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 7/28 - 8/3 (Part 1)

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Dustin Rhodes vs Kyle Fletcher

MD: A tale of risk and reward, of moral victories and crushing defeat, of mutual defiance of years, one man defying youth and another defying age, a star burning bright one more time and another newly ascendant. 

Kyle Fletcher's destiny was delayed by weeks, not denied. Dustin Rhodes did the improbable, something that would have seemed impossible 17 years ago, coming out with three belts (two of them ROH titles) and to his old WCW Slam Jam theme.

And they had themselves a Chicago Street Fight, one worthy of a legacy already made and a legacy just beginning. 

Fletcher defied convention (as he defies so many things), out in his pink trunks. Dustin dressed the part in street clothes, but with unmissable knee pads. He'd come off a grueling match with Lee Moriarty the week before, one where the Pure Champion had targeted his knee.

For anyone who thinks that it's just wrestling, that it's just listening to the crowd or coming up with the best spots, that structure and placement (implicit OR explicit, because it doesn't necessarily matter) aren't actually things... well, look at this match and how it played out.

Dustin got the first shot but Fletcher went for a kendo stick under the ring. That backfired as Dustin was able to get it and nail Kyle with it. Dustin tried to use the stairs but Fletcher was able to block and use them instead, hitting a DDT that opened Dustin up. Fletcher set up a table, but Dustin walked away, leaving Kyle to wipe out into it. Dustin finally succeeded on a first attempt, this with the cowbell (which made sense given his natural familiarity with it) but even this was fleeting and illusionary. In opening Fletcher up, his head became slick enough that he was able to avoid a bulldog off the apron, causing Dustin to careen into a table and further injure the already damaged left leg, setting the stage for the rest of the match.

It's possible to think that these spots were just instinct, were haphazard, lacked intent. We can never fully know intent. But the results are clear nonetheless. This isn't a normal match. It's a Street Fight. The stakes are higher. They're life and death. Almost every risk taken backfired, but each one still felt necessary and warranted. By having it all play out like this, weapon shots that we've seen a thousand times suddenly mattered as much as ever and a tone was created that would pay off even more later into the match.

During the break, Fletcher went in hard on the knee, including a half crab and attacking it with the cowbell. He took his time, seething after a rope break and looking to the crowd after the strap assault, blood running down his face. This is what makes Fletcher stand out from his peers, from the generation before him, this basking, this creation of mood. It also covered for Dustin to get his leg up and hit a low shot as Fletcher charged in. Fletcher's petulance allowed Dustin to regain hope.

Hope came in the form of a Code Red, a Cross Rhodes, and of clashing chairs. Again, to put over the importance of the weapon, Dustin tossed two chairs in. Fletcher bit on the trap and Dustin won the ensuing clash. However, he overreached (as they had both overreached so far into the match). Shots to the gut and the back were fine. When he went for the headshot, Fletcher was able to cut him off with a superkick. 

Fletcher followed this up with a short tombstone on the two chairs, a spot that I was fine as a transition/cutoff and not a finish because of its visual execution. It was nasty but didn't have the vertical drop of a normal tombstone (they covered on commentary with Fletcher's knees taking some of the blow, so that's fine too, but it didn't throw me off in the moment). Likewise the subsequent (and spectacular) destroyer off the top through a table. Again, in a normal situation, probably overkill, but here I bought it given how Dustin was worn down and couldn't quickly cover, and that Fletcher really hadn't taken much damage over the last few minutes. 

It was, in many ways, the harbinger for the finishing stretch, a rapid fire set of payoffs to the earlier establishment of weapons being actually meaningful and impactful in this match. Dustin pulled out the tack-covered glove and they fought for a brief moment for the claw (nothing given, everything a struggle). Dustin locked it on and Fletcher was able to escape only by returning the low blow from earlier. Fletcher brought out tacks of his own but Dustin was able to lure him into his snap powerslam onto them instead.

And then Dustin followed it with his big moral victory. A babyface has to keep his pride. A crowd has to feel like the babyface didn't necessarily let them down but instead that the heel triumphed underhandedly or due to a banana peel slip despite a series of victorious babyface actions. Dropping those tacks down Fletcher's trunks, Dustin hit the Unnatural Kick. In doing so, he shifted the tide of fate, drawing Callis to ringside with the screwdriver. In a match with chairs, cowbells, tables, and tacks, the screwdriver had something more going for it, an established history in how it'd been used in AEW, the weight of a violent past and all the power that came with it. It served as the great equalizer, driving Dustin back just as he was about to hit his finish (another small moral victory snatched away), and then, with Callis' help, devastating Dustin's knee. 

Dustin would get one last bit of hope, a roll up out of nowhere, one last small moral victory in the face of overwhelming defeat, and then Fletcher dropped him with a brainbuster and took the place, rightful in his own mind, on top of the TNT mountain. 

It was a match full of spectacular spots, ones worthy of the moment: Dustin's last match before surgery and Fletcher's delayed ascendence, but what made the match work, what will make it  memorable over time was how those spots fit into a matrix of seething and selling, of established weightiness, anticipation, and payoff. All the smoke and mirrors in the world, all of the athleticism or gruesome violence, all of that can mean so much more, as it did here, when structure, character, and care are woven into the narrative of a match. That's what has made Dustin special for decades. And that is, I hope, what will continue to make Fletcher special for decades to come.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/14 - 7/20 + Bonus All In

MD: On the run this week so I'll have to double back for Shibata vs Rush later.

AEW Dynamite 7/16/25

Kyle Fletcher vs Mascara Dorada

MD: Pretty much everything I want out of a TV match here, given hierarchy, styles, moment in time, purpose. This is the sort of match you drop hours before the show to get everyone talking. It was a rebound for Fletcher after All In. It was a spotlight for Dorada (because while we know how great he is, it's good to give less familiar fans contrast between him and Komander or the CMLL guys). It kicked off the show after Hangman's promo and set the tone for the night. 

They set the tone for the match immediately, with Fletcher rushing in with a big boot and stomping away to a wonderful round of boos. The lack of a feeling out period to start was important because the next few minutes would be all Dorada, all shine, all Fletcher basing. It was a showcase with him hitting some spectacular stuff and Fletcher stooging and stumbling around the ring as he took it. When he tried to get one up on Dorada, he'd end up stumbling through the ropes instead. Selfless stuff. 

Fletcher was going to take the middle, was going to take the win, and had that initial flurry in the corner, so it gave him space to let Dorada soar here (and during his equally spectacular comeback. You had Tony and Taz on the call noting they may have never seen the unique springboard Dorada did early or the twisting 'rana he did off the top during his comeback.

What really made it sing was the heat though. The shine ended as Fletcher, bigger, stronger, resilient, caught him off a dive and hit a twisting slam. He then slowed things down to his own pace, slamming, grinding, denying. The fans had gotten a taste of just what Dorada could do. Frankly, they know what Fletcher can do as well, not just in basing. But he was going to sit there and stare out at them, would draw their chant, would play to it when it came. He built up the pressure by controlling the pace, and that, far more than rapid fire action, is what wrestling can do like nothing else.

It meant when Dorada came back, the fans were wild for it. And it meant that when they went into the stretch hitting the counters that the crowd had wanted all match, each and every one resonated and mattered. They made them matter too, pausing after each one, letting the action sink in. They twisted and contorted and played with expectations but after the fact, they reacted and showed how it mattered. When Fletcher finally put Dorada down, he came off as skilled and underhanded, as if he accomplished something meaningful himself, but also tremendously lucky. Dorada looked better in defeat. Fletcher looked vulnerable in victory. But he won nonetheless and he'll take that momentum into whatever he does next. Just good, quality TV wrestling. 

Jon Moxley, Hangman Page, and the Miracle in Arlington

It's hard to even document the number of things the match had going against it. A stadium show in 2025. A crowd that had sat through 7 hours of wrestling including some of the most amazing spots one could imagine. A match full of blood and guts and interference. Two huge anticipated returns. Catharsis and redemption. 

I've watched these crowds for four years now. I witnessed Ospreay vs Danielson where a crowd all but overdosed on its own elation, ignoring each and every plot point in the name of mindless chanting. 

This was the culmination of nine months of story, of a belt and a company and main event scene held hostage, of over two years of story, of a hero who lost his way, of two tales that came together to become greater than the sum of the whole.

And the fans were invested. They wanted this. They needed this. Maybe this wasn't where the story had first seemed headed but it was where they wanted it to end.

It's a testament to the wrestlers and the creative force behind them that the fans were invested in the destination, that they cared about the outcome.

