worked for me. When you're breaking all the rules, you're treading new ground. It was a callback of sorts to Takeshita escaping the headscissors early in the match. It cost him something but was worth so much more. 

It didn't feel like that perfidious tendency that is "delayed selling" to me so much as an act of defiance, of assertion, of staking a claim to something greater in this world. 

Just this once, it worked for me. Maybe next time it will to so long as it's built well enough and sits well enough within a match. Like anything else in wrestling, it is entirely situational.

Things moved into a finishing stretch from there. Garcia escaped a Blue Thunder. He positioned Takeshita for that Superplex, but Takeshita countered, only for Garcia to turn his top rope lariat into an armdrag and then, ultimately the Dragon Tamer. It was a great spot because it didn't feel rote. It wasn't a signature spot. It was the character of Garcia adapting in the moment. And then, after landing, he let everything sink in for a moment, letting the crowd take a breath after what happened and before what was about to happen: The Dragon Tamer. 

It would ultimately fail (Garcia's wrench back is the ultimate gambit; it either works immediately or costs him the hold) and Garcia's second attempt to hit a tricked out takeover on Takeshita would fail as well. Konosuke, channeling his preternatural strength, held Garcia there clung to him as time stood still. He slapped his own leg to give it life once more, and managed to suplex Garcia over. The beginning of the end.

Wrestlers are not one size fit all. There's not only one way to be talented, to channel that talent, to connect with crowds, to create matches and moments that resonate with people. Konosuke Takeshita and Daniel Garcia bring very different attributes and skillsets to the table. When you put them together, however, you can create a unique sort of magic built out of contrast and driven by details, one that highlights everything that makes Takeshita special by being underpinned by everything that's special about Garcia.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 2

AEW Collision 5/16/26

Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara

MD: There's a peace to be found in inevitability. The character of Darby Allin is careening towards destruction and he feels better than he's ever felt in his life. His body cannot sustain this pace. He cannot last. It's not suicidal tendencies. It's the universe falling into its proper place. He is champion. He will defend that title at every opportunity. In this, he has purpose. He will fight as hard as humanly possible. He will drag his opponents down into the depths with him. He will survive right until he won't. There is no place for doubt. There is no place for questioning. There's barely any place for thought. It's not nihilism. It is nirvana.

That's why, upon entering the ring as his music played, he bowed his head towards the mat. It wasn't exhaustion, save maybe for the exhilarated exhaustion of a job well down. It was peace. Perhaps it was a shallow sort of peace, one without true introspection, but it was peace nonetheless, and a peace associated with having climbed the highest of mountains, achieved the greatest of goals, a sort of peace that very few could contest.

Which is why he did not see coming Sammy Guevara boot crashing straight down upon his head.

....

And that's all I got. Sorry guys. I don't think I was feeling this one. I caught this a day later. Lots of wrestling this weekend. That meant I had already seen both the insane swanton off a ladder through a table, and then the very interesting spot of Darby passing out during the Scorpion. 

What I didn't realize, because you can never realize much from clips, was that they were basically how the match started. After curb stomping Darby, Sammy beat him a bit more, cut him off a bit, and put him through the table. About a minute later, Darby had gotten Sammy into the Scorpion Deathlock and passed out. And then maybe half a minute later, Darby was back on the top rope and Sammy pushed him off.

Darby IS the exception to every rule. He IS the cockroach that will survive the apocalypse. On some level this does make sense in context, a greater context of not just the match but his entire reign, hell, his entire life. 

But I'm not at all sure this maximized the dramatic tension (in fact, I'm pretty sure it didn't). After this, Sammy stayed on Darby but Darby kept trying to come back. Some of the cutoffs were quite good like Sammy hitting a cutter on Darby as he tried for a tope. It made some sense given who and what Darby is and the overall hierarchy at play, and to a lesser extent the fact that Sammy was fooling around a bit, but just because something can be waved away on paper doesn't mean that it will work for everyone in the moment. While I'm usually drawn in by Darby's bumping, selling, and desperate attempts to fight back, I think this one had lost me and didn't quite get me back.

You know what could have gotten me back though? If I saw something brilliant in the character of Sammy Guevara, something I could latch on to. He was cocky. He hit his stuff. He went right after Darby to start. 

But who is he? Is he the guy who despite being a pro wrestler in a kayfabe world is still desperate to get that 5* rating from Dave? That's kind of interesting in its own way so long as he's the only one like that and he plays into it as a character and not as the guy behind the character. That he sees himself as an artist and that his art isn't appreciated due to cronyism and lack of opportunity and being screwed. THAT could be interesting in its own way so long as he stayed fully immersed in a fictional world. 

Or is he the guy who was supposed to be someone at 26 in 2019 and now is looking around at 32 having seen his peers and even those younger than him pass him by, someone who realizes that despite the swagger, despite the mustache, despite still calling himself a pillar in a world where the other pillars have long since stopped, that he's running out of chances. That's interesting. It could create a sort of wretching, wretched desperation, one that either he hides behind a mask or behind self-delusion. 

No, he's not either of those things. He's not much of anything. The problem is that sort of character has to permeate through literally everything he does. You have to feel it dragging itself out of the screen and crawling down your throat. It has to make you uncomfortable, not in the way an overt horror character makes you uncomfortable, but in the way something far more real, something that reeks of disappointment and failure, might make you uncomfortable. That could be compelling, massively compelling, but it would mean that Sammy would have to be incredibly self-aware, incredibly vulnerable, incredibly brave.

And there aren't many wrestlers today that brave. I don't fault him for taking half measures and playing at playing at something instead of embracing it. Who the hell wants to embrace failure as a path to success? But this is pro wrestling and counter-intuitively, that's a path, and I don't see all that many other paths for Sammy anymore. He's pasted over his old workrate stylings with a patina of smarmy stooging to try to keep up with a changing world, but the entire endeavor lacks soul and verisimilitude. 

If he could somehow pull it off, maybe we might feel uncomfortable in a good way, in a compelling way, when we see Sammy Guevara wrestle. 

Instead, we're just uncomfortable in a bad way, all the more so when he takes a massive bump or hits a massive spot. 

With Darby, it is serene. With Sammy, it is jejune. Worse than that, it is mundane. 

In every way that Darby Allin is found, Sammy Guevara is lost.

He worked hard. He hit clean. He'll get some stars. 

But he won't find what he's looking for.

