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

AEW Dynamite 7/1/26

MJF vs Mark Briscoe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

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

AEW Dynamite 6/3/26

MJF vs RUSH

MD: Conflict in Literature:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/18 - 5/24 Part 1

AEW Double or Nothing 5/24/26

Darby Allin vs MJF

MD: When you think about MJF's biggest rivals, you think Moxley and Darby and Hangman and Wardlow. Maybe you even think Punk. When I think of Maxwell Jacob Friedman's biggest rival though, there's really only one answer: modern crowds.

They're irony-pilled, celebratory, happy to be there, wanting to see great matches far more than they want to see a specific winner or loser. More often than not (most often, even), they want to chant for their own sake and pop for spots more than they want to get invested in the story being told in the ring, no matter how good it is. The well's been poisoned since the mid-90s by babyfaces who wanted to steal the show in order to get over and heels who walked around cool and uncaring. AEW was built upon the premise that the fans were smarter than pro wrestling, that the wrestling was meant to be smart for the fans, great matches, five stars. Sheet darlings. Excess on top of excess on top of excess. All highs, no lows.

The owner of the company, for all of his good qualities, tweets out every "This is Awesome" chant. Sometimes a match isn't supposed to be awesome. Sometimes the fans aren't supposed to be awed. Sometimes they're supposed to feel other emotions beside elation for what they're seeing. But that's the measure of success in the company, everything being Awesome. 

And so many of the wrestlers, having grown up in this post-modern environment and having found success in it when maybe they wouldn't be able to find success any other way, don't see this as an issue, don't see it as a problem. They want to pop themselves. They want to pop their buddies. And yeah, they want to pop the crowd. And pop it again. And again and again and again and again and again. Let's face it, it's easier to burn something down than to build it up. It's easier to keep people buzzing so you don't have to pay attention to details and build something that stands on its own.

That makes it all the more impressive then that Max wants something more. He can hang. He can have spotfests. We've seen them, usually to his detriment as a character and a wrestler. He certainly has to survive on a card which is full of these things. He has to deal with crowds that are conditioned by them and by a critical underpinning that rewards them over and over, a perfect circle of spot-driven slop where the true emotion that fueled wrestling for decades is kept secondary, not because of any loss of kayfabe but because of fans', wrestlers', and critics' self-consciousness finally driving them to present a sort of wrestling that makes the spots into the ends instead of the means.

He's reprehensible as a character, yet even in the best of cases, fans pop for his music, shout along with the ring announcer saying his name, and chant for him half the match. He has to constantly jab at them, show vulnerability, avoid being cool, cheat, cower, give them nothing to latch on to because they'll latch onto literally anything they can to stop themselves from feeling something genuine and to instead feel like they're on the inside and cool for watching wrestling. It's like they, much like many, many wrestlers are afraid of looking down, are afraid of falling, but it's in the falling that we let go, that we let ourselves get swept along by the thrilling and wondrous rapids below, that we let ourselves truly feel and experience the joy of professional wrestling.

And all Max wants to do is to make people feel that, to have them react so he can feel it as well, to create that perfect feedback loop of a heel in front of a crowd that lets themselves, even just for one night, hate him, that lets out all of their pent up aggression and frustration at the world in the direction of a sin eater who is willing and able to take it all off their backs. It's the greatest gift any wrestler can give any crowd.

But they sure don't make it easy for him. The world doesn't make it easy for him.

Thankfully, he's up for the challenge, the greatest challenge that there could possibly be for any modern wrestler.

Let's look at how he did it here. 

They stacked the deck. That's the entire point of pro wrestling. You're not supposed to leave things to chance. You're not supposed to go out there and have a great match and let the fans lean one way or another. You stack the deck.

They created value. Darby's reign had value. Fans are getting a great match every week, sometimes two. They don't care about much but they sure as hell care about great matches. They care about great matches more than just about anything.  If Darby survived this, there was going to be another month of them. And Rush was next. I wanted to see Darby vs Rush. I was invested in that. An unstoppable force and an object that gets battered all over the place. Beautiful mayhem.

They created stakes. MJF put his place in history, his legacy, his need to be at the top and remembered (because his character cannot accept any other sort of more human and intimate love or recognition) up against his hair. That's no small thing and his vulnerability over it is everything. He has Hollywood aspirations. It's a heel showing weakness to admit or at least let others allude to the fact he went to Turkey to stop the natural weight of time. Darby forced the issue since he wouldn't accept anything less than MJF's total humiliation. MJF did everything he could to avoid the match being made along those terms. There's nothing cool about that. It's a heel letting himself care as much as possible, both about the title and about his own hair, even if both were entirely for the wrong reasons. That's great character stuff right there. Total investment with nothing for the fans to latch on to and everything to revile. Meanwhile, Darby was fighting off opponent after opponent, often a physical underdog, his own body giving out, giving the fans everything to latch on to.

Even then, they had to go a step forward. This was a PPV crowd, a festive crowd, a New York crowd. Thus the pre-show angle with Foley. MJF came out, got cheap heat (having to use every tool at his disposal) by insulting the Knicks, ran down Foley, and then when Foley stood back up to him, hit him, not cleanly or honorably despite the age and physical differences but with a low blow. Then, when Darby ran out, he ran off. 

When it came time for ring introductions, Max cut off Justin Roberts to make sure that his introduction was as insulting as possible, trying to completely obliterate whatever was left of a homefield (or heel-field advantage). Even then, the fans still shouted M J F. But they cheered more for Darby. And that was no small thing.

