AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/28 - 8/3 (Part 2)

CMLL Viernes Espectacular 8/1/25

MJF vs Averno

MD: There is wrestling and then there is wrestling. And this, my friends, was wrestling. I smiled for about twenty minutes straight (past two moments of audibly mumbling "Cut him off, cut him off. Yes!" at the screen, which if you ever wondered how deeply I get into a match or how I deeply get into a match, probably sums things up more than I'd like to admit). This was about as joyful a 2025 pro wrestling experience as I've had. It was primal. It just worked. Look, I love a lot of modern wrestling, I do. I honestly do. But almost every match contains some form of personal compromise. "You have to do X because of Y (and Y is so often the crowd or the fear of the crowd's expectations)" even when it'd be better if you just didn't. But there's a magical place where you don't have to do X because Y doesn't exist, and that is the hallowed halls of Arena Mexico.

And that joy? That included the pre-match. Yes, it was cheap heat, but it was the most expensive cheap heat you could buy. Or the biggest value for cheap heat you could get? I'm not sure the metaphor is sticking. But what did stick was Jon Cruz. I liked Rocky well enough last time MJF was around, but then he was just trying to keep up. Cruz on the other hand was full on craven majordomo who took MJF saying he spoke multiple languages and translated it into saying MJF spoke twenty languages. My only regret is that we didn't get him translating Averno's stuff back to Max (it wasn't necessary) just to see what sort of ridiculous things he'd say in order to not anger MJF. And guess what? The crowd went from maybe not sure if they felt like supporting Averno on this night to absolutely getting behind him 110%. It worked. It worked big and that was on all three of them. Cheap heat? Sure, but look at what it bought them! (That metaphor was better). They popped huge when Averno threw that first fist and Max sold his jaw like it'd ended up in the fifth row.

The match that followed was beautifully minimalist. Max retreated. The crowd booed. Chills up your spine. Max got in a cheapshot trip. The crowd booed. Max got an eyepoke. The crowd booed. Max hit his swagger groin pushover (you know what I mean), and the crowd got absolutely irate. Averno started to come back at that and Max cut him off and pro wrestling is the best thing in the world, it really is. Max started in on the Irish Whips, basking in the effect of each one as Averno crumbled in the corner. 

But then Averno turned them around, Max backpedaled. He ate a dive. Back in the ring, Averno went to the top but Max kicked out the ropes (the crowd booed). He went up but Averno caught him and went for a Devil's Wings from the top. It turned into more of a pedigree bump and Averno's knee suffered along with Max's skull. Max took over, including with a nasty emotive half crab. Averno turned it in cross armbreaker (the crowd popped big). They made it back up. Max hit a truly lovely mule kick foul as he distracted the ref. Another half crab. A near instant tap, and past a few small wrinkles, that was the match. 

Averno is a rudo's rudo and him playing babyface has real early 00s Satanico vibes. I lamented when he left CMLL just as I was at my height of watching in 2014. He's someone who absolutely gets it, and here he was a great foil for Max. It's so obvious that MJF understands just what he has with the Arena Mexico crowd and with the wrestlers they put him up against. There's a purity to it and maybe I'm crazy, but I honestly think that purity can transfer back over the border if fans were just presented it without having to control for Y. But when it comes to this stuff, I guess I'm just a true believer. Can you blame me? It's hard to watch a match like this and not have faith in pro wrestling. Those boos are like nothing else in the world.

AEW Dynamite 7/30/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Toni Storm/Alex Windsor

MD: Nice purposeful tag match here, with a few interesting structural wrinkles actually. It started just how you'd like with Athena and Windsor chain wrestling. They had a very rough around the edges (in the best of ways) match on Collision that I was in transit for and couldn't cover but this was pretty smooth all things considered. It went right until Athena hit one of her super agile counters and celebrated with a big "Yay!" as she is want to do, which, of course, led to the tag to Toni and, after just enough shadowboxing to put the doubt of whether it might actually happen into the fans' heads, a roll and a tag to Billie. A lovely bit of heatseeking and dodging the champ. Big talk, big stalling, denying the fans their gratification just like a dangerous, delusional heel ought to do (and the whole way through this match, Athena was absolutely alive, reacting and acting and preening and getting shots in). 

Billie ended up outwrestled by the champ, who subsequently tangoed with Windsor right into a tandem kick in the corner. When Athena tried to intervene, she got scuffed up (for the first time) but immediately took a powder. Everything broke down from there, with Toni chasing Athena right into Billie's ambush and the heat starting on Windsor. Athena and Billie have been together for well over a year now (together being a fluid term) so it made sense that they'd have an advantage here. 

The back half of the match was built to the finish in a way that most matches aren't. Why? Because the finishing stretch was so abrupt in the sort of way tag matches could finish in decades past, right after the hot tag/immediate comeback. Toni was going to come in, quickly dispatch Billie with Mongolian Chops, and set her up in the corner for the hip attack and the Storm Zero. Athena picked up a blind tag along the way, however, and hit an O-Face for the win and to set up the title match at the PPV. Working backwards, that meant some of what would conventionally be in the finishing stretch actually happened before the hot tag. 

After some double teaming on Windsor, they knocked Toni off the apron setting up everything to break down and for her to come in and help Windsor into a momentum shift. The hot tag itself came only after Windsor had Athena down for a pin and Starkz hit her swanton to break it up. They both crawled to their respective corners after that. Because the emotional high point of the match was not Toni getting her hands on Athena but Athena sneaking out with the victory instead, they managed to sneak in some of the traditional comeback before the hot tag. I'm not sure it made for an overall "better" match, but it did serve what they were trying to accomplish (set up the PPV match) without shortchanging the crowd on action. Sometimes effective is more important than "great," and it was interesting how they got to that point here.

