AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/20 - 7/26

AEW Dynamite 7/22/26

Darby Allin vs Kevin Knight

MD: So who then is Kevin Knight?

For the first couple of minutes of this match, it actually doesn't matter, because this one begins as Darby Allin's story.

What do we know coming in? Kevin Knight inadvertently injured Darby Allin in the Continental Classic and took him out of the running. Darby successfully defended the World Title against Knight, who subsequently won the TNT Title, a title associated with Darby. After Darby lost the World Title back to MJF, Knight came out and turned on him. Knight then joined the Don Callis Family and has broken the record for most TNT defenses (not a particularly impressive record because the title tends to get hot potatoed; it's fine as that's its purpose, but it feels a bit like a false claim, in this case helping matters). Darby's recently came back for revenge. And finally, Knight claimed to want to beat Allin in a wrestling match, no interference, just to prove he's better.

You'd have to look back at their previous encounters, but given the hierarchy at play, I imagine Darby's entered second for most of them. Here Knight, the champion, entered second. He made his way down to the ring, posing, preening, full of confidence (more on that in a minute). That made him a target for a Darby Allin seeking revenge. Darby's the sort of wrestler that'll go to the top of Everest and envision jumping off it onto your head if you've done him wrong. 

That's basically what he did here, using his body as a battering ram multiple times. At one point, he pulled the protective top cover off the corner of the ring to flatten out the space so he could jump off of it onto a Knight draped over the guardrail. 

So, yes, it didn't really matter who Knight was or what he wanted at the start of the match. He was a target, completely without agency. 

But of course, Darby's fury has a cost. One too many crashes. One too many landings. He started limping. That let Knight get some distance. It let him go to the eyes. One might argue that what Darby had done here wasn't proper for a "good, honest wrestling match" but that doesn't hold up in 2026. Is it really a sneak attack when you see Darby coming? 

Going to the eyes though? Shoving Darby off the ramp so that he lands groin first on the guardrail? 

Well, maybe it was tit for tat. Maybe. Regardless, it was certainly Knight exacting his agency. And it means that it's at least half his story once again. 

So that brings us back to the start.

Who is Kevin Knight?

He's a heel. But he's a complex heel. He's a multi-dimensional heel. He's an effective heel. 

Most of all, he's a vulnerable heel.

He claims to have attacked Darby because he couldn't get the job done. Out of frustration. It wasn't about Darby, though. It wasn't about Max being champion. It wasn't even about Knight himself losing to both Max and Darby in title matches. 

It was about the ticking clock, the Sword of Damocles over his head. 

Kevin Knight is 29. His former partner, Speedball Mike Bailey, is 36. Bailey lost years trapped behind the Canadian border due to visa issues. Were it not for that, Bailey might have been the world champion years ago. Darby himself is 33. He was in AEW from the start and only now won the World Title. Years and years of working his way up. MJF is 30 now but he won his first world title three and a half years ago. 

Knight is athletic, dynamic, but he crashes and burns every match, much like Darby, even without some of the reckless intent. He watched Darby hold the title for one lone month before MJF won it back.

So why did Kevin Knight attack Darby Allin?

For the same reason the greatest, most human heels do anything. 

He was afraid.

He was afraid of it all slipping away, of time getting away from him, of losing his opportunity, of not seizing on the moment now so that when he did have his time, it'd be far too late. Like Darby. Or maybe it'd never come at all. Like Speedball. 

He didn't know what to do, but he knew he had to do something. So he did something desperate. Once he acted, there was no going back. Speedball offered forgiveness, but what would forgiveness get him? Forgiveness would be admitting he was wrong, admitting he was afraid, admitting he was lost. He'd be back where he started, worse off for the effort.

Once you stray from the path, it gets easier and easier to stray again. One bad choice leads to another and another and another. It's sunk cost fallacy. It's guilt. If there's a good man somewhere inside Kevin Knight, that man is refusing to look in the mirror, refusing to admit the truth. All he can do instead is keep digging deeper, keep hiding behind false confidence and swagger. And so long as he keeps winning, he'll get away with it too.

So yes, Knight went to the eyes, crotched Darby, and catapulted him into the ringsteps, opening him up. It's not crochet. It's pro wrestling. Darby came back, hitting a code red off the top followed by another one, slamming Knight's head into the steps, grinding his hand in the exposed corner cavity. They crashed into one another and then, after an attempt at a Scorpion Death Drop, the ref went down. 

Knight had claimed to want a fair, honest fight. He claims a lot of things. He believes a lot of things, right up until the point he is challenged by life. That's the problem with a foundation of lies, lies to yourself, to the world. They don't stand up under pressure.

Knight's resolve broke. He went for the belt to wield it as a weapon. Darby dodged it, and then, with Knight's legs flailing in fear, Darby dropped him with the Death Drop. For a moment, Darby looked to use the belt himself, but that might have brought him victory, reclaimed him his title, but it wouldn't have brought him satisfaction. Darby understood that because he was at peace with himself, a peace that Knight is nowhere near anymore. Darby mounted the ropes for the Coffin Drop. Knight recovered quickly enough to nail him with the belt. 

And he hit the same spectacular coast-to-coast dropkick that injured Darby during the C2 and stole the win. That belt shot may have appeared to have gained him everything in the moment, but it only dug his hole deeper. 

Months ago, with a heart full of fear, Kevin Knight made his choice. Once made, the only path forward was to go deeper. Into the Don Callis Family. To become the most successful TNT champion ever. And yes, all the way to his first PPV main event. 

The path can lead nowhere good. The path can lean to nothing but the same sort of inevitable destruction that Knight had been running from in the first place. 

But in the hands of a talent who's willing to be vulnerable, who's willing to commit, it sure does make for a hell of a story, doesn't it?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/6 - 7/12

AEW Dynamite 7/8/26

Konosuke Takeshita vs Kyle Fletcher

If you want a good example that literally any match can be criticized, for years people had one major complaint about Savage vs Steamboat. If you come into it blind, not knowing about the angle that drove it, it's hard to find fault. If you have the context of Savage destroying Steamboat with the ring bell, however, it raises questions. Why did they wrestle it so athletically, so much like a title match? Shouldn't it have been a blood feud? Shouldn't Steamboat have been out for revenge? Shouldn't that have meant something more than just taking the title from Savage?

There is an answer to that but it was one that actually required quite a bit more context, context that was sourced over the years that followed as we obtained and organized more and more footage from the televised house shows leading up to WrestleMania III. They had already worked those heated bloody matches around the horn leading up to the big show. They had gotten it out of their system. Crowds throughout America had seen it. Steamboat (and the fans') bloodlust had been abated and now it was time to hit him where it hurt the most by taking the title in a wrestling match.

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Takeshita had coexisted with Okada for half a year, more. He had lived through transgressions: Okada cheating (the use of a deadly weapon, not just pulling the tights) to defeat him in the C2 semi-finals, disparaging his skills and honor and brotherhood with the rest of the Don Callis family including getting between him and Fletcher, contriving to overshadow him at the Tokyo Dome even though he was the IWGP champion, dissension in a tag team match at a PPV.

Finally Takeshita had earned his match, finally he had him one-on-one for the International Title. And given that honest, earnest chance, Takeshita triumphed. He upset the balance of the Don Callis Family. It seemed like it was going to lead to something more than dissension, to betrayal. He was ready for that though, ready to fight them all off it need be. Then, Kyle Fletcher's music hit. He made his triumphant return, stood side by side with his brother, Takeshita. And then he struck him down. A brother may have been enough for Takeshita, but Fletcher needed the comfort of a broader family. 

AEW is a company full of stories but that has less angles than one might think. This was a clear angle however, and despite AEW's tendency to move right on to the next thing, it was one that could lead to even greater matches. 

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Kyle Fletcher is one of the best heels going. He's shown instincts to inhabit the space of a match, both the feeling out process at the start and the down period of a commercial break, that almost none of his generation (or that prior even) possess. He's excellent at working to a crowd, at reacting in the moment, at creating inciting incidents and then rolling with the results of them. 

His warm up match against ELP was full of this, even despite later knowledge that he was having a bit of a panic attack during the match. ELP began the proceedings by doing his best Bret Hart impression and giving a girl at ringside his tricked out glasses. Later on in the match, when Fletcher had scored a kick out of nowhere and reversed a whip on the floor, he went right over and menaced the girl, getting in her face and drawing heat. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels almost impossible this was something that was worked out in the back. He saw an opportunity, understood the purpose behind it in ensuring the crowd was turned against it, and he took it, damn the plan, damn the risks. 

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Konosuke Takeshita is a generational talent in specific areas. At his best, he evokes presence like almost no one in wrestling today. He radiates intensity and energy. He combines size and speed and power and ease of movement in a way that is reminiscent of Barry Windham or maybe even Jumbo Tsuruta. I tend to find his instincts far more suspect than Fletcher's, his matches becoming bloated and wasteful, not nearly as efficient as his physical movements across the ring, but I also can't (and wouldn't begin to want to) deny what he excels at and what makes him stand out.