The match was worked about as smartly as possible, starting with headlock takeovers and building upon the last month of Darby's matches. Ten years from now when people are watching this for the first time as footage, I'd suggest they go through the entire title run before getting here. 

There were a number of little callbacks and payoffs. Darby has been winning these matches by getting his opponents to get out of their comfort zone and put themselves at risk. He was able to manage it with MJF here, the package pile driver on the stairs hurting MJf almost as much as it did Darby. MJF could have just power bombed him instead but he got lost in the moment. That's the power of Darby. Allin had won matches by hitting the Coffin Drop immediately after an opponent survived the Scorpion, and Max was ready for that, knees up. Likewise, Max has been so dirty and underhanded with low blows, but for the second time in a month, Darby almost won with one. Darby had been using a clutch guillotine to make up for size or speed advantages against his opponents and that's what he used to set Max up for his insane balcony dive. And finally, he had collapsed in the Scorpion very early in the match against Sammy a week or two ago (allowing him to survive the physical lapse) and here it happened deep, deep into the match and was probably what ultimately won it for MJF as much as anything else. 

And of course, they did a great job teasing the top rope tombstone early so that they could pay it off late. Details matter and the match was full of clever ones that were meant to play upon the fans' understanding and push them where they needed to be.

Yet still, they struggled to get there. As the match entered the last third, as Darby was making a big comeback, the fans were chanting for both men. That's when things really threatened to go off the rails. This was an apuestas match, a grudge match, but it was also a title match and sometimes some people feel like at title match needs certain things. This didn't have matwork necessarily, but because the eventual pin mattered so much here, they decided (I imagine Max did but I can't say for sure), at the very worst time possible, when the fans were chanting for both men and losing the plot, to do a roll up exchange. It was fun. It was exciting. The fans enjoyed it. It was the worst thing they could have done at the worst time, something that might have felt inescapable, but really, truly (trust me) was possible to avoid.

Thankfully, through hook or crook, through careful planning or sheer happenstance (I don't know which), Max was more than ready and up to the task to get the fans back aligned for the finishing stretch. Right after the roll-up exchange, MJF ended up at the floor and Darby went for his third dive of the match (the first was redirected, the second hit clean). MJF, in his only (successful) truly underhanded move of the match, pulled the cameraman in front of him to use him as a human shield creating an amazing visual image as Darby careened in. That got the crowd where it needed to be. Details matter. I think, in this case, Max had made it a bit harder for himself with the roll-ups and the subsequent stare-off, but maybe, just maybe, that had just lulled the fans into a false sense of security so that MJF could be devious and reprehensible all the more. What followed was his attempt to go for the clippers and his comeuppance with Darby's massive dive: stage set and deck stacked for the tragic finish of Darby collapsing and MJF taking advantage like a vulture picking at the bones. 

Max is 30 years old. I watch a match like this and I think he has mostly (mostly) won the battle against his own youth and the lack of discipline that comes along with that, against all the easy answers that have plagued so many of his peers, and through them plagued pro wrestling over time. But I watch a match like this and I listen to the crowd, and it's plain and obvious that there's still a greater war ahead of him, a war to convince them that it's in their own interest to let go and feel, to go along for the ride in the moment, to get that perfect, wonderful experience that you can only get from pro wrestling where you cheer a babyface and boo a heel and invest in the story unveiling before you. He lets himself be vulnerable in ways that so many of his predecessors were afraid to. The war is going to be to convince the fans to trust in him and their own hearts and the wonder of pro wrestling and do the same. 

I watch a match like this and I think maybe, just maybe, with time on his side and his own battle already won, it's a war he might well win.

Read more!

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

AEW Dynamite 4/1/26

MJF vs Speedball Mike Bailey

Contrast makes the world go round.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

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

AEW Dynamite 3/4/26

MJF vs Kevin Knight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why? 

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

But it took absolutely everything they had to do it.

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

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

Here's how they did it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---------------------------------

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

(1) Kayfabe is dead. 

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

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

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

(2) Kayfabe isn't coming back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

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

AEW Collision Grand Slam 2/14/26

MJF vs Brody King

Details matter.

They have to matter. Otherwise what's the point? It's worth saying they matter because there is a prevailing undercurrent in 21st century wrestling that what matters is just to do the coolest stuff or to do the most stuff or to constantly pop the crowd.

That's a broken mindset. The art of pro wrestling isn't to pop the crowd. It's to work the crowd. It's to make them feel something and there's so much more in this world to feel than sheer exhilaration. 

So details matter. And they especially mattered here.

This was a crowd starved for pro wrestling on a big stage, that was just happy to be there. This was exactly the sort of crowd that wanted to cheer for MJF. 

And again, details matter, and sometimes details create limitations. Limitations can, of course, inspire creativity, but that doesn't mean they're not limitations. Max just got squashed by Brody King. They had to plausibly keep him strong here, to make a finish believable (not in real life but in the fictional world of pro wrestling), had to do all this without making the crowd start to go for Max as an underdog despite the size difference. He had to stay reviled the whole way through, in front of a crowd that might be more inclined than most to cheer for him. 

Thankfully, details matter if you make them, and here they did.

