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

AEW Dynamite 7/22/26

Darby Allin vs Kevin Knight

MD: So who then is Kevin Knight?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that brings us back to the start.

Who is Kevin Knight?

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

Most of all, he's a vulnerable heel.

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

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

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

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

So why did Kevin Knight attack Darby Allin?

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

He was afraid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ROH TV 5/7/26

The Infantry vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Dynamite 5/6/26

Kevin Knight vs Darby Allin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Dynamite 3/4/26

MJF vs Kevin Knight

MD: A few weeks back, I wrote up some thoughts on the idea of a “neo-kayfabe”, a sort of new and open social contract with crowds where they're convinced that it's in their best interest to let themselves go and play along during a pro wrestling show (reprinted way below). That doesn't mean that they don't truly get mad at the heel. People watching Game of Thrones absolutely got invested and mad at Cersei Lannister. It just means the second they walk through the gate and sit down at their seat, they realize that they get to actively boo at Cersei Lannister in a way that no one watching at home can. They get to be part of the show and let their anger out openly. The idea is to convince them that they're robbing themselves of a one-of-a-kind experience if they play it too cool or too "smart" and the real smartness is to actually be part of the show and serve the match as much as the wrestlers do, to truly be inside in a way that every smart fan in the history of pro wrestling has wanted to be.

In some ways it's defeatist, because as I said, while people really got upset at Cersei Lannister, they still realized it was a show. At its absolute best, pro wrestling really, truly infuriates a crowd and gets them to boo at the heel and cheer for the babyface having completely forgotten that it's just pro wrestling. 

But I see a crowd like this and I don't think we can chance it anymore. I'm not even sure the wrestlers should try. 

This crowd was absolutely infuriating. Imagine getting a chance to boo MJF, the most loathsome, wretched heel going today and cheer for Kevin Knight, one of the best, most dynamic, most engaging babyfaces. For the world title! Just on a random Wednesday. That crowd had no idea how good they had it.

I'm not going to try to guess why the El Paso crowd was aligned like it was. You can come up with lots of possibilities. Maybe they were more of a casual audience and less familiar with Knight. Maybe they were enamored by MJF's attitude or his relative star power. Or maybe some other things.

Regardless, Knight got a mixed reaction at best as he came out and was announced. On the other hand, they sang along to MJF's theme, chanted his name, including as he was announced, and even clapped him up early (more on that in a minute).

In the end, it matters to a degree why the crowd was so for him and against Knight because it's like a disease the wrestlers had to treat. But it only matters so much.

Why? 

Because they got them. They turned them. I'm not sure if they 100% turned them away from MJF but they turned them towards Knight enough to make the match work and to make the central story resonate and the finishing stretch sing.

But it took absolutely everything they had to do it.

That it worked was a testament to both wrestlers, and honestly, to the power of pro wrestling in general, to details mattering. The art of pro wrestling is to move hearts and minds, to manipulate people to a certain emotional reaction. 

Here MJF and Knight had to drag them there, kicking and screaming, had to force them there for their own good, but they got them there nonetheless.

Here's how they did it.

Most important of all, they had a purity of vision. Knight may have come in with a chip on his shoulder and an aggressive attitude, but the match had incredibly clear lines. MJF gave the crowd absolutely nothing to latch on to (to their discredit, they still managed to latch for a while; that says more about them than him). He was arrogant, dismissive, hypocritical, cowardly, opportunistic, cruel. There wasn’t an ounce of valor in anything he did. Meanwhile, Knight had to fight back against injury and adversity and through selling so strong that it informed his body language completely, it showed in everything he did. 

MJF was totally on right from the start. As he was being announced, he went over and shoved his hand in Knight’s face. That matters. It sets the tone. He hit an early armdrag and went to the camera proclaiming that yes, what he had just done was called “an armdrag” and then noted it to Knight, as if he was unaware. Knight subsequently armdragged MJF leaving Max to stare at him coldly, tasting just a little bit of immediate comeuppance. The fans weren’t going up for Knight here, not yet, not even after he armdragged MJF twice more. Max went for the eyes and that didn’t turn them either. 

Max went further. He shouted “Gotcha!” (as good at anyone today at being “vocal” to achieve an effect) as he scored an armdrag of his own only to have Knight roll through and end up with the advantage, locking in an armbar. What did the crowd do in return? They clapped up MJF to get out of it. 