He's one of the greatest raw talents of this decade certainly. Lately, he's been firing up by punching himself in the head repeatedly. He did it during his tag match with Hechicero in Mexico not long ago, and he would do it here as well, and I can hardly think of anyone else that could do that with so much earnestness and verve. Against the right opponent and in the right setting, he's phenomenal. And very much to his credit, even in the wrong setting, doing the wrong things, he's still undeniable in certain ways. 

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So here they were, bolstered by a hot angle, two incredible talents, both off strong recent performances, ready to achieve in the middle of a big card, a supercard so far as weekly television went, title on the line.

And they wrestled. They locked up and chain wrestled for a bit. 

Ah, but then after a few exchanges, Fletcher got a hand up in Takeshita's face and things threatened to boil over, like they should, into a forearm exchange.

And instead of letting really reach a fever pitch, they went right into stilted moves and counter attempts, a tease for bombs that would come later in the match. 

Things spilled out to the floor. Takeshita got distracted by Callis. Both men drank water. Takeshita missed a shot and hit the ringpost. Fletcher worked the arm for a minute. Takeshita came back and hit a big dive and smacked his face, fired up. They went to commercial.

The match would go on with them starting to hit those bigger bombs, including a huge one on the apron. Takeshita would get an advantage. Don Callis would grab his foot. He'd hit his finisher anyway. Fletcher would get a foot on the rope and then, more or less cleanly (despite those two arguable blemishes that did not lead to the finish) would win the match as the commentators noted how good a match these two had wrestled.

Where was the Kyle Fletcher of the ELP match? Why didn't Takeshita's intensity lead to bloodlust? How did any of this stem from the betrayal? What were they even doing here? 

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On my first watch, I was so thrown by all of this that I was going to come in hot, come down hard. 

I've subsequently watched again and I have softened on the match. 

Occasionally you see people say that matches shouldn't be criticized on the basis of "what you want" and I don't think I agree.

You want what you want for a reason. You have expectations coming into a match for a reason. You have a baseline in your head and a best possible scenario. You have those things for a reason, based on your understanding of other matches, of the story at play, at all the possibilities inherent in the artform. These are all completely valid things to judge a match against. That said, I think it's worth trying to understand the match that they did wrestle. If you're going to judge it against the vision in your head, at least go out of your way to wrap your head around what they gave you.

There were a number of factors at play here. This match was premature. It was premature because Takeshita's about to go off and do the G1 for a month. It was maybe premature because they wanted to ensure the International Title was taken off of him for that period, maybe so he didn't eat a bunch of tournament losses while he had it, maybe because it would be more valuable to AEW on AEW TV during this time. Fletcher had never been supposed to lose the TNT title. That was due to injury. If this wasn't going to be the blowoff, having Fletcher win could potentially just heat things up more for later, get more heat on him in general. This match was a supporting player to the main event title change that was Omega vs MJF and it followed another grudge match with a bit more plunder and chaos (and that probably needed it more to be good) in Jericho vs Ciampa. 

Plus it was hot. It was so damn hot out there in the admittedly cool outdoors setting. You could tell. I've seen thousands of matches and you only see guys actually drink water (presumably for cramping reasons) once in a blue moon. You always saw them spit it back out in World of Sport for a reason.

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Those would all be excuses, but none of them would be drivers. 

There are absolutely wrestlers who go out to wrestle the best match possible on paper, that try to check as many boxes as possible, to try to make things as conventionally exciting as they can, story be damned, character be damned, moment be damned.

While it's tempting to think that's what happened here, I don't think it actually is.

You can make the argument that this fit their characters perfectly. Takeshita only ever wants to prove himself against others. Fletcher, on the other hand, has a constant chip on his shoulder, and a need to prove himself. He did against Ospreay. He did in the Continental Classic. He does here. They wrestled this match like brothers, not trying to hurt each other, necessarily, not trying to maximize harm, but instead trying to outdo the other. Outwrestle. Outstrike. Outbomb. 

Here, the heat helped matters. It gave everything an imposing, sweltering tone. It pushed down upon them, pressed them into a corner. It gave everything more weight. Maybe it forced them to focus directly at the task at hand, at the title on the line, and it melted animosity and turned it into a blind sense of competition instead. 

It made for a good match, a very good title match. It distilled their youth and passion and a certain desperation to be seen and recognized into twenty minutes of combat over the International Title. 

I was going to lean hard into the idea that while this was a great match, it wasn't good, because it didn't live up to the build and the potential. I was going to use the timing of it as an excuse.

On a second watch, I don't think that's fair. I think it was both great AND good, that it was plausible and believable given who these two are, where they are in their career, their overall relationship with one another.

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But I don't think it was RIGHT.

I don't think it was the right match for the moment. I think it was shoehorned in due to externalities, due to necessities. 

The betrayal was too recent, too raw, too deep. They hadn't gotten it out of their system yet. 

This is a match that is built to, just like Savage vs Steamboat from Mania III was a match that was built to. Maybe the outcome would have been different, but this the sort of match that should have followed the grudge match and the chain match and the lumberjack match and the cage match. 

I don't think Takeshita should have the bloodlust out of his system yet. I don't think Fletcher should be past the self-delusion and the spite. This match had competitiveness and even moments of brutality but it lacked cruelty. 

They can bring Takeshita back later, have his music hit, have him ruin one of Fletcher's moments, have him make some sort of save, have him get a pop. They can do another angle to get heat back on this.

But they can never have this specific first match again. They can't go back to the start. Fletcher betrayal was answered by Takeshita here by having the best darn wrestling match he could. And yes, it was valid, great, and good. He tried to show his brother up, show that he was better. 

But even that didn't come close to matching the moment. 

They left the blood on the table, chose to honor sweat instead. This was one of those times that blood would have been everything. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/29 - 7/5

AEW Dynamite 7/1/26

MJF vs Mark Briscoe

MD: This, much like MJF's 2026 overall, is a story about vulnerability and about strength. If I've learned anything about pro wrestling over the last twenty years, it's that the greatest tool that a pro wrestler has is vulnerability. It's counter-intuitive maybe, and dozens upon dozens of wrestlers over the years have certainly felt that way, almost entirely to their own detriment, but it's the skeleton key. Pro wrestling isn't math. Sometimes it's magic. But if there's one lever that can lift up the world, it's vulnerability.

You know some of the great examples. You have Honky Tonk Man, who let himself look the coward and fool and was set up to lose each and every night only to somehow escape with the belt. It's more than just him though. It's almost every great heel champion during the territory era. They were primed for failure (and thus success; weakness and thus strength) through non-title matches, through angles, through time limit draws, to give hope to crowds, to build up expectations, to get people into the building. They'd win with a banana peel finish, with the feet on the ropes, due to interference, and thus the babyface came out stronger even in defeat. 

There's Terry Funk in Japan. Why did Terry get over unlike almost any other foreigner? It's because he let himself get beat down like no one else around him. And then, of course, once he got beat down, he never quit, he always kept fighting. There's Stan Hansen, who was a force of nature, an absolute beast, but if he smashed his arm into the corner post, if he had someone who could work him over in just the right way, it'd be a wedge that would shatter even steel. 

The wrestler that feels like he can't show ass, the heel that can't or won't stooge, the babyface that has to look overly tough, all of the wrestlers that have to get all of their stuff in, those are the wrestlers who'll always be a step behind in the end, whose matches won't hold up in the grand scheme of things. 

Vulnerability moves hearts and minds even today. It creates dissonance. People know that MJF can do so many things, yet he still goes for shortcuts, still begs off. The match started and the crowd chanted almost equally for MJF and Briscoe. So what did they do? 

MJF started with a cheapshot kick to the gut. He put on a headlock, got tossed right off, and then hefted up into a sidewalk slam. He scooted back to the corner and tried to beg off, tried to call time out just seconds into the match, and Briscoe stomped him. He tossed Max into the corner but Max lifted up and over, sold his bum leg like it was really hurt, but it was all a feint so he could step over and hit the pile driver. 

In the span of a minute or two, he showed that he was willing to start the match ignobly, to run away and beg off when things didn't go his way, to fake an injury to get an advantage. And guess what? The fans weren't chanting for him anymore. He had the advantage. He had clearly shown that he was capable and dangerous, had survived a big early move by Briscoe. Yet, he had done it in the least admirable way possible. Strength in vulnerability. Vulnerability in strength. Your lead heel. Feel free to boo him.

And of course, once he got under the crowd's skin, he doubled down, pulling Briscoe's bandage off, taking a bite of the wound, then mocking the crowd for buying into his hurt leg with a smirk on his face. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. He worked the wound. He hit a back body drop. He posed and preened. Of course, because pro wrestling is better than real life, on the third back body drop, Briscoe landed on his feet and Max turned around, frozen like a punching bag, unafraid to be vulnerable, unafraid to stooge, as he stumbled right into some redneck kung fu.

Briscoe would beat on Max for a bit, would go for the Froggy Bow. Max would fall onto the rope, crotching him. Strength of action, vulnerability of character. He'd point to his head, let it sink in, and then get knocked off the turnbuckles when he tried to follow up, eating said Froggy Bow. Vulnerability of action to go with his vulnerability of character. It's a morality play, one that feels so incredibly refreshing against the backdrop of a real world where the bad guys seem to get away with just about everything.

