AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/9 - 3/15 Part 2

AEW Revolution 3/15/26

Jon Moxley vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: Who are we as a people? What do we deserve? What do we demand? What standards do we hold ourselves to? What standards do we hold others to?

The most pernicious truth of the last ten years is that the worst thing a public figure can do is apologize. At best, he can tell people that he's sorry for how his actions made them feel. So long as he doesn't look down, doesn't hesitate, just posts through it, then even in the worst case, he will likely survive to enjoy the fruits of his actions with very few consequences.

What does this have to do with wrestling? Everything. Wrestling has always been a mirror of society, a morality play where wish fulfillment fantasies of justice finally being done could play out in the form of violence and stooging comeuppance.

What does it say about AEW and what does it say about us that Jon Moxley was allowed to get away with what he did without true punishment, all because he worked hard, spouted platitudes, and most importantly, won?

Let's recap some of what he did again. He betrayed a brother, committing regicide and fratricide all at once, ending a man who even on the downswing of his career had reached the pinnacle through his own efforts. And why? Was it because Danielson had lost sight of the goal? Had left promises unfulfilled to achieve personal gain? Was it that the inner peace Bryan found made him complacent and lazy? Was the world still on the wrong trajectory, the Jack Perrys of the world getting title shots instead of the truly deserving? Was the only course correction possible one of betrayal and destruction?

Or was it something else? Jealousy of not just this brother but all of his brothers near and far? Jealousy of the peace Bryan found when his own heart was roiling? Fear that he was being left behind? That those things he claimed to believe in mattered less than ever? 

Maybe it was a little of both. Every crime has motive and opportunity. That inner peace of Bryan Danielson? That provided the opportunity. I don't buy that it created a valid motive. 

So a bag went over Danielson's head. Cleaning solution went down Orange Cassidy's throat. Darby Allin was tossed down stairs. Mark Briscoe was crushed even after dedicating victory to his children. Will Ospreay's neck was shattered. Lies were whispered again and again in poor Wheeler Yuta's ear.

And the hypocrisy went hand-in-hand with the fell actions. Private Party were bullied into elevating themselves and not a word from Mox for their triumph. The belt was locked away. No one under thirty was getting title shots. 

Instead it was Cope and Cope and Cope again. And with Cope came the baseball bat with nails on it, Spike. But as Spike came down upon Mox's back, fear found its way to the forefront of his heart.

That fear created an opportunity for Hangman Page to defeat Mox and restore the belt to its proper place, to bring it back to the people.

The fear didn't fade. It made Jon Moxley tremble as Darby Allin got revenge, delayed as it was. Having tapped once, he found his back against the wall, first against Daniel Garcia (who he was able to recruit instead of vanquish, more whispered lies) and then against Kyle O'Reilly. Running, hiding, tapping. He was a wounded animal on his (damaged) back foot. Yes, some, like Darby had gotten a measure of revenge on him. Yes, even Bryan Danielson had come back to help ensure he didn't leave All In with the title. But was that justice? Had he truly gotten his comeuppance? Even looking the coward, even looking WEAK, had he truly paid for what he had done?

He had reached a sort of bottom, a physical bottom, a reputational bottom. But had he paid for what he had done?

And what about his claims of justification? Had he made AEW stronger? Better? Maybe. Or maybe its strength was always in plurality. Many different styles. Many different voices. Many different views of what pro wrestling is and what it can be. 

See, maybe it was never about AEW at all. Maybe it was always about Jon Moxley. Maybe he realized that the world was leaving him behind. Maybe it was a last, desperate grasp of a conservative man to hang on to relevancy, to force meaning itself back into a shape that he could recognize, that he was comfortable with. 

So at the start of the Continental Classic, he was a man who, to the world, looked like he had so little left to lose, but that too was a lie. He had lost so much but had never truly paid for what he had done. He was, in many ways, right back to where he had been before betraying his brother, except for now, it was all revealed to the world.

Maybe that's what he needed after all. A reputational bottoming out. To gain something tangible and then lose it. To be pushed against the wall. Maybe he needed to build something up, a false castle of sticks instead of stone and see it all burn down so that it might burn with it the brush that had grown around his soul. 

Hobbled, he entered the C2. No interference. No compromise. No surrender. None of the crutches of the last year. Just a man against other men. A man against nature. 

And after an initial deficit, a fallen man falling even farther, he triumphed. He triumphed through one battle after the next. Sometimes he got a bit of help from the machinations of those around him, Fletcher's failed attempt to cheat, how far Takeshita had pushed Okada (before his successful cheating attempt), but he triumphed none the less. And then he stood in the center of the ring and pretended like it was enough, that it was all his doing, that this was the world he had made through his wretched actions, a world of warriors, of valor, of hard work. 

And here's the thing. I think he may well have believed it. The fans had started to support him again, and they'd only support him more and more in the weeks to come. After all the underhanded chicanery of his world title run, he had insulated himself through the rules of the Continental title. 

The worst thing about all of this wasn't that he had a title again, wasn't even that the Death Riders hadn't turned on him for his weakness, the monster he created devouring him. It's that he found a delusional sort of peace through it all, a mockery of what Bryan Danielson had actually worked for.

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Actually though, the worst thing was that we, as fans, were just meant to accept it. That's how it looked at least. Maybe the worst thing was that we were accepting it. The Continental Classic had been masterful. It took a Moxley at the end of his rope and had him climb, hand after hand, inch after inch, all his way to victory. 

He earned it. He earned the title. But that didn't mean he earned the speech. That didn't mean he earned forgiveness. 

But in front of crowds who are just happy to be there, who just want to cheer for all the wrestlers and see awesome things, it was enough. He was an awesome thing. His struggle was an awesome thing. Crowds were in awe of it. 

It was a babyface turn that wasn't earned. A turn without a turn. In many ways, it mimicked both Hangman and Statlander's journeys, where the crowds went for them before they did something worth going for. Where they got their prize before apologizing (in Hangman's case) or deciding to stand for something again (in Statlander's). 

Moxley is a star. He is a presence. The fans want to cheer him. 

It left the Death Riders high and dry. They didn't turn on Moxley to cement it, not at his lowest or not when he won the title and started spouting off in ways that went against everything they had done in the previous year. It meant that instead of two months of Wheeler Yuta hiding hiding his hair from the world, he had to reveal it quickly, his own heat muted because Mox is a de facto babyface. It means that we're back to the early days of the BCC where they can be babyfaces one day and heels the next, good hands that can be fit into matches, interesting matches even, but that don't actually mean half as much as they could in the grand scheme of things. 

And it meant that we had this very strange match where a babyface who acted like a heel went up against a heel who acted like a babyface.

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Takeshita wanted what Moxley had, redemption (true or false) through combat. His sins weren't quite as bad. He had betrayed Omega years earlier, had been a bully and a rogue, was trapped in an association, a family, that no longer valued him as it once did. 

But he was a man remembering his honor and he wanted what Moxley had, a shield against all the evil of the world, including the evil within him. Being Continental Champion meant no interference but still having plausible deniability to his own family members for why they couldn't be there to do dark deeds in his name. 

He had taken Moxley to the limit but that wasn't enough. Takeshita wanted this badly. Moxley needed it, for the second he lost the title, he would lose this shield to hide behind. No longer able to hide from the world, and especially from himself, his peace would be shattered.

So they fought, and it was a clever, clever match, both the parts I enjoyed and the parts I didn't. 

They met in the center of the ring to begin, forearms smashing into one another's face. Usually, this was exactly where Moxley loved to be, in the midst of a strike exchange. Takeshita was younger, larger, stronger, just as tough, and Moxley was forced to retreat. 

One thing that's incredibly clear to Mox now, however, is that it didn't matter how he wins. All that mattered was that he does, so he honed in on Takeshita's damaged eye (damaged in a battle with Claudio). He pounded it. He bit it. He dragged it across the top rope. The eye opened up the leg. 

And the leg was supposed to open up Takeshita completely, was supposed to allow Moxley to hit the Death Rider, a Pile Driver, his stomp. It didn't though. Takeshita refused to bend. Moxley could chip away at him but not hit bombs. Takeshita, on the other hand, hit his bombs, the cradle tombstone into the German, the Blue Thunder Bomb. But he hit them as hope spots he couldn't capitalize on. 

They went into a second strike exchange and this time Takeshita's knee gave out. Moxley couldn't hit that stomp the first time on the apron, but he powered through and got it the second, opening Takeshita up both literally and figuratively.

As they passed the twenty minute mark, the match went off the rails and became a fighting spirit epic. Takeshita came back to get the best of a third strike exchange, and both men not just hit bombs, but hit them in a way to show their over the top toughness. They kicked out of finishers. Takeshita even kicked out at one. They popped back to their feet and hit move after move without consequence until both fell over. It's all the stuff I tend to have no use for because it inverts the narrative weight of moves the deeper the match goes. I get the value of it. I get the excitement. I get the warrior spirit it represents and how it highlights adrenaline and toughness and everything else. I just don't think it's worth the cost relative to showing the escalating weight of moves down the stretch.

Here, though? Here, maybe it was worth it, not because of anything specific they did, but because it was very much Takeshita's match at this point, his world, and because Jon Moxley survived it.

Jon Moxley endured it. Jon Moxley powered through it, forcing that leg to give out one last time, finally locking in the choke, finally stamping down Takeshita's final act of defiance to lock the arm, finally making him pass out to win the day.

Once again, toughness, grit, determination, endurance were shown to matter more than anything else, including conventional morality. Once again, might made right.

And so Jon Moxley was rewarded. He put out his hand, and despite his better judgment, despite his first instincts, despite all the emotion in his heart, Takeshita returned to the ring and shook Moxley's hand. 

Peace through combat. Fabricated peace in the soul of Jon Moxley. So long as he continued to win, he'd never, ever have to look down again.

It's the perfect crime for our modern world.

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But then the lights went off. The video package played. The whole arena went green. The music hit. And there was Ospreay. 

A loose end. 