After getting out of it, he used the ref as a stalking horse for a cheapshot. Every advantage was stolen, nothing earned. Purity and consistency of vision. It would matter over time. Max stopped here to yell at the crowd as if they had chastised him for what he had done. They hadn’t, but for him to get so mad at them anyway, mattered even more than the cheapshot itself. That’s what started the cracks to form. He didn’t wrestle as if he was in a vacuum. He didn’t hit his spots like spots alone were going to move those hearts and minds. It’s interactive theater and damn it if he wasn’t going to do everything he could to get them where they needed to be.

He’d do it even at the cost of his own character’s coolness and toughness and control. Especially at that cost, because that cost has huge benefits. Of course it does. Vulnerability is a strength for a heel and it’s only the self-conscious who don’t realize that and kneecap themselves. Knight took advantage of the distraction and stomped a mudhole in MJF in the corner before going for his first attempt at an arcing UFO splash from the top. Max moved and then nailed Knight with a knee to the gut off the ropes (Kitchen Sink, but even as much as I like Choshu, I do sort of hate that name). That set the stage for the rest of the match as Knight came up selling his ribs in a big way. 

Max made maybe his one creative misstep in the whole match next (and even that is arguable). He has a bit he does where he rope runs back and forth past a dazed opponent as if he was setting up for a big kinetic babyface attack only to slam his groin in their face and then lean over the ropes and play to the crowd. The idea is that it denies the crowd that big babyface moment in the crudest way possible. Here, maybe it would have made sense to deny this specific crowd even the crude moment as if they (and Knight) weren’t worth it and just shove him down with a foot and lean over the ropes instead. But then it’s hard to plan for a crowd quite this backwards.

Anyway, Max is generally supposed to get his comeuppance after that bit, and here he did. Knight came back hot, but Max grabbed the tights to redirect him. Nothing earned. Everything stolen. Knight, on the other hand, ribs hurting, fighting from underneath, earned every inch he got on his comebacks, even if Max, either through cheating or superior size, would keep putting him down. Yes, Max would arrogantly provide him with openings, but Knight had to take initiative and fight through the pain. For instance, Max tossed him face-first (Bret bump) into the corner twice and then played to the crowd again (it was starting to have some impact). On the third attempt Knight reversed the whip. Max tried to dodge the subsequent charge but that just allowed Knight to come flying off the second rope with a clothesline that got the fans buzzing a bit.

It was working. And what was it? It was the combination of MJF being as much of a jerk as possible, being as underhanded as could be, being consistently terrible to both Knight and the crowd, and Knight constantly selling the ribs, constantly getting stomped on, but constantly fighting back and hitting bigger and bigger spots with each comeback. Knight was doing something worth watching, something worth rooting for. Max was giving them absolutely nothing but ire and spite. Simple machines. The lever. Max was pushing down. Knight was pushing up. And they were moving the crowd.

By this point, they had only moved them to a more even vantage point. They were chanting This is Awesome (which is a chant for the crowd itself as much as the wrestlers). They were increasingly open to the idea of supporting Knight. They were more hesitant about the idea of supporting MJF. So Max and Kevin pushed even harder on the lever. Even though he was straining through every movement, Knight hit a series of dropkicks. Then, showing as much effort as if he was trying to lift Andre the Giant (with the ribs being the great weight, far more than Max), he slammed MJF, having made it seem like an accomplishment well worth celebrating. He hit a twisting splash and this time the fans counted along with the pinfall. Then, when he went for his second UFO attempt, Max rolled out of the ring. And look at that, they actively booed him.

And that set MJF up perfectly for Knight, still moving laboriously, and still as daring a babyface as could be despite that, to hit a huge dive over the top. He took a risk. He put it all out there. And then, finally, for the first time in the match, the fans went along with him. Huge pop.

It had taken ten minutes of laser-focused artistry, of the sort of singular pro wrestling vision that we’ve occasionally feared was lost to the world, but Max and Kevin got them. They turned the crowd. 

They would keep them for the rest of the match. Max continued in on the ribs. He continued to take cheapshots. He continued to play the coward to save his skin. Knight fought through the pain but found the strength to fight back and hit big spots. Eventually, he did hit that UFO only for Max to kick the ref into the ropes on the point of impact. The fans counted well past ten waiting for the ref to recover, fully invested in the outcome. 