The bell rings and Max is immediately on. The crowd, which had been happy to bark along with Brody pre-match, get the F*** Ice chants out of their system, accent and all. Then they lock back in. Good for them on both counts. Good for the wrestlers for navigating the waters. Max takes control of the situation. The wrestlers approach one another and he's gone. That tried and true, time-tested tool of pro wrestling heels, stalling. He basks in the boos, draws chants, rolls back in, yells at the crowd to shut up, which of course has the opposite effect. They lock up, he goes flying. Just like that. Right back out of the ring. A brief pause. He could have milked this longer, but decides to give them something more substantial instead. Max rolls back in, kicks the gut instead of engaging a second time. He mocks Brody's barks and locks in a headlock. Again, details matter. Max gloats about beating people with a headlock takeover. He can't take over Brody though. Instead he gets lifted up, shrugged off. The crowd chants for Brody and Max runs into a clothesline as Brody shouts "C'mon!" Just like that the mood is set, with a clear delineation between the characters. There's no going back now.

This ends up being a relatively short shine, so it's on Max to make the most of it. When Brody hefted him up out of that headlock, he audibly shouted. He's going to make great use of his voice throughout, adding an extra bit of sensation for the crowd to get over everything Brody is doing to him. It's not a constant vocal tic like Mick Foley, but instead additional stimuli used to enhance anticipation before comeuppance. Very few other wrestlers today use it quite like this and even Max makes sure not to overuse it but instead to save it for when it really matters, like he's facing a giant of a man. Brody chops him twice. He writhes and keels over. In between the first and the second, Max shouts "nooo!" Brody hefts him up to the top and tosses him off. Max yells "Oh shit!" in mid-air. 

And then that's it, that's the shine, because Brody goes for a cannonball, misses, and tweaks his knee, the great equalizer. They accomplished so much in just a couple of minutes though. It served them well for the rest of the match.

Here, on the other side of an act break, on the other side of a transition, Max starts in on the leg. He slams it against the post, making sure to play to the crowd in between bits offense, letting things breathe, giving them something other than moves to connect with. Brody tries to come back but the knee won't let him hit the Ganso bomb. Max cuts him off with a chop block. Max hits the Kangaroo Kick (as a heel move to mock the crowd), hits a dive, but gets not praise for it. Brody tries to fight back but is too slow on the senton. He's giving the crowd reason to stay with him, is believably staying in it given his size and his power, but the knee's making him a half step slow and giving Max a simple tool, a wedge, a lever, to cut him down to size. Max uses a knee-bar. Brody makes it to the ropes valiantly. They go the break as the crowd starts singing for Brody.

Max slows things down even more for the break, picking his spots, telegraphing his shots, taking victory laps (including his groin first one), giving the crowd plenty to work with. And of course, like any good heel, he eats just a bit of comeuppance for it. But again, Brody's leg gives out and make is able to dive right through it. Brody's making all of this work just as much as Max is. There is strength in vulnerability and his selling is wonderful. He's a huge man with a giant canvas to work with between body language and the excrutiating look upon his face. A crowd loves a babyface who mows through everyone, but they fall in love with a babyface that has a mountain to climb.

As they come back from break, he's able to throw Max out, but he needs the rope to steady himself given his limp. He hits a huge tope but immediately is paralyzed by the need to clutch his leg. Still, we've hit another act break. We're into a comeback. The next portion of the match will be about Brody getting some revenge on Max but not necessarily the revenge he wants (which has to be built to). Max again, makes as much out of everything, selling not just impacts but the associated emotional damage. He tries a clothesline and hurts his arm. He is launched in a back body drop and swears in midair. Brody goes for his second cannonball attempt but Max slips to the apron. That just sets him up for the hangman's choke attempt, but Max is ready and bites the arm. He escapes to the floor, sets up a chair, but Brody catches him first and bites Max's head (immediate balancing of what Max did to him) and hits a cross body onto the chair. And that, finally sets up the cannonball on the third attempt.

He goes for his second Ganso Bomb attempt, but Max is up and over with a sleeper. Brody's knee gives out. Once upon a time, decades ago, we'd see a sleeper like this, with the arm raised three times in almost every big match, but now it's a tool rarely brought out of the toolbox. It allows Bandido to run out, to hype the crowd for Brody, and they pop big, just like they should, as his fist pops up defiantly on the third raise. Just as we've been hearing from Max all match, we now can hear Bandido cheering on Brody, including slapping the mat, telling him he can do it, leading the crowd in barks. 

Despite that, Max cuts Brody off one last time, ready for Brody's (second) tope, hitting a DDT from the outside onto the apron. Max wants a countout win, but it's clear he's not going to get it, not with Bandido cheering Brody on so he goes for a second tope himself. Brody catches him and hits a brutal Death Valley Driver onto the set up chair from before.

If this was a play (and wrestling's nothing if not theater), we're in the fourth act now. The feeling out/establishment of characters/shine, Max's control, Brody's comeback, and now the finishing stretch. It's time to pay everything off. Brody gets them back into the ring at 9 (Max would have taken a countout loss at this point). Max goes for the Dynamite Diamond Ring like he has in so many other matches. Bryce (his ref in almost all of those matches) catches him red handed, just a bit more comeuppance, one that perfectly sets up Brody clocking him and Max ending up on the apron to finally get choked out (second attempt and what a look on Max's face as he realizes it's about to happen; selling). On the third attempt, Brody hits the Ganso bomb but Max kicks out at two. He was awfully close to the ropes and I probably could have used either Max getting his foot on it at the last second or Brody's knee slowing him down a bit more on the pin attempt, but sometimes you need to just yank the rug out from under the crowd without that, I guess (but I'm not convinced).