That's not what made this a miracle though.

The miracle is that despite all the factors the match had against it, the fans were there for every moment of the journey.

In a situation like this, that's incredibly rare. This was a crowd that you'd expect to chant for themselves, to chant for the match, to chant for the moment, chant for the company. This is a crowd that you'd expect to shout "This is Awesome" or "AEW" before the match, at the first sign of blood, as Danielson hit the knee, as Darby rappelled down from the ceiling, at glass and nails and barbed wire. 

I don't remember hearing the chant once. 

This is a crowd that should have been staring to the back the whole way, like an Attitude Era crowd, like a crowd in a modern story driven WWE match where all that matters is the destination. 

They knew interference was coming. They knew that the mid-match Death Rider onto a chair probably wasn't going to end it. They knew that they were going to eat well, be rife with sensation. 

Yet they were there for every second. Right at the start of the match, Hangman had Mox down in the corner and stomped away and they were there cheering. Later on, Mox gained an advantage and stood on the second rope to survey his kingdom and they were there booing. 

When everything is awesome, nothing can be truly awesome. Here, because nothing was awesome, everything somehow became so. 

The crowd cared about every punch and stomp, every weapon, every interloper.

Some of that was the patience of sticking with the story. Some of that was the infamy of how Moxley started it all in murder and betrayal. Some of it was Hangman being the heart and soul of AEW.

So much was the layout of the match itself, the way things breathed and mattered, Hangman's performance, struggling to his feet and swinging for the fences, Moxley reveling in his own violent urges, roiling with fury each and every time he was foiled.

It was how all of the interference was set up to be taken out by the calvary of babyfaces. Perfect symmetry. It was how they arrived without music or fanfare (save for one video from the top of the world). It was how everything came back to Mox and Page at the end. 

And yeah, it was on this crowd that let pro wrestling, real, true pro wrestling, into its heart on this night, that let themselves be part of a miracle.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/7 - 7/13

AEW All In 7/12/25

Dustin Rhodes vs Sammy Guevara vs Kyle Fletcher vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Look, at the end of the day, we don't know what we don't know. I'd love to get into the booking here. I'd love to try to make sense of this situation and I will to a degree, but there's a lot we don't know, some of which may become more apparent over the next few weeks as they decide what to do next with the TNT title. Here's what we do know.

Adam Cole is beloved...

Not a hard one here. He comes off like the nicest guy in the world. His peers drop the masks (sometimes literal) and speak incredibly highly of him. I have my opinions of how that has and hasn't connected into his ringwork and if you're reading this, you probably know what they are, but even those have never come from a point of wanting anything other than for the guy to succeed. He's been through some really tough injuries and made a couple of valiant comebacks and I hope he gets to come back and prove me wrong about my criticisms. Nothing would make me happier. 

When the news was first announced, I noted that I wanted them to just do a forfeit; yes, even on a stadium show, because that would have gotten so, so much heat for Fletcher and because enough babyfaces were probably winning at the top of the card (I had thought Omega might be going over Okada at that point but half figured Mercedes was going to beat Toni so it was a wash). I get the sense TK really doesn't ever want to underdeliver on something he promoted but sometimes there's more longterm value in trying to get the heat on the heel and not the booker (and Callis is better than that at most) and it would have set up a Fletcher reign perfectly. You still could have done the Cole theme (which is what the fans wanted the most here) and the speech. Which leads to this:

It was Fletcher's moment...

It's no big surprise that I'm incredibly high on Fletcher. You always saw little sparks during commercial breaks but at some point he went from being Ospreay's young boy clone to the most surprising heel in wrestling. For me, it was right at the start of the C2 and the Benjamin match where he rode the wave of the crowd and helped get Shelton over as a mega-face on that night. You can go back to the Komander match that slightly preceded it though. 

Regardless, he's showing amazing instincts in getting underneath the crowd's skin, in taking his time, in living in the moment, and in adapting on the fly. If wrestling is a form of interactive theater, and if we've gotten into a world with far too many pre-planned spots, sequences, and counters, he's the panacea to that illness, the future of pro wrestling, because he is so able to (whether he knows it or not) pull from the heatseeking tradition of the past.

If the TNT title is a de facto TV title, with open challenges and defended on TV, he's perfect to run out the time limit and survive by the skin of his teeth week after week. No one thought Cole was winning. This was one of the only singles matches on the whole show that wasn't a main event and it was because it was Fletcher's time, his mid-card title coronation. 

But when you make a substitution, you put a babyface over.

Is that a Paul Boesch rule? I think it might be. Regardless, it's generally a pretty good one. It's an even better one in a world where you didn't want to burn a town. From what I hear, the biggest problem with All In for those there was the length of the show (lengthened to assault SNME in retribution or not) and maybe that's something to tackle somehow next year.

As it was, if you were going to do the speech, then yes, it did make some sense to put Dustin over. I do think the fans were down during the match, bummed out by the severity of Cole's words. The concussion rumors came out later but it sounded even more dire than that in the moment. It's a little hard to tell given how the stadium was mic'd though. Given the build of Garcia's ten count punches, for instance, I refuse to believe the fans weren't counting along even if we couldn't hear it on PPV. 

And we love Dustin. Of course I'm glad Dustin went over. I have no idea how banged up he might be. Excalibur mentioned his shoulder and knees (a couple of times). He wrestled three times in two days and the Infantry match was pretty good. They do really deserve the ROH belts sometime soon for how far they've come but I get not doing it in Texas. I will say that the pre-show match was a little rough in general and leave it at that.

But yes, I'm glad Dustin went over and got his moment. I'm glad he's got a new contract. I'm glad that he can still go at such a high level, even if I do think he shies away a bit from his comparative advantage (strikes, selling) in a moment where heels exactly like Fletcher need babyfaces who know how to maximize their value. At one point before Bandido beat Jericho I had wanted him to win the ROH title here so he'd finally have that World Title, but in some ways, him finally getting the TNT title was a better journey. And that leads us to..

The Match Itself

They were still announcing Cole vs Fletcher until the night of the show (and my initial want for THAT was Fletcher to stall, Cole to finally get his hands on him, to go for the Sunrise too soon, and for Fletcher to pull his head up to crotch him and get a quick roll up and run to the back with the belt; sometimes you want to make people feel things). Plus Dustin, even the pro that he is, and Sammy had two other matches in a 24 hour period. 

With that in mind, this came together quite well really. Some of that was having Garcia and Fletcher as your anchors. Garcia brings so much to the table in a situation like this. He can fit into technical matches, spotfests, brawls, sprints. He can go full-on babyface or have an aggressive chip on his shoulder. He's been around AEW so long that he has history with almost everyone. In this case, it was with Sammy, who had given him the long leather pants at one point and was involved with the genesis of the dance. So they got to have a few moments in there working together before they came to blows.

And Fletcher was the straw that stirred the drink, the catalyst who everyone would work against, who would take opportunistic advantages, who would pull Garcia out of the ring when he had the Dragontamer on, who got to eat big crow by having all three of his opponents hit him with the Unnatural Kick in the most crowd pleasing spot of the match.

It was a spot that got him out of the way for a while as well. They did a pretty good job of that, including with a Sammy dive or two. The only spot that came off as entirely contrived to me was the dual figure-fours. Again, the last thing I want to see in a four-way match is a "waterfall" spot of people doing things they wouldn't normally do (it's ok if they do things that they WOULD do). Which is unfortunate because it's in almost every one. Garcia is a guy will use multiple submissions, and Fletcher got to make a scene over it, so ultimately it was plausible and it led to a great payoff after it got reversed. Fletcher seemed to want to reach for Garcia's hand and they almost had a moment before coming to their senses and pummeling each other. So here the cost, not too high in the first place, was worth the moment I suppose. I think Garcia's superplexes spot is a big mistake on multiple levels and that he'd accomplish more standing out with something like a heart punch that could be made to be over with the crowd despite not being nearly as flashy/damaging, but that's not something to litigate now.

I'm not going to say Sammy isn't a useful guy in these things in bringing action, movement, and sensation. I think in some ways he's gotten lapped by, let's say, Kevin Knight who was taking all sorts of gnarly bumps in the tag match that followed this. He hits clean and does what he's supposed to when he's supposed to do it, but I never quite find the soul in what he's hitting. You bought the animosity between him and Dustin towards the end after the miscommunication superkick, but just because you buy something doesn't mean it's entirely compelling (plausibility is a starting point, not the end point). 