On one final UFO attempt, Max would get his knees up allowing him to hit the Heatseeker and escape through the skin of his teeth with his belt. The crowd would have been elated by that result twenty minutes before. Thanks to the match they had just witnessed, however, they were anything but.

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that this was the crowd that Max and Kevin got for their match. Look at how far they’d managed to move these people, a complete inversion from the opening bell. Imagine how much farther and how much higher they could have gotten if they weren’t dragged down by the weight they had to carry? 

Still, as an object lesson, I’m almost glad they were hampered and dragged down, because what a case study in how the art of pro wrestling, when 100% committed to by selfless, dedicated, talented, fearless wrestlers, can still still be just as powerful as it ever was. 

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I'm increasingly convinced that the future of pro wrestling is a reframed social contract with crowds, a transparent "neo-kayfabe" that convinces them it's in their best interest to leave irony behind and embrace a unique interactive theatrical experience. Some words on that.

(1) Kayfabe is dead. 

For the last fifteen years, the solution to that has been offering fans "great matches," the ability to brag at being part of something no one else got to see live, unique match-ups aiming to end up on best of the year lists, all within the trappings of the stagnant 21st century pro wrestling presentation.

It means you end up with crowds not engaged in the text but only in the subtext, frothing at the bit for their entitled opportunity to chant "This is Awesome" instead of actually responding with cheers and boos to what's unfolding before their eyes. 

This feeds on itself, the snake eating its own tail, matches being constructed more and more to get a score from the Russian Judges, with botches punished and elaborate counter sequences and outright action rewarded over constructions that try to take a crowd up and down and up again. Keeping them up as much as possible has become what matters most. Wrestling has become more navel-gazing and less universal, less about human themes and more about perfect plastic performances.

(2) Kayfabe isn't coming back.

And matches SHOULD still be good and valued, 100%. They're the point. Everything builds to them. The solution isn't some sort of Pavlovian corporate slop. 

The goal instead becomes more genuine emotion, more universal human themes.  

What is needed is the creation of a neo-kayfabe, a new social contract which incentivizes both fans and wrestlers (and promoters) towards the things that make pro wrestling unique and special. 

What wrestling can uniquely offer people is not gymnastics and athleticism, is not stunts and special effects, is not even blood and gore. They can get that in any number of other places.

It's the live interactive experience of witnessing all of those come together in a narrative that you, as an audience member, are a part of. Unlike movies or television or even plays, the second you cross the gate you become part of the fictional world. 

(3) That doesn't mean audiences are the stars of the show, but the best wrestling has them interacting with it. Their chants empower a babyface. Their boos get under the skin of a heel. There's no other fictional medium so interactive in the moment.

We're in an age of interactive live-streaming, where the appeal is that interaction, of the streamer noticing the chat and responding accordingly.

Wrestling should be marketed accordingly, as a bespoke live experience where the audience gets the unique privilege to play a role. It's not kayfabe. It's not pretending or throwing the wool over an audience's eyes. It's the audience realizing that in order to get something that no one else has, that no one else gets to experience or enjoy, it's their job to give in, to let go, and to play along with the show. 

They can leave the niceties of society behind, can troll a heel, can scream for a babyface to draw blood, can yell at a ref for missing cheating. It offers people a release they can't get anywhere else in life and that should be listed in the program, advertised as such.

(4) All of the spots and counters and reversals can still be there. Matches can still be conventionally great. In fact, everything can be better because it'll all have more meaning and grounding. The product can still be worked for a televised audience. A hot crowd makes televised wrestling better. It always has. 

And the best hot crowd is a crowd that reacts not after the fact, not with neutral chants, happy that both sides are having fun and are dying for their enjoyment, but in the moment, with each move and each punch. We've lost that "oooh" that came with every strike and there's no way to trick or fool or kayfabe people into bringing it back.

They have to be convinced that it's in their benefit to do so, that by doing so, by agreeing to be part of the show, they'll be experiencing something unique and special. 

And they will! It's all true. It's time to just outright admit it and to reframe and market pro wrestling in that way. It was unspoken in a time of kayfabe but it's pro wrestling's comparative advantage and it's time to treat it openly that way. That's how wrestling can grow.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/18 - 11/30 Part 2

AEW Dynamite 11/26/25

Darby Allin vs. Kevin Knight

MD: I'm no expert on the concept of challenger brands, but I know a thing or two about comparative advantage. At the end of the day, AEW is wrestling, and in the US, wrestling is associated with WWE. It has been for four decades basically, and for over two of those, WWE has had a functional monopoly. It's a starting point for whatever sort of pro wrestling any other company is going to present, even if it long ago morphed into sports entertainment, and even if that particular flavor of sports entertainment has become something plastic, homogenized, and entirely corporate.