Not like this.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/20 - 4/26 Part 1

AEW Collision 4/25/26

RUSH vs Adam Priest 

MD: Adam Priest knows the score. He might be Any Style. He might be the heir to Alabama wrestling. Some days that means he's a Dirty White Boy. Some days it means he's virtually an Armstrong, a modern day Bullet. He might be in his own lane when it comes to getting under people's skin or even getting them to back him when it matters most. Hell, he might even be in his own lane when it comes to finding a way to scrape out even the most unlikeliest of wins.

But he's smaller. Lower on in the rankings. An underdog. Not the biggest fish in a new pond that's a hell of a lot bigger.

Adam Priest knows the score. He knows it as well as anyone.

And he doesn't give a damn about it.

RUSH isn't a wrestler. He's not a luchador. He's someone whose name is in all caps. He didn't ask for that. He didn't demand it. He earned it. It's undeniable. He's an out of control bull. He's violence and volatility. He's two fists, two feet, one head, no mercy, coming right at your face at all times.

He's the embodiment of seething fury mixed with smug assurance. He wears a bull mask out from the back and somehow seems more dangerous when he takes it off. He slaps his chest and the fans chant his name. He rolls back and makes the center of the ring his home, calm as can be, fist outstretched into the air, potential energy just waiting to explode.

So what does Adam Priest do? He takes a few steps out and punts that mask down the ramp. He puts his life in his hands and then outstretches that selfsame hand for a shake. When RUSH kicks it, he shrugs it off like it was nothing. "Now why did that guy go and do that? I'm a sportsman." He knows the score. Don't let him fool you about that.

They start wrestling. It's inconclusive. Priest ducks away and puts his fingers on his forehead, bull horns, bucks a bit for good measure. RUSH sees red. 

Was Priest trying to throw him off? Make him make a mistake? No, I don't think so. Priest knows the score. You can't fight the tide. Priest knows all about the tide. You can't beat it, but maybe you can make it work ten times harder than it ought to along the way. You can't kill the bull but you can leave your mark on it, and give the people a hell of a show in the process. 

Because what's a man without his pride?

They get scrapping. RUSH gets the better of it. And Priest? He just asks for some more. The commentators take note. The crowd takes note. RUSH takes note. If you can't win, then lose as big and bold and bright as possible.

RUSH controls through the break. The feed goes for a minute and we come back and somehow, miraculously, Priest has fought his way back. No idea how. We're almost better off not knowing. He's Any Style Adam Priest after all. Could have been anything. All that matters is that he's taking his pound of flesh, and that Tony Schiavone calls him hitting an Alabama Jam. Living the dream. 

It turns to a nightmare quickly enough. RUSH sidesteps, hits a German off the ropes, takes Priest outside to thrash him against the guardrails a bit, pulls him back inside. Priest  absolutely messed with the bull. So he got the horns. 

But no one's going to remember the horns. For once, all anyone's going to remember is that this bastard was brave and daring and sharp and good enough to mess with the bull. 

And what about us? The people viewing this. Why do we watch wrestling in the first place? It's not to count kickouts and give out star ratings. It's not. Some people have lost sight of that, but it's not. 

It's to feel something. You know what made me feel something? Priest kicking that mask down the ramp. It wasn't a 450. It wasn't some tricked out counter. It wasn't barbed wire or light tubes. It was just one absolute bastard drawing a line in the sand because he could. He knew the score. We knew the score. He just didn't care. He REALLY didn't care. He didn't care so much that we couldn't do anything but care for him.

There's a magic to that. There really is. And wrestlers like RUSH and Priest help us remember it when the rest of the world has worked so hard to make us forget.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 4/6 - 4/12

AEW Collision 4/11/26

RUSH vs Anthony Bowens

MD: I'll get to the PPV in a couple of days, at least Darby vs Andrade, but I wanted to take a quick stop over here first because this was interesting and Rush is RUSH.

I complained a couple of weeks ago about how Bowens vs Moxley was a bit like mud, something where the alignments and the objectives didn't seem all that clear, something where having disparate, unrelated, conflicted characters interact with one another didn't make the world feel richer necessarily, but instead more confusing.

Yet this, which really wasn't all that different, worked for me, and that just shows you that sometimes art doesn't follow rules and patterns exactly how you'd expect. That's part of why you actually engage with it. 

This match was to determine the number 2 position for the Casino Gauntlet for the vacant TNT title; a chance for a chance. Bowens is still coming off a pretty rough year where he had a strong but overstuffed babyface presentation, where some plan (which we will never know) failed to work out, where they glommed him on to Caster again, and where it all fizzled out. Now he's trying to audition for what's basically a two man stable in the Opps, and the Opps really ought to just take him all things considered. I have no idea where this will land. Hook/Shibata/Owens vs the Conglomeration sounds fun. Who knows? But it means that while he's never really done anything overly heelish (just annoying, not evil) and he sort of presents himself as a babyface with babyface trappings; he can still be sympathetic due to his size and fire, but his current motivation is to become a heel. Sort of. 

And Rush is RUSH, right? He's recently back from injury. He's in the heel locker room, but he's more of a force of nature. You can argue Moxley is a force of nature too, but he's one that tries to explain himself, even if it's in mysterious and arcane ways. Rush doesn't try to explain himself. If you mess with the bull, you get the horns. He's there to run through people, to espouse the value of brotherhood, to cause as much destruction as possible. Cheer him? Boo him? Fight him? He doesn't care. He's Rush. He's an attraction, the personification of violence. 

But still, he's almost always up against babyfaces, right?

There was a moment, right when the split first happened, when I saw Bowens as a potential Kenta Kobashi type figure. There was something about his size, his likability off-camera, his presence, his fire. And you could see him fighting Mox again and again, just like Kobashi fought Hansen, getting a little closer each time. You could see him battling Joe, or Big Bill, or yes, absolutely, Rush, and he would build himself up into someone that the crowd could get behind, could believe in. 

And while that's a hint of a memory now, dust floating in the ether, this match almost feels like a proof of concept for something that now will never be. 

They went to strikes immediately, and Bowens, wanting to prove something to Hook, to himself, to TK, to the crowd, to history, stood up and fired back. You could tell that Rush was a little surprised, more amused than bemused, probably. But you're not going to beat Rush striking, and Bowens didn't. He got swept under immediately, dumped like trash in the corner for the Horns dropkick fakeout, had to endure the Tranquilo pose and then was goaded right into a power slam. 