And I don't know what to think. I really don't. Look, there's an amazing story here. Jon Moxley did horrible things, unforgivable things. He burned it all down to build it all back up, all for his own sake, and he was finally at peace for it. The fans were back behind him. He had gold once again. The Death Riders were by his side and a willing, even loving, part of his glorious facade. He hadn't done a single thing to earn redemption except for to fight and win. He hadn't owned up to anything. And yet, he had his cake and ate it too. It was the perfect modern male fantasy in so many ways. 

We're months into it now and he's up against heels. He made it past the point of no return. Over the border. He's safe.

Yet here's Ospreay, a ghost of his past, someone the crowd will support, someone who theoretically can call Mox out for all he did, and all he had become, and all he still was, no matter how much he won. He could beat him, but in a perfect world, he could remind him what that would mean again and again before he did. Even in pro wrestling, justice can and should be more than just putting someone through a table.

But it's Will Ospreay, who for all of his charisma, innovation, athleticism, and enthusiasm, has the nuance and subtly of a brick to the skull. It's not a good "moral high ground" month for Will either, given some of what happened in EVE recently. And the fans are already firmly behind Mox, so to call him out in all the ways that matter and that will make them uncomfortable, the ways that matter not just for this storyline, but also in restoring a moral underpinning to literally every storyline AEW does, an essential cornerstone that is already weak and frayed, preventing emotional investment and narrative coherency from audiences in ways that matter most (and that may not fully register with the creative forces within the company, I hate to say)... 

Well, I guess time will tell, won't it. Maybe, unlike Jon Moxley, we're getting what we deserve after all.

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

AEW Dynamite 1/7/26

Jon Moxley vs Shelton Benjamin

Jon Moxley is, in fact, wrestling through it. 

And why not? He wasn't the first. Kris Statlander betrayed her very best friend out of jealousy. She aligned herself with Stokely of all people. Hangman Page burned a man's childhood house down. He brutally ended Christopher Daniels career. They fought their way back into the hearts of the fans, quite literally fought. Maybe Hangman apologized after the fact. Maybe Statlander turned down the Death Riders after the fact, but by then, the fans had already embraced them. By then, the fans had already helped support them en route to championships. 

They won. That's what mattered.

And now Jon Moxley has won as well. In AEW, maybe might does makes right.

It seems to make right for Shelton Benjamin too. The fans love the Hurt Syndicate and why? Because they do what they say they're going to do; they hurt people. Shelton spent a large part of his career forced to be something he wasn't, someone who did too much, who wrestled like a junior heavweight in a heavyweight's body. He was in the land of the giants. His most memorial moment might have been jumping into Shawn Michaels' foot. 

But he's been granted one last chance. He was always big, but now the world's gotten smaller around him. Once upon a time, he had Brock Lesnar beside him and it was a hard shadow to escape. Now, with Bobby Lashley beside him, he still towers over everyone around him. At 50 years old, he's as looming a presence as he's ever been, larger than life.

And here he was with a shot to win, to make might right, to get something he hasn't had in a long time, a major singles belt all his own (maybe the last time was in Puerto Rico in 2010?). He just had to take Jon Moxley to the limit through an eliminator match to get the opportunity to face him for the Continental Championship. 

He's bigger, stronger, more athletic, with sharper amateur skills, and he hadn't been through the crucible of the Continental Classic like Moxley, not this year at least. 

Through twists and turns of fate, Benjamin stood across the ring from one of the biggest stars of the last ten years as an equal, maybe even a superior in many ways. Accordingly, he held out his hand for a shake. 

Moxley slapped it aside. Of course he did. His wounds may have been healing. Given how he came out from the back energized, basking in the fans' unlikely adoration, maybe he felt like the world was healing, but he's no fool. He knew what he was up against. He had to throw Benjamin off balance.

Instead, Benjamin threw him head over feet and with absolute ease, slipping under him and flipping him, getting behind him for a very early German. Moxley dodged out of the way and tried for a choke. Shelton tripped him and went for the ankle lock on that damaged leg (something he had a very direct lineage with). Moxley went for strikes and Shelton met him right in the center, escalating almost immediately to a spin kick that Mox ducked just by the skin of his teeth. Mox tried piefacing him. Shelton hit another effortless German. Moxley went for chops (perhaps weakened ones due to a poor base from his leg injury). Shelton outchopped him. 

But then, Mox got a foot up in the corner, knocked Shelton out with a clothesline over the top, and ah, this would be when the wheels would turn. Now Shelton was in Moxley's world on the floor. The only thing that turned, however, was Moxley as Shelton reversed a whip into the barricade and then clotheslined him over it. They brawled up and down the stairs and into the crowd. Moxley seized a momentary advantage as one might expect, coming back over the rail first and grabbing a chair, but Shelton was right there, leaping over it with a flying clothesline. Mox went in and out of the ring to break the count and buy some space. He got caught on the way out, German'd again. 

Shelton was running him ragged but he was Jon Moxley and still had a lot in the tank. Maybe that was enough to throw Shelton off after all, maybe. They pressed head against head on the floor, and Mox goaded him in, allowing him to pry off an arm and use it to toss Shelton arm-first into the ringsteps.

I'm going to put a marker here because this is where what I've been trying to do (maybe not all that easy already) got a lot harder.

Up until this point, there had been some lip service on commentary on how Shelton and MVP had talked a gameplan and how he wasn't supposed to follow Mox to the floor or around the arena, but it hadn't really played out. You could make an argument that Mox had a momentary advantage after coming out of the stands. You could make one that he had rope-a-doped Shelton a bit on the floor, eating that German to create an opening with the arm. You can make a lot of arguments. I'm not sure in this case that the actual creative decisions, selling, or the overall portrayal holds up.

Let's continue and see how it goes though. So Moxley had created an opinion with the arm. He tries to press it. Shelton struggles against it both by locking fingers on a cross-armbreaker and through punching his way out. Mox does chip away at the arm though and that takes them through the commercial break. At the end of the day, that's ALL it does though, for as they come back, Mox is up on the top rope for no real discernible reason other than to set up Shelton's spot where he leaps up and tosses him off. That arm? That one opening Mox earned? He won't go to it again. Shelton won't sell it again. 

Instead, Shelton tosses Moxley around a bit more on as part of a babyface-coded comeback. The match hadn't given the crowd a ton to work with when it came who to root for. Mox had been valiantly fighting from underneath for a lot of this. But he'd pushed away the shake at the start. He went to the eye once. Shelton worked underneath during the break. There were chants for both men throughout. Time was ticking down and the onus was on Benjamin to either win or last to the limit because even if Moxley loses here, it only sets up a title match. 

They end up working the back third 50-50. Mox comes back with a cutter out of nowhere. Shelton drops him with a power bomb out of corner ten count punching. Mox survives a STF of sorts and follows it up with a low bridge counter and a dive to the floor. He's bleeding now, because of course he is, but he's up and with an advantage. He runs into Paydirt (but kicks out). Shelton goes to the injured knee to hit a superkick but Mox is ready for a second one and hits the Paradigm shift (Shelton survives it). And they go into a fevered last minute, ending with Shelton getting stacked up out of nowhere on a triangle choke with only seconds left on the clock.

And, if you read back through that, it's a bit of a mess. It's ugly. The match was ugly. Some of the execution was ugly. Not everything hit clean. The selling was ugly. The crowd wasn't directed one way or another. There was less focus on Moxley's leg than you'd think and a lot of it was implicit. Past setting him up for a superkick, it had nothing to do with the back half of the match. That armwork that Mox used to contain Shelton? That was just for the commercial break. It didn't connect well with the rest of the match. 

There was no reason why Mox went to the top when he was in control other than to set up a spot to come back from the break to. There was no reason why he didn't do more to go back to the arm later since it had been working for him when nothing else was. You could rationalize that he, as a character, lost the plot and was getting desperate and lashing out or whatever else. And I've done that if you've read what I've written over the last few months. But I didn't feel that here. I didn't get that connective tissue. The text and the performances don't back it up to me. 

What I'm trying to say is this. What I've done lately with Moxley isn't rocket science. It's not Shakespeare. It's pulling together narrative threads from the text and context, from the performances and creative choices and creating a narrative throughline, just pulling it all together to try to highlight the themes and the mood and the big plot points, to highlight the story being presented.

And that was harder here than with other matches. The data points didn't necessarily line up with a clean narrative. What I personally came out with wasn't nice and neat. 

It was ugly and messy and I didn't necessarily enjoy it as much as the other matches. Most of the spots made sense in the moment but they didn't come together the same way for me. The transitions and momentum shifts didn't stand up in the same way. What was being presented on commentary didn't entirely bear out on screen. My understanding of the characters as presented didn't sync with what I was watching and I couldn't easily course correct with the new information I was given.

Maybe that was me. Maybe it made more sense to someone else. I think the live crowd at times weren't sure what they were supposed to feel. 

Now all that said, it was still a pretty entertaining match, and maybe even a successful one. Shelton came out looking strong. Mox came out looking like he just barely survived, but that he survived (and shoot Shelton's hand at the end, another step on his journey or more of his bullshit exhibited, I don't know). It gave people a fresh match-up. Maybe it did numbers to start the show. Maybe it's something they can go back to later. Maybe it'll lead to something more with Lashley. Or maybe it just marked time before Moxley ends up in a more focused feud. 

And not everything needs to be a nice, neat story. Sometimes the story can be that life is ugly and pro wrestling is ugly and two guys fighting each other is ugly and not everything in life does make sense. This did create a sort of mood of being nasty and uncooperative and competitive. 

But I would argue that almost everything is better with tighter storytelling. You can still get that feeling that things are going off the rails without things actually going off the rails and a lot of times, if done with care and focus, that feeling becomes all the more tangible and visceral. Sometimes that is explicit. Sometimes it's just making sure that the things that are done are sold and framed and resonate. 

There are so many matches in 2025/2026 where it doesn't happen nearly as well as it could or it arguably should. I don't tend to write about those matches. I wrote about this one in part to highlight how special so many of those other matches are in comparison, and that even though tight, coherent storytelling ought to be the starting point that everything builds upon, so often it isn't.  