So it has to be familiar enough that sponsors, tv execs, grandparents buying Christmas presents, etc. will recognize it. That doesn't seem particularly hard though, not really. And it's not particularly interesting to talk about. What is interesting to talk about is what AEW does from there. How do they differentiate themselves? How do they fill a hole in the market? How do they offer something that the frontrunner cannot. 

We've seen some of that throughout November. The compare/contrast between War Games and Blood and Guts pretty much speaks for itself. 

Now we're into December though and December, in AEW, is all about the Continental Classic. The C2 is a beautiful thing, a celebration of wrestling as sport, a round robin tournament where faces can wrestle faces and heels can wrestle heels, where every match matters and where it all comes down to points, endurance, match-ups. 

It's a false dichotomy to try to separate wrestling from storytelling. Every match tells a story; some tell a story more clearly and cleanly than others of course. In this case however, the difference (dare I say the advantage) is in the sorts of stories that can be told. 

Case in point, Kevin Knight vs Darby Allin. Outside of the tournament, there wouldn't be an underlying story coming in. It would be a 'cold match,' one completely hinging on who these two wrestlers are and where they currently stand within their own fictional lives and the overall fictional universe, and of course, the wrestling styles that they bring to the table.

That, in and of itself, might be enough, because there's a lot that's interesting there, but it's made all the more so in the tournament environment.

Darby is fighting a never ending war, one that's left him in shambles. He just lost to PAC (dishonorably) after being burned (also dishonorably). The C2 is a chance to pull himself back together and try to gain some measure of tangible, conventional, professional success. It's also a chance to face off against PAC (and maybe Claudio and Moxley) again and ruin their aspirations. It's a chance to live life dangerously, to leap headlong into facing new opponents and proving himself, of pushing himself as far as human can possibly be pushed so that he can once again feel alive. 

For Kevin Knight, it's a chance to prove himself, to stand on his own, to show the world what he can accomplish. He just failed to win the National title. He has failed once or twice to win the tag titles. He's been told he might be a main eventer in three years. Maybe people see him as just a high flyer, the less experienced junior partner to Speedball. This is his best chance to test himself against the best in the world and moreover to show the world that he belongs alongside them. It's his best chance to supercharge that sideways promise of what he might someday become.

Darby came in hurt. Knight came in hungry. And they had a match that was sports-based in its trappings far more than the critics who don't actually watch the product might imagine. They, like other first round match-ups so far, started on the mat, a feeling out process, Darby showing off his background and Knight wanting the world to see he was multifaceted. Knight, perhaps leaning on Darby's physical weakness coming in, took an advantage and drove Darby to the floor. Darby tweaked a leg on the way down, opening himself up for a picture perfect barricade dive from Knight, and the match opening up in the latter's favor.

Interestingly, Knight didn't hone in on the leg. Instead, he worked the arm, and when that failed him, tossed Darby into the corner at full speed. Every subsequent time that Darby started to come back, he shifted gears, refusing to stay with one tactic for long. When it looked like Darby was about to beat a ten-count, he took the fight right to him with a leaping clothesline out of the ring. There was a real sense of keeping the ball on one side of the field and continuously shooting on goal here. It's not wrestling as sport in the same way that Bret Hart or Steve Grey or Tatsumi Fujinami are necessarily, for they move entirely differently. Knight and Darby are broad, full of a physical charisma that emphasizes output, consequence, instead of input. But a similar feeling is there nonetheless in the creative strategic decisions at play.

You could see it all the way down to the finish. Knight missed with the UFO but caught Darby on the way up for a Coffin Drop. He hit the coast to coast dropkick, as breathtaking a move as could be, and then followed it up by hitting the UFO splash, also spectacular. What really stood out to me was what he did in the middle, however. When Darby was stunned by the dropkick, he hefted him across the ring with grit, without hesitation. In that moment, even more so than the coast-to-coast or the UFO, that you could see how badly Knight wanted it. 