The match would continue along these lines. MJF would go out of his way to give the fans nothing to admire. When Briscoe tried to use a table, Max reversed things and tossed him onto the apron instead. Then he carefully put the table away and subsequently played to the crowd as if he was going to get another table before flicking them off. The table might have given him an advantage, but here his vulnerability was his hatred of them, his ego. That's the thing about Max at his best, he sets himself up to lose either way, and in doing that he wins at being a heel, especially when he still somehow gets away with it. 

And get away with it he would. This time around, the match ended with MJF surviving the Jay Driller, no foot on the ropes, no rolling out of the ring. He kicked out. Undeniable strength in the face of all that vulnerability. It's a difficult balance, strength and vulnerability. You need that title to stand for something. You need his ultimate comeuppance to matter. Honky Tonk Man was pretty vicious when he had his opportunities, but that was also a secondary belt. This is the world title. 

Briscoe is a folk hero, bulletproof to a degree (him winning the TNT title last year was very important just to keep the faith), and Max had so much vulnerability to cash in on, both in this match and in general. He had lost to Darby in a similar circumstance right after a PPV. He had never kicked out of the Jay Driller before. The way things have gone this year, people are well and truly left guessing. There's something to that if you want to draw a weekly TV rating. All of this made the stip next week where Omega (like Hangman before him) won't be able to challenge again if he loses all the more poignant, and MJF kicking out of the Jay Driller will give them some capital to cash in if Omega gets to hit the One Winged Angel. All of this matters. All too often, pro wrestling spends and spends and spends. Max has been investing well this year, and my gut says there are plenty of payoffs left to come. 

And yet none of this would be possible if he didn't have the bravery to be the most vulnerable guy going, even as yes, he hangs on to that belt for yet another week after finishing as strong as ever. That's pro wrestling for you.

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The Many Enemies of Maxwell Jacob Friedman (AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/1 - 6/7)

AEW Dynamite 6/3/26

MJF vs RUSH

MD: Conflict in Literature:

MJF vs Nature (RUSH): This is what MJF was up against: RUSH, a rage-filled, ungovernable beast, a monster, the white bull. He had faced men like Darby Allin and Brody King and Mark Briscoe who walked a certain line, but RUSH was deeply over it. Years ago, MJF would have cowered and run from him. Now, he saw himself as the great hunter, as a matador, and he meant to wield his own esteemed civility as a weapon. He provoked RUSH backstage before the show. When the bell rang, he charged right in. When RUSH won the first exchange, MJF spit in his face. When RUSH caught his foot, he poked him in the eye. RUSH kept coming, yes, but MJF was ready for that. He wanted him angry. He wanted him enraged. He wanted him making mistakes. It was RUSH that pulled off the corner turnbuckle pad, but it was MJF who was able to use the referee as a stalking horse to slam RUSH's head in and open him up. Even after RUSH took over, MJF was still laying snares, catching him in the corner to drive down upon his arm and injure him. Down the stretch, when all looked lost for MJF, when he had just barely survived the Horns dropkick in the corner and when RUSH was about to hit it again on the outside, MJF sidestepped at the last moment, one last triumph of man over nature, allowing him to hit the tombstone, the beginning of the end.

MJF vs Man (Rush): Where MJF may have miscalculated is by overlooking the fact that underneath the bestial exterior was the heart of a man, a man with pride, a man who could make calculated decisions. Andrade had tried to focus Rush before the match, had tried to remind him of who he was and what he was and why he did this. A beast knows fight or flight. A man can draw on something deeper. A man can learn from mistakes, can adapt. Even bloodied and reeling, Rush was able to steal MJF's own trick: when MJF pushed Bryce aside to try to do more damage with that exposed turnbuckle, Rush turned the tide and tossed him in head first. Later on in the match, with his arm so damaged, instead of fighting blindly or fleeing and quitting, Rush used the ringpost to relocate his shoulder and stay in the match. It's what pushed him to hit that straightjacket pile driver on the apron. That wasn't the wild act of a beast. It was the driven, focused precision of man. Even at the very end, he refused to quit, showing his defiance as his body gave way. Yet, despite it all, Rush's humanity had its limits and it was by drawing the beast back out of him that MJF forced those mistakes that allowed him to win the day.

MJF vs Self (MJF): The other factor that allowed Rush to get back into the fight was, of course, MJF himself, his own hubris, his own mistakes as a character, his inability to get out of his own way. That's how he got into this fight in the first place, by getting right into Rush's face. That's how this became a no countouts match, by him pressing the matter further. On some level, yes, it was all part of a ploy to drive Rush to distraction and to make mistakes, but in the heat of the moment, maybe there's a little beast within MJF too. It's one that needs to preen, that needs to lash out at everyone and everything around him, that demands recognition, that cares about legacy because it's the only way to prove everyone wrong about him, most of all himself. It was one thing to make Rush angry. It was another to rub it in with the crowd, to make horns after his eyepoke, to drape his arms over the ropes in satisfaction after laying a shot in, to talk into the camera, to taunt whenever he had a moment. Maybe that's the entire point? Maybe if MJF's not rubbing it in, he's not really alive. Everything is a means to that end, to prove some sort of ridiculous point. Maybe he's just that insecure. Every time he lost that battle with himself, however, it gave Rush a chance to come back, gave him another shot at victory. MJF was able to steady himself in the end, through necessity as much as anything else, and lured RUSH in one last time, but he made the road bumpier than it had to be along the way.

Max vs Society: And yet, even with that, the fans still cheered for him now and again, still chanted MJF when he was being announced. That was after Max went out of his way to have Justin Roberts pause that announcement to insult the crowd twice. It's why he gave Rush so many openings through his character's emotional weaknesses, because he has to constantly hammer it through the crowd's head that they're to boo him, that they are to get out of their own way, not try to be smart or difficult or go into business for themselves. MJF is formidable and dangerous, full of bluster but able to back it up, but it's all on Max to constantly stay on his toes so as not to give the crowd anything tangible to latch on to. Rush, despite being a rudo if not a heel, gave them so much, constantly embracing the moment and letting everyone come along for the ride, appealing not to them but with them, letting them scream and chant along. Yet even then, at a key point in the match, they stopped cheering for him and decided that everything was equally awesome instead. MJF was fighting man, beast, himself, but Max's real enemy is that crowd.  

MJF vs Author (Max): Except for sometimes, it's himself (Max) as well. This could be reality, too, couldn't it? Maybe it's society? But to blame anyone other than Max is to embrace nihilism. Yes, there is structure, but he has agency. Max has the power. He's the wrestler. He's the one who conducts the crowd. So yes, he's on a so often card with exhausting high-spot laden, counter-heavy, 5+ star classics, and he has to stay true to himself and try to get a reaction out of these crowds other than "This is Awesome," something more visceral, something more meaningful, something that will last. Sometimes, he becomes his own worst enemy there, trying to keep up, trying to match other former PPV main events to get in front of cagematch scores and (other) critics, and what we end up with is something overly bloated. It's understandable, human, even if it means he's following the trend instead of creating it. On TV, though, there's less of that perceived need, and that's why he's right up there with Darby with best TV wrestler of the year. I'd say he's probably got him beat, but that's just me. Certainly on this night, Max made sure that MJF shined in all of the right (which for him almost always means "the wrong") ways. He gets it as well as anyone going. He just has to refuse to blink even when others don't get it.

MJF vs Technology (The yellow cord): This is a stretch, and a very literal one at that, but yes, that yellow electrical cord did come into play, and yes, after MJF lured RUSH in again and hit a drop toehold on a chair, he ever so casually kicked it back under the ring. I always warn against checking boxes, but this once I wanted to check a box, sorry. He not only beat technology there, but made sure not to give the fans anything to latch on to in the process. No candy for them. 

Max vs God/Fate: Life happens. It happened after All Out 2022 where Max's return got upended. It happened to Adam Cole, a fluke injury that derailed Max's first title run. At some point in the match, it happened here too and Max came out of this with a hurt knee. This has been a great year for Max, a great title run, and now the start of a second, with what seemed to be really good Briscoe and Andrade matches ahead of him. But he's out there fighting the crowd, fighting the last thirty years of history, fighting every card that he's on, and fighting, yeah, himself. What's fighting god and fate in the face of that? It's just one more fight, and he's got plenty left in him. He's just getting started.

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Belief (AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 5/13/26

Darby Allin vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: Wrestling isn't about being real.

It's about being true.

And the engine of truth is belief.

Darby Allin is the rare sort of wrestler that makes us believe. It's in the name, definitional, right? A huge aspect of belief is making our suspension of disbelief as easy as possible. If our disbelief isn't suspended, we spend all of our time looking at the strings, thinking about how the trick is done, feeling like we're smarter than what we're watching, focusing more on the craft than the narrative unveiling before us. 

And that can be ok, especially on a second watch, but it's a level of distance, a level of disconnect. 