All in all, though, it was an accomplishment that this was as solid as it was. Maybe it felt more like it belonged on Collision than in a stadium but it was more or less a cold match that came after a chilling speech. They got the crowd back a match or two later and this was there to stop the bleeding, make sure no one felt let down by something they were expecting, and to give Dustin the big homestate celebratory moment. 

Given the circumstances (and again, I bet I only know half of them, but what I do know is still daunting), it's a credit to the wrestlers involved that it came together as well as it did. I know that sometimes plans change and they never quite course correct. I still think that Fletcher could be an amazing TV champ, and I think that he could have a generational rivalry (think Cena vs Orton) against Garcia, but time will tell where everything falls now. On this night, given the situation they were facing, one that no one would have wanted them to face, I think they did the very best they could.

ROH Supercard of Honor 7/11/25

Athena vs Thunder Rosa

MD: Here's another one where it's best to just focus on the text. There was an intellectual challenge here. I remember watching Athena beat Mercedes Martinez for the title in Texas a couple of years ago. She had just started the heel run and she was gaining a ton of traction and momentum with Martinez presented as the babyface as the situation but the match itself was a bit of a muddle because the local fans really wanted to root for Athena.

So even though Rosa was a clear babyface coming into this one, they knew they'd have a problem and I think they set up the match accordingly. In this case, it was by having dueling bodypart work. Athena (who has plenty of varied and interesting offense) went after the back early, and Rosa sold for much of the match helping to create openings for Athena. Athena eventually ended up with a bum arm and that served as an equalizer. The sum of these two allowed for momentum shifts that weren't necessarily based on heel/face dynamics so the crowd was allowed to chant for both of them.

Then, late match, things took a pivot with Athena trying to escape up the ramp and Billie getting involved (though she got tossed into the stairs and she, herself, was able to sell her abdomen, even into the post match interview). So in order to land the plane they had Athena hit the big bomb through a table on the ramp onto Rosa and lean full heel. After that point, they got out of it pretty quickly, with Athena doing a great job listing to one side as she (still impressively) hefted Rosa up for the top rope bomb. 

I think if they had tried a more conventional heel vs face match for 10+ minutes, the crowd would have been much more of a problem. By leaning on the bodypart selling and introducing the notion of alignment only at the end, they still allowed for a satisfying finishing stretch but without the match collapsing in on itself before that and with Athena not losing any momentum heading into All In itself. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/9 - 6/15

AEW Dynamite/Collision 6/11/25

Kyle Fletcher vs. Anthony Bowens

MD: We'll get to match itself down below as it was very good but elephant in the room time first. Despite having developed a slew of great heels, AEW has a young babyface problem. We'll leave HOOK aside other than noting that he's not necessarily in a different/more developed spot than he was a couple of years ago. Maybe he's in the midst of a shift after walking away from ringside a few weeks ago. Maybe it doesn't even matter if he's just an attraction. 

And we'll just talk about Daniel Garcia briefly since I wrote about it before. He won the TNT title and then instead of defending it on a weekly basis against any heel that they could throw at him, he was immediately tossed into matches with Briscoe (twice given the C2), Shibata, etc. on the way to a feud with Adam Cole. This is when he was developing his old school babyface routine and trying to connect to the crowd. You can't outbabyface Mark Briscoe easily. Completely short-circuited the connection. 

Ok, Bowens time. I could just write a snarky tweet about how he's 95 DDP and how Billy Gunn is either Maxx Muscle or the Diamond Doll, but I don't want snark. I want the guy to succeed. He has everything in the world on his side except for height and for a babyface who can work from underneath, that doesn't really matter. From the outside in, the other thing he's lacking is confidence. Because why else would he hide behind so, so many gimmicks. He's got the Jane's Addiction song, the nickname Pride of Professional Wrestling, the American Gladiators half chest gear, the Mollywop finisher name, the scissoring, the five tools bit, and the "Five Tools, one rule, Prove. Me. Wrong" catchphrase. And yes, the worst of all, Billy Gunn to steal his big moments (and whether he means to or not, he actually does) and to make him look even smaller. He's working hard, putting himself out there, doing a ton of media and highlighting on social media that he's doing it. But the screaming catch phrase laden promos aren't it. 

Maybe they would be if he was a guy who was unlikable and had to push past it, but that's not Bowens! Listen to him in an interview. Watch some of the stuff he does on his own. He's incredibly human and relatable. It's the same issue as Adam Cole, where Cole's likability doesn't transfer at all into his character. With Cole, it's because he plays things as too cool and refuses to show vulnerability, refuses to be himself. With Bowens, I do think it might be a confidence thing. If he just talked to the fans instead of shouting catch phrases at them, if he just told them how he was feeling, I think they'd go along for the ride. They want to like him. He calls out to be liked. He's sympathetic and gets how to work as a babyface well. He just needs to be himself and not sixteen gimmicks.

And to me, that's not on him. How Garcia was presented is not on Garcia. It's on the booking. It's top down. It's not enough to make good matches every week. It's not enough to put guys in positions where they can have four star TV matches. That's not good enough. AEW is where the best wrestle but the wrestling isn't enough. There has to be a strategic plan, three months, six months, nine months. It's not enough for a match to have a story behind it and a destination to a different match later on. It needs to make people feel something. Young babyfaces are investments. You have to pay into them. You have to pay them off over time. You have to build the ladder so that they can climb it. The pillars weren't built in a day. Neither was Magnum TA or Mistico. It takes extra work. It means living less in the moment and more over time creatively. Maybe it's less fun for a booker/matchmaker. It's taking your medicine. But it's necessary if any of this is going to work. I'm a firm, firm believer that things can and do matter. I believe that in the ring, wrestlers can build a match and create meaning and not just sensation. I believe that over time with booking too. Where is a Willow going to be in nine months? Where is Bandido going to be in nine months? Where will Hobbs be in nine months? Maybe you can't do it for everyone and maybe everyone can't make it through the glass ceiling, but in year six, great wrestling matches aren't going to do it alone. There are diminishing returns without strategy and purpose to underpin them.

Wrestlers can come up with their own ideas. They can be sent out there to succeed or to fail, to get over with the crowd or to lose them, but at the end of the day, it has to be a top down approach with a plan behind it. Bottom up can create a spark but top down needs to fan the flames and give kindling to the fire. Danielson is already gone. Guys like Joe and Cope can only last so much longer. There are only so many new people to bring in given the state of the indies. The heels need babyfaces that, even if they aren't bullet proof, are still resilient. 

That said, I actually thought this was a really good wrestling match. Fletcher is amazing. He has incredible instincts. But most of all, he sells everything that happens emotionally. He started this off by being a jerk to both Bowens and Gunn but the second Bowens turned it back on him he lost his cool and rushed in so that Bowens could outwrestle him and make him stooge. Then he came right back with meanness and frustration over the indignity that he faced. He is developing that Buddy Rose quality of looking like an absolute fool when he's backpedaling but then able to flip a switch and be completely brutal on offense.

And that's even when he teases things as well. There was a moment where he played on the apron power bomb from a few weeks ago, teasing it on Bowens right in front of Cole. That cruel mental distraction, that streak of viciousness towards both Bowens and Cole meant that Bowens was able to fire back. Fletcher's eyes went off the ball for a moment because he tried to do as much physical and emotional harm as possible. Incredibly rich piece of character work there serving multiple purposes at once and even playing on the real world backlash from the previous spot. Fletcher does multiple things like that almost every match, taking his time, being as present as anyone in wrestling, having it all lead to comeuppance. 

And of course Bowens, wanting to prove himself and come back after his last loss against Okada, knowing that Fletcher was someone opposed to him in so many ways,  wanting to put himself in TNT title contention with Cole at ringside, kept pushing, kept driving for his finisher. I wouldn't say that the finish protected him enough honestly. Archer got his hands on Gunn and that distracted Bowens so that he ate a clean pin loss after a move. That's a case where at least Fletcher could have gotten his feet up on the ropes maybe (that sort of finish helps both him and Bowens). But if it leads to Bowens losing Gunn, the most harmful of all of his gimmicks (because he steals those big pops/moments and towers over him), maybe that's a step in the right direction. And steps are needed because AEW can't afford to give up on such key parts of its future. 