At this point though, all that's left is the finish. Max recovers enough to sidestep a charging Brody. He pulls down the kneepad, bites the knee. Brody goes back to his well, emotion having taken over. He tries for the Ganso Bomb on the apron (fourth attempt), a literally crippling assault if he were to hit it, then for the Hangman's Choke (third attempt) while sitting on the top rope. In both cases, the knee betrays him. Max is able to hang on to the top rope (desperately, because that level of emotional selling matters more here than ever) and then punch out the knee. Max reverses things into a visually impressive modified tombstone on the apron, and hits the Heatseeker back into the ring for the win.

This match had a lot going for it. Contrast makes the world go round. There was such a physical, mental, emotional, personality difference between these two characters and it meant that there was little temptation of doing things for the sake of doing them, little done just to pop a crowd, little need to try to outshine big spotfests from earlier in the show. They could create something classic and modern and vivid all at once, reclaiming old tricks and painting clear, crisp lines. 

In order to make that work, however, the details really, deeply mattered. Max disengaging and stalling immediately ensured the crowd didn't go for him. They made the most out of a very short shine. They built in a number of callback and foreshadowing spots so that things could be cut off on a second attempt or pay off on a third (or fail on the fourth). Brody's knee was the great equalizer throughout but never stopped him from fighting for the crowd's love, never ground the match to a halt. This was a stop on the road between PPVs, an attraction match in front of a wrestling-starved crowd. They could have gotten away with less, could have coasted. Instead, they shone. They cared, they created something with care, and the crowd cared all the more for it. Details still matter in 2026. In some ways, they matter more than ever. And this match was clear proof of it.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 1/12 - 1/18 (Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 1/14/26

MJF vs Bandido

Way I see it, Max only has one thing left to prove.

Look, he was a very young world champion, main evented one of the biggest shows of all time, has drawn houses and ratings and sold merch, has the Punk feud, has the Danielson match, the Darby match, the Ospreay match, the Omega match. The Mistico match, with the Briscoe match the next night. He's probably a top 10 success story in the wrestler-to-movie pipeline already (but then it's not like he has a lot of competition; Hunter didn't blow the world away with Blade III). He got over incredible babyface bullshit with the Double Clothesline/Kangaroo Kick deal. He's done two musical numbers. I could go on and mention more matches or esoteric things. You can argue any one of these things, but you can't argue all of them. 

So what's left? Going to WWE and main eventing a Mania? That's all politics. It's all playing a game. It's being part of a machine. We know he can play politics. There's nothing real there anymore, if there ever was. Natural heel that he is, he's not going to break Make-A-Wish records or be the best darn spokesman for the Saudi regime you could hope for. 

Is it getting star ratings? We don't care much about that here but he's got the highest WON star rating ever for a US TV match, or something like that. Does quantity really matter all that much? Maybe it does to some people, but wrestling isn't math. 

Wrestling is, however, broken.  

More than just about any fictional medium out there, it has an antagonistic fanbase. It's not about real vs fake. It's not about working people and kayfabe. But it was for a long time, and as wrestling fans trended older, as the product became more niche, more about itself than real life human issues, it became all the more essential for those remaining fans to feel like they were smart, to be above it all, to not compare themselves to the people screaming and shouting and letting themselves get caught up in the moment. 

The social contract between performer and audience broke. 

I'm not saying that wrestling is the only medium with a spoiler culture or people obsessing over box office or fans nitpicking every thing. It's 2026 and we're in an age of social media and that's a lot of things now. Wrestling’s more interactive than most others, however, and it asks more of the live audience. And that live audience today are the heirs of the 80s sheet writers and readers, the ones that looked down upon people who cheered for Hogan or Dusty, who were self-conscious about their hobby, the hobby that they put so much time and effort into. The rise of the internet let that mentality spread like a disease. The end of WCW and rise of MMA peeled off a lot of the more casual fanbase. And then social media brought people closer to the wrestlers allowing the Elite to use irony to get over by tossing the suspension of disbelief to the wayside and creating a relationship with the fanbase, showing everyone the strings all the time so they could feel nice and comfortable and superior. 

All this led to a shift in how matches were worked and a shift in the reward structure. The super indy style became more prevalent as was mimicking bloated Japanese style epics. Getting star ratings or high cagematch scores became more important in getting over. Hitting viral spots might get you over the top. Yes, we're seeing it in all forms of entertainment and hearing stories about how people can't get cast unless they have a certain amount of Instagram followers because movies can't be greenlit unless some total number is reached. But because of the interactive nature of wrestling, the end product shows it all the more. It’s become an endless race to a sensational bottom, nothing allowed to breathe, nothing allowed to sink in, nothing allowed to resonate. Everything has to be so awesome and overwhelming that nothing can actually move people and force them to feel.

Which brings us back to Max and what he has left to prove.

He says he’s a generational talent, says that he wants a legacy, to be remembered as one of the best ever. We’re in a quantitative checkbox world. How many spots? How many counters? How many kickouts? How many likes, retweets, views? And he can be one of the best at that. We’ve seen it. He’s proven it. He’s proven it too many times, actually, because it never seems to take with the fanbase and that just drives him to prove it again, just so it won’t take again. He can be another number in a world of numbers.