The C2 isn't just one thing. It's a celebration of so many of the things that make wrestling great. Part of that is the high bumping and huge selling of people like Darby and Knight, and the amazing moves they do. Part of it, though, is how much they care, how genuine they are. There's nothing plastic or artificial here. It may not resemble the "wrestling as sport" of decades ago, but it embodies a similar spirit and it's nothing that the frontrunner brand can begin to hope to offer.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/10 - 11/16 Part 2

AEW Collision 11/15/25

FTR/RUSH/Sammy Guevara vs Kevin Knight/Mike Bailey/Juice Robinson/Bandido

MD: An eight man tag can be an opportunity or an excuse.

It can be an opportunity. 

You have eight wrestlers. How do they interact? Both the partners and opponents. I want the camera to linger on what happens when FTR gets into the ring with LFI for the first time (Cash was quick to go slap hands and greet). These are disparate characters, disparate styles, disparate personalities. It's interesting. It makes the world seem more robust. Hiptosses are great. It's not always about hiptosses. I want to see who these people are and what they think about each other. What the hell does Dax think about Rush? That's interesting. Likewise, Juice hanging back and waiting for Bandido to show up so he could do Guns Up with him and then Bandido realizing what he wanted and getting excited and into it. That's interesting. That's compelling. It's vivid and real and immersive. It draws you in.

It's about the narrative opportunities of having more wrestlers and their attributes to work into the match. It opens the door for creative possibilities. You have Rush's intensity, Dax's hard hitting, Bandido's strength, Bailey's agility, Sammy's attitude, Knight's explosiveness, Juice's charisma, and Cash's wild abandon. And that's just one attribute from each of them. The wrestlers can mix and match all of that. Everything can be bigger. The stooge spots can involve more people. You can go for a double heat instead of a single. There are choices for who gets the hot tag, how to do the cut offs. It's more options, more room for creativity. Maybe most of all, it's also a way to further multiple stories at once and seed future interactions and matches.

It can be an excuse.

Eight people. Eight sets of signature spots. Eight guys who can take bumps. The action can flow and flow and flow and never stop. Someone can bump and the next person can be right there, fresh and on his feet, ready to jump right in and get revenge. You can drown the fans with an endless waterfall. Everyone gets their stuff in. Everyone gets to shine. Everyone gets to show off. The spots escalate endlessly. There's no ceiling. There's no bottom. There's no reason to ever stop. 

Except of course there is, because without stopping nothing can have meaning. Without leaning into tag rules, nothing can truly resonate. But it can be an excuse not to do those things, because you can just keep cycling people in and out forever. 

Cleverness for the sake of cleverness, spots for the sake of spots. It seems to be some wrestlers' fondest wish. Endlessly entertaining, almost certainly ephemeral. 

Usually, depending on who's in the match, an eight-man tag in AEW can be one or the other. 

This one, given who was in it, sort of straddled the middle. There was just enough connective tissue. They let things get chaotic, but then they brought it back to the center. There were foundational moments: Knight mocked the heel corner with the tranquilo pose and when he got thrashed by LFI they did it back to him. Sammy teased a swanton early only to leap down and screw with the fans. When he tried the same thing later, it cost him and helped lead towards the hot tag. Speedball hit his moonsault kneedrop in the ring to finally get that hot tag but then wiped out on the apron, clearing him out of the way for the finish. 

There were excessive moments, most especially early chaos which built to FTR eating Juice's stylized punches, Rush trucking him out of nowhere, and simultaneous JetSpeed dives. 

Ultimately, everything came down to Rush and Bandido, then opened back up as everyone got involved for one last bit of excess, only to cycle back around to Rush and Bandido once more for the finish. Moreover, it came back to the characters at play, their familiarity with one another and lack of familiarity with one another, as Rush got shoved into FTR to position himself for a slightly askew 21-Plex. 

If I had my way, I'd prefer something a little more grounded with chaos even more controlled than this, but it's a big tent promotion and sometimes an excuse is what's needed. Thankfully, here, that excuse didn't leave the opportunities on the table like it so often does.

ROH TV 11/13/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Hyan/Maya World

MD: Here's what makes pro wrestling great. 

Athena demanded to start the match. She held out her hand to Maya World for her usual insulting left-handed, draping code of honor shake. She immediately clocked her with the magic forearm, absolutely floored her.

And all that? That was Athena selling.