ROH TV 6/12/25

Bandido vs. Mansoor (Proving Ground) 

MD: I was talking with a friend the other day and we were noting the move away from wrestling as a morality play, from being more about good vs evil. At some point along the way, wrestling went from being about more universal human issues and just became about itself. That's almost entirely WWE's fault and a side effect of WWE losing competition in the early 2000s. As a monopoly it was able to turn inwards. Punk's Pipe Bomb and Bryan Danielson vs the Authority were more about wrestling nerds getting more of a say against the established norms than anything more human and universal like Dusty vs Flair, Hogan vs Dibiase, or Austin vs McMahon. The snake has come to eat its own tail. AEW plays with notions of friendship a bit more but so much of it is still about wrestling as wrestling as opposed to wrestling as a lens through which (even simple) social issues and tensions can be explored and played out. (As an aside, that's why some of Hangman's journey is so powerful, because so many people in the 2020s can relate to the anxiousness ingrained in the character).

Despite this match being a bandit-themed luchador against a male model, I thought it tapped into the notion of good vs evil pretty well. Maybe it's a stretch to call Mansoor evil, but he certainly represented vanity and arrogance, quick to preen and pose at every opportunity. Moreover, he was seconded by Mason Madden, Johnny TV, AND Taya, and they interfered again and again and again throughout. Even though they may have come off as clever and talented, they made sure to portray themselves as scheming and underhanded. At no point did they try to get the crowd on their side. They knew their roles and played them exactly as they should, allowing for Bandido to shine heroically against all odds. 

In this case, driven by the interference and on top of it, that meant overcoming Mansoor's targeting of his back. Bandido had to power through a double arm stretch, had to overcome his own pain when he couldn't suplex Mansoor, had to survive a late match backstabber. The villains, fueled not by Bandido's inner strength but by their own weakness of character, cheated too much and too brazenly and overstretched, being caught by Ref Aubrey and sent to the back (Mansoor acted as if their removal physically hurt him which was a great bit of emotional selling). Left in a fair fight, even if he was damaged, Bandido pushed on and persevered, good triumphing over bad. Not every match has to work along those lines but it's primal stuff and it's sure nice to see it play out now and again. 

 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/2 - 6/8

AEW Collision 6/4/25

Bandido/Outrunners vs Kyle Fletcher/Konosuke Takeshita/Hechicero

MD: We had a RUSH trios and an Athena proving ground match but I figured I'd spend some time with Kyle Fletcher and Hechicero instead. This was a bit of a time filler as there's no program I'm aware of right now save for a slight feud with Bandido and the Don Callis Family (maybe Archer goes after the ROH belt? They've suggested that previously) but it got to showcase Fletcher and Takeshita, had Bandido looking like a star, and gave us Hechicero hanging out with the DCF and honestly, that's all stuff I can go for. Wrestling for the sake of wrestling is not a sin. It's a joy. It's a mitzvah. It's a blessing. That some bad faith actors online have shaken the foundations of it at times is the opposite of all that. Screw them. This was a blast. 

For one thing, Bandido and Hechicero is a unique pairing. They've only had one singles and that was years ago. Their last interaction was something like five years ago. They match up extremely well. Hechicero can base for Bandido's stuff. Bandido can flow through all the llave and strange style that Hechicero can throw at him. This started with feeling out matwork between the two of them like a proper lucha trios and I loved it. From there everything picked up with the heels all stooging their way out until they caught Bandido and crushed him. Callis was great on commentary putting over Hechicero and showing derision for Bandido (which of course creates the opposite effect because everyone hates Callis).

The heat was lovely, as they beat the crap out of Truth Magnum. People may love big bomb Takeshita in crazy matches that go way over the top but hanging out with Fletcher brings something out in him that I love. Southern heel Takeshita is my favorite by far. He's got swagger, can play around with ref positioning, can let things settle in after the fact. And of course, Kyle Fletcher is the hero of the day, right? Posing, preening, heatseeking by pulling Truth's hand towards the corner when no one was there and following it up with a body slam to control the moment, and then when it came time after the hot tag, he happily looked the fool in a way that made him seem not happy at all, but instead as aggrieved as could be. 

I love the hierarchy at play too. Bandido was able to hold his own and Truth got some big moments, but when it came to slamming Takeshita, for instance, that took an extra bit of effort. Likewise, they weren't allowed to do the double elbow drop even though it would have been a crowd pleaser. I really do believe this stuff matters. Everything has to be earned and has to be consummate to the levels at play. If they were in there against Rocky and Trent it would have made more sense. Against Kyle and Takeshita, it has to be earned more than they could manage on this night. That means anything that anyone else actually manages to get on them later means all the more because it was held back here. I really, truly believe this stuff matters over time. It only matters if they make it matter and if the commentary picks up on it and everyone goes along with it but it's worth trying. It's worth doing things with care, and despite all the bluster and despite the occasional maximalist tendencies, Fletcher and Takeshita are doing things with care. It's going to pay off so long as the company cares too and allows it to. Even the increasingly elaborate ways to set up the Don Callis punch are more and more of a highlight every week (this time it was like a Rube Goldberg machine). My hope? A few months down the line when Eddie Kingston is fighting Kyle Fletcher for something meaningful, Willow gets to be handcuffed to Callis. Just imagine it.

So yeah, this was a blast and wrestling is the best thing going and I hope Hechicero gets to hang out with the DCF more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 4/28 - 5/4

AEW Dynamite 4/30/25

Hangman Adam Page vs The Protostar Kyle Fletcher

MD: Full disclosure: I was looking forward to this as much as anything else AEW has done this year. Also full disclosure: if you had told me that 18 months ago, I would have called you crazy. Let's put Fletcher aside for now. I was not an Adam Page guy (and everyone seems to be an Adam Page guy). There was plenty to like (how he emoted, how he hit clean, how he hit hard, the entire anxious millennial cowboy deal), but I likened him to a tree that grew big in all the wrong ways. His matches escalated too fast, too quickly. The crowd went up for them but they came off as empty to me, ephemeral. A lack of mid-level offense. A tendency to spend too long down the stretch and not long enough building to it. Those early match death valley drivers and springboard clotheslines didn't do him any favors. Ever since he started leaning heel, he slowed down his pace, creating a seething methodological mood in a way that very few wrestlers today are able to create mood, and to enable that, he took on a number of things (even if it's just violence as opposed to "moves") to bridge the gaps. He's carried a lot of that forward now that he's leaning back babyface.

And of course, Kyle Fletcher is the most exciting wrestler in AEW. After two generations of cool heels who refused to take things seriously, refused to show weakness, refused to let themselves care about anything, who had to be in on the joke and let everyone know they were in on the joke, Fletcher is relighting a torch long put out as a stooging, cowardly, unlikable, absolutely genuine heel. He's part of a movement that is the most refreshing and wonderful thing in pro wrestling (one that depending on the day can include MJF and Ricochet, and increasingly wrestlers like Blake Christian and Lee Johnson and Red Velvet, and even believe it or not, Okada). I look forward to see what new bit he'll work into his matches each and every week (I miss the pullaway pants already). But it's his reactions in the moment as he responds to his fellow wrestlers, the ref, and most especially the crowd, that really put him over the top. I loved the build of this the week prior where Hangman charged down to the ring while Fletcher had the Don Callis Family around him. He went from cocky to terrified as Hangman grabbed him back to confident as his team was beating Hangman down. Fletcher wrestles with his heart on his sleeve as a heel and heart is absolutely everything.

The good in the match was very, very good. I loved the first two thirds and thought the finish was very good as well. The opening feeling out chain wrestling (which made sense as this was a tournament match) had a nice wrinkle or two from Hangman. Fletcher hitting the floor, first in response to Hangman getting one over on him, and then to avoid the Buckshot was everything I want from him, especially when Hangman came out of nowhere to clothesline him over the barricade. The laceration on Fletcher's back added an flavor of grisly realism. I liked the throughline of Fletcher using a bit of distance/distraction to hit superkicks to stay in it. I don't think that was overdone. Fletcher's shots in the corner while in control, whether they're boots or the sweeping elbows he does, are a huge part of his act, just him reveling and basking in his shitheel dominance. That makes the comeuppance he receives all the better.

And he absolutely did receive comeuppance. Hangman's comeback after the first commercial break was great. Total standing tall hometown hero stuff. I loved all the different lariat variations he used to fill the space and punish Fletcher. That's so much of what I thought he was missing two years ago. He had the corner clothesline, the sliding one, the corner repeated shots. All of that meant that they could build to the death valley driver (after one attempt at it) instead of using the death valley driver to build to something else. Same with the fall away slam. 

They were set to go long, which meant things escalated to the apron brainbuster/Orihara moonsault off the rail/tombstone spot on the floor to set up the second commercial break. That's where I though the match got a bit off course. The second commercial break was a bit of selling (Hangman nominally selling the apron brainbuster well after the fact) and then 50-50 stuff, culminating with another superkick takeover by Fletcher, and ultimately building to Hangman's big escape from the corner brainbuster and the subsequent superplex. That heralded the return from the break and the beginning of the true finishing stretch. 