Business as usual then, despite a little spark. Bowens isn't just someone who received a pep talk or ate a beatdown. He's a guy with his back against the wall, at the end of his rope. He's volatile. And as Rush pushed him too far and took him too lightly, he exploded ramming blows up and down Rush's head and face repeatedly. He tossed him to the floor and rebounded him off the rail. This was Rush's domain, but Bowens wasn't hearing it. Nothing was going his way, life itself had turned against him, and if he was going to have to shout into the wind, then he would shout. Yet still, he found time to scissor someone in the crowd, found a moment to toss a catch phrase at the camera. Even in the midst of brutalizing not just a opponent, but THE opponent, he still didn't know who he was, who he should be, who he could be, save for that he was the hero of his own story. 

Thankfully, Rush was there to keep him focused, spitting in his face (and drawing a kick). Bowens ground down on him with a cobra clutch, and the crowd, unsure of who to cheer for and unable to treat Bowens as an underdog given how the match was playing out, started to back Rush. He's an attraction after all, and if they can't cheer anything else, they will cheer violence above all. 

Rush escaped, hit a front dropkick and pressed Bowens, but, perhaps to his surprise, Bowens pressed back. The fire, once awoken, wasn't ready to go out quite yet. That's the strength of Rush, his ability to draw that out of someone in that Hansen-ian way. They went back and forth. Rush snuck in a winding back suplex. Bowens charged forward to stop the Horns and hit his twisting DDT in the ropes. They crashed into one another in a way you'd expect out of Rush but not out of Bowens. 

And through no real fault of his own, Bowens came up short. The gas tank couldn't outrun the storm, especially after spending so much of the match driving headlong into it. Rush took things back outside, got some revenge against those barricades, and rolled him in to lay in the Horns.

It was a testament to what Rush is and has always been and a testament to what Bowens could have possibly been and could, maybe, somehow, someday be. And even though it was as full of grey shades as the Mox vs Bowens match, it worked far better nonetheless. 

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2025 Ongoing MOTY List: Fallen Angel Dies a Texas Death

Hangman Page vs. Christopher Daniels AEW Collision 1/18/25

I stopped getting invested in authority angles a long long time ago, and I can't lie and say I was very excited about this one. But it turns out my mental approach was all wrong, because this was not an authority angle, and watching the match it was clear how unimportant that aspect of the story was. Far more important things were happening here. This was a man's last stand, his last match, a last chance to publicly die on a sword, a last chance to see how FAR he could push things before the inevitable. 

Christopher Daniels is 55 years old and that is a reminder of my own rising age. The first wrestling shirt I ever purchased was a Fallen Angel shirt, acquired at an APW show when I was 18 years old. My wrestling show attendance really kicked into high gear when I was 18. Mike Modest and Christopher Daniels were my favorite wrestlers who I was regularly seeing wrestle live. I felt lucky to see them wrestle so often, and their matches together made me feel like I was seeing something special before everyone else. A few months later, I was wearing my Fallen Angel shirt on my college campus. A stranger pointed me out in passing and said, "Hey, nice shirt!" Months after that, I saw that same person waiting in line to get into ECW's Heat Wave 2000 and struck up a conversation with him and his friends. Those guys (Devin, Jason, Sean) became my best friends. I saw more live wrestling with - and watched more wrestling together in our respective living rooms with - those guys than anyone else in my life. Devin lives in Oregon now so I don't see him much, but Jason and Sean are still my go-to guys to watch wrestling with, live and in my living room. I don't know if that happens if I wasn't wearing that Fallen Angel shirt. 

Tastes change, favorites change. Daniels went on to have a 2,000 match career and now it's over, and he gets to go out having what could be called the best singles match of his career. Isn't that incredible? There's no hyperbole in that statement. Is it possible one of the TNA AJ Styles or Samoa Joe matches is better? Sure. There were two iron man matches in 2005 alone that could be better, and nothing will replace the memories of the two Modest/Daniels singles matches I saw live (and the multiple times I saw them tagging, including the great Modest/Daniels vs. Boyce LeGrande/Robert Thompson match from December 2000). But if any of those matches are better - I am not going to watch all of them before writing this - it is far more meaningful to me to have your last match ever be in the discussion with the greatest matches of your entire 30 year career. That's not just special, it's incredible. 

I don't always connect with the Texas Death stipulation. Sometimes it is killed by slow counts and frequent stopping, all momentum killed so that we can have a 40 second 8 count every other minute. But this was different, because Daniels and Hangman delivered the kind of damage that justified the repeated 10 counts, and gave the match (and each other) necessary breath while making any temporary recovery believable. They stayed within their respective roles the entire time. Nothing was even. Every part of the match reminded you who the fresher, more resilient man was. Watch the way Daniels gets knocked around by Hangman's stronger elbow strikes that were "worth" more than Daniels' strikes. Both men felt like they were selling the other's strikes exactly how they looked, matching the strikes and selling to their roles. But while Daniels was outgunned, it didn't mean he wasn't constantly trying to upset (and anger) Hangman. 

Daniels hits what I would wager, having seen hundreds of Christopher Daniels matches, his greatest ever baseball slide dropkick, firing through the bottom two ropes square into Hangman's chest. There are hundreds more Daniels matches I will never see, so anyone who's seen him do a harder baseball slide dropkick, let me know where it happened. But this was not a match about Daniels hitting a lot of offense, and that's clear when he gets pulled down roughly to the apron the floor attempting a split legged moonsault and is bleeding soon after from a chair edge to the face. I, not realizing how hard they were going to go in this, was appreciating how well Page did a HHH style "my hand is covering the edge of this folding chair back and I'm going to jam it at your face in a way nobody has ever used a weaponized chair before" chairshot and thought this was going to be a professional brawl where they tighten up the important strikes and work some smoke around the rest. Then one minute later Hangman is just slicing Daniels' head open, using barbed wire to saw into him like he was using a cheese wire, and the rest of this was not the professional Good Hand match I had expected. 

I always like when a guy gets choked over the ropes, but it is elevated to impossible levels when the guy getting choked is streaming fresh blood down the bridge of his nose and you can hear it dripping onto the mats below. The Fallen Angel is psychotic. Anyone who has a 30 year wrestling career has to be, but most men you can say that about haven't taken a powerbomb kidneys first through folding chairs, which is just one of several ways they actually shocked me during this match. Taking a fallaway slam on the floor onto those same kidneys right after is some real salt in the wound, and the way Daniels getting flung splatters blood across the mats looked like Hangman experimenting with abstract expressionism. When Daniels gets the top of his head run full speed into a chair, my admiration of Hangman's "worked" chairshot earlier feels silly. 