With Darby matches, we don't have to worry about it. Our disbelief is suspended. There are plenty of ways to accomplish it. I'll talk about some more when I get to Takeshita. But Darby? He does it the hard way. Maybe you could call it the hardcore way. He crashes and burns again and again in order to keep our eye on the ball, so that we stay focused, so that we don't blink. 

He takes hellacious bumps, not just at the hands of his opponents, but at his own hands, utilizing his own body as his deadliest weapon, making the diabolically brave and foolish calculation that whatever his opponent might take, he can take just a little more. He sells it all, grasping, crawling, scraping, writhing, and it feels like the sort of trick he can only do once, to blow himself up so that he can express that pain to the world and draw every viewer in. Except he does it again and again and again.

And over time, that builds up a second sort of belief, the belief that he can survive it all. Endless kickouts are a problem with all modern wrestling, but not with Darby, because Darby is the exception that proves the rule. With him, it never feels excessive, because he lives and breathes a different sort of more tangible excess, and it makes us believe that you just can't keep him down for three seconds. What's three seconds in the face of everything else he gets up from?

Then there's Konosuke. If Darby is reaction, then Takeshita is action, the other side of belief. He towers over opponents, has precise technique, moves with such ease and explosiveness. Darby Allin survives explosions. Konosuke Takeshita is the explosion. 

When he hits Darby with a German Suplex off the top and holds the bridge, it's a seemingly impossible physical act made believable, plausible, immersive, by his presence, how he carries himself, and that little extra bit of we know about him, the fact that he wrote his thesis on the German Suplex. 

In that regard, they're two sides of the same coin, both able to make the impossible seem possible and the possible seem incredible. 

There's another aspect of belief, however. That presence of Takeshita? It's partially because the character of Konosuke Takeshita believes in himself completely. He believes that he is the Alpha. He believes that he is a World Champion waiting to happen. He believes that he is better than Okada. He believes that he can beat Darby; he did so once before after all.

I'm not convinced that Ciampa believed that, that Brody King believed that, that Kevin Knight believed that, not deep down. PAC wasn't a rational actor to begin with, so let's leave him out of this. Knight wrestled conservatively, right until he couldn't. Ciampa compensated with a wild streak, Brody with a bestial streak. They overcompensated, overstretched.

Takeshita did not overstretch. He did not take foolhardy chances. When Darby tried to throw himself at Takeshita, Takeshita stood firm and swatted him down. He had answers for everything Darby tried and Darby had so few answers for the problem of Takeshita. Too big. Too strong. Too sure. Darby moved out of the way causing Takeshita to crash knee first into the stairs. Takeshita brushed himself off and took back over. Darby cleverly vaulted over him and then kicked out that selfsame knee and locked in a guillotine like he did with Knight. Takeshita just hefted him up and escaped. Too much.

Darby does outlast his opponents. He sends them both through the meat grinder and he comes out of it, sinew hanging off of bone to match his painted up face, more in his element, more able to survive. But he outlasts them another way as well. He breaks their spirit by surviving all of their best offense, their best attempt to put him down; by kicking out again and again. 

Eventually, Takeshita (being too much) finally did hit that power drive knee. And Darby kicked out. Takeshita was not shaken. He had other tools in his arsenal. Or maybe he'd just slam his knee into Darby's skull until his head was no longer attached to his shoulders. He had options. 

Don Callis, however, did not have that same sort of faith. He had been provided the Dynamite Diamond Ring before the match, an extra piece of insurance from an MJF who does not quite believe in himself enough to put his hair upon the line, not unless he has absolutely no other choice. Once Darby kicked out of the knee, Callis' belief in Takeshita was shaken and he enacted Plan B. Clon rushed to ringside to distract the ref. Callis gave Takeshita the ring. 

In doing so, he did far more harm than good. Takeshita refused to use the ring, for to be forced to need it would shatter his confidence in himself. And he was momentarily distracted in getting rid of it, which helped to let Darby recover.

There was a bigger issue at play though. He realized in that moment that Callis did not believe in him nearly as much as he believed in himself. Darby may have been able to survive up until that point, but he couldn't crack Takeshita's armor, armor forged through faith and confidence, through belief. 

Callis did that hard work for him. 

And Takeshita, instead of pressing on, went back to the well, back to the stairs on the outside even though the gambit had failed before. Thus shaken, he fell to the same overcompensating, overstretching, of Darby's previous opponents. Darby reversed things, and Takeshita ate a Scorpion Death Drop onto the stairs because of it.

The beginning of the end.

Belief is everything. Wrestling is not just a series of loosely connected spots. It is action and reaction. It is a building built over time. The cement that holds it all together is belief. Sometimes it is created by bumps, selling, execution; sometimes by confidence, presence, body language; and sometimes by the characters' belief in themselves and how that shapes a narrative and touches our hearts out in the crowd or through a screen.

You may think that what makes Darby Allin great is the daring, the bumping, or even the selling, but those are just the means. You may think what makes Takeshita great is his execution, his intensity; even, I suppose, simply his moves, but those too are just the means. 

Darby and Takeshita are great because they are so good at getting us to believe.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/4 - 5/10

ROH TV 5/7/26

The Infantry vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz

MD: I don't get a lot of chance to talk about the Infantry. I'd like to talk about the Infantry. I'm going to talk about the Infantry. 

If you asked me my take on Bravo and Dean in 2023, I'd tell you that they had a real WCW C-Show vibe to them, that sort of Men At Work or Disorderly Conduct feel. Mean Mike and Tough Tom. Nothing wrong with that. My kind of thing. Good hands. Guys you want on a card. Guys who could put over people you want to push and make them look good in a five minute or seven minute or ten minute match, whatever time you had to fill. A good team, but a low ceiling as high energy babyfaces who could engage the crowd early in the night and do their job well. 

They have come so far from that point and I'd argue without a ton of machinery behind them. You want me to liken them to someone now? I'd compare them to DDP, someone who put in the work, honed his act, got better and better, and ultimately was undeniable. Obviously, they're not entirely (definitionally) undeniable yet, but no one that takes the time, seeks them out, and pays attention would think of denying them. Right now, I don't see a ceiling except for the imagination of bookers. 

They're an incredibly alive, immersive, engaged act. Constant movement, constant working (their opponents in the ring and on the apron, the ref, the camera, the crowd, each other, other members of STP at ringside), constant jawing, constant innovation. They keep adding to the act. That could be anything from Ishin Gundan style clubbering in the corner to Dean utilizing the Bronco Buster to Bravo sitting on the apron and talking to the camera or playing to Christyan XO at ringside. Bravo has fun strikes, and I think his crossover punch looks a good as almost anything else in AEW/ROH. 

And they manage all of this while leaning into the strengths of tag team wrestling instead of just letting it fall to excess and become a structureless mess. 

Look at the Eddie/Ortiz match. Ortiz scrapped with them early, but they managed a blind tag and took over on him. They cut off the ring in about six different ways: Dean knocked Ortiz from a neutral corner into the Infantry's with a European uppercut. When Ortiz tried to proactively fight his way out, they caught him and started the tandem clubbering. That drew Eddie in and when the ref pulled him back, they Dean took the initiative to choke Ortiz into the ropes with his foot. He tagged right before Ortiz could start to fight back and Bravo cut him off. 

Ortiz was great here, constantly fighting back and looking for opportunities. When Bravo put him up in the tree of woe so he could throw punches, Ortiz proved himself to be anything but helpless and started biting Bravo's hand. Bravo in turn, stomped away. That drew Eddie and Dean took advantage. Eddie chased Dean around ringside, Bravo ambushed him, and they both attacked Ortiz. This is just great tag team wrestling, great heeling, using the rules as something to push off of to create a compelling narrative instead of running from them in the name of "creativity." The things they were doing here were far more creative than most endless bomb spotfests, because it was all creative within meaningful boundaries. 

From there, it's more cutting off the ring. Bravo shot off with Garvin stomps to Ortiz' extremities, but each one drove him back towards Dean in the corner. Dean came in, worked a hold. Ortiz fought up, got some hope, got cut off to Eddie's chagrin, and they took back control in their corner. That meant a tandem whip in, the Carlie Crossover punch, and Dean adding insult to injury while Bravo talked to the camera. They're just an incredibly complete, multi-faceted act at this point. 

After drawing in Eddie one last time, the match made it to the hot tag, but only after making Ortiz really earn it. The belly-to-back suplex he got just opened the door; he still had to dodge one last attempt to cut the ring in half and roll his way to the corner. Things broke down accordingly. Eddie cleaned house, trapped Dean and then both in the corner with his Kobashi chops (stooging; another facet to the act), and Ortiz got some revenge with a spinebuster and tandem Russian Leg Sweep/STO.

They transitioned quickly from comeback to finishing stretch by breaking up a Doomsday Device attempt and then took it home sharply, focused, avoiding sixteen false finishes and going with a banana peel instead. They hit a powerplex, which I'm not sure I've ever seen them do. Ortiz broke up Boot Camp, Eddit got his exploder, Ortiz snuck out a a drive forward pin, and they cycled into the post-match with STP going on the assault and Mance Warner making the save, building to the next thing.