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Max Caster vs Rush

MD: Let's work through this together. The Caster Challenge is "Who Can Survive 5 Minutes with the Best Wrestler Alive?" so the general idea behind it is that they're supposed to make it through the time limit. The joke is that Caster is the one who has to survive and never does. It's a good joke. It's entertaining each and every week. Half a segment. Easy TV.

The initial purpose of the segment was Bowens redebuting with his new gimmick. It was used productively last week to show how the gimmick wasn't working and pushing forward whatever direction Bowens is actually going now. But here's Caster back out there. Along the way, the fans went from not chanting with him to chanting but then getting insulted for their efforts. Theoretically at some point, it all goes over the top and they start to get behind him and you've got a bulletproof lower-mid card babyface who can eat loses but still be over, right?

Anyway, fans chant, Caster makes a comment about Bowens (not helpful if Bowens is turning?) and insults the crowd, and out comes Rush, who had already won one of these. The goal here was to set up a post match beatdown on a sympathetic enough Caster so JetSpeed and Fox could make the save and set up a future six-man tag with LFI. 

But it was a bit of a weird way to get there. Caster ran away from Rush early, even mocking him by making little bull horns. At this point, he was booed. That worked right until he ran into Rush's fist. Then Rush destroyed him until Caster could get some distance and hit a dive. That got the fans behind him. Then Rush took back over and destroyed him again. That got the fans back behind Rush. This went on until the time limit expired as Rush was about to hit the Horns in the corner. Then people went from confused to vaguely happy for Caster. That wouldn't last as the beating followed and the save (people like JetSpeed, so that's good!). And then Caster raised his hand in the air from a prone position, which was equal parts defiant and annoying. 

There was the making of something really good in here, but it was either trying to be too many things at once or just thrown out there in a way that it wasn't trying to do enough, and it's a bad thing I'm not even sure what the answer was or what the long term direction for Caster could possibly be at this point. But I can't say I wasn't entertained because watching Rush destroy some poor schlub is always certainly entertaining. Just imagine if there was a little bit more focus and purpose driving this though?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/17 - 2/23

ROH Global Wars 2/17/25

Sons of Texas (Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara) vs MxM Collection

MD: When people wonder why they should sign up for Honor Club and why ROH exists in the first place in 2025, this is a very easy answer. This sort of match doesn't exist anywhere else in the world right now, especially with so few house shows actually happening. It had that perfect combination of shtick and athleticism, all structured with a double heat and a big celebratory start and finish, getting exactly the time it needed with no commercial breaks or interruptions in front of a very game crowd, with everyone in the arena (ref, wrestlers, crowd) playing their parts perfectly. Maybe it's not the most marketable or lucrative sort of match or the most exciting overall but it's clever, engaging, and in a lot of ways a comfort when we need one the most.

I got a real kick out of the early comedy especially as they managed a good two minutes on the Rougeaus Kip Up act. Allan had posted a clip of that the other day. Not saying that's where they got it but if they did, more power to them. They had Mansoor do one, then teased Dustin doing it hard, building up anticipation, making it seem like Sammy would do it instead, and finally setting the stage for Dustin to go for it, only for Mansoor to try for an elbow drop. Dustin has a way of not showing ass on these little antics which on the one hand, may limit heat a little, but on the other, makes total sense given he's such a vet that in kayfabe would have seen it all and done it all. It ended with Sammy kipping up after all. Then they did the same sort of thing with dives, with Dustin doing the spineroonie and Sammy doing a ridiculous 450 to the floor. Some of his stuff in here looked astoundingly good and while it wouldn't be my thing normally, it works well as part of the contrast with Dustin.

They cycled through heat on Dustin and then Sammy, with MxM having enough interesting and varied stuff and playing to the crowd with their act to make all of this compelling, especially given how good Dustin is at selling and how much of a force Mason is in general. Yes, the MxM act, as is, probably has a ceiling. They commit admirably nonetheless, and within that ceiling they are entertaining and absolutely belong on the card weekly. Wrestling is broad and varied and there's room for all sorts of acts so long as the talent and commitment is there. And speaking of entertaining, the whole finishing stretch was just that, shattered dreams and all. This event felt like a Clash of the Champions overall (compared to Grand Slam's Insurrextion feel) so this would have been fine for a blowoff. Unless they end up doing something crazy like a blindfold match, I'm not quite sure where this feud now goes, but this hit the balance extremely well overall.

Athena vs Alex Windsor

MD: I talked about how MJF worked a traveling champ type match last week against Dustin in Austin and in some ways this was even more so than that. What was striking, as much as anything else was how Athena really made Windsor come off as a threat. That's not to say Windsor didn't bring anything to the table. She did, a nice mix of strength and speed and technique, and loads of confidence, especially on a stage like this, but it was how Athena reacted to it and how serious she, notoriously known for taking opponents lightly due to her own dominance, took Windsor almost from bell to bell.

It was probably most evident early as Athena came off as almost wary, quick to retreat, even to the floor. Yes, she'd celebrate and milk it once she was there, but she's one to charge in forearm first, not to let her opponent define the pace. Moreover, she had to really rely upon her athleticism with a couple of very fancy bits of acrobatics that we don't usually see out of her. It all added to the idea that Windsor was a real threat, which, of course, made every advantage that she was able to get on her and the ultimately win mean all the more. This was more World Champion 70s Terry Funk than completely unpredictable 80s Terry Funk, still a little unhinged but more savvy than destructive. I liked seeing that slightly different side of her here and it bodes well as she continues to keep the act rolling that she's able to call upon that extra degree of versatility.

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