On commentary, I thought Matt Menard did an excellent job getting over Daniels' blood loss as a hindrance, talking about how it clots in your eyes and can't be wiped away, impairing vision while leaving you feeling depleted. He was so sincere and speaking from experience, that it gave me new perspective on what Daniels was going through. Just as I gained this new perspective, they shocked me again when Daniels gets double stomped through a table. It highlighted the fact that Hangman was not wasting any part of the match trying to finish Daniels off. He understood the rules he was working within, and was a man working like he was actually trying to win, never worrying about going "too far" because his only goal was to keep a man down for a 10 count. 

Daniels: Bloody, mostly defeated, refusing to quit/not knowing when to quit, hits his greatest ever BME. It is his greatest, because it lands as well as any other BME he's ever pulled off, except none of them were executed by a 55 year old man. If you can hit a clean moonsault, with impact, in your mid 50s, then you have miracle knees or are insane. It's almost surely the latter. He does another with Page under a barbed wire board because things hadn't gotten bad enough. Once Hangman survives that, there is nothing more. How can you handle a man standing tall after you have plumbed the depths to give him your worst? Well, you can't. That's when it's over. Daniels sells the Dead Eye like his neck got shoved up to his ears, so painful that it made everyone watching it also pray for Daniels' retirement.  

I thought this was brilliant, emotional, and downright shocking. If this really does turn out to be Daniels' public send off (so far so good, but 55 or no, you can never trust pro wrestlers) then few could ever hope to go out on a higher note. 

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/2 - 2/8

AEW Collision 2/7/26

Parking Lot Brawl: Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Zachary Wentz/Dezmond Xavier vs James Drake/Zack Gibson/Big Bill/Bryan Keith

Here's the thing about pro wrestling. It's like life. It doesn't end. It doesn't have off-season. You can shut your eyes but it doesn't go away. It's still there. It's always there. It's always pulling and prodding you. It's always tugging you. It's always pulling you back into the ring.

Eddie Kingston had finally done it all. 

Before that though, he had been on the verge of selling his boots, of giving it up, (of being free), during the pandemic, but he cut a promo with nothing to lose and it opened the last door left for him.

Behind that door? At first, nothing. An opportunity. Not even fans in seats. But he made the most of it, made his mark, and when the world started back up again, it welcomed him with a loving roar.

So he fought and climbed and scraped, and it was all rewarded. He met his idols. He even battled against some of them. He won New Japan gold. He defeated his hated rival to win the ROH title. He put that on the line against all of his enemies and one of his few friends and he triumphed in the first Continental Classic. Top of the world. He earned the American Dragon's respect.

A wonderful end to an embattled story. 

But pro wrestling never ends. Life goes on and it's so damn hard. He lost one title after the next. He lost his ability to walk. He lost a year and a half of his career. 

And yet, here he is, back once again. 

Wrestling saved his life. It gave him purpose. It gave him direction. It gave him a way out from a far darker fate. And the price he paid for all that? Only everything that he ever was and ever will be. That's pro wrestling for you.

It's just like life. You can have amazing moments, weddings, the birth of your child, promotions, but the Earth doesn't care. It's going to keep spinning. The sun isn't going to care. It's going to rise the next day. 

Over time, we get old. Some things get easier.

Getting up? That's not one of them. 

Eddie Kingston is 44 years old. Something they don't tell you at 14 or 24 or even 34 is how hard 44 can be. At some point, it becomes harder to sleep through the night without having to pee. At some point, it becomes harder to just sit up. To roll out of bed. To bend down to tie those shoes. And that's without a lifetime of getting battered around the ring.

Eddie knows it. Eddie shows it. He needs to fight, hell, want to fight, but he wants finality too. When it's time for something to be over, for a grief to be settled, he wants it to be over. He's even managed it since his return. He somehow managed to move on from LFI without facing RUSH. 

He couldn't move on from the GYV though. They wouldn't let him. 

They've been off in their little corner of the world waging a private war. Eddie came out of his match with Samoa Joe wanting to stretch, wanting to show what he still had left in the tank, so he ran right through Nathan Cruz, a young associate of Drake and Gibson. That drew their ire so he fought his way past one and the next. No shame to either. They've been tagging. He's Eddie Kingston. They gave him a fight. He was ready to move on.

They didn't let him. 

Instead, they ambushed him after the Gibson match, and it was up to Ortiz to return to make the save. Ortiz and Eddie beat them with the help of an errant (more like purposeful) madball. Eddie was ready to be done. They weren't. Wrestling's wrestling though. You fight long enough and you're going to draw others into your circle. A magnetic pull, the sweet allure of violence.

So we have the Rascalz helping their Uncle Eddie and Bill and Keith bounty hunting their way beside GYV.

A parking lot, but not the claustrophobic garage attached to Daily's Place. They're up on the rooftop, the Vegas skyline behind them. 

Room to move. Room to breathe. Room to wage war.

And war they did wage. This had all the bells and whistles of cinematic pro wrestling. The Rascalz got to show off, leaping off cars, pulling Keith into a limo to smoke him out. They bled, a baptism by fire in their second match. Welcome to AEW. Hope you survive the experience.

And of course Bill was Bill. This was a perfect showcase for him. When he pressed a Rascal over the limo, it looked like we were back in 1995 and he had tossed him right off the building. Then, giant that he is, he leaned back the car, took his jacket off and brought a foot up so Eddie could run right into it. 

So yeah, while it may not have had the emotional stakes of some of the previous parking lot brawls, it had the right mix of chaos and creativity, of broken glass and nasty bumps. At one point Isla Dawn came out and it sort of made you wonder why she didn't come out earlier or later and why Reed came out only to counter her. They'd just been hiding behind cars the whole time? You say it's fun and not to question these things, but if someone had questioned and came up with an answer, everything could have been tighter and still just as fun. 

In the end, during the DDT that won the match, but well before it, certainly after it, the camera found Eddie. He's a photogenic bastard in his own way. Why? Because he's the must human wrestler there is. Maybe the most human wrestler that ever was. The pain, the agony, the effort, it all just radiates off of him, the consequence that gives pro wrestling meaning and weight.

When Eddie wants to wrap up a backstage interview, wants to get out of the ring and get back to he hotel, wants to avoid all the bullshit that everyone has to go through in order to put pro wrestling on tv, it's not because he doesn't care. He spends his whole life caring. He cares too much. When that bell rings, no one cares like Eddie does. 

It's that he's spent. He's tired. He hurts. He aches. Inside and out. The eyes reach the soul and the soul is a weary thing.