To pull out one thing and get ahead of a counter-argument, the issue here isn't that Shelton didn't sell the arm. It's not about checking a box. The issue is that time was spent (invested!) where it seemed like the armwork was working and then that didn't have consequence in the match and it didn't make sense why Moxley went away from it. For me, the wrestlers didn't do enough to explain why things went from moment A to moment B and explore well enough the consequences of both the individual moments and the moments put together. This match had multiple instances like that and they left aside some natural storytelling beats that would have pulled things together better.

Did that somehow invalidate the work that they did do? No, I don't think so. Could that work have been better enhanced? Yeah, probably, and if it had been, and if it had all come together better, I could have made this last paragraph here more evocative and thematic. Instead of talking at a distance, I could have been leaning harder into the heartbreak of an opportunity slipping through Shelton's fingers when he had wrestled so strong a match and how this fits into Moxley's redemption story despite the possibility of tragedy being right around the corner. The tragedy instead, I suppose, was that the match though full of gripping individual moments didn't quite get me there in the end. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/22 - 12/28 Part 2

AEW World's End 12/27/25

Jon Moxley vs Kyle Fletcher 

Jon Moxley is a bleeder.

As stars go, headliners, main eventers, champions, there's probably no one this century who's bled as often and as freely as Mox.

This? This is different though. Usually the taste of his own blood reminds him that he's alive, reminds his opponents that they're in a war.

But even a warrior, a champion only has so much blood to lose and Jon Moxley's been bleeding out for a while now. Maybe he's been bleeding out since he tapped to Darby Allin and Kyle O'Reilly. Maybe he's been bleeding out since he lost the title to Hangman Page. Maybe he's been bleeding out since Adam Copeland lost the battle but won the war, wounding him with a nail covered bat and putting fear back into his heart. Or maybe, just maybe, he's been bleeding out since he made the fateful decision to betray Bryan Danielson.

Regardless of how long it's been, he found himself face to face with one undeniable truth: he had to stop the bleeding.

The only way to stop the bleeding was to cauterize the wound. He had to put himself through a baptism of fire, one where his soldiers had to stay in their barracks, where it was just him against the very best, him against the world. He had to prove to allies and enemies both, to bystanders and to history itself, that he was everything he said he was, that there was truth underneath it all, no matter how thoroughly he'd been exposed, no matter how it felt to be the emperor with no clothes, no matter the Sword of Damocles over his head, no matter how biting winter's cold felt upon his naked flesh. 

He needed to compete in the Continental Classic, but more than that, he needed to win it.

But Kyle Fletcher needed things too.

Takeshita may have been the first member of the Don Callis Family and Okada may be its crown jewel, but Kyle Fletcher is the heart and soul of it. He's the one that makes it a family and not just a stable or faction. Callis is what he sounds to be, a callous, mercenary huckster. Fletcher is young, still developing, still in need of those to support him, not just professionally but personally as well. He believes in the idea of a family, even a family of villains, scoundrels, and rogues. He loves Takeshita like a brother and he's been coming to love Okada as well, but more than either of them individually, he loves the sum of them.

Now, after months of turmoil, Takeshita and Okada were positioned against each other in the other semi-final. One of them would beat the other. But were Kyle Fletcher to beat Jon Moxley, he'd face off against that winner. Yes, he had lost the TNT title. Yes, he had failed to defeat Hangman Page for the world title. Yes, unlike Okada, the International Champion, and Takeshita, the IWGP champion, he had no belt to his name. And yes, he constantly feels the need to prove to the world that he is the future, but more than all of that was this: no matter who won, Okada or Takeshita, were Fletcher be the one to defeat him and win the Continental Championship, then it might defuse the situation, might humble the loser, might restore peace and tranquility to his family. 

He just had to beat Jon Moxley to earn the chance to do so.

So he took this match as seriously as he'd ever taken anything in his life. According to commentary, right up until the bell, he'd been watching tape of Moxley's C2 matches, studying his opponent, looking for any possible edge. He didn't check in with his family members, didn't watch Takeshita battle Okada. Instead, he prepared. When his music hit, Fletcher went out to the ring, unaware of Okada's underhanded transgression, the use of a screwdriver hidden in the turnbuckle pad, that allowed him to defeat Takeshita and secure a spot in the finals.

Like many other C2 matches, they started with wrestling. Moxley is the progenitor of death jitsu, but Fletcher kept pace with him, countering counters for the minute or so they chain wrestled. Perhaps not surprisingly, Moxley blinked first, taking an opening and throwing a chop. That sent Fletcher right out to the floor, slowing down the pace, stalling. In the eyes of the fans, it crystalized alignments. Fletcher had gotten some support as of late, because he is that good, because he is charismatic, because he is sudden and intense, but while Moxley was chomping at the bit to engage, he was not, and that was enough to shift the crowd just a bit more behind Mox.

Fletcher didn't care, though. He meant to throw Moxley off. He had a plan. Moxley chased after him, beat him around the ring, but Fletcher caught him with a body slam on the way back in, a cheapshot. Again, the crowd turned more. Again, Fletcher didn't care (he didn't care so much that he was happy to tell them how little he cared, which just made them respond, getting behind Moxley more). And then when Moxley managed to turn things around on him, the crowd started to respond all the more.

And yet still, Fletcher didn't care. Moxley tossed him out and Fletcher scrambled to keep in it on the floor. So yes, the crowd was backing Moxley for the first real time in well over a year. And yes, it did bother Fletcher, but he didn't care because he couldn't care, because he had to win. It was that simple. And to win, he had to find the exact moment to strike, no distractions, no hesitation. Just goading Moxley in. That happened on the floor, the stairs brought into play. Moxley meant to pile drive him onto them. Fletcher knew it was coming and pulled the stairs back. Moxley's leg ended up between the ring and the stairs and Fletcher charged in to crush it. He knew Moxley's tactics. He knew Moxley's weakness, the ankle that had been bothering him for weeks, a perfect achilles heel to give Fletcher the edge.

Fletcher got down to work, using a inverted deathlock, a half crab, simply wrenching the leg over the rope. He was as unlikable as humanly possible throughout, posing and preening, but he was laser-focused nonetheless. 

But Jon Moxley knew that the best defense was a good offense. He hit a cutter out of nowhere. When Fletcher retreated back to the floor, he hobbled across the ring to dive at him. He chased Fletcher back into the ring, knowing he had to press the advantage, and just like earlier in the match, he ran into a Fletcher slam, this time a Michinoku Driver, escalation playing out before the crowd's eyes. 

The match continued along these lines. Fletcher would bully Moxley into the corner but Mox would fire out. He'd be unable to get his full weight behind his shots, the leg dragging him down on every exchange. He'd power through and score a point but be ultimately unable to capitalize. Fletcher would shrug him off the top on a ten count punch and as Mox landed on the apron on the bad leg, Fletcher would follow right behind him to drop him on his skull. Moxley would beat the count, if just barely, but even the possibility of redemption through victory was slipping through his grasp more and more with each Fletcher bomb. The blood may have been coming from his tooth of all places, but he was bleeding out nonetheless.

And all the while, the fans started to cheer for Mox more and more.

Yet all the while, one truth never changed: Fletcher needed this just as much as Moxley did. He needed it too much. He locked in a half crab again, this time pulling back with all his might. That opened him up to Moxley's bulldog choke. But he had prepared and as Moxley tried to plant his weight to really lock it in, Fletcher grasped at the ankle. He escaped the choke, but he couldn't quite get the anklelock exactly as he wanted it, exactly how his family member Josh Alexander had taught it to him. He wanted it too badly, he needed it too much. Desperate, nervous scrambling hands meant that by the time he did lock it in, they were too close to the ropes and Moxley was able to escape by the skin of his bleeding teeth.

And as he did, the crowed began to chant.

Still, Fletcher was in control and he stomped Mox in the corner, hoisted him up for his top rope Brainbuster. Moxley had wanted to lay in those ten count punches before, punches often punctuated with a rake of the back and a bite of the face. Before Fletcher had tossed him off. Now as Fletcher tried to finish him, Moxley, bloody mouth and all, gnawed upon Fletcher's head.

And the crowd roared for his effort.

Something awoke in Jon Moxley then, something that had been dormant, been pressed down by his own paranoia and hypocrisy, something that could only be tapped into when the crowd was well and truly behind him. He slipped behind Fletcher, locking in a choke up on that top rope, and then, as if he was leaping into the arms of the crowd with only faith to propel him, he tossed both of them off backwards, hitting a breathtaking, brutal avalanche cutthroat suplex. Moxley capitalized with a lariat and a stomp, but couldn't capitalize further, that effort alone sending pain up and down his leg. Fletcher recovered, hitting a superkick, a half-and-half suplex of his own, and a knee and pressing Moxley's shoulders to the mat. 

Mox kicked out at one and the crowd absolutely exploded. 

Fletcher was shaken but not thrown; he dropped Moxley with a brainbuster and Moxley kicked out once more. He lifted Moxley up to finish him and Mox, stumbling, punch drunk, put both hands up in an act of defiance as the crowd buoyed him with their screams. 

Fletcher needed this win. He needed it badly. He needed it as much as Moxley did. He didn't care how he got it. They had set up the screwdriver earlier in the day, a perfect way around the Continental Classic rules. Callis wouldn't be out there to hand it to anyone. Fletcher was doing this for himself, but he was doing this for family most of all. He knew Takeshita and Okada were facing each other. He knew they were at odds. The last thing he could have imagined however was that one brother would use the hidden screwdriver against another. So when he went to find it and it wasn't there, it wasn't just that he didn't have a weapon to put down Moxley, that the plan was failing. It was more than that. It was the tragic realization that Okada or Takeshita had to have used it against the other, that everything he was fighting for had already gone up in smoke. 

That was the moment he lost.