This section, to me, felt fairly formless, which might be understandable as it was during a second commercial break in the match, but there was no reason not to go back to that tried and tested strength of AEW: stack heat in the commercial breaks. Fletcher was losing. Hangman had the hometown crowd. They had a spectacular finish planned with the lowblow nearfall followed by the roll-through quasi-Buckshot off the top. I get that there is a certain 2010s NJPW Tournament style that they try to ape sometimes, but this wasn't the time, place, or set up for it, not given the combatants, the locale, and that second break.

Instead, I wished they would have just put a little more heat on Fletcher. It's what he's there for. Have him reverse that tombstone on the floor and hit it himself. Go to break. Have him get a second round of heat and ramp up the pressure more and more. That's what pro wrestling is all about. Build and payoff. If you have the right wrestlers in the right place in front of the right crowd, there's nothing better than double heat! Instead, the crowd chanted at Don Callis and waited for the finishing stretch to begin as Hangman and Fletcher went 50-50 for a minute or two. If they had went back to having Fletcher grind down on Hangman while being an ass, they could have still built to the exact same moment in the corner but the crowd (probably, hopefully, probably) would have gone up even higher for it. 

It would be win-win-win. Fletcher would have been protected just a little more in the loss, not that he really needs it with the way that he responds to everything. Hangman would have had to overcome just a little more to make his win resonate even more; he'd already had a very dominant comeback after all. There would have been a clearer narrative going into the tighter, more focused finishing stretch, with more contrast with it and what came before. The crowd would have been all the more ready to boil over with the superplex and everything that came after. More, more, more (by doing a little less, actually, but that's the art of pro wrestling for you).

If they wanted to capture that tournament feel, they've got Ospreay vs Hangman coming, face vs quasi-face, and I'm sure that'll tap into it for good and ill, even (and especially, I suppose) with as far as Hangman has come. Still, despite all that, I had been looking forward to match for a reason and in most of the ways that mattered, it lived up to my expectations. With Fletcher, in Hangman's home area, I just really wanted a little bit more and I think if they had doubled down on the heat, they could have given it to me (and to everyone else too, of course!). Maybe that was greedy of me, but he's the sort of wrestler who is exciting enough to inspire greed. And he deserves all the credit in the world for that.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/31 - 4/6

AEW Dynasty 4/6/25

Daniel Garcia vs Adam Cole

MD: Let's go back to Full Gear. It was a night of misery and destruction, where babyface hope came to die in the main event as Orange Cassidy, who the company had rallied around as a leader and who had finally found the strength inside to stand tall failed to defeat Jon Moxley. The one bright spot at the bottom of Pandora's Box, however, was Daniel Garcia defeating Jack Perry and winning the TNT title. The post match was brisk moving, but we were left with the image of Garcia, draped with the AEW flag around his neck, belt in hand, walking to the back in triumph.

Immediately thereafter, we started to see something new out of Garcia. He had resigned with the company, albeit without the braggadocious fanfare of MJF and his tattoo. He was going to be a fighting champion, one that could anchor Collision. He reached to the crowd for support, sometimes literally, began using the ten-count punch like stalwart babyfaces of the past. He was a shining, glowing counterbalance to the New Heel army who were trying to get heat instead of just getting themselves over, guys like Fletcher, Ricochet, Okada, Blake Christian, Lee Johnson. 

He was the one holding up that other side of the scale; maybe with Briscoe, maybe with Hobbs, maybe with someone like Hologram, but it was mostly Garcia with a clear path forward. 

And what happened then? He did what he was asked to do. He anchored Collision. He had solid match after solid match, solid babyface performance after solid babyface performance. But look at the opponents they gave him: Mark Briscoe, Shibata, a three way with O'Reilly and Moriarty, and then on to Adam Cole. It was criminal to some degree. Yes, it was good to beat these people, but he needed heels lined up to knock down. Sometimes making a match that is going to be "good" isn't enough. "Goodness" isn't the same as vision. Garcia had the crowd behind him. Garcia was trying new things pulled out of times past, things that would have worked, that would have established themselves in the hearts of the fans, that could have worked against all of these new heels, all the way up to Mox. He could have been Misawa to Mox's Jumbo. But it needed time to grow and develop and for a crowd that hadn't seen it in years (and some of them having never seen it) to be able to latch on to and understand. 

And he was left, in the end, against Adam Cole again and again. Adam Cole might be the nicest guy in the world, but as a wrestler, as a heel, he's a cool heel, and as a face, he's a cool face. Nothing really gets to him. Nothing registers. His promo explaining why he betrayed MJF was the least apologetic, least likable promo I've heard in a very long time. He didn't take responsibility for his actions. He didn't admit even the possibility that he was wrong. He just doubled down on everything he did and their program was a disaster because of it. If he just channeled his own personal vulnerability instead of a Michaels-esque sort of self-conscious need to be above it all, he could be the top guy that people always thought he could be. He could really connect with the fans. But instead he puts on a mask, and will always ever only be (occasionally) the guy that wrestles the guy for one program.

The nicest thing I can say about this match is that it did channel all of the above, and Garcia, being as good as he is, was able to channel a lot of it in a manner which felt in character, even though you can blur the lines thinking about all of the above. You can make it so Garcia, the character, was the dragonslayer, the guy who wanted to be a new hero, to face all the cheaters and underhanded villains of the world and who was instead put up against people that the crowd backed. He was a fighting champion, so that was fine, but he wanted to carry the AEW banner against the people really doing the damage and they were keeping him away from all that. 

You can see him as someone who watched that Adam Cole promo, who had faced MJF himself and managed to fight him without losing his own standards. Yes, he escalated things with the top rope pile driver, but that was different than striking from behind and behind a mask. And now he had to stand tall against Cole, this disingenuous, untrustworthy, unrepentant (and Garcia, with his background and how he carries himself is someone who, like Eddie Kingston, seems to know a thing or two about repentance) scoundrel, who gets shot after shot on goal while the fans sing along to his catch phrase without really giving second thought to his actions. Garcia had to work for everything and Cole, even though he worked his way back from injury after injury, was never gracious about it, and instead made it seem like that was enough, like he deserved it all because of it. And the fans were split at best?

So Garcia, in the match, got more and more aggressive, strayed from the light, and in doing so, lost his way and fell. When what's happening in the ring correlates to what happens outside, it can be incredibly compelling. And I see that with Garcia now. He wanted to be something pure and good, wanted to represent a new, better AEW, one without all of the irony, one where deeds and words mattered, where actions had consequence, one with honor. And he was never truly given the chance, ultimately felled by a cool face who was the exact opposite of what he was trying to represent, and then he had to shake his hand anyway? Where does he go from there? Does he sink into villainy? Does he become just as bad as everyone around him? Does he stop caring and become jaded? Or does he redouble his efforts and find a purity of heart that help him give people hope in very, very dark times indeed. 

It's unfortunate that what he was primed to become wasn't fully capitalized on, but there's still an opportunity now for something special, because as entertaining and refreshing it has been to see heels that are willing to get heat, that are willing to serve the match and the company instead of just themselves, that are fearless and daring and push to make every action mean something instead of just hit clean and look cool, there needs to be babyfaces that can take advantage of that to help move hearts and minds. And Garcia was willing, was trying, was even starting to succeed. There's a feeling out there that still needs restoring, now more than ever, and it's not the feeling of 2019 or 2021. Where does he go from here, a good man that briefly lost sight of his true north and lost all that he had fought for because of it, trapped in a world that he didn't make? I don't know about the rest of you, but that's something I want to find out.

Kyle Fletcher vs Mark Briscoe

MD: There's nothing in wrestling I'm enjoying more right now than the first few minutes of a Kyle Fletcher match. He's bold and fearless, a wonderfully confident and selfless stooging heel. The more selfless he is, the more over the top, the more willing to look the fool, the more he comes off like a star and the more over he gets. And this match, unfortunately, likely because it wanted to hang with the rest of the PPV card and start from a more "elevated" place of action, tossed that entirely out the window. 