That was her selling the frustration of eating a rare pinfall from Harley Cameron (of all people) during the tag tournament, of having to defend against Harley now, of being eliminated from the tag tournament when she and Mercedes were the favorites, of Kris Statlander getting into her business, of Billie letting her down, of Mercedes not doing her part (and being able to claim that Athena didn't do hers), of not being part of the first Blood & Guts. 

Grievance after grievance all going into that one seething, agitated, impatient shot. 

This was an enhancement match. Hyan and Maya are on the rise but this was to continue Athena's story. She'd sell for their offense, but she'd sell more for the ghosts in her own mind, a burgeoning obsession over Harley. She'd call Harley out within the match, even as she punished Maya or Hyan. She'd take it out on Billie, so distracted and distraught that she'd all but chop her instead of tagging her, would get in a senseless argument which would allow her to get dropkicked from behind.

The secret truth in pro wrestling is that true strength lies in vulnerability, that it's selling which draws the fans in to get behind a babyface and that showing weakness, be it physical, emotional, or moral is how a heel gets heat. So even as Athena ate up Hyan and Maya, she was being eaten up on the inside, and her performance made that clearly evident to the world. 

Meanwhile, it was on Billie, Hyan, and Maya to react. For Billie that was trying to soothe Athena's wounds through inflicting collaborative violence, of showing the emotional impact of Athena's abuse upon her, of being distracted herself. For Hyan and Maya, it was being on their back feet due to the brutality and coming in hot when opportunities arose. 

The end result was an entertaining match which was laser-focused on promoting the title bout to come. And it all hinged on Athena selling something bigger and more complex than a punch or a kick from the second she walked through the curtain to the second the camera faded on her post-match. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/4 - 8/10

AEW Collision 8/9/25

Hangman Adam Page/JetSpeed (Mike Bailey/Kevin Knight) vs LFI (Rush/Dralistico/Beast Mortos)

MD: There's a fine line between genius and madness, likewise greatness and disaster. Sometimes the qualities that make wrestlers stand out, make them dynamic and brilliant, are also the factors that can drag a match down in excess, that can muddle a match in chaos and confusion. Likewise, if properly channeled, some of the worst qualities on paper can channeled into strengths. Sometimes all that matters is the sheer intensity of the qualities at play.

RUSH is as visceral as any wrestler alive. He's a seething, fuming, tinder box of pride (ego might even be a better word), aggression, and a lack of impulse control. He blurs the line better than most wrestlers of this century. You might be frustrated by a Rush match, but you're never going to be bored by it. If anything, you're going to be irritated because he manages to shut enough doors that you don't get all the matchups you want to see with him. Dralistico has his own issues, a tendency to go into business for himself and leave the match's purpose behind, a lack of cooperation, a certain bent for unevenness when it comes to how cleanly he hits his most spectacular offense. It's hard to say much negative about Mortos but sometimes I think he gives too much too soon and works too small. For instance, the tornillo is spectacular but it's not the sort of thing I want to see every match. It should be a huge deal when he goes to his higher agility offense. 

So many possibilities, so many things to be controlled for, some of them being entirely human instincts and emotions and not just something you can move around on a board.  

This was Hangman's homecoming, a rare Collision appearance, an attraction six-man tag main eventing a show just down the street from where he went to college. While there was an existing issue between JetSpeed and LFI, Hangman was here as the ace, the champion, the sheriff who's sick and tired of all of the injustice around him. He's a lead babyface who's going to support the rest of the locker room with his stare, and his words, and if need be, his fists. 

And it's a testament to how this was put together that it all worked exactly as it should have, strengths accentuated, weaknesses (or at least potential disruptions) channeled for the good of the match. Let's look at Rush, for instance, one of the most exciting potential main eventers I can imagine, and certainly a main eventer in his own mind. He was laser focused for Hangman for much of the match. Of course he wanted to go toe to toe with the champ. Early on, he gave just enough. In their strike exchange, he often had advantages, but he took them by switching gears first. He switched from forearms to chops when Hangman was starting to get the better of him. It created the illusion of being in control when he actually wasn't. Later on, he wiped Hangman out on the apron for absolutely no reason, exactly the sort of thing you think he'd do; at face value, it didn't fit into the match, not really, but it set up the big final comeback, as he tried it late in the match and Hangman caught him and nailed him, allowing for the hot tag and the setup for the finish. 