He ran right into Moxley's choke but was able to survive it. He even survived the Paradigm Shift AND the Death Rider that followed, but those were the last gasps of a man already dead. When Moxley locked in the sleeper, he had nothing left to give. He dropped to the mat momentarily unconscious as the ref called for the bell. Moxley rolled to his knees, pumping his fists to the unbelievable but undeniable elation of the crowd. Fletcher managed to recover enough to get one last petulant shot in after the bell, but it didn't matter.

Moxley had the wind in his sails, having found a warrior's high moral ground for the first time in so long. The pro wrestling gods now supported him, now were fully against an Okada who had broken every code to commit the same sort of fratricide and betrayal and Moxley himself had done a year before. By the end of the night, the circle would be complete once more and a triumphant Moxley would march up and down the ring, speaking passionate, humble words, having stopped the bleeding. 

But just a few days off of Christmas, and with Bryan Danielson forced to witness all of this from the commentary table, everyone watching had to wonder if there might still be ghostly Dickensian chains clanking behind Moxley, just waiting to drag him down, if redemption can truly come from effort and victory alone, or if a darker comeuppance was just around the corner.

It was a remarkable match. There was no way to know that the crowd would go for Moxley like this, that it wouldn't split heel vs heel and just chant for the match and its awesomeness. This was the same arena where Moxley ended Danielson just a little more than a year before. So much of it came down to Fletcher's early stalling, to him being the one to go after the injury, an unsportsmanlike git. Moxley's selling, the way that he showed consequence to every offensive move he hit, carried much of the rest. 

Fletcher made himself as unlikable as possible, giving the fans nothing to latch on to. Meanwhile, Moxley gave the fans everything to latch on to. As he dragged himself up again and again, he pulled the fans along with him, the most gripping thing in the world. It was pro-wrestling that moved hearts and minds, all through the in-ring action, the sort of storytelling which burned right through the black gunk of irony that's covered hearts for years. The crowd gave themselves up to the story being told and let themselves get swept along with it. 

It was beautiful pro-wrestling and especially beautiful for 2025. Just a wonderful match, with wonderful, nuanced characters telling a wonderful, nuanced story. Details still matter. Pro wrestling still works. The magic is still alive for wrestlers willing to give of themselves completely and tap into it and a crowd with no choice but to get swept along for the ride.

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

AEW Collision 12/25/25

Jon Moxley vs Orange Cassidy 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/15 - 12/21

AEW Dynamite 12/17/25

Jon Moxley vs Roderick Strong

MD: Jon Moxley is going to try to wrestle his way through it.

And why not? Kris Statlander did. Last year she was palling about with Stokely and betraying her best friend and bullying people. Did she ever outright turn face? Was there a moment where she was accepted and forgiven? She won the title listening to his advice, but by that point, the fans were already supporting her again, gave her that big "You deserve it chant." By the time she clocked Yuta, refused the Death Riders' offer, and ran from the ring, it was already said and done. And why? Because she won, that's why.

And then there's Hangman Page. He started the year an erratic mess. He ended Christopher Daniel's career. Brutally. But then he kept on winning and winning, and as the Owen went on, the fans started to flock back to him. He took it all the way to All In, had the entire babyface locker out to support him (which is the only reason why he beat Mox, of course), and then and only then, after he took the championship, after the fans had already come around to him, after he got his old music back even, did he give that promo making amends. And they accepted it without a second thought, and why? Because he won, that's why.

So that's the message. It's 2025. It doesn't matter what you did. You wrestle through it. You win. And they'll forgive you of anything. At least, that's the way Mox sees it.

So that's what he'll do. All that quitting? That's behind him. The C2 is the perfect place to remind everyone just who he is, the warrior that he is, the man that held the company on his shoulders again and again, five of the best in the world in his league, no interference, no excuses, steel up against steel, and in the face of that, who's going to deny what they see before their own eyes?

Sure, his ankle hurts, a painful reminder of that quitting he's trying to sweep under the rug. And Claudio beat him, but then on any night, any wrestler can beat any other wrestler, and he only surrounded himself with the best, and he was on the verge of mathematical elimination, but that's when he did his best work, back against the wall, world against him, all by himself. 

He'd just wrestle through it.

Helping him along the way was the torment in Roderick Strong's heart. He too was a champion, a warrior, a hero in his own mind, a man trapped in a world he did not make, attached at the waist to misfits and goofballs. Maybe it made sense when Kyle was still active, but he had been taken out, though not before winning the war against Moxley. Despite how good he was, despite how much he had accomplished, despite going 2-2 lifetime with Mox, in the eyes of the fans, the matchmakers, history, he was second tier, a B+, the very best of the second best. He too was on the verge of mathematical elimination, yet with so much still to prove (despite spending his whole life proving it time and again). He didn't need to defeat Moxley. He needed to make him submit. And he didn't need to just wrench at his ankle like everyone else. He needed to break his back and make him submit to the Stronghold, his move, his moment, his legacy.

So despite playing with an anklelock early, Strong really didn't target it. At times, Moxley struggled as he moved, stumbling on his way to the top rope, around ringside, even as he forced his way from one side to the other to hit a dive. More often than not, that was enough for Strong to get back in it, but once he was in it, he went straight back to the spine. He went for the Stronghold multiple times, wanting it so badly that Moxley was able to twist and contort and escape the ring. He didn't capitalize on the weakness Kyle had created. He demanded to create a weakness of his own, to win on his terms, to show everyone. 

While the fans were behind him, they were a bit more muted than you might expect from the first match of a Dynamite in a place like Manchester. In wanting it so bad, in needing it so much, he was the one who introduced the stairs, who raked Moxley's back on the top rope. Meanwhile, Moxley was wrestling his way through it, hitting a dive, powering through the pain, going so far as to do a twenty punch on the top. Strong's hunger gave him a symbolic place to occupy, the higher ground, and he moved right in.

And ultimately, it gave him the win as well. With just a couple of minutes left, Strong wanted it too much, rolled into the ring too quickly, and ended up eating a Paradigm Shift. He managed to kick out but not out of the Death Rider that followed. He lost himself to the moment.

Meanwhile, Moxley wrestled through it.

Through it, through the pain, through the fear, through the beating of the Tell-Tale Heart that was Bryan Danielson's career, that ringing in his ears, the constant tap, tap, taping of the raven at his window and all that it represents.

He lived to fight another day, and when there's life, there's hope. Especially for a man who refuses to look down.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/1 - 12/7 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 12/3/25

Jon Moxley vs Claudio Castagnoli

I love babyface vs heel matches with a shine/heat/comeback format. I can almost promise you that I love them more than you do, dear reader. When done well, they are primal, speak to the basic fundamental storytelling tenets of good vs evil in a world that needs that more than ever, and take us on an emotional journey up and down and up again, placing us as viewers exactly where we need to be.

But that is not the only story that pro wrestling can tell. All too often, shedding those classifications and abandoning that structure means that wrestlers also feel like they can throw aside careful storytelling in favor of maximalism, making the story at play inherent at best and focusing instead on action, spots, sensationalism, over the top excitement. 

That couldn't be farther than what Jon Moxley has been doing in the back end of 2025. Now, within the Continental Classic, bolstered by the narrative framing of a sports-based tournament, he's able to place his own character, one that's come out of a series of babyface vs heel struggles in shambles, in a scenario where he has to figure out what could possibly come next, on how to stop or at least slow the spiral, on how to grasp at every opportunity to prove himself once more, to his followers, to the world, to himself. 

And while he's framing this with delusional, almost delirious, vaguely inspirational promos entirely full of bullshit, most of the actual storytelling is playing out in ring, artistic pro wrestling at its very best. 

Having just barely survived his initial match against Mascara Dorada, he found himself very early in the tournament against an ascendant Claudio Castagnoli, the bar, the gatekeeper, a creeping death always one step behind the lead rider. This was his next opportunity to test himself but it was also a warning, a living breathing Sword of Damocles, for if he was found wanting, then death would come for him as well.

And come it did. Claudio was the returning hero, back from Mexico with title in hand. Moxley was the one with something to prove and he took it right to Claudio, trying to outwrestle him, trying to outbully him, trying to outpower him. It was a foolish gesture for very few are stronger than Claudio Castagonoli, and he was almost instantly rebuffed. The only thing he proved was that there was blood in he water and Claudio figuratively forced that blood out with a double stomp, a sharp biting statement for the world to see.

Moxley abandoned wrestling and went to brawling. That took them to the outside, nominally his domain. But even here, Claudio remained too much for him. He turned things around, sending Moxley over the barricade. When he came back to the fight, the blood had become entirely literal, and when Claudio got him back into the ring and threw him about with the second giant swing of the match (the first being into the stairs, ruthless, merciless, death edging a half step closer), the blood really started to flow.

But Jon Moxley, mad, faltering king that he might be, was a king nonetheless; he had climbed and scraped to his throne and he would not fall easily. When Claudio screamed at him to quit, he did not. When Claudio went for the swing again, he pressed up on his head to gain the leverage to reverse it. He was able to stand back up and scrape with Claudio.

But even then, he couldn't do it for long. Even then, he couldn't press the advantage.

When he finally locked Claudio in a choke, his own blood became the lubricant that caused it all to slip through his grasp, and what could be a greater symbol for the current state of Jon Moxley than that.

With five minutes left to go on the clock, they stood across from the ring. Moxley was able to make it back to his feet no matter the punishment he'd taken, swings, power moves, strikes, holds. He was able to push back up, no matter how much blood was upon the mat. But whereas he was able manage the upwards momentum of a survivor, Claudio drove forth with the forward momentum of a conqueror, crashing into Moxley with a predator's uppercut and downing him for three. 

Moxley had wanted Marina out with him to start, had almost reached out to the crowd once or twice, looking for that security with Claudio across the ring from him instead of at his side, and the Death Riders did come now, checking on him, congratulating Claudio, and then forming a circle to cool down with push ups in the back as Moxley too congratulated Claudio and provided platitudes for what was to come. 

But the blood was on the mat and the blood was in the water and Claudio's done more than smell it now. He drew it. He tasted it. We're all on the clock. Death comes for us all. It comes for some of us sooner than others.