Really good, focused, character-driven, technically sound, dynamic tag team wrestling that was built upon all the fundamentals of building up pressure and letting it all boil over that the art form is all about. They could have had a similar match a couple of years ago, but it wouldn't have had the same over the top confidence that makes them stand out so much now. It's the combination of the two, the substance and the style, that makes the Infantry special. People may not always consciously notice the substance, but it's there as strongly as any other team in the company, and they've picked their own stylized lane when it comes to laying sizzle on top of it, the chip on their shoulder driving an aggression that sticks with you as a viewer. You could slot them anywhere on the card and they'd deliver. 

Between Eddie's frustration on the apron, Ortiz playing his role extremely well, and the Infantry owning every aspect of this match, this reminded me of an entirely different sort of WCW match, something like Horsemen vs Rich/Morton where it was still a TV match, still niche, still relatively low stakes, but where some of us still remember it very fondly.

AEW Dynamite 5/6/26

Kevin Knight vs Darby Allin

MD: This was a solid and clever progression from the previous couple of weeks. It started out as a babyface title match, and rarely do 2026 title matches really feel like traditional NWA style title matches in the build. This did. They began by wrestling. There's something really refreshing about that. It was character-driven too. Darby's dangerous on the mat, but Knight is dojo trained. He saw how Darby kept luring people or dragging them into endless escalation, into mutually assured destruction. Darby is, as previously noted, a cockroach, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. He survives the escalation when others cannot. That's how he wins.

For most of the match, Knight was ready for it and he kept his head. That meant sticking to wrestling for as long as possible. The problem, of course, is that Knight didn't get to fully decide. Darby is a proactive, engaged competitor, a champion, one who feels like he is fighting for his life. Where Knight slipped was when he let Darby control the pace. That's when they crashed into one another with flying clotheslines, when they started rope running only for Darby to change things up again and go to striking instead. In that regard, it really felt like a world title match, like a game of human chess.

Still, Knight showed restraint and maturity. Darby has a need for excess, a need to push things farther. It's how he wins but it's also how he feels alive. Kevin Knight? He feels plenty alive all the time. He's doing fine. He's living his best life while Darby's living the only life possible for him. So when he dropkicked Darby out of the ring, he didn't go diving after him. He took a beat, took a breath, slid out and kept control. Very smart pro wrestling.

Darby is, however, a raging river, and even the strongest dam can only hold off against the rapids for so long. Knight took every opportunity but Darby kept coming. He tried to go after the leg, but Darby would have no part in it. He tried to control the pace, but there was only so much he, or anyone else, could do.  Eventually, Knight could put up with no more. Darby positioned him into a chair on the floor like he'd done with previous opponents. Knight avoided their fate (usually a missile dropkick from the top downwards), but Darby ended up in the perfect position for an insane Knight aerial attack, and Knight couldn't refuse. 

The subsequent clothesline from the top over the announce table was spectacular but also clearly a strategic mistake. Knight came out of it worse off, hobbled. Darby was prone, but Knight was a half step slow in taking advantage. He followed up with the Coast to Coast dropkick that had previously taken out Darby (at least that's what they tell us), but despite that and the UFO that followed it, he couldn't cover Darby in time due to the injured leg. When Darby rolled away on a second attempt, Knight had no choice but to follow and he walked right into a trap: Darby kicked out the leg and got the guillotine that eventually set him up to win.

Overall, another strong title defense driven by Darby's penchant for escalation and his opponent having to weigh the cost/benefit of keeping up or pulling back. Knight had managed well right until he didn't. I'll be honest that I would have been happier if the finish was set up by Knight coming up short with the Coast to Coast due to the injury. There's a tendency for AEW to overdo finishes here. Knight wiping out on the Coast to Coast would have been just as dramatic as him hitting two huge moves but not being able to capitalize and would have gotten over the consequence of what happened even more. That's a nitpick though. Overall, this, like the previous two matches and the PAC match that followed was very good. Hell of a title run so far.

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

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

The Top of the Mountain 

Darby Allin vs Tommaso Ciampa/Darby Allin vs Brody King

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

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

Then you look down.

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

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

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

Because there is a mountain.

What is my purpose?

The mountain.

What now?

Revenge.

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

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

And when that was done?

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

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

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

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

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

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

But this time, there was something different. 

Unlike Everest, he didn't have to leave.

So long as he could defend the title.  

The purpose of a champion is to defend the title. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Will Ospreay is 12

AEW Dynamite 4/17/26

Will Ospreay vs Hechicero

(The fictional character of) Will Ospreay is very, very dumb. 

And that's okay. It fits classic archetypes, the simple, quirky, strong hero with the good heart who can't bear to see injustice done around him. Li'l Abner. Andy Griffith's character in No Time for Sergeants. Maybe Tom Brown in Tom Brown's Schooldays if we want to go the UK route. The gentle giant. The stalwart knight. Galahad in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Gourry in Slayers, to talk about old anime because I don't know any new anime (Goku works, maybe? Everyone knows Goku. He seems dumber than Goku; Luffy? That works, right?). It's an archetype. Pure of heart; so pure that he's not all that bright, for knowledge corrupts and all that. 

The character of Will Ospreay is a basically well-meaning dog who is going to bite at his wound and needs a collar of shame. He is stubborn. He is prideful. He is absolutely assured of his own ability. 

Maybe it's not just okay. Maybe it actually fits the moment we live in. There has been recent  social commentary about how everyone's a twelve year old boy now. The US has a Department of War and argues about the Gulf of America. Hollywood properties are all superhero movies and nostalgic remakes. 

The viral post on bluesky from "Patrick Cosmos" introducing the concept was as follows:

"I'm strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm" of course you do. You're twelve. "I don't want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal" hell yeah homie you're twelve. "Maybe if there's crime we should just send the army" bless your heart my twelve year old buddy."

And... that's perfect for the character of Will Ospreay, right? He's big, dumb, does flips, is going to slam that round peg into the square hole until it fits, dammit. Because he's that determined and that stalwart and that sure of himself. If you do him wrong, he will be hurt and very angry about it, and will punch you, and kick you, and do a back flip at you and look very angry as he does it. If you hurt him, he will be hurt, and sell the hurt, and then hit all of his stuff perfectly, really focusing, really getting it done, and then it will really hurt him, because it was dumb, and he shouldn't have done it that way, but it’s the only way he knows how so he’s not going to let that stop him.

He's a perfect pro wrestling character for our time. 

And this is the lens you have to understand literally everything he does, all of his matches. It's the only way his matches make any coherent, logical sense. They fall apart under carefully examination otherwise. Trust me, I’ve tried. With the lens though… He's Dudley Do-Right. He's George of the Jungle. He's stronger than the average wrestler, faster, slicker, more agile, more resilient, far, far more stubborn. 

His weakness, so much as he has any weakness, is that he is so, so very dumb and stubborn. 

We've not dealt with any sort of wrestling character like this since maybe Henry Godwinn? Hillbilly Jim? Maybe Festus? He's basically playing the classic US country bumpkin but instead he's an Assassin's Creed cloak wearing 12-year old who represents modernity in ways that hit the zeitgeist perfectly.

There will be logic and causality in his matches but it's never going to be the most satisfying when it comes to build and payoff, clear and clean transitions, clean act breaks (Storytelling). Because he's too dumb a character for any of that; he's too stubborn. He's going to run his head into the wall again and again and you can't tell Go Dog Go in that scenario let alone Shakespeare. But that doesn't mean that what you end up seeing isn't exciting, like a fireworks display is exciting, and like fireworks displays, even if the build isn't necessarily there, there's probably going to be a grand finale. 

Just remember at all times that this character is a blistering moron with a heart of gold, and you'll find your way through the jungle of great spots and exciting sequences and absolutely broken causality that starts right before he does something and doesn’t start back up until after. Because he's going to hit you with his broken hand. He'll sell it beforehand and he will sell it afterwards, but he's going to hit you with it anyway, damn it, because he is Will Ospreay, bruv, and because he can. Don’t tell Picasso how to paint, and don’t tell Will Ospreay he can’t punch someone with his broken hand. 

So, with that lens established, here he faced Hechicero. It's a little like super competent bad guys trying to fight Inspector Gadget or Maxwell Smart, right? You can use the best techniques and the best traps, but Ospreay's going to stick that peg into that hole anyway, no matter the shape, and there’s virtually nothing you can do to stop him. 

Instead of going high to start, Hechicero went low, pulling a leg, scoring a takedown, tying Ospreay up. There were a hundred ways for Ospreay to potentially escape; he wasn’t even all that far from the ropes. But no, he had to do a headstand and use a toupie style twisting escape, damaging his own heavily taped neck right from the get go. Because he is a stubborn moron. You get the sense he KNEW it was going to hurt his neck and he did it anyway, just to prove that he could. 