Or he can leverage his push, his track record, his spot, his skill, his success outside wrestling, and prove that one last thing.

He can save pro wrestling. He can reset the balance. He can make people WANT to feel again, to value it.

What an uphill battle he faces. Look at this match. He’s in there against Bandido, one of the best babyfaces in the world, with a real, true connection to the crowd, who lets himself be earnest and heartfelt, but look at what he had against him? The crowd he’s in front of. Not only have they been watching years of this stuff, following it online, living and breathing it, but on this very show they’d already seen a Darby Allin car crash trainwreck match with some bumps that should be highlights for the entire decade AND a crazy multi-team tag full of coordinated, collaborative, over the top spots. Moreover, he has Bandido himself to face, because for as wonderful Bandido is, his finisher, the 21-plex, is one of the most disruptive moves in pro wrestling, forcing his opponent to move into a spot that he’d never be in for any other match. Feeling is about immersion, and nothing breaks immersion quite like that. 

Max would have to wrestle basically a perfect match, a perfect performance in order to make this work, to save the crowd from itself, to save wrestling from itself, and quite frankly, to save him from himself and his own need to prove once again everything that’s already been proven and not the one thing that he still needs to prove the most. 

—-------------------

Every detail mattered. That’s half the battle here. The other half is selflessness, confidence, channeling the spirit of Terry Funk to throw yourself fully into every moment, to make every moment seem to matter, not necessarily to the story or to history, but to the wrestler in the ring. Everything has consequence, physical but especially emotional. If the wrestlers care, the fans will care. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but over time. 

The fans were split to start, behind Bandido but willing to chant for MJF. They sang along to his theme song. So he immediately disengaged and told them to shut up. That turned them immediately.They weren’t going to get rewarded by MJF, no pat on the head, no playing along, nothing to latch on to. That would continue. 

The early feeling out process hits the right marks. MJF underestimates Bandido early, stepping over a dropdown and playing around with Eddy Guerrero’s mannerisms, with Ric Flair’s. That builds up the pressure for him to get outwrestled by Bandido. Bandido punctuates it with the finger gun. MJF responds with an eyerake. The fans boo. This is Act I. The characters are being established. The stage is being set.

MJF runs into a press slam and stumbles into 21-plex position, hands on the second rope, crouching. It’s the gun in Bandido’s holster, Chekhov’s Gun, and by going to that position early and often, by setting it up as a possibility at multiple points, it becomes more believable, more strategic even. Was MJF trying to lure Bandido in? Had he actually stumbled there? Other matches, other sequences couldn’t be controlled, but this match could be. Regardless, here MJF rolls to the outside, just a tease, and walks away from Bandido’s first dive attempt, tapping his head, showing his superiority, making it impossible, only to walk right into a second dive attempt. MJF gives the fans nothing. Bandido gives them everything. MJF shows himself to be despicable, arrogant, cowardly and gets instant retribution. And the fans? They don’t chant this is awesome. They chant for Bandido instead.

Bandido is giving the crowd everything. MJF tries to stall on the apron and Bandido doesn’t give him an inch. There’s a cost to that though. It lets MJF take over on the arm, to introduce the wedge that will help drive the narrative of the first half of the match. MJF hits a pumphandle facebuster. But then he lets it breath, walking it off, interacting with the crowd. He chokes in the corner. The fans boo and he leans into that booing, amplifying it. More than that, he sets up a logical hope spot. There’s an ebb and flow. Bandido tries to fight out of the corner. MJF uses the arm to cut him off. MJF taunts Bandido and the crowd by teasing the Macarena. That lets Bandido fight back again. MJF cuts him off, hits a shoulder breaker, basks more, gets a reaction. All emotional responses. All character driven. All structurally sound. Wrestling isn’t math. Sometimes it’s physics, and here pressure is building and letting off only to build all the more. This has time to live and breathe and worm its way into the hearts and souls of the crowd.

They make the most of the commercial break. MJF throws Bandido arm first into the corner, hammerlocked. He goes for it again. Bandido turns it around and starts the ten punches in the corner. Interactive. MJF cuts him off at nine as he was hyping up ten, stealing the candy from the fans. He hits an inverted atomic drop and jams the arm. The fans chant for Bandido. Back from break, he goes for the Three Amigos. It’s always a borderline face spot when Mercedes does it, but there’s no joy in MJF’s heart. It’s a sheer insult. Bandido blocks the third and starts firing back. MJF tries to cut him off, can’t. The crowd expects Bandido to reverse it clean, but MJF bites him. The crowd boos, thinking they weren’t going to get their reward once again, but Bandido, leaning into his strength powers through.

This is where they start twisting and inverting things. MJF avoids the 21-plex again, but Bandido reverses the Salt of the Earth. It all builds to a huge moment where MJF thinks himself safe by retreating back over the barricade but Bandido dives from the top all the way over it, defying MJF’s cowardice, defying that sense that he could prevent the fans from getting what they wanted. Bandido is brave, courageous, a man of the people, a folk hero, and he goes above and beyond to ensure justice is done.

From here they continue to invert, continue to escalate. Everything that had happened so far in Act I (defining the characters and the tone) and Act II (MJF controlling with the arm and the hope spots and cutoffs) set the stage for things boiling over here into a hot extended finishing stretch. There’s one moment after MJF turns Bandido jamming the Heatseeker pile driver into a pulling cutter that the fans chant Fight Forever, but it’s not many and it soon fades. Why? Because MJF went back to the well and tried it again only for Bandido to get the best of him. He selflessly stooged and showed vulnerability to disrupt the fans even thinking of treating this like a 50-50 scenario.