From a story perspective, it did make sense for Kyle to begin with a dive. He had lost two of his previous matches with Briscoe. He knew how dangerous it was. They went right on to apron spots (albeit with some fun vocalization by Fletcher) and then Briscoe going for the chair (with a great moment of Mark telling the fans to boo the ref when he stopped him). That all made sense in character. For the sake of the match, it was about getting a hot spot and feeling PPV worthy. I think that was a mistake. While the show had some fun stuff overall (like the headslapping bit with Ricochet which was one imaginative sequence out of 20 in that match), contrast makes the world goes round and five minutes of Fletcher stooging and stalling and letting things sink in at the start would have stood out far more on this card and would have stayed with people far more than the aforementioned 'hot start.'

What it did allow, perhaps, was Fletcher to really take his time on the heat. I saw people complain about Moxley's "plodding" heat segment in the main event and I honestly that was pretty good with how he moved from one hold to the next smoothly and worked the wound. But even if that isn't for everyone, Fletcher's approach is more engaging. He has big pieces of offense and then he milks them after the fact, really posing and preening and playing to the crowd and let it all sink in until his theatrics lets Briscoe come back and Fletcher cuts him off with something big again, going right back to the preening. It's less, but it lets each thing that actually hits, already impressive on its own, mean so, so much more than if he had just went from spot to spot to spot. No one in AEW is really letting everything sink in quite like he does and if they couldn't have both the early match stooging AND the time-taking in the heat, then I guess it's good that they gave us at least one of the two. 

It worked down the stretch as well, as they threw bomb after bomb and they really, truly needed the weight of Briscoe being so hurt that he couldn't capitalize after, for instance, the cutthroat driver. That became believable because the weight of what happened during Fletcher's control segment and so much of that resonated because Fletcher was so engaged and engaging throughout it. But I think this could have even been better if they did 1/3rd less down the stretch and reallocated some of that time to an opening third where Fletcher could have stalled and posed and used his new tearaway pants and gotten some early shine comeuppance from Briscoe.

AEW Collision 4/5/25

Athena/Julia Hart vs Mercedes Mone/Harley Cameron (Parejas Increibles)

MD: This wasn't actually a parejas increibles match, but at the same time, it really, truly was. Athena and Julia Hart, despite celebrating together after the match was over, were absolutely strange bedfellows. This wasn't Julia and Sky hanging in the ropes together pre-match. It wasn't Athena and Billie (or Diamante currently) with meanstreak MIT appeal up against Ronda Rousey and Marina Shafir (what a fever dream that was). Harley and Mercedes did get it and were allowed it in the build to this, but the circle wasn't squared and all the pieces didn't quite fit together. 

That's not to say both Athena and Julia didn't get individual moments. There was a palpable buzz even from a very exhausted double taping crowd whenever Athena and Mercedes shared a ring. Julia's comeback against Mercedes when she lifted up out of the tree of woe was memorable, especially for Mercedes' bump. Very on point for Julia. It's just that they never quite came together and interacted the way you would have wanted to. A parejas increibles match is all about those interactions, the weird mix of alchemy of putting these robust, dynamic, larger than life characters in situations they wouldn't normally be in.

And it's important to make the most of that, because there are some natural shortcomings. In lucha, you often see partners refuse to cooperate to the point of a match breaking down or one rudo helping his opponents instead of his partner, and while that can be chaotic, it doesn't exactly lend to compelling narratives over time (like over the entire CMLL Parejas Increibles Tournament for instance).  Here, the problem was one of sympathy. Julia and Athena are tweeners at best with Athena being positioned as an outright heel on ROH TV. The Hounds of Hell have been babyfaces this year but Julia is maybe less of one depending on who she's facing. Harley is clearly a babyface; not only is she a babyface but she's one of the most sympathetic ones in the company, up there with Orange Cassidy and Mark Briscoe, beloved. 

Here she was expected to help Mercedes work over Julia, and the fans, on one level, would be glad for her when Mercedes accepted her and praised her, but on the other, it all made it tough for the Julia/Athena team to get sympathy. I think this situation would have been hard for anyone on the roster let alone two wrestlers (in Julia and Harley) that had around 150 matches under their belt between them. In a company that's so good at coming up with clever spots and set pieces, I do wish sometimes they'd pause and think about what the most interesting squeezing out of characters and interactions would be in any situation, that could put more emphasis on character motivations and how they feel about what's before them and the broader world. That would have helped Julia here and it probably would have helped Harley too. This was a good effort and an entertaining match (with a great, if muddled, comeback moment with the puppet), but I think in a situation like this, there's still so much more that could be mined with just a little more thought behind it all.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/24 - 3/30

AEW Dynamite 3/26/25

Kyle Fletcher vs Brody King

MD: Kyle Fletcher is the most interesting wrestler in AEW. I'm not 100% sure they know what they have in him. He's the honestly surprising frontrunner of what I'm more or less calling the New Heel Movement (Neo-Heelism? Probably I stick with New Heel Movement). Yes, he looks like a star now, in his own way. But it's not his looks but how he carries himself. So long as he's kept away from some of the worst perpetrators of action for the sake of action on the babyface side, he expands and takes up the air in every match that he wrestles in the most selfless, entertaining, productive way. 

He's a counterbalance to three decades of cool heels who refused to take anything seriously and show real vulnerability and at least a decade and a half of selfish spottiness that has honestly plagued pro wrestling, pushing fans away from caring about outcomes and characters and towards rewarding sensationalism and celebrating the means, not the ends. And he's not alone. You see it up and down the card, from people like MxM, Blake Christian, Red Velvet, and Lee Johnson on ROH, all the way to guys like Ricochet and Okada at the top of the card (and of course there's MJF when he's at his most MJF-ish). 

But none of them are managing it quite like Fletcher. You actually expect it more on ROH with looser time cues and more creative freedom and less need to clutch onto every ratings decimal. But there he is, taking his time, basking in every moment, leaning hard into every opportunity to push things over the top and get under the skin of the fans. And they respond in turn, chanting against him, chanting for the babyface, chanting anything at all except for "This is Awesome" or "Fight Forever." In this case, they were going after Callis too and I wonder how much of that was the fan in the first row dressed just like him, but it's still all way more of a positive scenario than having fans blandly celebrate the match simply existing as a spectacle instead of being engaged in its outcome. 

And he keeps adding to the act (which is much more of an overall philosophy and mindset than a series of spots/bits). Here, he had the pullaway pants at the start. He ambushed King and then took the time to really show off the new gear to the crowd, smiling, posing, all but preening, even as King crept up behind him. It was honestly beautiful stuff and he leaned into it 30% harder and 30% longer than anyone else on the roster would have and that investment paid off huge in reaction and how memorable it all was. 

It's incredibly hard for a heel to balance the sort of corpsing, stooging, sprawling bumping and selling that Fletcher did here while still maintaining credibility, but he managed it. Some of that is simply putting him over enough (as they did here), but so much of it comes down to the heel figuring out how to be vicious and making the most of his time on top in a match. Fletcher, in the midst of cracking the code, seems to realizes that it doesn't just mean hitting great looking dynamic offense, but making sure to engage with the crowd, with the ref, with the opponent, with the world while doing it, and then letting it sink in and resonate after the fact. Basically, everything he's been doing while taking offense applies just as much when he's on top. That could be as simple as living and breathing and being the Protostar while stepping on Brody's face. It's showing that he cares about what he's doing instead of just rushing to hit the next spot and spoonfeeding the fans action on top of action. It sounds so simple but it's become increasingly rare and it doesn't just make him stand out, but it makes both the moments and the overall effect of his matches mean all the more. 

It also means that when he does something truly impressive, like hefting up Brody for his tombstone, the fans are even more frustrated, for they have to give it to him, and he's given them nothing to latch on to before that. It means that instead of supporting him or thinking the match is simply great, they end up resenting him all the more, and that he gets real, honest, meaningful heat that maybe, just maybe can drive the sorts of business metrics that had seem dead and dusted, the notion that you want to see a heel get his comeuppance at the hands of a babyface. And of course, just when they had the fans begrudgingly handing it to Fletcher and resenting him all the more for it, Mark Davis came out to take things over the top and push everything the other way, distracting Brody so that Fletcher could steal the win. That he did it with the corner brainbuster, yet another impressive move on a massive opponent, just increased the dissonance and writhing, churning feeling in the stomach of the fans.

Fletcher's become a heel that poisons everything he touches in the very best of ways, something that frankly, we haven't seen on top in a US company in ages. He's gold, and in some ways, he's going to be bulletproof as long he can continue to lead with bluster and live in the moment, as long as he doesn't lose his nerve and get pressured to speed things up and rush to the next thing like so many of his peers. But he still needs to be protected and valued. Everyone around him, from the wrestlers he faces, to the commentators, and all the way to the top of the company should be shown to care as much as he does, in both his successes and his failures. If that can happen, way I see it, the sky's the limit.