Ospreay, now angry and wanting to get back at Hechicero, eye for an eye style like any good 12 year old, went for one of his legs. Hechicero stepped over, took Will down. Will tried to counter a couple of times, but ended up tied up in a knot again for his trouble. Will finally got out and put on a side headlock takeover, confident, sure of himself, needing to show everyone he was just as good as one of the best technical wrestlers in the world. Hechicero immediately turned it into a headscissors and again, instead of prying the legs open or getting out any other way, Will just had to bridge up and hop around him before vaulting to his feet. He immediately sold his neck. Of course he did. He stupidly hurt it getting out of the hold. Hechicero hadn’t even targeted the neck yet! He was targeting everything else, maybe most of all Ospreay’s 12-year old pride, and then Will was doing all the work for him!

Then, finally, Hechicero started in on the head with a dropkick and a few strikes. Will, seeing red once more, hit a clutch ‘rana to take him over. That made everything fun for him again. He stomped about, hyped up the crowd, and hit a dive. That hurt (he rubbed his shoulder), and he started in with some good old fashioned fisticuffs instead. This was the smartest thing he’d done so far and the lad should be lauded for it. Hechicero tried to fire back but to no avail. Instead of showing off or outwrestling him, Will gave him the what for, stiff upper lip entirely focused on beating Hechicero around the ringside area and then back into the ring. That included a ten punch in the corner, great fun that almost cost him, as Hechicero slipped out. 

Will was able to ping Hechicero with a spin wheel kick though (not sure if that hurt the shoulder since he didn’t sell it), and then went right into a figure four lock of all things. Why that? If you ask me, it was to get back at those leg submissions from before, combined with the animal instinct to keep his head away from Hechicero. Most of all though, it let him look Hechicero in the eyes, let him stare right at him and say “Ha, I got you now, Bruv. Who’s the mat specialist?” Pure id. Hechicero tried a few things but went to the ropes before long, a sensible move from a sensible rudo.

Will stayed on the leg, but quickly got distracted by Marina Shafir sitting in the crowd, allowing Hechicero to come back, and after a few reversal attempts (Ospreay seeming perfectly fine throughout), Hechicero was able to hit the conjuro spinning backbreaker followed up by a step up knee to the back of the head in the corner. Nasty stuff. Hechicero followed it up, tactician that he is, by working the leg up to the shoulder, to finally unlock the neck with a twisting crank of his feet. He was basking in it now, feeling momentum and his own thrill of victory, as he skillfully locked in la tapitia. Will grimaced as Hechicero yanked his hair in the hold, his visage becoming more teeth than face as his neck was pulled back. 

Hechicero moved in for the kill, tossing Will against the ropes once more. It was the worst thing he could do. Any normal, reasonable human being would have bounced back, ducked, hit a clothesline, jumping knee, big boot, anything that wouldn’t hurt himself as well when it absolutely wasn’t necessary. Those were things that Hechicero might expect, might plan for, might be ready to counter. But no, good ol’ Will wasn’t going to do that. Instead he went right onto his head again, bouncing off the ropes with a handspring and hit a flipping kick. You can’t defend against stupidity. The greatest chess master sometimes has more to fear from someone who doesn’t know the rules of the game. 

Ospreay continued on with a springboard elbow (wincing on impact) and a standing sky twister press. That led to Callis and Danielson getting ahead of me and this review and going on about just how dumb Will is, a rare point of agreement between the two. Still, Ospreay pressed his advantage and even though Hechicero fought back, Will was primed, ready to unleash the Hidden Blade. Just not as ready as Hechicero was. Hechicero caught him on the charge with one of his finishers, the twisting headscissors legdrop. That would have been, to any normal person, the end of the match. To Ospreay, dumb but preternaturally tough and resilient, that meant that he actually had to put his foot on the rope to beat the count on a pin. No small thing for such a superheroic figure.

That drew the doctor in to check on him. Will wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t stop. He’d done nothing but take neck damage since he returned from surgery, but he couldn’t even imagine such an eventuality. He can’t even spell “eventuality.” So Hechicero dropped him throat first on the rail. Still, even after the Doctor checked on him more, he refused to throw in the towel. That’s not something to hold against him. Most babyfaces wouldn’t. It’s not exactly the same as doing a headstand when you didn’t need to. Still, it’s consistent; it’s all consistent! That’s the point!

But now, as they came back from their second commercial break, Hechicero had Will in real danger. He had him draped over the rope, yanking on the neck. Will got free and immediately charged right at Hechicero only to get tripped and go sailing over the top. Oh Will. Hechicero hit a dive of his own and followed it up with his diving elbow to a standing opponent but to the back of Will’s head. Again, brutal stuff. 

But it didn’t matter, because in this world that we’re stuck in, you don’t have to be smart. You just have to be incessant. If you don’t give up, and you don’t admit fault, and you just keep on tweeting through it, well… eventually things will go your way. That’s exactly what Will did and as Hechicero went for a suplex, Will turned it into a Stundog Millionaire. He used the distance that earned him to charge at Hechicero (of course he did) and ran right into a foot (of course he did). But he kept the pressure on and caught Hechicero over his shoulder. This time the shoulder gave way. Hechicero went for a small package. Ospreay was able to turn it over and then (again going tit for tat, anything you can do I can do better, in 12 year old fashion) went for a backslide of his own.

That didn’t work and neither did his attempt at the Oscutter, shoulder generally fine for it, by the way; it was just that Hechicero caught him. Hech followed it by turning another pin attempt into his vaulting rear naked choke, but here, maybe the great tactician overthought things and should have just kept it simple himself. He figured Ospreay would be ready for it and turned it into a cross armbreaker. Ospreay was able to tough it out (neck and all) and shove that round hole into the square peg once and for all, lifting him up for a Styles Clash and hitting the Hidden Blade for the pin and the win.

And I have to admit, having this lens in mind, the idea that the kayfabe character of Will Ospreay is a nigh-invulnerable, super powerful, ridiculously athletic blistering idiot meant that a lot of the narrative issues I would have had with the match could be brushed over. That doesn’t mean the drama was really maximized, though I think they got it closer than usual. It does mean that you could draw a throughline from beginning to end. Some side missions like the figure-four that didn’t really have any impact in the match over all? Well that was Will just being a petty idiot. Him doing handsprings perfectly and only selling after the fact? A stubborn idiot. The endless times he just charged into something? Well, that’s just Will, innit? And in the end, Hechicero found himself playing chess against someone playing checkers and instead of taking his king, got crowned on top of his head for his trouble. 

Dudley Do-Right has caught his man. George of the Jungle stopped the poachers. Goku vanquished the … evil Saiyans trying to invade earth? Peace is restored to the land. And thankfully, because everyone is twelve, no one even had to think too hard about it (except for me, I guess), and no one (not even me) even had to learn a moral lesson.

So there we have it. After 54 five star matches from the Observer, moral lesson or no, I think I’ve finally figured out the perfect framework to watch and appreciate Will Ospreay matches. And now, like anyone who stares at a Picasso painting for too long, I have a headache.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Brody

I wrote this 15 months ago and never posted it. Another love letter to Darby Allin. 

 

Darby Allin vs. Brody King AEW Dynamite 11/27/24

ER: It feels like a bit of a visual cheat to send Darby out there covered in bandages and tape. I understand selling a beating but I also love the idea of Darby's injuries all accumulating internally, his bones sounding like a wrench in a cement mixer when he moves. I don't need him biting into blood filled condoms every other week like Ken Shamrock, but I like the quiet dignity of a nutcase who has to be compiling injuries and refuses to show them. Now, Darby is showing all of them! His head is bandaged, his ribs are wrapped, his thigh is wrapped so visibly that it's wrapped over his leggings! In my day, men used to start wrestling in chaps or trash bag pants to hide their knee braces, but Darby is now wrapping his legs over his leggings.  Darby, I want you to hide your physical pain eternally, and to only let us in by way of screams and panicked writhing after a crash. I don't think I've ever seen a Darby match where he was doing this much physical selling before the bell, already holding his ribs and hopping around on one leg, and I don't know if I needed it. Not now. Don't tell us.  

I don't think the extra visible tape made this match any better than it was already going to be. But it is great, and Darby is provided hardly any openings. Brody catches the first kick thrown and chucks Darby into a reverse 450, then starts hitting full weight sentons, chops Darby off the apron to the floor, and introduces Darby to various areas of the floor and railing. 

There are two great missed spots by Brody that really move this match - excellently capped under the 10 minute mark - to another level: first, he misses a chop into the ringpost. I'm kind of over the missed chop into the ringpost as it's more expected than ever, but Brody is smart enough to not make it the singular miss. He swings hard and misses painfully in a way that easily could have broken his tibia, but the miss only drives him to set up something more risky, which leads to his second miss, a cannonball into the guardrail. One miss led to the bigger miss, and a twist of fate made that second miss even more special because it caused the production to short circuit. The TV screen went momentarily white, and when picture returned the commentary booth was disconnected. I really like the Excalibur/Schiavone team, but this match instantly felt different and special with no commentary, only the sounds of Darby's guttural moans and the impact of Brody's body. I wish the audio stayed unrestored for the entire home stretch. 