So, like I said, storytelling, right? The art and magic of pro wrestling, like nothing else. The old stories, the basic ones, are beautiful things, but with commitment, care, consistency, consequence, so much more can be told. It doesn't necessarily make one story better than the other, but when ambition is fueling the ship and the navigation is done with care, the sky really is the limit.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 11/18 - 11/30 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/26/25 

Jon Moxley has a point.

That's what makes him so dangerous. That's what's always made him so dangerous. He's a multi-time world champion, the creator of Death Jitsu, a man who is willing to go incredibly far to achieve his goals, dubious as they may be.

So what if the emperor has no clothes. He's still the emperor.

So when he says that tomorrow is another day, when there's another fight around the corner, well that's pro wrestling for you, isn't it? The story never ends, usually not until the third retirement at least.

And what a new chapter this is, the Continental Classic, the perfect place to turn things around, to prove he's not a quitter, that he's the ace, the best, an emperor to be feared and respected.

First match: Mascara Dorada, a young lucha lion growing every day into his mantle, yet someone who's been around long enough to smell blood, a clash of styles and backgrounds, glittering light vs grimy darkness.

So Mox did what he did. First, he took it to the mat. The crowd was chanting "You Tapped Out" at him. Time to prove them wrong. Dorada went to the point of Moxley's recent defeats, the ankle, because of course he did, but Moxley, cool and calm, rolled through. He was in control. He was a master practitioner. He maneuvered Dorada into a headscissors but was helpless to stop him as he bounded out with a dexterous headstand.

Cute. Fine. Well and good. Moxley had tools in his arsenal. He shifted gears, let Dorada win that first exchange, adapted, because that's what he did. Mox went to roughhousing, to striking, got a few good shots in, but Dorada was able to roll with it and contorted himself up and around into a 'rana clowning Moxley. Now the crowd was chanting lucha, a little shift of the tide away from Moxley and towards Dorada.

So Mox would just turn up the volume a bit more. He got Dorada down to the floor and hit a rare dive, crashing hard head-first into the barricade. He hit the softer part. Dorada hit the harder part. It was reckless, showed that control was slipping through his fingers, but it worked. It just didn't work well enough. He wasn't going to beat Dorada on flips and dives. The luchador fought back quickly, hit a breathtaking tornillo of his own, and positioned Moxley on the floor beneath the ramp charging at him with a massive dive.

But Jon Moxley had not just a point, but many points in his favor. The emperor may have no clothes, but no one could take his skin and bone and sinew from him. No clothes, one forearm, and he got it up, clocking Dorada as he sailed past. 

Now he was in control. Something had shifted further though. As he leaned down on Dorada, the fans weren't chanting "You Tapped Out." They weren't chanting "Lucha." They were chanting "Dorada." He wasn't an interchangeable mask-wearing cipher. He'd grown in their hearts through the match. 

So Moxley escalated again. He brought the stairs into play on the outside. That, and the time and distance it created, allowed Dorada to come back with spectacular use of the barricade, hitting a cutter over it, and then the ropes, rebounding Moxley and himself back off of them. 

But Moxley always had an answer and this time, with increasing desperation, it was a cutter out of nowhere. Now, as Moxley positioned Dorada into the corner, it all weighed on him: losing the early exchanges, those chants, the recent comeback, all of those losses, the quitting, everything. He started in on the ten count punches, but instead of turning it into his usual bite or rake of the back, he kept punching, and why not? The fans were counting along. That had to feel good, like he wasn't so alone in the world, out there in the ring without even Marina beside him thanks to the Continental Classic rules. Punch after punch after punch as the fans counted along, straight on past ten. Until he overextended and got caught, hefted up in an electric chair position and flipped about into a neckbreaker. 

One moment of weakness led to another as Dorada sat back with a cross arm-breaker. No longer was Mox calm and collected. Now he flailed about in outright terrified panic. Maybe that was the only thing that saved him. He was flopping about so manically that Dorada couldn't lock in the hold. Mox couldn't let himself quit again, not at the start of the tournament, not after Darby and Blood and Guts and Full Gear. 

Seeing red, he rolled Dorada over and punched at his gold mask again and again and absolutely crushed him with a running knee. He went for the Death Rider only to get rolled up. He survived a 450 (because naked or no, he's the emperor, dammit), but was now an unchained animal and he ran right into a spinning kick. At every point here, the vulnerability that Moxley had shown over the last many months primed the fans to think that things could end at any moment. There was an excitement in the air throughout this entire stretch that isn't always present because of that.

Clothes or no, point or no, hypocrite or not, quitter that he might have been, those animal instincts were strong. Dorada went back up top and launched into a shooting star press. Mox got his knees up, all instinct, and wrapped Dorada tightly in a d'arce choke. He was exposed to the world here on the first night of the Continental Classic, and he clung to Dorada's head like a babe in the woods with a security blanket. His desperation was such that there'd be absolutely no escape for Dorada, and instead the relief of escape for Moxley. 

The emperor, his kingdom falling apart, lived to fight another day. That was all that mattered in this moment and Moxley, in denial of so many things, would lie to himself and bask in his victory, ignoring the creeping dread in his heart due to the undeniable truth that Claudio Castagnoli was waiting for him only one week away.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/10 - 11/16 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 11/12/25

Death Riders (Wheeler Yuta/Daniel Garcia/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley/PAC) vs Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy/Kyle O'Reilly/Roderick Strong/Mark Briscoe [Blood & Guts] 

MD: Everything was going Jon Moxley's way. 

It was a long road, but this was where it always had to be headed. Blood and Guts. 

Yes, October and November hadn't gone to plan. He'd quit against Darby Allin at WrestleDream. He'd been on his back foot, barely surviving without quitting (twice) against Kyle O'Reilly. Roderick Strong defeated him by countout to decide the advantage.

But it didn't matter. None of it mattered.

They were in the cage and everything was going his way. 

He'd turned on his partner, his brother-in-arms, had started a reign of terror, been champion and locked away the belt. Even though he lost the belt, it could all still be worth it. He was a mad king, an emperor that had been deposed, but he could get all of it back, and even more than that, he could rain vengeance down on all of his enemies. 

Hangman wasn't there, but the rest of them? Front and center. 

And they were bleeding out. 

The advantage might have been an issue. Yuta had been sent out first, the sacrificial workhorse. He'd stalled and drawn Darby out after him, had been tossed into the cage and used it as a weapon himself. He'd been opened up by Darby's modified skateboard (after going for it himself), had been thrashed further by Darby and Cassidy when it became two-on-one. But he just had to hold out long enough for reinforcements, and he did. Garcia came out to even the odds and two-on-two with one man just a little fresher, they fought even. Until they didn't. 

When Mark Briscoe's music hit, they were wrapped around in a chain, beaten and battered. But that's when everything turned. 

Briscoe had been left laying in the back. Maybe it was the Don Callis family, maybe it wasn't. It didn't matter. Moxley didn't care. He'd take opportunity where he found it. 

Roderick Strong came out to make it 3-on-2, but the advantage time had been cut into severely. He hit a few moves but that was all he could do before Claudio's music hit back.

The plan was always Claudio, infinitely strong, infinitely reliable, always a step behind. He tossed Strong into a chair and then swung both Darby and Cassidy at once. O'Reilly came out next, but by then it was too late. Even with a 4-on-3 advantage on paper, the damage was done. This wasn't the happy-go-lucky world of the Conglomeration. It wasn't even Darby's world, one with open skies to leap and dive and crash. It was the post-apocalyptic world of the Death Riders, and they made use of every weapon, every opportunity. Here, no matter what the numerical advantage might say, the odds were always in their favor.

So instead of sending PAC out next, Moxley himself came to survey his gloriously ruined kingdom, to inflict violence and vengeance. He came in with a fork and immediately opened up O'Reilly more (for his transgressions were the worst of them all). He jabbed it into Darby's back, scraped it up and down, offered it to his newest disciple Garcia in a morbid ritual that let him join in. The women had set the stage for this earlier in their own Blood & Guts match and Moxley casually walked behind the timekeeper desk to seize all of the weapons they had left for him. He dropped broken glass in the ring and scraped a shattered mirror across O'Reilly's bloody skull opening him up more. They dropped Darby on his skull and dragged him across the glass for good measure. 

Life was good. All that he had lost? None of it mattered because he'd craft a new gospel in blood and viscera. He'd show the world that everything he'd always said was true. He would be vindicated and validated. 

And when Darby climbed to the top of the inside of the cage and dropped down upon all of them, even that didn't matter. Because that was just one last gasp of futile hope from a man not meant to climb mountains but to fall off of them and PAC was the last man in. Chaotic order was restored. The door was locked. The key was stolen. The Death Riders had a 5-on-4 advantage and could now punish their enemies to their hearts' content.

Everything was going Jon Moxley's way. 

But fate had a way of turning, bolstered by hearts that simply wouldn't quit, hearts very different than the beleaguered, hypocritical organ beating all too quickly in Jon’s own chest.

Despite being ambushed and assaulted and left for dead, Mark Briscoe arrived, wild look in his eyes and bolt cutters in hand. 

-----

Let's stop there. You know how the story ended. Briscoe turned the tide. Yuta faced him on the top of the cage and despite multiple cheapshots ended up eating a Jay Driller onto the steel. Kidd interfered and they put Darby through a flaming table. The Death Riders were ready (with a stapler of all things) for Cassidy to put his hands in his pockets only for Orange to care more than he'd ever cared before as he ripped the staples out of his own flesh. That let him save a defiant Kyle O'Reilly who was being choked out. Kyle refused to quit and in due course, with a few more twists and turns, he made Moxley tap out once more. A poetic ending to the last month and maybe, in some ways, to the last year. Questions remain: Who attacked Briscoe (the Callis family denied it)? Will this elevate Kyle to the next level? What does this mean for an increasingly out of touch Moxley and his leadership of the Death Riders?