But still he fights on, because life keeps coming at all of us and it comes at him more than anyone. Scowl on his face, muttering all the way, letting out a groan that we can feel in our gut, Eddie Kingston will fight on, and hey, if he can fight on, then so can we. That realization, more than anything else, is what makes him so precious and special in a world that gets harder for all of us each and every day. Just maybe don't tell him that, because that's the last thing he wants to hear. Life's hard enough without having to inspire people.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/26 - 2/1

AEW Collision 1/31/26

Darby Allin vs Clark Connors

MD: I didn't write up Darby vs PAC. I should have but I was focused on MJF vs Bandido. That wasn't it though. There was something more. It was that belly-to-belly on the stairs. Every single Darby Allin match has a bump like that. Something that takes your stomach and shoves it up into your throat. He's such a good seller, such a good underdog, so credible with his timing and opportunism and fight, has such a connection with the crowd, that every single one of his matches probably doesn't need one of those massive exclamation points. There are going to be a lot of really effective, meaningful periods along the way. Lots of punctuation. But every match has an exclamation point or two.

That one struck me harder than most though. It reminded me of Foley going off the cell, actually. Not at all the same thing, but that's not the point. The point is presentation. It was visually ghastly, gutwrenching. It took me out for the rest of the match because all I could think about was the spot. It just ran through my head over and over. And it left me thinking "This won't matter in a week," and that thought made me frustrated, because it was special. Even within the confines of Darby's exclamation points, it felt special. Too special to just be thrown away. But that's what I thought was going to happen. It should be one of those things we're talking about ten years from now. 

Pro wrestling is about presentation. That's what Vince worked out back in the 80s and it's what carried him for decades. It's not just about presentation. But so much of it is. You can do the best work in the world and if the promotion doesn't present that work the right way, doesn't frame it in a manner that makes it feel important and that sets it up for success, then it won't mean nearly as much as it could. That's not the banal storytelling argument. This is actually something different. They turned Foley's bump into myth. Yet Darby takes a bump like that every few weeks. How do you square that circle?

Could it be instead that Darby is greater than the sum of the parts? That if any single part was raised to be too important then the whole might be diminished. There are people who will kick and scream if they ever see this sentence (thankfully they don't read my stuff) but in a lot of ways, Darby is the heir to Johnny Valentine. Valentine always said that people might think wrestling is fake but no one would think he was fake. 

We feel everything Darby does so acutely. We know it hurts. It's 2026. We all love and respect wrestling and we appreciate deeply the way wrestlers put their bodies on the line to create art for us to enjoy and engage with. With Darby it's different though. He carries with him that element of deathmatch realism, distilled into bumps. Yeah maybe they could protect themselves on X, but Darby? Not Darby. It's impossible. So he's the heir to Jeff Hardy and Mick Foley and ECW and Johnny Valentine all at once. That perfect package of size and shape and vulnerability and selling and bumping and grasping fight. But Darby Allin? Darby's different.

But still, when you have a bump like that, something so gripping and brutal and visual, where the angles are all wrong and the metal is unforgiving, and the jag fits right in between the vertebrae just so, you want it to be treated differently. You want it to continue to matter. You want the commentary to remember it and for it to be on highlight packages and in the opening to the show. It should live for years. If the production cares, then we can care and not just move on from it. It doesn't become crash TV or Excalibur using "But" or "and" to move right on to the next thing. There's a fine line between Vince thinking that pro wrestling fans have no memory for anything and the idea that it's worth it to immortalize things that can, do, and should matter to them with reinforcement. That's all selling is in the end, getting fans to buy in that things can and do matter. 

A lot of that is what I was going to say if I did write about the PAC match, and it's important I said it here, because they succeeded beyond my expectations in making that spot matter here against Connors.

They established up front that he had an alliance with Kidd, that he was there to make a mark against an AEW original, a perennial world title contender, the heir to Sting (let alone everyone else I mentioned). And the damage from the belly-to-belly was the perfect wedge to let him do it believably. 

If Darby was a crash test dummy of sorts, then Connors was an absolute wrecking ball. Darby came in with his back bandaged, and from even before the bell, Connors made it his goal in life to toss his own body at Darby, in some ways using Darby's favorite tactic against him. 

It started even as Darby was skateboarding down to ringside. He was there like a bull charging right into him. It continued again and again. He'd have Darby on the apron dangling and he'd just go headlong. He accomplished more with shoulder tackles than anyone in a decade or two. Darby would get a hope spot in, but his hand would clutch his back and Connors would charge right back at him. It was force vs object but both of them were moving in the most impactful way, a 21st century version of titans clashing, where things resonated not because nothing would give but because everything had to again and again.

And then they found themselves back on the outside and with the specter of the spot hanging above them, Connors went to double down upon it, tried to manifest it once again. He got greedy, hungry, possessed by the violence he had witnessed PAC orchestrate. Darby was ready, and literally used the steps to vault himself back into the match. There were bumps along the way but that was the beginning of the end, and he scored yet another mythic, impossible, gripping win. 

And yet. The one moment where Connors really shut him down, really took over? Darby had gone to the top and Connors (yet again) charged in. The bump Darby took, careening onto the apron and somehow managing to hit it multiple times on the way to the floor? An exclamation point in a sea of periods. The sort of thing that will stick with you, that should stick with you, that they should show again and again, that should be in an opening show package, that should matter next week. That should be used, just as the belly-to-belly was used here, to build something meaningful in the future. 

The problem of Darby Allin. Just how high can these towers of devastation get? All the way to Everest maybe. 

ROH TV 1/29/26

Athena vs Vertvixen

MD: Athena's entire rise was a Johnny Valentine moment as well. She had been transitioning from being a babyface, had dropped down the card, was on ROH, was up against Jody Threat in Canada, and she went hard against her. The clips went viral. Old timers and engagement accounts hoping to grift against AEW to make a buck and stay relevant leaned hard into their inherent misogyny and berated her for being careless, for not looking after her opponent in a way they never would if, let's say Lance Archer had a match like that, and she embraced it and ran with it, all the way to becoming one of the most engaging characters in wrestling. 

Wrestling shouldn't feel collaborative. It shouldn't feel cooperative. In 2026, the lean towards elaborate spots and counters and sequences have meant that all too often it does. 

That means if something goes wrong, it's jarring, and we're conditioned for the response to be consummate.