Where the considerable body tape continues to not work for me is during Darby's small comeback. Am I to believe his body is now in worse condition than ever before, as he does his tope and his two awesome Coffin Drops? Part of the big joy of Darby is not seeing how much pain he is going through to deliver these crash landings. I do not need visual clues beyond his own selling that Darby's skeleton is in pain. We all know he has to be in pain, and the imagination is a more powerful visual than any wrapped body part could be. I don't know if I've ever seen Darby come into a match selling damage before the bell, and it's kind of a foolish exercise as you knew those injuries were going to take a backseat once he got the chance to get moving, which is what we all wanted. The tape is not necessary for Darby. Leave that for other wrestlers. He transcends it. 

The finish rocked. They did a great job hinting at the double count out without milking drama from it, and then they just went straight to the end, playing off more than one classic plausible Darby finish in just 20 seconds. Darby is poised on the top rope, waiting for King to roll back in, waiting for that Coffin Drop. But if Brody had a miss so big that it sent the production truck scrambling, Darby had a miss so big it led to his near instant defeat. Darby trust falls straight back into Brody's big waiting arms. When Darby flipped back over into a pin, I thought my boy was going to sneak out with another one. But Brody dragged himself to his feet while never letting go of that hangman's sleeper. That sleeper also could have finished the match. Darby's eyes said that he knew it was going to finish him. He had no answer to two huge arms locked in tight around his neck and head with his feet not touching earth. Maybe Brody didn't want to chance it, maybe he didn't want to risk Darby lasting longer than his arms...so he finishes it so decisively with an over the shoulder piledriver so violent that anything other than a firm 1-2-3 would have proven Darby's T-1000 identity. He is mortal. He just shouldn't need tape. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 3/30 - 4/5 - Part 2

AEW Dynamite 4/1/26

MJF vs Speedball Mike Bailey

Contrast makes the world go round.

There are some great bases in AEW, guys like Claudio and Mortos. Look, a base vs flyer match is almost always better than a flyer vs flyer match, because that contrast gives you something to latch on to. It creates narrative friction, opens the door to easier, more direct, more primal storytelling. It becomes less about oneupsmanship and counterwrestling and the tendency for my move/your move and (which can work but take much more effort when they specifically tend to get so much less) allows for more ebbs and flows.

To me, Max is something else entirely though. He comes from a different school, a different timeline even. If the evolution of most of AEW is ROH and PWG and CHIKARA (and 2010s NJPW and Nitro-era lucha and a bit of CZW), he wears his territory heart on his territory sleeve. 

That doesn't mean he can't do the other things. In fact, he's at his most frustrating when he puts the Max in maximalist either to try to claim the "best" of something or just to show he can hang. He feels the need to remind the audience that he's as "much" as those around him once or twice as year (maybe a necessary evil, but at this point, I don't think so) and while he almost always manages to do so, it comes at a cost of purity and tends to make for matches that are rated highly but that don't hold up relative to what else he has to offer.

He's best when he's out there not just as a base to enable guys to hit their spots, and not as some sort of outright troll, not as a Miz pastiche that's somehow anti-Elite to get heat. When he's best is when he sticks to a sense of vision that is more than what spots might be cool or what false finishes might get the crowd going. He's best as an alternate evolutionary imperative, the idea that what was a champion in the 60s, 70s, 80s, into the 90s is somehow a timelines force, something that can win through hook and crook, through dogged persistence and sheer confidence, that can balance an entirely different sort of earnest and genuine clowning, stooging performance with that of begrudging martial dominance... 

At his best, he stands for the idea that wrestling can still be a moral play, that it still tell universal, human stories about class and faith and hope and grit and heroism and villainy. Like I said, vision, in an artform that's gone away from it towards fireworks stacked on top of fireworks wearing a hat of "evolution."

Wrestling today is what it is. So much of it is judged on a rubric based on "awesomeness", on the number of spots and kickouts and false finishes and counter-sequences, on going as quick as you can go, and fitting in as much as humanly possible. 

Max operates best not as someone who can spit upon that OR enable it, but someone who can meet it halfway, to show that if things are twisted just so, contorted, strained, pulled, held to certain values, that the best of both worlds is still possible. Just like Gagne could against the flamboyant characters of the 50s or Flair against the muscleheads of the 80s.

He's contrast, and as contrast, he has any number of interesting opponents to face, and he can highlight what makes them special.

And he meshed well with Bailey here. Why? Because he didn't blink. Look at the opening. He came out as the American Hero, flag and all. He immediately attacks Bailey from behind. When Bailey fires right back and goes for their charging kick flurry in the corner, Max gets the ref in the way. He's quick to go to the eyes, to portray strength and gain advantages in weakness. But it's still balanced with one or two legitimate counters (the power bomb onto the knee and then catching Bailey later with a Liger bomb), just enough to give him legitimacy, to frustrate you all the more that he resorts to cheating and antics when he doesn't have to. He's the champion. You need a glimpse of him being able to go but for the sake of the vision, it can only ever be a glimpse. 

And of course, part of that vision is Max getting his comeuppance. He survived mocking Bailey's comeback attempts once or twice but going full crane kick pose left him open to a prone Bailey sweeping the leg out. That's part of the appeal (part of the vision). You don't get the confidence without the arrogance. He can't help himself. There's so much strength for a heel in that vulnerable consistency.

Even so, Omega was every effective in putting MJF over (instead of tearing him down and thus tearing the match down) on commentary. When he gets his foot on the ropes or rolls away from an opponent from the top rope, it's frustrating, but you also have to give it to him and note his ring awareness and the overall effectiveness of the strategy. Everything in balance, everything driven by vision. The horse leads the cart and the driver drives the horse and the crowd gets to where it needs to be. That's wrestling.

If you're not going to have a thousand firework spots, then you need to make the most of those that you have and set them up and pay the off well. That meant callbacks and repetition, foreshadowing and payoff. Max went for the Heatseeker, got shrugged off, and took out Bailey's leg with a baseball slide, cutting off whatever high flying counter they might have went for. Max went for it again but this time Bailey was ready, dodged the baseball slide and hit Max with a moonsault. Very smart stuff. Likewise with all of the rolls and avoidance leading to a second rope Ultima Weapon. In that regard, they were able to doubly protect Bailey's finisher. It was just off the second rope AND Max had to get a foot on the ropes instead of kicking out. That stuff matters. It matters for the character of MJF and it matters to protect Bailey and help elevate them even in a loss. Details matter. Details are what allow a vision to become a reality.

Max ultimately won this because Bailey went back to the well once too often. They went for a second moonsault knee on the apron. Max was ready and turned it into a tombstone. That was an opportunistic moment for Bailey but it also speaks to the consistency of vision. Max had frustrated them so. He had survived that far. He had driven Bailey to desperation and an emotional need to mete out retribution and justice. That created an opening but it also protects Bailey, even in the lost. It's human. We sympathize. We would have wanted to drop a knee on Max too. Strength in vulnerability; it works for babyfaces too. 

When you sum it all up: contrast, consistency, foreshadowing, payoff, vulnerability... you get vision and you get a match that works, one that stands out from the rest of the card, one that puts over both wrestlers and leaves them stronger than they came in, one which only increases the ongoing story threads and the narrative pressure for Max to get what's coming to him. It works. Storytelling works. Pro wrestling works. It can include comedic moments, breathtaking spots, teeth-gritting frustration, wild action, and character moments that bring everything to a halt in the best way.

All it takes is the bravery to have a vision and commit to it, and that, when he can fight the tides of crowds, critics, management, and even, sometimes, his own heart, is what Max offers pro wrestling in 2026. And god do we need it more than ever.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends?) 3/30 - 4/5 - Part 1

AEW Dynamite 4/1/26 

Will Ospreay vs PAC 

MD: It's been a bit. Let's talk Ospreay vs PAC and Ospreay's selling. PAC ambushed Ospreay and his damaged neck before the bell with a brainbuster on the floor. Ospreay spent the rest of the match fighting back from that. The match was structured to build to a big comeback, have Ospreay nominally labored as he hit a bunch of his big moves (handsprings, springboards, a 450), for PAC to drop him on the floor a second time, with a second heat during a second commercial break, and then for Ospreay to come back, only to get jammed on his second comeback and have to sneak out a roll up win.

Overall his selling of the neck when he was taking a beating was fine, good even. You believed it. The guy has a great personal sense of what neck pain is and can channel it through his connection to the crowd and his earnestness about wanting to fight and wanting to wrestle. He deserves credit for that. 

And he even made an effort to sell while back on offense, generally between moves. He'd avoid something and end up on the apron before hitting something else and sell in the middle, and there's something to that. It's stronger selling while on offense than I'm used to out of him, even if only marginally.

The problem, so much as anything else, is conceptual. His movement when back on offense wasn't consummate to the amount of selling he was doing. The point of selling isn't to check boxes so people don't complain. It's to get fans to buy into the false reality being presented, not as real, but as important and worth caring about in a fictional sense, to immerse themselves in it. 