Likewise Dralistico. It doesn't always work out this way, but given the chaotic and bombastic feel of the match and opponents who could do things that were spectacular enough to stand out, that he was uncooperative at times, that he was blustery at times, that he played to the crowd at times, that things seemed a little rough around the edges at times, all added to the gritty fight feel. At times, Knight was forced to contort his body this way or that in order to try to hit a piece of an offense and that made everything feel all the more organic, believe it or not. And Mortos? Well, yes, he hit his dive, but it was perfectly placed and he took out both of JetSpeed in the process, before helping to base for Rush's subsequent dive. That made it feel larger than life in a way that you can't quite accomplish in a singles match against a smaller opponent. 

It was there all the way to the finish. Hangman got the better of Dralistico, planting him down and then scooting backwards to skin the cat and set up the Buckshot. He had to fight off first Mortos and then Rush on the apron, however. That allowed for Dralistico to recover, only for the math to play out and JetSpeed to take him out as well. They followed up with dives of their own (clearing the table for the finish, the real purpose for dives, being means and not ends, in so many lucha trios matches). And then Hangman could flip back over the rope to victory. In wrestling, anything is possible with enough thought and care. Likewise, the opposite. Negatives can be channeled into positives. Positives can decay and mutate into disaster. Thankfully though, this match threaded the needle and maximized possibilities extremely well.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/21 - 7/27

AEW Dynamite 7/23/25

FTR vs JetSpeed 

MD: Wrestling isn't math. 

Except.

And yet, they found a way to overcome.

Wrestling isn't math, except for when it comes to the maximized balance of a southern tag. There became a trend over the 2010s, all the way from the start of the decade, where finishing stretches to tag matches got longer and longer and longer, gobbling up more of the shine and heat. Eventually, half the match took place after things broke down, creating minute after minute of exciting action where all four wrestlers could come in at the same time, cycling in and out, spot after spot, nearfall after nearfall, endless noise crashing into the face of the fans. 

It came at a cost. Ironically, it was the exact opposite of the Bulldogs-driven WWF 80s house style (maybe an overcorrection now that we have even more footage, but not too much of one), where the shine became so long relative to the heat and comeback that matches fell into a "heel-in-peril" mode. Modern tags tend to have everything break down as soon as possible so as to fit the maximum amount of sensation into the match.

The problem is this: it does a disservice to the natural benefits of the southern tag. You ramp up the pressure as much as possible during the heat so that the moment of comeback means as much as possible. The benefit of the tag gimmick isn't that there are four wrestlers in the ring at once as much as possible (that's a Tornado Tag, totally different thing). It's the rules keeping a wrestler out until a tag. That allows for an entirely different sort of hope spot and cutoff than you can get in a singles match, one that hinges on the idea that salvation is just around the corner, one heroic, desperate grasp away. To toss that by the wayside just to do more "stuff" is almost criminal, with the victim being the narrative advantages of the form.

The Revival found a way to compensate in the mid-10s, because they had the canvas to do so in NXT. Less constrained by time limitations in their role as a featured act on a developmental brand, they were able to simply put more into the matches. The finishing stretches were just as long and just as elaborate as ever, but it didn't come at the cost of lengthy heats. They rebalanced the equation by taking up more real estate making those exciting stretches actually mean all the more for how they were earned but it was a luxury that wouldn't carry forward onto the main roster. 

Coming off the exceptional Outrunners match from a few weeks ago, where they raised the stakes on the heat by putting both babyfaces in peril simultaneously, they again pushed the storytelling envelope last week, this time against JetSpeed. Here, they came up with a plausible way to have everything break down extremely early, almost from the start but in a way that still (as a one time thing to be used very, very rarely) managed to serve the possibilities of the form due to the simple threat of paying off narrative expectations. 

The name of the game here was pressure. This was part of an eliminator series for a title shot. The stakes were high. There are spots and then there is strategy, and when the former is underpinned in a character driven way, everything shines. It sounds simple but it actually happens in a relatively small number of matches. Some of the best wrestlers of decades past were able to do it instinctually. In today's comprehensively planned out style of pro wrestling, it has to be baked into the mix.

Here, it absolutely was. FTR charged in early and attempted an immediate Shatter Machine. They wanted the quick win. When that failed, they just kept pressing and pressing, trying to pull JetSpeed under. 

They never could for long though. I'd argue that this didn't necessarily have a shine. I'd argue that it didn't really even have a heat. I wouldn't call this the sort of "sputtering heat" you'd get from 80s Guerreros matches. It was simply constant pressure from FTR in a way that needed an absolute purity of vision to work. The heat was constantly threatened but it was never allowed to manifest. 