ROH TV 3/27/25

Athena/Diamante vs Jordan Blu/Mazzerati

MD: I honestly love matches like this. Yes, it was a squash. Blu/Mazzeratti got almost no offense in. But if you watch five hundred matches in one year, you're probably not going to see another match that tries to tell this specific story. The last time I can remember something quite like this was back during the Mercedes Martinez vs Serena Deeb feud where they were trying to one-up each other. This wasn't quite that but it was a similar idea, with Diamante trying to show her value to Athena. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the story overall (for one thing, it's going to clash with the main roster story, almost like Lawler doing one thing in Memphis and another on WWF TV). Diamante doesn't quite seem minion material, but she also seems like she might go with the flow if she sees a success bully successfully bullying, so who knows. 

The match itself was a lot of fun though, because Diamante kept looking over for approval and to see what Athena had to think about things, and Athena would react accordingly. My big regret here (and it's a shame because I can't see them doing this again) is that I wish they had an Athena cam set up. I'm not sure what the rationale for it would have been, kayfabe-wise, but I'm sure they could have thought of something. And she could have been a corner insert for the entire match as we just saw her reacting to all of Diamante's stuff. Otherwise, this was fun because it was so different and told so unique a story. I love the idea of a tag match where the focus is equally on the person on the apron as it is the person in the ring. It just expands and stretches the limits of the form. It's one of those things you can really get away with on ROH that you can't quite get away with as easily on Dynamite or Collision.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 12/2 - 12/8

AEW Collision 12/7/24

Darby Allin vs. Komander

MD: Full disclosure. I want to talk about Kyle Fletcher and Daniel Garcia, even briefly, and I'll do that down below in something of a C2 roundup. I don't want to shortchange this match though. Even within AEW where we have all sorts of match-ups on a weekly basis, the C2 is unique. I'd argue that this year's is even more unique than last year's. Last year you had RUSH in there, sure, but he's a little more conventional, a lucha brawler. Likewise Andrade who had worked a more conventional US style for years. This year, the C2 really shows the diversity of the roster. Styles make fights and all that, and it's true to a degree with wrestling as well. Komander seems like the poster child for this notion. His match vs Ricochet was like vs like to a degree, even if it was different flavors of like and even if Ricochet had some extra fun with it during the break. He'll be up against a deity of basing in Claudio and an absolute monster in Brody. They're all going to be very different matches and of course wildly different matches than what we would have gotten if Juice had been in there still. It's a great opportunity for Komander and for AEW to elevate him, even as a guy likely in there to eat falls. On some level, even with the loss of the Lucha Bros, it's exciting to think that there'll be an almost more dynamic tecnico engine of Hologram, Komander, and Bandido soon. That feels especially important with Texas looming.

Maybe what was most interesting with this match specifically was how Darby got to stretch. If you forced me to define him in a bucket, I'd almost call him a Cruiserweight Bully here. He was able to jam Komander at the beginning with a technical prowess that he can only ever show mere flashes of and he jammed him at the end out of nowhere in a beautiful sort of boy-scout knot tying. In the middle, he did his best to match Komander's speed and high risk daring and paid for it more often than not, each time more spectacularly than the last. In some ways it reminded me of the escalation in the Darby vs Jeff Hardy match but here there were more defined roles. Here, the This is Awesome chant was appropriate and fit the match perfectly. At some point, you got the sense that Darby realized it and that he wasn't going to be able to beat Komander how he wanted to, by playing Komander's game (one that more often than not is at least parallel to Darby's usual one), and he shifted gears, scratching at the back and then finally putting him away without pageantry or daring, no matter how badly you knew that Darby wanted to find a way to leap off a high object just one more time. It was a star coming to grips with the reality of the situation and making the mature decision and the sort of random complexity that you're only going to find in the C2.

 

Kyle Fletcher vs. Daniel Garcia

MD: I'm not writing a full blown essay here but I am noting what is plainly clear to see. Kyle Fletcher is wrestling fearlessly as a heel. The match with Shelton may be one of my favorite AEW matches ever. Ever. Some of that was due to a game crowd. Some of it was due to Shelton being willing to lean into it. So much of it was Fletcher though. I've seen comparison with Tully, but to me, the comparison point is young Gino, someone so fearless and confident that he's able to get under the skin of everyone in the crowd and get them to react accordingly, react the way that makes wrestling different than any other performance art out there. He's taking his time. He's interacting with the crowd, the ref, his opponent. He's inhabiting every moment and taking up all the air in the best way. It becomes a loop. They feed him. He feeds them. He gives them something to react to. They give him something to react to. It's all better than the sum of the parts or the sum of any carefully constructed spotfest. He's giving them noting positive to latch on to and he's cheating to win. The end of the Okada match where they eschewed a finishing stretch in general and went with the low blow and Brainbuster instead felt like a heelish repudiation of the very notion of fighting spirit. In some ways it's the purest, most distilled pro wrestling that I've seen in years. It's a beautiful thing and it needs to be protected and fostered. It's like the first sprout of a plant growing in an arid, barren wasteland. That's not to say there aren't industrial towers a hundred stories tall, impressive marvels of modern architecture and technology in the wasteland. But this is different. This is green. This is life. And I thought maybe it was gone forever.

And on the other side, you have Garcia doing his very best to create an earnest, positive relationship with the crowd, one that doesn't rely on him being cooler than what's going on, but that instead has him embracing it. He's slapping hands, slamming the mat, reaching out while in pain, holding the hands of kids to draw upon their power. He shined against Okada. Against Mortos it was tricker, because that's not a match that would normally be booked at this point. It was like 89 Steamboat vs Muta. That wouldn't have been fair to Steamboat, but people seemed to like it nonetheless. Then he turned around vs Briscoe, someone who would be more over than almost any babyface in the world, and played up his aggression, brought back the dance for the first time in ages (which felt like Danielson using the Yes Chants for the first time in ages in the first Okada match after he got hurt because he realized he needed an extra bit of connection with the crowd). He was put in a difficult position twice in one week and held steady while finding ways to adapt to the moment. 

Sometime in the next two weeks, maybe even this week, we're going to get Fletcher vs Garcia. There's a world where this is the Steamboat vs Flair or Cena vs Orton of the next ten years. They're tapping into something almost no one is even trying to do (Max is Max and I acknowledge what he accomplished at Full Gear; different pros, different cons; these can complement each other). And I'm not going to lie, I feel more hope for the future of pro wrestling this last week than I have for a long, long time.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/28 - 11/3

AEW Rampage 11/1/24

RUSH/Dralistico/Mortos vs BEEF/JD Drake/Butcher

MD: Really enjoyed Rampage this week overall. Very "Fastest Hour of TV" vibes. They started in the ring for this one, cut to Stokely after, did the Vendetta squash, paid off the Stokely bit and did something out of normal format with Taya, then went straight into the three Top Flight matches, one after the other, all linked with the entrances, and with the undertone of Moxley-influenced aggression in the air more so than usual on AEW TV (that doesn't involve Moxley directly) right now. Very much a "Restore the Feeling" sort of show for me, but then my feeling and other people's feelings tend to be different. I'll miss it if and when it's gone just like I miss Dark and Elevation.

And obviously, this was a great way to start. Look, I like the Outrunners, but I do think there's a ceiling to them and that the act will only have legs for so long. I see a higher ceiling for BEEF. Yes, he's over the top, but he's over the top in a believable way. The Outrunners are characters. They're very fun characters who are enjoyable to watch, but BEEF comes off as more human. You might know a guy like BEEF. You might tell yourself and everyone else that you wished you didn't, but then so do JD Drake and Anthony Henry, right? Deep down, though, having someone so earnest and enthusiastic in your life just makes it better. Do I think he can be world champion? No, but I think he can be a challenger for the TNT or Continental Title that fans might really get behind on a chase.

The most interesting guy in this one was Drake though. Arn Anderson is on record that he thinks he (being Arn) was a terrible babyface, that he didn't have the "skills," which in this case more or less means deep armdrags and dropkicks. I'm not sure if he really believes that of if he's being self-effacing but in saying it, he shortchanges just how good a babyface he was and what makes a good babyface in the first place. It's not "skills", it's emotional connection. I imagine Drake might say the same thing Arn did, but he was really good here being shoehorned into that role. He engaged with everyone around him, hitting the tranquilo pose early, played face-in-peril sympathetically but with fire, downright seething when RUSH stopped the run across the ring to kick him in the face, and then fired back for the hot tag, standing toe to toe with RUSH before making that final, pained turn to tag BEEF in.