Athena, athletic, dominant, confident champion that she is, outwrestled Vertvixen to start. That confidence gave way to arrogance though, and Vertvixen turned it, both the wrestling and the mocking back onto Athena. Athena snapped, made use of her superior agility, and dropped Vertvixen's face right onto her knees. Vertvixen sold it hard, rubbing at her jaw and her nose and her teeth. There was the sense of something being slightly off as they didn't quite roll into the next bit of offense. In some ways, that's not surprising since Athena's so good at reacting and letting things sink in and resonate, but as an audience, we're used to specific timing cues and this felt just a little long. 

But then, instead of moving away from the potentially hurt area, Athena leaned hard into it, grasping the nose and whacking it. Before there was maybe the possibility of blood. She ensured the reality of it, and having done so, waved her bloody hand around to show the crowd. Aubrey was the referee and moved to get gloves on immediately even as Athena veered off course and into the wonderful world of woundwork. 

I have no idea what was planned and what was called. All I know is the effect it had on the audience and myself, the narrative power of something going off course and a heel pushing it even harder in that direction and reveling in it all the way. All I know is that the crowd, already inclined to get behind Vertvixen, got behind her all the more, and she came off looking all the better for fighting through the pain and doing some real damage to Athena long the way. And THAT in turn, made Athena's shaken confidence and deep anger down the stretch and especially in the post-match, set things up perfectly for Maya World and Hyan to run down to make the save and set things up for the big six-woman tag next week. 

Athena is always on. Athena gives herself completely to the role. But unlike most wrestlers, that doesn't just mean that she's reading her lines using as a method actress. It means instead that she's so tuned into who and what she's trying to portray that she'll perfectly take advantage of every opportunity that comes her way, and that, as much as anything else, is the true spirit of pro wrestling.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 1/5 - 1/11/26 (Part 2)

AEW Collision 1/10/26

Mark Briscoe vs Hechicero

There's nothing quite like pro wrestling.

Look at what we have here, two of the greatest, most stylized and over the top characters you'll find in any medium in 2026. 

There's Mark Briscoe, bearded, teeth missing, zany practitioner of redneck kung fu who likes to dive off of chairs and thirsts for violence, a wildman chicken farmer with a bombastic vocabulary and a canny glint in his eyes that you'd find in any folk hero out of the Americana canon. But he also carries with him the weight of fatherhood, the weight of carrying his late brother's legacy, of being a staunch and loyal friend, of never giving up even in the face of injustice and hardship, and he carries it all with a sort of humble, accepting spiritual grace that, in turn, humbles us all.

And then there's Hechicero, the alchemist of the ring, a fire-bending, dynamic, larger than life luchador, looking like something out of a medieval horrorshow, a mask over his face, a hood over his mask, and contacts over his eyes so as to be unknowable, yet so capable of making his reactions known to the world as he reaches out and grasps the attention of the very last row. He's possibly the most creative wrestler of his generation, able to add twists and contortions to every hold and construct elaborate technique-driven entry points for every move, the ultimate middle ground between style and substance, and isn't that the true ideal for what pro wrestling can and should be? 

Here they are then, on a random Saturday in a Texas residency, anchoring the changeover from 8 pm to 9 pm EST on TNT, fighting over Briscoe's TNT title. 

So it is that styles make fights, and contrast makes the world go round, and characters draw the eye, pulling us away from our phones, from social media, from the responsibilities of the day. With these two, with the styles they bring to the table and the contrast between them, how could anyone possibly look away?

To begin, Hechicero, well versed in the most arcane arts of llave and lucha, raised every possible question for Briscoe, locking in holds, putting painful torque on limbs, invoking the Conjuro backbreaker. But Briscoe's wisdom is the sort that you wouldn't find in dusty old spellbooks but by living life, and he had answers, landing on his feet on a mare, on a back body drop, putting his hands up in exultation even as Hechicero recoiled in surprise and disdain. This was the wizard's world but Briscoe could walk through it, head high.

He walked all the way into a world of his own, maneuvering Hechicero out between the ropes deftly and laying in the redneck kung-fu, ridiculous but effective karate chops, on the floor. He set up the chair to leap, but Hechicero disrupted it, making sure to punctuate his clever act to the crowd (as he punctuates all things, a living, breathing exclamation point), only to turn around and eat Briscoe's flying feet.

But just as Briscoe could walk through Hechicero's world, Hechicero could slink about in Briscoe's. As Mark went for the Cactus Elbow (his punctuation an opening parenthesis of "bang, bang"), Hechicero laid in wait on the floor, capturing him in an unlikely and impressive cross armbreaker on the floor. He followed it up by grapevining the arms and charging Briscoe into the post, and the blink of an eye, the alchemist had turned led to gold once more.

Over the next many minutes, Hechicero plied his trade, locking in all manner of unique submission. Briscoe made it to the ropes, surviving again and again as the wizard seethed and scowled (with his head, his arms, his torso, using his whole body to emote and accentuate the mask). The fans, perhaps given the locale, perhaps given that Don Callis was conveniently abroad, remained split, unable to deny the skill and flair they were witnessing but never about to abandon Briscoe and his struggle.

When Briscoe did start to fight back it was with one arm (and his whole body, and especially, at a key moment, his teeth). Hechicero invited punches but made sure to turn his body so Briscoe would fire off with the bad arm. He liked to play with his food. Briscoe was able to get the better of him and get him back to the floor and this time, he did leap off the chair, even if it was an awkward, desperate leap, even if the simple act of opening the chair was a pained labor given his arm.

Perhaps Hechicero was too eager to play with his food, too confident. After Briscoe couldn't lock in the Jay Driller, as that relies on a butterflying double underhook and both arms, Hechicero lifted him into the position himself. Instead of dropping him straight onto his head, he dropped him to the side as well so as to lock in one more submission.

When that failed, he showed his frustration again and charged in wildly. Briscoe, just like brer rabbit before him, moved off to the side and dodged, causing Hechicero to crash into the ropes. That was all the opening Mark needed for a second attempt at the Jay Driller. This time, with fate and momentum on his side, he found the strength and the grit to heft Hechicero up and drop him down. 

He very much stole out this win. If Hechicero had went for the Jay Driller instead, this might have been different. If Callis had there, maybe this would have been different. If he'd locked in even one more submission, maybe even Mark Briscoe would have had to quit. 