They move into big spots and roll-ups and nearfalls, keeping things exciting, cashing in all of the emotional capital they invested in the first two acts of the match. After so many teases and lures, Bandido finally hits the 21-plex, but can’t hold the bridge given his arm. MJF goes for the Salt of the Earth but turns the reversal into a LeBell Lock (which Danielson on commentary lets slip, emotionally, as a Yes Lock in a great accidental call; he was just as engaged as the crowd, a testament to him and the match). Bandido passes out. MJF wins, but still manages to sell, seeing Bandido as a threat too dang the emotional weight post-match, seeing Bandido as too dangerous to let live and attacking after the bell, only for Brody King to make the save.

—---

One slip from one part of the crowd, but in general, it worked. Max and Bandido controlled for the 21-plex, survived the carcrash and spotfest before them, kept the crowd, gave everyone a memorable moment, and made people feel. They can go back to this again later, build it not bigger but deeper. Bandido came out better than he came in. Max came out better than he came in. Wrestling, I think, came out better than it came in. But it’s one step on a road and there’s so far left to go.

Why do I think that this on Max? Why not Fletcher? Why not Ricochet? Why not FTR? They can and should be part of it. They need to be part of it. But to me, it’s needs to be him. Because he’s on top and has the freedom. Because he’s a student of the game and as such understands what has been lost. Because he had that taste of Arena Mexico. Because he clearly feels alive when the fans are booing him. Because this is what he has left to prove. He can’t do it alone, but he can help change the incentives. He can help convince wrestlers that this is something they want to be a part of, that it won’t be career sabotage, even if maybe, just maybe, there’s one three quarters of a star less in it for them. 

He can help convince crowds that this is something they want to experience. They don’t have to be fooled into believing that it’s real. They can be convinced that it’s worthwhile to come and be part of the experience, to boo the heels and cheer for faces and embrace the text for its own sake once again without trying to force themselves above it or feel self conscious about it. Like if they went to a movie. Like if they watched a TV show. Like if they read a book.

I’ve felt that way in the past, that need to be a part of something. I get the notion. I wanted to see Black and Gold NXT live, to be part of that. I went to the 2015 Royal Rumble mainly so I could do the Yes! Chants at least once. I think fans can be convinced that it’s not just about seeing a big spot or athleticism or witnessing a 5.25 star match (or sing along to the songs and pavlovianly respond to catch phrases like in the other place), but instead being part of this unique emotionally gripping live experience that they can’t get anywhere else. 

They can do it with open eyes and leave their troubles at the door and Max can help show them that it’s worth it, that even in 2026, it’s worth being genuine and not ironic, that not everything’s a meme or a gif.

Unlike one house and one buyrate and one match, it’s the work of a lifetime, the work of a generation. But there’s no greater legacy he could possibly have.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 9/15 - 9/21 Part 2

CMLL Aniversario 9/19/25

MJF vs Mistico [Mask vs Belt]

MD: All great apuestas matches come down to the balance between faith and doubt.

Let's start with doubt. The point of comparison to 2025 Mistico is the greatest masked wrestler of our lifetimes, El Hijo del Santo. Santito fought in countless apuestas matches and more often than not, the odds were in his favor on paper. I can't imagine people actually expected him to lose his mask against Gacela del Ring or Guerrero del Futuro, and even less so when it was Nicho or Scorpio Jr's hair on the line and not another mask. But lightning strikes, miracles happen, and anything is possible in pro wrestling. That sheer glimmer of possibility opened the doors for drama beyond belief. So much of that was due to Santito's selling (and to his fiery comebacks). But what truly drove it was possibility, plausibility, an open door to a bleak reality, something that tugged on the minds of the faithful, a feeling at the very bottom of their stomachs.

And that existed for this match. Yes, MJF's title was on the line as opposed to even his hair, let alone a mask, but it was also his pride, his status. He's a star and is treated as such. Titles are his past and his present. Movies are ahead of him. He had defeated everyone they threw at him in the lead up to this and ambushed Mistico time and again. He had the size advantage, the youth advantage. He had a loyal minion in his corner in the form of Honest Jon Cruz.

Maybe that wouldn't have been enough in and of itself. But the match took care of it and covered the distance. Mask vs Title matches are rare and MJF tossed the usual pageantry prelude to title matches out the window with an immediate ambush. He threw Mistico to the floor, slammed his skull into the post, and the blood started to flow. Perhaps not a big deal in the grand scheme of wrestling and even the grand scheme of apuestas matches over the decades, but in Arena Mexico it was as big a deal as one can imagine.

Blood has simply not been allowed to flow there. Wrestling itself had been cauterized in the last decades, a key, primal ingredient to drama cast aside for the sake of sanitized casual tourist fare. Like Hijo del Santo before him, Mistico is perfect for blood. There's no image in wrestling more powerful than a ripped white mask covered in it. As it started to flow, doubt came along with it.

The match was structured simple, straightforward, smart. MJF leaned down upon Mistico. There were three hope spots over the first few minutes of the match and each was cut off definitively by MJF. Max flaunted his skill, hitting a dive (but then not sticking the landing, because it's important to show that while he's talented and dangerous, he is an outsider; one must always see the cracks). He distracted the ref so that Cruz could get in a cheapshot to a chorus of huge boos. 