Butcher fit right in too. Obviously you want him slugging it out with RUSH. You want everyone slugging it out with RUSH. There was a bit early on too where Dralistico really played up that little dog/big dog dynamic with his brother which I find effective. This was good all around. Only thing I missed here was one of those Jake pre-tapes to set the stage. BEEF has this sort of transformative element to him that makes everyone into Giant Machine or Piper Machine like in 85. Someday we'll get BEEF/Mark Briscoe interaction and the skies will part and the angels will sing.

ROH TV 10/31/24

Athena vs Abadon

MD: Abadon's an interesting case. If you go back to the territories, they'd move around like Kamala or other monsters, never staying in one place for too long. Here, they're one of the only honest attractions (in as they're used like one) that AEW/ROH have. They're gone more than than they're here and they're instantly credible and dangerous when they arrive, generally able to challenge a champion only to come short. Then they're away again long enough to make you forget about the loss so that they have an impact when they come back. I know in the margins they're working indies and training but the lack of ringtime is probably not ideal. 19 matches in 2024 with a third of those being squashes on ROH TV coming in at less than 2:30. 2023 was much the same. It's a tricky balance.

Part of me wonders if we're reaching the end of Athena in ROH. It looks like Billie's story is cresting again and Final Battle is around the corner. Plenty of people who don't actually watch ROH have been clamoring for it. Everyone who does likely wants her to stay. I do understand that what ROH is might change in the future (and it might not) but it gives her the freedom to stretch. This went almost 20 minutes, more with the pre and the post-match. It had all the room in the world to breathe. I love AEW commercial breaks in some ways, but Athena doesn't need them like others do. She is fully formed, self-actualized, able to structure her matches in the ideal manner and make the most out of every second. This sort of match would have been very hard to pull off in this exact way getting this amount of time on Dynamite or Rampage. I think in historical terms and the comp we'll have some day of Athena's Proving Ground matches and big defenses will shine, just like she does as the biggest fish in AEW's smallest pond. If she does get moved up at some point, then she should be featured on the same level as Mercedes, getting her own segment each week. On paper, maybe that's a bold risk. In actuality, it's an investment that would pay off in time.

But there's a match here and like I said, it went almost twenty. It was wild, with a slew of big spots that went like they should have or that were all the more impressive for maybe not. Some of the latter was simple physics. A lot of it was Athena's reactions in the moment. There were plenty of moving parts here and it was very much on her to make this feel organic. Remember, Abadon's had something like 120 matches and a big chunk of those are squashes. They did a good job sticking to character and keeping things moving, being where they needed to be when they needed to be, and this was their career match, from what I've seen, but it's a little different than Athena's 17 year career.

Athena reacted to everything, from planned spots, to mishaps like the chain falling off her band, to the crowd chanting this is awesome. She reacted from Abadon absorbing the magic forearm at the start all the way to the relief of hitting the crazy O-Face into the chairs and escaping with the belt(s). You couldn't see the strings because she managed to be on so thoroughly throughout, whether it was following some sort of plan or a temporary deviation from it. I can't stress how important that is, how rare that is in 2024, and how it turns a match from a garbage spotfest into an immersive, horrific experience.

Athena went from fear to seething frustration to seething rage to seething agony. There was a lot of seething in this one. Abadon's reaction to the blood from the skewers was spot on as well, and even better was Abadon's frustration after being unable to finish Athena off on the floor. That was the moment that the match shifted inexorably in Athena's favor, the moment where her persistence and determination and madwoman drive broke Abadon's will. For the first time all match, maybe even since their debut, Abadon showed cracks, and Athena drove a wedge through them before shattering her with the O-Face. That this went so long, had certain things that didn't work as planned, and still turned out to be compelling and cohesive is a testament to one of the best wrestlers in the world and a very game opponent and one more reason that we should cherish this ROH while we can. 

BONUS: AEW Collision 11/2/24 - Kyle Fletcher

I had tossed this in a tweet (https://x.com/MattD_SC/status/1853065072689496430) I'm doing a lot of these short form things over there, so do follow and follow along) but wanted to put it here as well. 

It's no big secret what I wanted MJF to do at Wembley. Channel Larry Zybzsko and stall. The stalling wasn't the point though. It was the means. The heat that it would have gotten him wasn't even the point. That was the means too. At the end of the day, heat generally is. It's a means to fuel the potential energy behind a comeback. The comeback is the thing. When you have a face and a heel and a crowd that cares about the difference, it's everything.

The traditional goal of pro wrestling has always been to figure out what a crowd wants and deny them it and deny them it and deny them it so that when they get it, it's the greatest feeling imaginable. For decades, what they wanted was to see the babyface win and the heel get comeuppance. That's not nearly as true in 2024. Right now, much of the audience wants to be part of an experience, want to have bragging rights for being live for a great match, to chant "This is Awesome" or "Fight Forever." And no one enables them to do that more than Will Ospreay. He's the poster boy for it. He gives the fans what they want. So if MJF was going to be the greatest villain of his age, how could he really get under the crowd's skin? By denying them that as much as possible in the grandest venue possible. Then, in the last third of the match when Ospreay became unchained and hit spot after spot perfectly and brilliantly, it would have felt like the greatest relief (and release) in the world. 

Max went a different way with it. That's fine. People still liked the match. We're not here to talk about that. We move on. We look to the future. Let's talk about Kyle Fletcher. I love AEW's commercial breaks. You learn so much about wrestlers by seeing how they fill time during it. This is where AEW generally sticks the heat (of shine/heat/comeback since I'm using phrases haphazardly) in its matches. That's the most important part of the match! I'm not entirely sure it would even exist for most AEW matches without the breaks because the tendency to go 50/50, your move/my move and get all the cool stuff in might be too strong.

People have been hot and cold on Fletcher the last couple of years, but I've been watching him during those breaks and I have to admit, I like what I see. He's been precociously good at interacting with the crowd, his opponent, the ref, at letting things breathe, at showing himself as a fully fleshed out character with emotions and opinions and able to emote and present all of this to the crowd. He's not just hitting stuff. He's not just sleepwalking through it until it's time for the big back-from-break spot. He's alive. It's just for a lot of the rest of the match, you didn't see it nearly as much. Great (surprising!) instincts, just maybe a career of hanging with a certain sort of crowd who had learned to get over in a certain sort of way, right?

So now he's turned on Ospreay, has cut his hair to differentiate him, and as seen on Collision's Komander match, has done something even more striking. He's managed to start moving differently. That Fletcher who we'd seen peek out during the breaks is starting to show himself from bell to bell. He used his robe as a feint to cheapshot Komander to start and then moved slowly, methodologically, with purpose. He grinded him down, played to the crowd, menaced Abrahantes. When I tried to explain what made Mark Henry so special during his Hall of Pain run, the best I could come up with was the notion of "negative space", what you did between the moves and the spots. Giving life to those in-between moments turns a match from a series of things that happened to a consistent, engaging, immersive reality of its own. Fletcher was absolutely nailing that here.

And then, in the back third (after the break and after he finally nailed Abrahantes), he let Komander off the chain and they hit bombs and fireworks on the way to the finish. The crowd responded, for the most part, as they ideally are supposed to, chanting Komander's name and getting behind him. Sometimes you find a spark of hope in the most unlikely places, right?  

That brings us to Full Gear and Ospreay. I don't want him to stall. That made sense for Max. It made sense for the cowardly heel champ full of bluster. Fletcher's wrestling like someone with something to prove and he has more to prove against Ospreay than anyone. What he has to prove, however, is that he's his own man. If he comes out and wrestles Ospreay's match to prove that he can hang, that he's just as good as him (exactly what Max did!), that doesn't prove to anyone that he's his own man. It just proves that maybe he's as good an Ospreay as Ospreay.

Fletcher seems to get this, right? He seemed to get it in the Komander match, way more than I would have expected him to. How does he prove it then? He goes low early and then grinds Ospreay down the whole match. He makes sure Ospreay doesn't hit his usual first-few-minutes dive. He evades and avoids hope spots so that Ospreay doesn't even get to hit them. He denies Ospreay his offense. He denies the fans the chance to see Ospreay do his thing. They get absolutely nothing for the first two thirds (but the joy of booing), not because Fletcher is a coward but because he's an absolute bastard. Then? That last third? They get everything. Maybe it scores a half star less on the following Friday morning, but if Fletcher can pull it off, it would be an experience the crowd would never forget. It would define who and what he could be moving forward. It would give AEW another piece they badly need. I guess we'll know soon enough.

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