In this case, it's not even that I wanted him to sell more when doing a handspring or back somersault, if he was actually going to hit that stuff in the first place. How would that even work? I didn't want us to somehow zoom in on his wincing face or to have his body contort the wrong way midair. That's basically impossible. I get that. (Now him crumbling while attempting such a thing would have been a different story, but that's not even what I think would have been best here, maybe only once, because...).

It's that he shouldn't have been doing his usual offense in the first place. If you have a broken hand, you can't just punch people like it's nothing. That defeats the purpose of the selling of the broken hand of the first place. What's interesting in that scenario is to see the wrestler have to use his other hand, or at least have to be more cautious and careful with how he punches and choose the shots he takes smartly with a much higher strategic cost. That's when selling while back on offense stops being rote and starts becoming engrossing and makes for more complete, compelling stories. 

If he is going to go to the effort sell the neck as that damaged, it should be for a greater purpose than to excuse why PAC is controlling the match and why he's going to have to use a banana peel slip to win. The logical conclusion, what would make it balanced and consummate (and more interesting!) is that he can't do his normal vaulting and flipping and that he should have to find other ways to hurt PAC. Instead, he had his cake and ate it too, and so did the fans.

People will say toughness or adrenaline, and I get that. That's what lets him fight back in the first place. I get that people might see him as self-destructive and hurting himself more by doing this. Maybe even the match played out like that as his second comeback ultimately failed and he ended up in a Brutalizer. He couldn't use his superhuman offense to win as effectively as normal to win and had to rely on a roll up instead. But the story wasn't clear or crisp enough for that. Who knows it that was the intention? The dots weren't connected. They were barely dots in the first place. The performance and commentary didn't give us that. It gave us that PAC was too good during that finishing stretch, not that Ospreay was a half step slow and too stubborn to adapt.

It would have been more primal, more interesting, more simple and direct, if he had to find other ways to hurt PAC as opposed to hitting all of his normal stuff like it was no big deal and then selling in-between or after moves. It would have been a tighter, cleaner story relative to his selling. Did hitting all of his stuff pop the crowd? Yes. Did it create the same level of honest emotion of him having to find another way to fight back? I don't think so. 

It was denying people candy and then giving it to them instead of giving them something with more substance. It's okay to give the crowd candy sometimes. It's actually wonderful to deny them it and then make them earn it. That's one of the best ways to get heat in 2026 and it should be done far more, especially with Ospreay. But this story shouldn't have been about candy at all. This was PAC trying to injure Ospreay in front of a grudge match with Mox. You don't maximize the theme of the story you're trying to get the fans to buy into (through Will's otherwise very strong selling). 

Again, if this is some greater introspective arc about how Ospreay refuses to meet his new reality and find another way, maybe that's different, but the commentary didn't pick up on that, the match only half led there, and I just don't think that's the sort of story that Ospreay would want to tell or would even see the value in. Why would he when the crowd popped for all of his stuff anyway? What we ended up with instead was a lost opportunity, something that took us halfway down a thematic road, before veering us aside and trying to stumble back at the end. 

...Otherwise known as yet another Will Ospreay match that's spectacular in the moments but scrambled when it comes to the big picture. It's frustrating because he's so good in so many ways and because he gets close, he really does, but he, more than any wrestler I've ever seen (in part because the things he does excel at make the loudest noise when channeled erroneously) needs an editor to remind him to keep his eye on the ultimate goal at all times. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/23 - 3/29

AEW Dynamite 3/25/26

RUSH vs Darby Allin

MD: This match was a gift.

Professional wrestling can be so many things, but one of the things it can be, one of the best things, is a release. It can be an invitation to take all the worries of the world, all the frustrations, all the sadness and darkness and pain, and to just lean in, lock in, hang on, and let go. 

It's functioned as this for generations, the artistic use of simulated violence as a means to quell the violence in our own hearts, as a conduit to let us scream along, wince along, clench our fists and gasp as we channel all of that emotion into a safe outlet.

It is succor and sanctuary. It understands. It knows that now and again we need to tap into the primal, tap into something grisly and raw and passionate, something forbidden in everyday society. It forgives. 

Through most of what wrestling offers us today, we can be awed. We can be entertained. We can marvel. We can wonder. We can be impressed. We can feel smart. We can feel connected. We can feel elation. And yes, some of us can chant "This is Awesome." 

All of those can be found in pro wrestling in one form or another.

But that wasn't this. 

In an age where we, as a society, have been given other invitations, public ones, harmful ones, toxic, manipulative ones, to be our worst selves in the very worst ways, this form of pro wrestling is an invitation to be our worst selves in the best of ways. 

And maybe, maybe the sanitized, produced, athletic, and choreographed form of wrestling that taps into something OTHER than our worst self is better.

But my god, we're only human, aren't we? And if we're going to get some release, let's get it through this, just like our parents could, like our grandparents could, like our great grandparents could, and like our children and their children will hopefully still be able to someday.

It is a gift. It was a gift to us, watching at home, and it was a gift to the people of St. Paul in the stands.

Even a match like this was beholden to the limitations of modern televised wrestling. There was a commercial break. They set it up well. Darby wiped out massively on a tope attempt, the sort of trainwreck you expect from him. The doctor was checking on him. Rush menaced, and then he basked.

And St. Paul chanted "Fuck ICE." They're not the first, but previously, it was tied to Brody King's meaningful presence or tacked on to already existing "Fuck Don Callis" chants. Here it was unrelated to any of that. From these people who needed to combine their voices and chant it so badly. Why then during this pause in the main event, certainly not the only pause in the show? Why get it all out here? 

Because through their sheer intensity, through their planned and spontaneous artistic expression of violence, Rush and Darby opened the floodgates of emotion and gave this crowd an invitation to let it all out. Pro wrestling.

And how did they do it?

Rush ambushed Darby right at the start, shoved him off the top rope on his entrance. That wasn't a surprise. The mood was in the air ever since the match was announced, as Rush made his entrance, fist pumping to the music, as Darby skateboarded down and everyone wondered when the violence would begin. 

This was "no countout" and they made use of the stipulation, brawling around ringside. Rush immediately went under the ring, probably for the wire he uses to choke people. It wasn't there. That gave everything an immediate feeling of being natural, organic. It drew you in. It wasn't a botch. It was the panacea to carefully planned out spots that define every other match on the card. You got the sense that Rush simply wanted to hurt Darby with any means at his disposal and if he couldn't find the first thing, he'd take the second.

And he did just that throughout the match, with Darby returning the favor when he could. This wasn't a "no disqualification" match, but he could toss Darby into the ringsteps and cause him to bump head over heels into the barricade. He could sit Darby in a chair and topple him over. Later on, after a now bloodied up Darby did hit a tope successfully, Rush would end up in that chair to eat a missile dropkick off the top to the floor. 

There was another moment during the break which was just as organic. Rush walked over and took Taz's water, pouring it over himself. It felt like a fully formed, completely "on" character doing exactly what he would naturally do in the moment. Every pro wrestling match would be better off with two or three moments like this, just someone making use of the situation in front of him, even if it meant things go off track for a few valuable TV seconds. Part of the appeal is the live improvisation. It's always been part of the appeal.

Darby was a clear underdog here. He had set a dozen traps for Gabe Kidd the week before, but here he was trudging through nature naked and with only his wits, skill, bravery and resolve, and Rush was the storm. The advantages he got where daring, defiant, and clever. He pulled the apron curtain out to trap Rush's foot. When Rush was leaned back in his Tranquilo pose, he pounced at him from across the ring to attack. He moved out of the way as the Horns corner dropkick came sailing in causing Rush to wipe out which allowed him to float over with a jackknife pin to win it. 

These were not sure things by any means. In the first two cases, Rush fired back. He would be quick to cut Darby off with an eyerake, a headbutt, a sharp kick. Darby won, not with the Scorpion Deathlock, not even with the stylized Last Supper, but instead with whatever flash pin he could sneak on to escape with his skin intact. 

It was eleven and a half minutes, with a chance to take a breath, or to express pent-up frustrations with that breath, in the middle. They let things set in. They made sure to portray massive physical consequence to everything that happened. It was a war but not necessarily a sprint or a bomb-fest. Even when they did a strike exchange, there was contrast and things were not just absorbed without immediate meaning. 

It didn't need to be a twenty minute epic to grab  you by the soul and twist. It was a match that made the most out of every second, even the seconds where Darby was convalescing or Rush was basking, preening, or seething. That sort of inaction and reaction can be just as consequential as any spot, maybe even more so.

No matter how you used that breath during the commercial break, you were almost certainly catching it by the time the match ended. Maybe your heart felt lighter. Maybe you felt inspired to run through a wall. Maybe you were left jittery, not sure what to think, not sure how to feel. But you did feel. Maybe it had pulled you away from the worries of the day. Maybe it had dragged you right through them to the other side. But wherever you were, it wasn't where you had began and you were almost certainly better off for the journey.

Pro wrestling can be so many things.

But it can be this too: organic, raw, visceral, meaningful, beautiful, terrible, and brisk, if only we let go and allow it to be; if only the wrestlers can let go and dive in and commit themselves to it fully and fearlessly.

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