Then, after the third cutoff, after Max stretched his arrogance just a little too far, Mistico began to fire back, and they crashed into one another with clotheslines, shifting the trajectory of the match. Mistico was able to press an advantage, hitting one dive, then another. On the second, however, the cost was high. Cruz rolled MJF back into the ring. Mistico, however, leaned hard into the blood loss, into the damage already done, and even though he had been the aggressor, he stumbled not just once, but twice on his way back in. It was a distinct selling choice that you almost never see, one that might edge on the ridiculous were the setting not so sublime. In practice, it was some of the greatest selling I'd ever seen.

Recovered enough, Mistico made it back into the ring, had MJF in position for yet another dive, but Max went into his bag of tricks and used Cruz as a human shield. From that distraction stemmed an eyepoke, and a cradle pile driver on the apron, and an even more dramatic last second rush back into the ring by Mistico.

They had reached the bottom, the very height of doubt. The ring was covered in Mistico's blood. Max had stolen the advantage through underhanded chicanery and a forbidden move. He pressed even further with another. Piledriver variations have been allowed for over ten years, be it cradle, double underhook, or destroyer. But a straight up tombstone, a martinete? Those are still exceptionally rare. And MJF hit one right in the middle of the ring. If anything could signify all being lost, it would be that.

Which brings us to faith. Mistico too is an absolute star. He carries himself in the ring as well as any of the great babyfaces who "get it" that I've ever seen, be it Dusty Rhodes of Edouard Carpentier. The sheer level of self-confidence he projects to the back row moves hearts and minds like almost nothing else in pro wrestling. Even when things seemed bleakest, he had the fans because he never stopped fighting, never stopped crawling, never stopped striving. 

And after that martinete failed to put him away, something shifted in the air. It happens in most matches that take place in CMLL, and is essential in understanding the ebbs and flows. At some point in most matches, fate takes a turn. The rudo beatdown fizzles, the tecnico comeback begins. Sometimes it's based on arrogance, a clear mistake. All too often, it's something more heavenly, something more divine, something driven by fate as much as hubris.

To some degree, Mistico made his own fate by not giving up, by refusing to stay down. But in doing so, he inspired the faithful, and they turned that inspiration into belief, and that belief into cheers. Those cheers empowered Mistico and shook MJF. Max went for his ring-loaded punch, but was caught and rolled up for a near fall. He jammed La Mistica and caught Mistico, putting it all on the line with an even more profane attempt at a martinete from the top. 

But he was no longer facing one man. He was facing a hero, a legend. He was facing an army of the faithful. He was facing god and fate itself. 

And despite all of his pride and strength, his youthful skill and his scheming resourcefulness, the weight of the world came down upon him, a twisting headscissor dervish leading to a perfectly cinched La Mistica. He squirmed and fought and rolled, but there was no escape, not from god and not from faith, not with the eyes of the faithful upon him. 

Yes, they had felt doubt, doubt driven by the existence of a true villain, doubt baptized in blood and violence. But that doubt just made them reach deeper into themselves, much as Mistico reached so deep within himself, to reinforce their faith and create a perfect circle that drove them all to the perfect manifestation of pro wrestling salvation. 

Only this. Only here. And despite all odds, even now. There's nothing in the world like it.

AEW All Out 9/20/25

MD: And less than 24 hours later, MJF would have to do it all over again.

This one's about anticipation and payoff.

You can do the most amazing, most spectacular, most brutal things but if you don't frame them correctly, it's all for nothing. The true art of pro wrestling is to create anticipation and then to pay it off. It's to create something that the audience something wants, to make them chase it and anticipate it, and then to give it to them in a way that makes it feel earned and worthwhile. It's taking them on a journey and while the destination is important, it's just part of the mission.

This was a match on a show where there was going to be excess. There was still a coffin match and a ladder match to come. It was no disqualification (allowing for low blows, sure) but the weapons at play were the focus: tables, tacks, and the buckets the tacks were in. Boundaries are often drivers for creativity. They provide form and shape and opportunity. 

Here, the opportunity was to set up and then to maximize key payoffs.

1. Max engaging in the first place. 

Yes, he'd been driven to this fight, but it wasn't one he had wanted a few months ago. Max wanted the title. The opportunity to get it was the Casino Gauntlet. He and Briscoe were the sure things, winning the #1 and #2 spots. The only thing he could count on was that he was going to start against Briscoe. Therefore, he had to get into his head. For Max, it was just business. Yes, he used personal tools, but he didn't really care. He cared about the title. He cared about Hangman (because the crowd forgave him when they never forgave Max), but he didn't care about Briscoe. In making it personal to undermine Mark, however, he created a monster he had to live with. Then once Briscoe intervened in his title match, it became personal for Max too and things escalated.

He bit off more than he could chew. He made the challenge and then couldn't get out of the match. The second Briscoe started pouring tacks in the ring, he turned tail and started to walk away. Briscoe ran out to catch him, got him up on the apron, and then, through attempting an early Jay Driller (intending to leap off the apron and through a table), drove Max to flee into the ring, signifying the real start of the match. Build. Payoff.  

2. The first usage of the tacks. 

The match was going to be over the top. By the end of it, tacks would be everywhere and blood would flow. Everyone knew that. But they didn't rush to it. They built and built and built the anticipation for it. This plays upon the same instinct in all of the best death matches, the very thing that Onita rose to success upon. Put over the gimmick. Show that the wrestlers care. Show that they're wary. Show that they want to avoid it at all cost. 