But he didn't, and he wasn't, and he hadn't. Maybe next time he would. Pro wrestling is a never ending story, and next week might be different. For now though, Mark Briscoe survived to defend his title another day. And we were left watching two styles that did make a fight, and two characters that made the fight into a folk tale for modern times, one full of skill and spirit and sensation, one that we were fortunate to get to bear witness to on one random Saturday in Texas. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/29 - 1/4/26

AEW Collision 1/3/26

Darby Allin vs Wheeler Yuta

MD: Darby Allin vs Gabe Kidd from World's End didn't hit for me. It may have hit for some people and I get that, because there was nothing wrong about the match or how it was laid out. Moreover, it had build. It had story. Kidd wanted to make a mark. His stop/start, off/on role as a Death Riders associate is a little shaky given his NJPW commitments and the fact that he only partially seems to fit the ethos (a lot of tearing down, not a lot of building up, but that maybe works well with Mox's hypocrisy). He came out of nowhere to help put Darby through a flaming table. He showed up again later to toss him down some stairs. Darby wanted revenge. It wasn't a cold match, even if it had a sputtering build due to Darby's participation in the C2 and subsequent injury. 

I don't think it hit for the crowd though. Some of that was the build, sure, and some a lack of connection to Kidd overall. Some was the way the PPV was set up. By the time the crowd got to this match, they'd already made it through the plunder-laden chaos of FTR vs Gunn/Robinson, which had at least two incredibly memorable table bumps, not to mention Babes of Wrath vs Athena/Mercedes which was a more conventional all-action spotfest. There were diminishing returns in the moment.

I think there were even more diminishing returns at play though. This is my fifth year in a row writing about Darby, albeit with some gaps. He's amazing at what he does, one of the best I've ever seen at telling an in-ring story about absorbing punishment and getting the fans to get behind him as he survives and survives and survives until he can find a way to overcome. They fans believe in him. Incredible babyface. But there's a sense like many other great babyfaces over the years, maybe he had his moment and it passed him by. He chose a different accomplishment, climbed Everest instead of climbing the AEW mountain and taking the title. And now, while Moxley is moving on to bigger and better things, he's still waging a war against the Death Riders that seems to matter less every day.

There's something compelling about that, maybe, something interesting and tragic, a World War II soldier trapped on an island of his own making, an island that exists wholly within his mind, with no one to tell him that the world had moved on without him. But I'm not sure that entirely came through in the Kidd match.

It did, however, come through a little more clearly vs Yuta, and I thought the match in general worked far better.

Some of that was situational. There are different constraints and possibilities and responsibilities to be a Collision main event on a residency show on a night where a lot of the core audience is more focused on the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, than to try to fight for air on an overpacked AEW PPV. 

Some of it is that, unlike Kidd, Yuta is one of the most over heels in the country. People will deny it. These people are wrong. He appears on the screen or comes out from off screen to interfere as he is so apt to do and the place reacts immediately. That reaction isn't just that they want him to go away. It's that they want him to go away specifically by getting killed by a babyface. That's very different. Are they paying money to see him getting killed? Is he impacting ratings? I have no idea. But I do know that he gets a more consistent, more visceral reaction than almost anyone. 

He wrestles in a manner that ensures it too. There's nothing to latch on to. Look at the layout here. Darby took control almost immediately during the feeling out process. Yuta was smarmy and it looked like he'd get immediate comeuppance, but he hid behind Marina on the floor and got a cheapshot in. Even then, he couldn't press the matter. He went for a suplex and Darby kneed him in the skull. He charged in and Darby clowned him in the corner. It was only when Marina got involved once again that he was able to take over with another cheapshot and a brutal neckbreaker onto the apron. Then when he was on top, he preened and taunted, mocking both Darby and the crowd (and the crowd's love for Darby). He was vulnerable, upstaged, outgunned, reprehensible. Not a single cool thing about him, but laser-focused on getting a reaction the whole way through.

Yuta spent the whole match serving Darby and his gripe with PAC, serving Marina and her upcoming with Toni Storm, serving the need to end the show on a high, serving everyone but himself. He took over in the stretch only due to Marina getting tossed, Storm rushing out to brawl with her, and Garcia sneaking in to get a cheapshot. Even then, he was able to hit his finisher on the apron (another amazing Darby bump) but not capitalize. His attempt to do so was to mock Darby with a Scorpion Deathlock only to have that be his quick and decisive (two Coffin Drops and lifted up for a snap Scorpion from Darby). In being so vulnerable, in being so unlikable, Yuta finds a strength that very few wrestlers in 2025-6 are willing to find. He made this work in ways that Kidd, presented far stronger, couldn't. Situations were different, yes, but you get the sense that Yuta can be counted on to make just about anything he's asked to do work. 

One last thought on Darby: as I said, he's a natural babyface given his bumps and his resilience. Six years is a long time for anything, however. It's only in the last month or two that I've started to wonder if something needs to give. If you have a few minutes and haven't seen it yet, check out Darby Allin on Hey EW with RJ City. There's a heel there just waiting to happen, one that channels some of Darby's natural personality, and I think maybe it's time for him to explore it.

 

Shelton Benjamin vs Dante Martin

MD: This should have worked. It was a good story on paper. 

Scorpio Sky has a certain level of credibility. He's a former singles and tag champion. He's got some size, presence. But he's been snakebit and he wasn't there on that night. So Dante Martin steps up. Yes, Dante's somewhat bigger than he was a couple of years ago, but he's all about speed and agility when up against the monster that is Shelton Benjamin. Shelton was always an amazing athlete, but the world had gotten smaller around him and now he towers over his opponents, a force. 

Shelton would toss him around. Dante would use his speed to create opportunities. Shelton would give exactly as much as he should give. Dante would earn (not take but earn) moments of offense and the fans would appreciate them all the more for the effort put in. Contrast makes the world go round.

Yes, the crowd saw Benjamin as a bigger star. Yes, they wanted to see Benjamin toss Dante around. Yes, they wanted to see Benjamin hurt people. Everyone knew this was just to heat Shelton up for Mox, but Dante's a likable young man, and the match had a secret weapon in its pocket.

As they went towards the break, Dante leaped up to the top rope only to get shoved off, crashing down on the guard rail chest first, a nasty bump. The match stopped. Christopher Daniels and the doctor went to check on Dante during the commercial break. MVP walked over and cut a little promo that Dante should call it a night; there'd be no shame in it. Dante, obviously hurting, told off MVP and Shelton, and they were off to the races.

At least they should have been. It was a moment of defiance that should have worked. Yes, the crowd would still go up for Shelton, but they should have gotten into Dante's comebacks. It was a good idea on paper. 