They tried using Dax's jacket to cut off the ring (early enough that the ref would allow it). They tried pile drivers on the outside. They had Dax slam JetSpeed into Cash's elbows and knees (not his fault as he was still holding the tag rope, as he was quick to point out). They tried the PowerPlex, twice. When they went to the legs for Bret's figure four around the ringpost, it worked right until it didn't, leaving Dax as an open target for Speedball's kicks. They pressed and pressed and pressed, but they couldn't hold the offense for more than a minute at the time. 

But it was that pressure even in the face of JetSpeed's comebacks, that gave the match form and substance. It never came off as "Your Move, My Move." It never even felt like momentum shifts to me. It was the constant, incessant, groaning pressure from FTR and JetSpeed using their skill, speed, finesse, and heart to constantly push back against it and get their shots in. 

I'm not sure I've ever quite seen a tag like it. I led off by talking about southern tags, but after a second watch, this really wasn't a southern tag at all, because it never really came together in a way to break down in the first place. For it to still feel coherent, for it to still feel story-driven, for it to feel purposeful and not just like a tornado tag spotfest, for it to still somehow feel like a conventional tag match that threatened, at any and every point to become a southern tag and to start a heat segment that JetSpeed never quite allowed to come, is, to me, very impressive in and of itself.

A structural achievement and a testament to both teams. I thought there was still meat on the Outrunners bone, different variations of that same story that they could do with another team in another way six or nine months down the line.

With this, I think they stretched it just about as far as it could go without it falling apart completely and losing cohesion and focus like so many other spotfest tags of the last fifteen years. 

That said, part of me wants to see them try to prove me wrong. 

AEW Collision 7/26/25

Dustin Rhodes vs Lee Moriarty

MD: With Fletcher looming later this week, it's hard to say how many Dustin defenses we'll actually get, but I'm glad we got this one. It had time to breathe, a dueling limb story, and Lee served as a very game, very unique opponent.

He's the ROH Pure Champion, and it made sense for Dustin to not try to face him along those terms. But this was Dustin's first defense of a major singles title in decades and the TNT belt, itself, can switch between being a TV type title and something more prestigious depending on who has it. You got every impression that Dustin wanted to come in like a classic champion and take things to the mat. Lee kicking the hand away on the shake to the start only drove that thought home, as did his early bits of finesse leading to a Border City Stretch out of a rollup.

That was right down Moriarty's alley as Pure Champ, to burn rope breaks early even on moves that wouldn't get him the win, ones that were more about bluster and opportunity than actual damage. In fact, if you look through the match, Dustin would have burned his third rope break towards the end on the bodyscissored anklelock. That's great cover for Moriarty in losing because if this was a Pure match instead, he very likely would have won with a hold shortly thereafter.

It wasn't though, so that served more as insult than injury and led to Dustin taking things to the outside and unloading on Moriarty's arm. Shortly thereafter, Moriarty was able to get a Dragon Screw out of nowhere and hone in on Dustin's leg. 

And that was match for you. Dustin, given his reach advantage and Moriarty's arm, was going to win on a standup strike exchange. Moriarty, on the other hand, could lean hard into his own youth and speed advantage to hit Dustin quickly and from odd angles to take him off his feet. At one point, for instance, Dustin kicked Moriarty all of the way out of the ring on a figure four attempt. It was just a hope spot however, as Moriarty was able to dart back into the ring at high speed and take the leg out once more. Even after Taylor worked his arm out on the outside, Moriarty still couldn't get every hold he wanted every way he wanted however. 

Solid substance for the match and they worked it through the break until Dustin could come back with a powerslam and a pretty interesting Destroyer which Dustin, himself, took as a flat back bump instead of seated. No idea if that was intentional or not but if not it was a happy accident that served the match, since it allowed him to plausibly protect his leg on it. They went around a bit on the finish, including Dustin going for the Unnatural Kick and paying for it (but only to the tune of a one count, maybe not the time or place for it, but if this is his one title defense, what the hell, right?). Lee got a more legitimate naerfall after that and Dustin only managed to sneak out a win on a roll up on a second figure-four attempt. It'd be lovely if we had another five or six of these types of matches from Dustin against all sorts of comers, but I'm glad we got this one and I'm glad that it had the time it did.

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