As War Games go, modern ones always lean more towards CZW than JCP, more weapons and theatrics than wrestlers just beating the piss out of each other to solve their issues. In some ways, I thought this was a better mix than usual though of course Mox is a Cage of Death guy, so you knew what was going to happen when he got in there. I'd like to see them try the other way just once though. There are enough opportunities especially now that they're doing two of these on one show. 

That led to its own issues too, where they had to switch things up and play around with the advantage. Between Briscoe being taken out, Strong having less time to press the advantage as a substitute, and the sheer force that is Claudio, I thought they handled it remarkably well. Before and after, the characters drove things in interesting ways. One quick example. Right before Briscoe's music hit, when it was two-on-two, Garcia and Yuta had Cassidy down and were kicking him. Garcia, full of bluster and attitude, did the mocking Cassidy kicks and threw it over to Yuta but Yuta, like an animal that had been kicked too many times itself, couldn't help but kick him full-on. The match was full of little interesting character bits like that while maintaining the overarching story. 

-----

Feedback I've gotten lately is that people really like the dramatization approach to reviewing these matches, where I dig deep into the characters and emotions at play and recount the narrative as presented on screen. It feels almost like 80s PWI or something to me and I don't want to lean too hard into it all the time as opposed to a more analytical approach. 

But here's the point: I can only do it at all because the coherency, consistency, and commitment in what's being presented. If wrestlers are just doing a bunch of stuff, even if the stuff is clever or full of workrate or stiff or whatever else, you can't necessarily draw those throughlines. It's the selling, especially the emotional selling, like what Jon Moxley has been doing as of late, which lets me even find the dots to connect. 

Not every match has this. Not every conventional five star match has this. A lot of times, maybe there's some lip service towards it but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny no matter how exciting and action-packed the match might seem in the moment. You don't have to sacrifice it for "Greatness," because if done with care, it enhances it in every way. It just takes more effort and care.

Maybe that's self-evident, but I honestly don't think you can as easily do what I did up above for the Forbidden Door 2025 cage match main event in the same way. There were too many goofy tonal shifts and funny spots that were done just to pop the wrestlers involved. Specific moments stood out and popped and were impressive but it didn't come together as a narrative in the same way. 

Pro wrestling is an amazing narrative artform that can tell amazing stories almost entirely in ring, through the work alone. This Blood and Guts was built from the Foundation of the I Quit match with Darby and then the subsequent O'Reilly/Strong vs Moxley matches. It was built upon pro wrestling matches that were full of emotion and character development and great emotive performances. That's what made all of the excess here resonate and matter. 

There's a lot to be learned from all of this and I hope the people who make decisions and the wrestlers of both today and tomorrow take the right lessons and not the wrong ones.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 10/27 - 11/2

AEW Dynamite 10/29/25

Jon Moxley vs Kyle O'Reilly

MD: I covered their last match last week and people seemed to enjoy it. Part of me wanted to go super stylized once again. 

Kyle O'Reilly was a man who lost it all. 

After failing to defeat Jon Moxley for a world title opportunity in 2022, he underwent neck surgery. He still does not have full strength in his arm. There was a time immediately thereafter when he never knew if he'd be able to hold his newborn.

But what he lost in strength he gained in focus, redoubling his efforts to train and to let technique push him back towards victory. Along the way, he found friends and lost them again, Paragon only barely forming before Adam Cole ended up on the shelf, possibly indefinitely. But he's a man who rolls with the punches, and with a smile on his face, he found the fun-loving whimsy still within him that was necessary to be the heart and soul of the Conglomeration. 

So on and so forth. I'd write about how this time, after scoring one of the biggest victories of his career but having been robbed of an even greater one by Jon Moxley's cowardice, he marched down to the ring with a more serious expression, how he had one more chance to snatch glory long past a point that anyone thought he'd still be in contention for it. 

But then he hit the ring and Moxley, after taking a few shots from Marina to warm him up, followed him in, and I saw the match and now that's just not what I want to write. 

I think that was a great way to remind everyone of the greatness of the first match, but here, it's worth really delving in to the storytelling at play.

Look, we take it for granted. In 2025, just as often as not, maybe more often than not, the logic is flipped. Wrestlers think up big spots and then they work the match around them. They work backwards from the special effects instead of crafting a story worthy of those fireworks and then inserting them in.

This was the very opposite of that.

What I wrote above and what I wrote last week... those things aren't just fluff. They're not just stylized dramatizations. They distill characters. Characters have motivations, hopes, fears, things that drive them. In a perfect world of fiction, these things then intersect with their attributes, physical and skill both, and impacted by environment, then underpin every single action and reaction. This should be the bare minimum in any fictional narrative but all too often in wrestling, it's an afterthought at best or ignored or shoehorned completely in order to try to pop people with something cool or with endless excess.

Not here. 

You could see it from the initial exchange. Character drove the strategic approach of both wrestlers. O'Reilly rolled to try to pick a leg right from the start. Moxley backed off and then tried to bully his way into holds, combining technique with aggression. O'Reilly had an answer to everything, in part because his technique was superior and in part because Moxley was out of control. Mox would go to the eyes, to the nose, to the ear, to anything soft to try to squeeze out an advantage, but O'Reilly was ready for it. In countering those underhanded tactics, he got a little hot though, could maybe feel Moxley's desperation and he charged in with a knee in the ropes that Moxley was then able to use to heft him up and over the top, truly taking over for the first time.

You can continue to follow these threads. Moxley attacked the hand first, worried about O'Reilly's cross arm breaker. But he couldn't help rubbing it in, couldn't help grinding down, couldn't help stomping away. That gave O'Reilly an opening to snatch the leg and starting to work upon it. Moxley, panicking, went right back to the eye and then, not just wanting to win but needing to main, shifted to the neck, the same neck that had been damaged out of their match back in 2022. But O'Reilly knew he had him rattled and he met him standing with strikes getting a seeming advantage but really falling into Moxley's trap, a pile driver.

It's all right there in the text, all shaped by the context, driven by the subtext. Moxley had his back against the wall, respected his opponent, hated his opponent, wanted to stick it to the fans. He'd not just run him to the stairs to slam his head in but would carefully bring him over in a full nelson. He'd lose the advantage by focusing too much on the fans and charging shoulder first into the post, allowing O'Reilly to utilize a dragon screw leg whip. He was cruel and careful one moment and entirely erratic the next. When he was in the ankle lock this time, he was staring at Aubrey Edwards and everyone had to wonder if he'd slug her too.

And O'Reilly balanced the opportunistic counters of a level-headed practitioner with a man with so much left to prove. He occasionally overshot but never so much that he couldn't recover. Moxley would catch his foot when he tried to stand even with him and throw punches and kicks, but he'd be able to spin out and hit something else. When Moxley went for the Gotch Pile Driver, he kept a cool head and turned it into a triangle. This match was his moment, and while he never stopped knowing it, he refused to let it shake him.

Watch this again. At every moment, it was character driving the action, character informing the reactions, character creating outcomes. 

That took them all the way to the finish. This time, back in the ankle lock, Moxley doesn't attack the ref. He dives towards the ropes instead. That throws O'Reilly off but they both end up on the floor. After one or two rotations, O'Reilly locks in a floating guillotine. The count ticks up and Kyle, lost in the moment (his moment), loses sight of the bigger picture. Aubrey counts them out, Moxley survives again even in symbolic defeat, Shafir turns out to be the one to attack Aubrey, and the tension builds in a very organic way for Blood and Guts where Moxley will not be able to escape. 

It's all right there, and in truth, it shouldn't be worth me having to lean so hard into. In a perfect world, I wouldn't have to. If every match operated like this, like so much of other fiction does, then we could take this for granted. But matches aren't like this. This is an outlier. This is special, and the only reason I even could dramatize it and stylize it like I did last week is because they put so much into it. We should expect more. We should expect this. But until we get it match in and match out, we should raise this sort of pro wrestling onto the pedestal it deserves.    

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs Wheeler Yuta/Daniel Garcia

MD: Just a couple of paragraphs about this since Darby is someone we write about and I really enjoyed this match. It was there to further the Death Riders vs Darby/Conglomeration story. On paper, you wouldn't necessarily want this to be a tornado tag, even if it does suit Darby, but the four way for the tag title shot was going to follow it, and the two matches needed to feel different. 

With a tornado tag you usually get a spot-first approach as mentioned above. Here, the characters were really driving it, Darby's intensity, Cassidy's mind-games, Garcia's chip on his shoulder, Yuta just being an irritating menace. Garcia's particularly great at showing (selling) how Cassidy going to the pockets gets to him, but he also got drawn in by Darby teasing with the skateboard. Character-driven spots. My favorite bit might have been when Cassidy leaped over the rail to stymie a Garcia whip only for Yuta to nail him from off-screen (both for Yuta's trademark appearance from off camera to cheapshot, and because of Garcia's reaction). That led to Darby diving onto all of them. Or it might have been how, after jamming Cassidy's skull onto the guardrail with a brainbuster, Yuta shoved Darby off the top and Garcia and Yuta both jawed with the fans, drawing real, true, honest, genuine heat in 2025 by being as obnoxious and proud and unlikable as possible. Yuta going under the ring and only finding his middle finger to piss off the crowd would be a not distant third.

They built to a big comeback (set up by Cassidy putting his hands in his pockets while the two were on the outside) and them paying off what they had set up earlier (including, literally, a table). I hadn't expected Garcia and Yuta to lean into each other like this. It felt like they were heading towards immediate dissension. Bowens/Caster and Takeshita/Okada are already in that lane though, so it can always come later though. For now, this is a (death) ride worth enjoying.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 10/20 - 10/26

AEW Dynamite 10/22/25

Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O'Reilly

MD: Jon Moxley has mouths to feed.

He's got bodies to stack up. He's got things to prove. He's a strongman with an army. But that army needs to eat. He's convinced them that it's the post-apocalypse, that it's kill or be killed. 

And he went and got himself killed. He lost his title. He won a battle against Darby Allin but not the war. And there, in the center of the ring, he was made to quit. 