It didn't work. Shelton honed in on the chest, and I'm just not sure Dante's selling was consummate to what was happening. Dante fired backed with forearms and either got cut off or made openings for himself, but I'm not sure the crowd bought those openings were enough. Maybe he should have been a little more opportunistic in dodging Shelton to show just how high the stakes were? Dante sold to a degree and he hit stuff, but there was never a sense that he was appealing to the crowd, that he needed them, that they should get behind him. He didn't give them enough to latch on to. Daniels is relatively new in his role as a second. Babyface mangers are tough in general, but the idea is that you slap the mat and lead the fans at the right times and get them going, right? If you had an Amira Blair or Matt Menard out there, I think this might have worked, but Daniels didn't quite hit the mark. 

If this didn't work, it's not because Shelton didn't give Dante enough or because he ate him up. Yes, he hit big stuff on him, but I almost felt like he gave Dante too much after the huge bump when before it he had made Dante work a little more. 

I'm glad they did this. I'm glad they tried it. I think the idea was sound. I think there are things to learn here, especially when you compare and contrast this with Wheeler Yuta's performance against Darby. Details matter. They have to matter. The second you surrender to the notion that they don't matter, then there's no point of doing anything. You can have the best idea in the world, the best spots, the best bumps, the most exciting action, but if you don't get the details right, then it's not going to hit nearly as well as it could have, or nearly as well as it should. When that happens, it's not a call for nihilism and permission to just give up and hit spots and try to pop a crowd by overwhelming it. To me, it's the exact opposite. No matter how much the crowd wanted to see Shelton hurt people, this not only could have worked, it should have worked. In trying to figure out why it didn't (and why Darby vs Yuta did), there things to learn that can make anything and everything work better moving forward.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/22 - 12/28 Part 1

AEW Collision 12/25/25

Jon Moxley vs Orange Cassidy 

At the ten minute mark, Orange Cassidy found his pockets.

He'd weathered the onslaught, the bullying, the shouts, the shoving, and finally the strikes. 

He remembered who he was. Yes, the kicks he laid in on Jon Moxley had more behind them than usual without the standard playful preludes, but he had remembered his true strength: the mind games, the way he was the one who threw his opponent off his game and snuck out a win when least expected.

And like his Conglomeration members and associates, Mascara Dorada, Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong, and his sometimes partner, Darby Allin, he saw the cracks in Jon Moxley, both mental and physical, clearly, as if for the first time, and he honed in on that leg, softening him up for an Orange Punch.

But Moxley rolled to the floor and the moment was lost. Cassidy once again gave in to emotion, to the weight of the last few years, to trauma, and yes, to fear. To panic.

Every Jon Moxley match in the C2 so far has been about Moxley, though, of course, his opponent and their own struggles and journeys played into them in a secondary manner. This one though? This was about Orange Cassidy, and because of that, when Mox's back was well and truly against the wall, when he needed a win to save his own life, he entered into a situation where he had all but won before the bell had even rung. It may have looked like anything else in those first few minutes, and it may have almost become something else at that ten minute mark, but the result was all but inevitable from the get go.

In 2023, at the end of a long, arduous run as International champ, a run where he put himself up against every challenger, where he kicked off Dynamite week after week after week, where he ran his body to the ground, Cassidy crashed into the wall that was Jon Moxley. Through a fluke injury, Mox lost the title and Cassidy regained it from a third party, but a few months later, he had to face his demon again at Full Gear 2024. Cassidy didn't just survive, didn't just retain his title, he triumphed, showing Moxley and the world the strength within. 

It came at a cost. In pushing himself so far, Cassidy became someone he never wanted to be. That facade of apathy and sloth was yanked off of his face, shades broken and discarded. But it was over and he had won. 

That's not how wrestling works, though. The story never ends. Jon Moxley understands that better than anyone. He's not fighting for a single victory, for a single championship, for a single celebration. He claims to be trying to change the tides of time, the fate of the future. He's trying to shift  the path of history, to set the world turning back on its proper axis. If you are to believe him that is. Even if you don't, you can't deny that he understands the notion well enough to manipulate others, well enough to know the costs.

Time marched on. The fight was eternal. One year later, Cassidy was forced back into an even more untenable position. Moxley had turned his back on the fans and torn down AEW's heroes. Those that remained had nowhere else to turn than to a man with a good heart, who cared more than he'd ever admit, and who beat Moxley once before. Cassidy found his strength anew, led a charge, but ultimately came up short due to the numbers game and was left beaten, bullied, bleach poured down his throat.

So maybe some of his allies and friends saw Moxley for what he seemed to be as of late, a wounded animal, a man who had lost his way and was on the verge of losing so much more, but Cassidy couldn't help but see the monster that still lurked within. Instead of holding back, controlling the tempo, eliminating Moxley from the tournament and maybe from even more on top of that, he charged right in, unleashed ten count punch after ten count punch. He saw the Moxley of a year ago, of two years ago, the Moxley that he could be once again and he couldn't relent. Because of that, he wrestled Jon Moxley's match, played right to his strengths.

And Moxley well knew it. Cassidy held his own for long minutes, stayed in the fight. He was consumed by a fire within him, by the horror before him, by the trauma he carried, but he drew a panicked, fevered strength from it nonetheless. This was the Orange Cassidy of Jon Moxley's world, the one he had created, a fighter, a warrior, a berserker. 

It wasn't until Moxley berated him, yelled, put up a fit, because for all of his fighting, it wasn't enough for Mox, that Cassidy remembered who he truly was. By then, however, it was too late. Moxley escaped, drew Cassidy back outside the ring, back into his domain. Cassidy maintained an advantage on the outside, but now he was caught between two worlds, himself but not himself, able to see at the light of the end of the tunnel but dragged back into the darkness by his heel. 

He grasped at Moxley's damaged leg, but without his usual control, without the laser-focus of O'Reilly that had allowed Kyle to defeat Moxley. He hit Orange Punch after Orange Punch, but not a single one landed correctly. Despite appearances, he no longer had the inner balance to strike true. And, desperate himself, clinging to a false advantage that might have looked to the world to be the truest thing imaginable, he went for the leg one last time and was rolled up by Moxley for a relatively easy three. 

Despite his fear, Orange Cassidy stood up against the darkness he had known, a darkness in his heart, but in doing so, in charging forth when he should have laid back in wait, he played right into Jon Moxley's hands, as fortuitous an outcome as Mox could have hoped for, because he only had one hand left to play. 

But as Cassidy now knows all too well, the fight never ends. A wrestler's story can only end one way, when the heart, body, brain, and soul all break down too much to continue. Cassidy earned a respite, a moment to recover, to reevaluate what he had become and what he might still become. For Moxley, however, World's End is now before him. He's fallen so far, but by climbing back up by the skin of his teeth, he only has so much farther left to fall if he fails.

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