He feels the wolves nipping at his heels. He's supposed to be the wolf. He'd been the wolf with his back against the wall but then the wall fell in on him. Now they're behind him, getting ever closer. Now forget wolves. The chickens are coming home to roost. 

But he's still Jon Moxley. He's a barefist fighter. He's a bloodspot warrior. He's a submission scrapper. He's the best at what he does. And there's opportunity around every corner.

Kyle O'Reilly is a perfect opportunity. He represents everything Moxley claims to hate, everything that he rails against, the world that he's trying to destroy. O'Reilly has all the tools, all the training, all the skills, all the fight, but a weak liver, a tender heart. He wants to sit on a couch and make funny videos with his friends, wants a cheesy sitcom theme song, wants to make faces for memes as Mark Briscoe comes up with the word of the day. All this instead of being a champion. He's everything the BCC was created to stamp out and everything the Death Riders were escalated to burn to ashes.

So he faces him in the middle of the ring. He scraps with him on the mat. And he comes up lacking. O'Reilly wrestles him even and then takes it a step further, flying over into a cross arm breaker, outwrestling him. Moxley immediately grinds his heel into O'Reilly's face, bites at his ear, stomps his hand on the steel steps. So what if he got outwrestled. So what if he even got outstriked. He's Jon Moxley and he'd outrough him, would punish him for his foolishness, his temerity. 

But Mox wanted it too badly. He needed it too badly. He overextended, went sailing over the top rope, ended up on a chair with O'Reilly's feet slamming into his jaw. 

Even that's okay, though. Because he's Jon Moxley and finishing stretches are where he rules supreme. That last bit of a fight, one last gasp, one last takedown. A pile driver. A lock in of that bulldog choke, using his strength, leaning into his toughness, riding over, pressing down. O'Reilly kicks out, putting up a fight, but that's okay too. That'd just make Moxley look stronger in victory like he had so many times.

Except for that's not what happened. This isn't the same Jon Moxley. This is a Jon Moxley that's bleeding out, that feels those wolves getting ever closer, that can hear the rumbling of his men's stomachs, and that knows it's only a matter of time before he starts looking less like predator and more like prey. 

O'Reilly has an answer to everything Moxley throws at him. He snatches an ankle lock. He crashes down off the top rope with a stomp onto the leg. He is unrelenting. No smiles. No funny faces. No laughter. Instead, everything Moxley claimed he wanted out of him, wanted out of his competition, wanted out of AEW. Mox didn't want it all that much anymore, did he? 

He felt it all slipping away and so he did the only thing he could. He pulled himself to one foot, the other grasped, twisted, contorted. He used the referee to pull himself up and then, instead of quitting, he overturned the board, smashing the ref, drawing the DQ. One might say that he took fate into his own hands, but then surrender manifests itself in many forms, doesn't it? 

What a performance then from these two. What a complex, desperate, human story that they told through our beloved, rarely stretched and rarely challenged, all too comfortable and familiar medium of pro wrestling. There were strands of Hemmingway here: short, stilted sentences, the depravity of humanity, a man at the very end of his rope. 

What's really exciting though, even more than what they were able to accomplish here, is that Moxley hasn't even begun to hit bottom yet.

There's more to come.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/13 - 10/19

AEW WrestleDream 10/18/25

Darby Allin vs Jon Moxley (I Quit)

MD: So this had me, then it lost me, then it hooked me again, then it lost me, and I pretty much made it back for the finish. A bit like Moxley's year, yeah? Let's break it down. Moxley had just barely hung on at All Out in Darby's own gimmick match even after losing the title. He'd hit bottom and clung on thanks to reinforcements. In a world where Darby would have let him move on, maybe he'd be onward and upwards, taking a third swing at Hangman, going after Brodido, regaining the six-man belts, maybe refocusing for the C2 and Okada. 

But Darby wouldn't quit, he didn't quit, he couldn't quit. 

And Mox knew that. Yet here they were. 

There were ways out of this where Darby might have lost, most specifically if Sting's life was on the line. But then Sting's not normal and Darby's not normal and even that might not have worked. 

So if Darby wasn't going to quit under any circumstance, the match then was about Moxley punishing him for the sake of punishing him. There was to be no bottom. 

Moxley sees himself as a king, as truth, as a force that can mete out justice and push the world forward. He sees himself as a god. In a timely fashion, he sees himself as Inoki, a vengeful deity of struggle and conflict. Inoki was able to channel that with a certain purity of spirit though. Oh, there were lapses, like when he was in there against Maeda, but put him up against Saito, Choshu, Kimura, or even Fujinami, and there was an element of holy wrath at play.

But Jon Moxley is not Inoki. The cracks run deep, and through them, you can see glimpses of the vulnerable hypocrite within. 

What was he trying to accomplish here then? He wanted to punish Darby. He was riding the shaky confidence of beating Darby at his own game. Most of all, though, he wanted to prove to his followers and to the world that he was everything he said he was, that he could perform miracles.

And there's no greater miracle than making Darby Allin quit.

Darby planted his flag to start. Moxley stomped upon it. Darby scored the first points only for Shafir to involve herself and force the tide to turn. From there, the punishment began. Mouth, nose, ears. Soft, fragile bits. Hand, fingers, nails. A dismantling. An object lesson. All it took was one lapse, however, one bit of distance and Darby began to fire back. But then he overstretched as he so often did and slipped on the top rope, for Shafir to pull Mox away, and for Darby to wipe out on the apron (again).

I did find the first few minutes compelling. Maybe it was due to how Moxley was shifting up his offense, moving from one body part to another. But they did lose me somewhat here, as Mox whipped Darby in the ring, as Darby came back with mace and threatened immolation (again), as the Death Riders came out, as Darby held his own right until he didn't. 

Then they got me back. All it took was Claudio taking one sharp 180 degree turn. He had Darby up in a press slam. Claudio's strength is always impressive, but sometimes it feels like only Darby brings out something visceral and real within him. Claudio turning face and launching Darby into the announcer desk brought a vibrant color into the world, underpinned by Tony Schiavone's shout and Excalibur's whisper even as PAC dragged Darby's corpse around ringside. 

It wouldn't last. Part of the problem was that Jon Moxley did not have a miracle within him. There had been tasing. There was more punishment. The fishtank came into play. At one point they outright asked what would happen if Darby went unconscious. They'd just have to wake him up and try again. Sting's arrival felt like a mercy, but not for Darby. It felt like a mercy for Moxley, because the tower of babel he was building would never be high enough and he'd only look more the fool in his delusion. 

It was an onramp back into the match for me as well. Sting has that presence. Just pointing a bat, just throwing to Darby, that was enough. Mox demanded high and Darby went low, taking out the leg, defeating him soundly and quickly with a wrestling hold, a fitting conclusion for a hypocrite warrior. 

What are we left with then? It was a doomed match, one that couldn't easily follow the two tags that came before it (one goofus, one gallant). If Darby had been the aggressor throughout, maybe it would have been different, but the story here was of Moxley's ultimate hubris, of seeing himself as a god, when he is but a man. How we will remember this has a lot to do with where things go next.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/15 - 9/21 (Part 1?)

AEW All Out 9/20/25

Eddie Kingston vs Big Bill

MD: Eddie Kingston was out for over sixteen months. He comes back, stands tall, throws chops, and runs right into a big boot. 

That's Eddie Kingston for you.

Look, I had it in my head that Eddie could move a needle. He connects with the audience. He's the most human wrestler there is. If Hangman's greatest strength is his relatability, Eddie has it ten times more. I think it's time at 43 for him to shift from the pillars to Inoki and Jumbo, but he chases what he loves and he'll chase it forever, and there's nothing more compelling in wrestling than the chase. 

So yeah, I wanted "The Mad King's Return" or something like that, a themed show, because if the company makes a big deal out of something, there's a chance the audience feels like it's a big deal. If they don't make a big deal out of it, then there's no chance. It's the same thing with Orange Cassidy, by the way. Hyping him up as a wink wink mystery partner on Wednesday is fine. But it slots him. It limits him. A return is a chance to reset, and the most important thing in wrestling isn't 5-star matches in and of themselves, but instead how those 5-star matches are presented. If you do something amazing, if you have an amazing wrestler, hype it and frame it and let it breathe and let it matter.

If you look at the history of AEW, Eddie's the most reliable second match wrestler in the world. 

And here he was now, second match on the card, running into a boot.

I bet you're wondering how he got here.

But you're not. Because you know Eddie and it's more or less exactly where you expected him. He rose to the top of the world and then he fell as far as one could fall. 16 months out. And that spot? The one that took him out? It felt inevitable. He'd lost two of his titles. He was about to lose the third. 

But what did he do? He didn't hang it up. He didn't call it quits. He saw Homicide riding off into the sunset and felt like he had to right the balance, like the hole was too big.

And now he's back. Maybe he sold some tickets because they announced him. He missed All In, wasn't there for the surprises and returns to help vanquish Mox. Mox is still in front of him. Another inevitability. 

Instead, he's here, in Toronto, second match on the card, against someone else with a chip on his shoulder that called him out.

And he's running into a boot.

Bill's good at living in the moment. He's good at expressing that chip, making the most of it. He mocked Eddie, mocked the fans, paintbrushed him with his foot. 

But then, Eddie's used to that. He took, and he took, and he took. He took all that life had to throw at him. Then he got up, and he fired back, and he won.

Maybe Eddie didn't get up too high on those Black Hole Slams. Maybe that second Uraken didn't quite hit. Maybe he ran into a big boot. Two actually.

But you see, Eddie's back and he's just getting started. He's rebuilding. He fell so damn far after climbing so high, and he's got a ways to go. 

And whether he'd admit it, or whether he'll believe it, or whether he'd even want it to be the truth, he's going to carry each and every one of us on his back as he climbs. 

And he'll fill that hole in the world like only Eddie Kingston can.

That's not inevitable. It's damn hard work. 

But we can count on him to do it anyway.

Eddie Kingston, everyone.

-------

Darby Allin vs Jon Moxley [Coffin Match]

MD: This is a story about a man with his back against the wall. Jon Moxley crossed lines that can't be uncrossed. He made claims and didn't back them up. He didn't need to back them up. It's 2025. Might equals right, right? 

Only so much as people keep their head down, only so much as people fall in line, only so much as people don't fight back.

Darby Allin got pushed down a flight of stairs, climbed to the top of the world, and then came back to fight. 

He helped Hangman Page defeat Jon Moxley (though, paradoxically, in every way that mattered, Page defeated him on his own, and at the same time, in every way that mattered, Jon Moxley defeated himself. It was quite the night). 

And now Jon Moxley is left without a title, a king without a kingdom, with a hungry army to feed, no harvest before him, a cold, harsh winter on its way. 

His back's against the wall, and those walls? They're closing in. 

One on each side, top, bottom, left, right. Death itself. A coffin.

Darby Allin's signature match. The perfect match for a man who chases death to feel alive.

The consequences of his actions, of the price he was willing to pay (that he paid with his soul as his enemies paid with their bodies) finally caught up to Moxley. 

He emerged with his usual swagger only to find Darby waiting for him in ambush. Like always, Darby turned his own body into a weapon, leaping from above. Darby moved with abandon. Every assault outside the ring did as much damage to him as to his foe. Even a dropkick would leave him broken upon the arena steps. A dive into the coffin would shatter not just his bones and Moxley's, but the coffin itself. 

In a match strewn with symbolism, a coffin barely held together, barely able to be closed, was the perfect centerpiece. 

As was Moxley bleeding from the ear, another piece of revenge, and not the last of the night either, but a well that Darby could go back to again and again to counteract the size and focus and cruelty of Mox. 

The Death Riders came out when Mox had an advantage. They watched as he and Shafir stumbled in bringing the coffin into the ring, only then managing it with their help. Symbols upon symbols. He sent them back, all of them, for he felt victory well in hand and didn't want to share in the glory.

Allin was ready though, a fork hidden in the turnbuckle, a plastic bag held by Bryan Danielson, a man who could no longer do what needed to be done thanks to Moxley, but that could enable Allin, could nod in solemn approval, as the last parenthesis was closed, and balance was restored to the world.

But Moxley is a sore on all that's right and good. His violence is one thing, but there's a hypothetical purity to that. 

No, it's his hypocrisy which pushes the world off balance. He sent the Death Riders back but kept an ace up his sleeve, a bastard ready to strike.

The fans popped for the surprise. They chanted at a key moment. Details matter. This Toronto crowd especially was going to lean towards sentiment, even in the face of serious drama. Looking back, having PAC ambush Darby a week ago and having Garcia turn here was likely the better play. Details Matter.

But no one's going to remember the "He's Our Bastard" chants down the line. They'll remember Mox's defining hypocrisy though. 

Jon Moxley lost his kingdom. His back's against the wall. The consequences of his actions continue to come for him. But he escaped death on this night, though it remains, as it will always remain, just one step behind him.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 9/1 - 9/7

AEW Collision 9/6/25

Jon Moxley vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Jon Moxley saw something wrong with the world. Bryan Danielson came to him in 2022 with a vision. Wrestling was broken, but they could redirect its fate, could band together and bring up the next generation how they saw best. They could reforge the youth through iron clashing with iron and force hammering down, tempering steel. And yes, they took Wheeler Yuta under their wing, his path forged in blood. But then the things went astray. They ended up feuding with the Jericho Appreciation Society, with the Elite. They bounced without purpose all over the card, sometimes beloved by the fans, sometimes reviled. They lost their way. 

So Mox took matters into his own hands. Deciding that Danielson wasn't up to the task, he put a knife in his back and a bag over his head and called it love and mercy. He took the title for himself, locked it in a briefcase, and went about to create the future.

Except for that's not what he did at all. After Private Party bounced off of the Deathriders, they found their nerve and became champions. He didn't say a word. On the same show that Mox won the title, Daniel Garcia became TNT champion. He didn't say a word.

Because maybe it wasn't about the future. Maybe it was about the present. Maybe Jon Moxley was just an animal deep down, a beast that needed to sit as king of the mountain and do anything at all to make sure he didn't fall, even if it meant keeping anyone else from rising and destroying or ignoring them when they did.

And Daniel Garcia? He became TNT champion, literally carried the flag of AEW, vowed to restore the feeling, encapsulated an earnestness of babyfaces of old, and then spent six months trudging through mud. He meant to be the front line against the Deathriders, but Moxley wasn't actually interested in that fight. Instead, Garcia fought through the C2, defended his title against figures as beloved as he was if not more so in Briscoe, Shibata, Adam Cole, when he should have been facing all the villains of the world. It was hard to maintain his purity of vision in the face such blurred lines and eventually he came up lacking. 

He needed iron to brush up against, needed the hammer coming down upon him so he could press back, fire back, prove himself. 

But the iron was nowhere to be found and the hammer was busy elsewhere protecting its own kingdom. 

Eventually, that kingdom came together in revolt and toppled the king. Mox was left wounded and vulnerable, a beast with his back against the wall. Garcia had been left aimless, frustrated, barely hanging on to the feeling he meant to restore. 

But now on the other side of All In, with no rankings to get in the way, no title defenses to distract either man, the path was clear. Garcia could now do what he had wanted to do back in Fall and throw himself at Moxley, to test his mettle, to show the world that Mox was a hypocrite, that his words had always been empty, that he was a false leader selling a false bill of goods.

The 2300 was the perfect venue, stifling, closed in with nowhere to run, blood soaked into the floor, intimate. And on Dynamite, Garcia pushed Moxley to the limit. You could see it down the stretch. Moxley had him beat on the floor, was content with a countout win, wounded beast that he was. But Garcia literally grasped the hands of the fans, and with them behind him, pulled himself up and beat the count as Mox fumed and raged. Moxley doesn't just defeat people. He beats them. He drops them on their heads or chokes the life out of them. But in order to best Garcia, he had to rely upon a roll up. He didn't beat Garcia in that first encounter; he survived him. 

It made sense that after the fact, and then again before Garcia's next match, that Mox tried to get in Dany's head. He was paranoid. Darby Allin was haunting his steps. He couldn't face a war on two fronts; he was already bleeding out after the title loss. Losing now to someone beneath him in his own mind like Garcia might have opened the door to Darby doing more than just beating him. It might have ended him for good.

But Garcia had chased this for almost a year, had lost so much along the way in part because he didn't get it, didn't get the attention of Mox, the recognition, the respect to even just fight him. He'd been underlooked, overlooked, and he knew just how close he had come. 

He was going to challenge Mox again.

And challenge him he did. 

Garcia started by wrestling, by dragging Mox down into the STF. Moxley responded by goading him in. Garcia was happy to comply, throwing shots into Mox's face, but that put him into Moxley's world, and there, Moxley still reigned, belt or no. Once it became a fight, Moxley took over. That trend continued. Garcia caught a leg in the corner, hit a dragon screw and stared to work it over. But when he took it to the floor, Moxley regained control. 

But even in control, he couldn't put Garcia away. He'd kick out again and again, fight back again and again. He survived a pile driver, endured the cross arm breaker. He continued to find his courage and, strengthened by the support of the fans, he refused to back down. He reversed Mox on the apron and hit a pile driver of his own. He turned the bulldog choke into a belly to back. Garcia pressed on with a twisting neckbreaker into the superplex (a better and more logical combo than the triple superplexes or a superplex into the twisting neckbreaker).

They inverted roles from the the first match as Mox tried to add insult to injury with a scorpion deathlock and Garcia rolled him up for a nearfall (the same way Mox won the Dynamite match). Garcia went for Mox's Bulldog Choke and got absolutely planted by a DDT for his hubris. But Garcia not only survived that, he was able to capitalize on the escape by locking in the Dragon Slayer. Moxley tried to grasp the head as Garcia leaned back but to no avail. Instead, Jon Moxley, the great mat scrapper, had to get to the ropes, a wounded animal looking for a way out.

Pushed against the wall like he was, both by life and fate in general, and by Daniel Garcia in specific, something awoke in Moxley, something that we haven't seen for the better part of a year. Just for a minute there, we saw the Jon Moxley of old, all but begging Garcia to throw his very best at him, meeting him head-on, the two firing off on one another inside the ring and out. This was the Jon Moxley that backed up what he said, that stood for something, that would face down anything in the world that came his way, and just as he had brought out something special in Daniel Garcia, Daniel Garcia brought something back in him. 

He blinked first, catching Garcia with an elbow off the ropes. Garcia tried one last flourish in response, channeling both Moxley and his recent partner Nigel McGuinness with a comebacker clothesline. Moxley ducked it, went for the rear naked. Garcia was ready and turned it into a roll up, only to get rolled back and pinned. Once again Moxley had to escape with the banana peel, opportunistic win instead of planting Garcia on his head definitively or choking him out. Once again he scrambled away, leaving Marina Shafir to clap for the dejected Garcia. Post-match, Garcia cut a heartfelt, real, unpolished promo about how all the good and all the fighting just wasn't enough.

I don't know where they go from here. A week ago, I was sure that this was going to lead to a Garcia heel turn, one that almost felt like a mercy killing and a necessary shame given that he's such a great babyface. After this, the lines all feel so blurred. Maybe Garcia's hit bottom, but the fans are more behind him than they've been in almost a year. Maybe that means he can turn from a place of strength and not weakness. Even then, it makes it all the more important to ensure that the reasoning and the explanation and the moment itself are all ironclad with no holes.

What stands out the most however is how real and human this story feels. This isn't a pro wrestling story, not someone pointing at a sign or wanting to best some sort of imaginary record. It's not about main eventing a big show or making moments for a universe. A path back into the light and a possible descent down into darkness. There's pathos here. A fallen king. A tarnished hero. Hypocrisy and truth. All the frustrations of life. This speaks to the human condition. And it's not just the story behind it, not just promos and angles. So much of it is in how the matches themselves play out. It's all integrated, all organic, exactly as pro wrestling once was and exactly as pro wrestling should be. 

I'm not sure where it's going to go next, but I can't wait to find out.

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