That's exactly what they did here, teetering after punches, trying and failing to slam one another, pushing each other's face closer and closer to the tacks. They could have just rushed to spots and dove in and started the carnage, but by delaying and deferring and doing everything they could to avoid the tacks, it made it seem all the more important in the eyes of the fans. If the wrestlers care, the fans will care. Then, of course, Max went dirty, using Bryce as a shield and getting in an eyepoke before finally posting up and letting Briscoe hang in the air before dropping him with a bodyslam. And the crowd went nuts for it. Build. Payoff.

3. Max going into the tacks.

This worked perfectly. MJF leaned hard on Briscoe after that slam, ripping off his shirt, using a waterwheel slam so as to put the back directly in them, bloodying his pants with his taunt, and then repeatedly hitting back body drops to maximize that visual impact of the back crashing down onto the tacks. He hit two back body drops and called for a third, setting the stage perfectly for Briscoe to land on his feet and plant Max directly onto the tacks, time freezing with the impact and the reaction. Build. Payoff.

4. The introduction of the tables.

Given the sheer amount of tables we've seen in our lives, one might think it's hard to make them matter in a match like this, especially with the more pointed narrative element of tacks, but they managed it. It came down to character motivations and reactions. Mark teased that Jay Driller from the start, and would spend much of the middle of the match wanting to hit a Froggy Bow through a table. MJF on the other had was intent on saving himself (and thus denying the fans) by actually breaking the tables down and putting them away. Ultimately, much like the start of the match, he retreated from the ring (and the tacks), only to find himself in front of a table, eating a chair-assisted dive from Briscoe. Mark would then follow up, finally hitting that Froggy Bow through the table. Build. Payoff.

5. The finish. 

It all came together for the finish. They had gone back and forth a bit with nearfalls, including Max hitting a tombstone onto the tacks, but now it was time to tie it all together and take it home. Max put more tacks on one last table in the ring. He did everything in his power to put Briscoe through it, but Mark was able to push him off the turnbuckles and hit one more Froggy Bow onto a standing MJF through that tack-laden table. From there it was one last satisfying Froggy Bow and finally, even more cathartically, the Jay Driller onto the tacks. Build. Payoff.

Instead of hitting every spot they could, instead of overwhelming the crowd with sensation, they kept a disciplined, focused approach. They did big things, huge things, undeniably real and excruciating things, full of biting, blood, and gore, but they built to each and every one of them and then ensured not only the biggest payoff, but the most meaningful consequence. In so many ways, it's the best of both words between the sort of dynamic and over the top action people expect from AEW and the character-driven storytelling that best highlights and frames all those things that makes pro wrestling so special. They made the fans want something badly, made them understand the stakes and the weight, and then paid it all off to huge effect. Build and payoff. They're beautiful things.

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 8/11 - 8/17

AEW Collision 8/16/25

The Technical Spectacle (Nigel McGuinness vs Daniel Garcia vs Hechicero vs Lee Moriarty)

MD: My dislike for 4-way matches is pretty well documented at this point. I went into detail back during Double Or Nothing a few years ago. In short, 4-ways are the ultimate immersion killer. They're quite possibly the least organic form of pro wrestling ever invented. They're excuses for big spots and big set pieces that are elaborately set up in ways that have nothing to do with winning a match. They force wrestlers to act outside of their established norms, often contriving them to do things in parallel in a way that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. You end up with people laying around for far longer than they would in any other match and it all becomes a muddle with too many cooks and too many ideas. At best, you get some cool and memorable things, but we're so desensitized to that anyway that it barely registers after the fact. 

Quick pause on that. I've been watching a lot of Newborn UWF/UWF 2.0 lately. It's almost all on YouTube so I suggest people go and do the same. It's helped me refine my thoughts about shoot style and how best to engage with it. I'd seen my share of UWF 1.0, but that's so centered around a few characters and they were still figuring out the style so that you're not necessarily watching a distillable shoot style match so much as you're watching a Super Tiger or Fujiwara match. With UWF 2.0 though, everything is more locked in and refined. You can best understand the matches along three axes: technique/physical attributes (this is self-evident), opportunity (what openings exist in any single moment and how can a wrestler take advantage of them), and personality (who are these people and how do they approach the fight). You can't necessarily look at things through a traditional narrative (shine/heat/comeback) lens. Instead, by trying understanding those three things you can jump in and see how, let's say a smaller fighter apt to tire his opponent out and fight defensively like Shigeo Miyato will face off against a larger fighter who has to make use of his size and press hard early (but that might still get one powerful blow in late) like Tatsuo Nakano. Who are these people? What drives them? How does that create opportunities and how do they respond to them? What opportunities do those responses then create in the moment and throughout the match?

Still with me? Ok, so maybe people wouldn't necessarily define the Technical Spectacle as shoot style (maybe they would), but it was at least a sibling or cousin to it, and so many of those same tenets operated here. Unlike almost every other 4-way I've ever seen, this was set up around opportunities and personalities. Nigel carries the weight of the world on his shoulders knowing full well the possibility of every impossible opportunity (a different sort of opportunity, but related), having had so many of his dreams slip through his fingers. Garcia is watching his own dreams start to slip as well, stumbling through a series of failures and wanting to wrench back his future. Moriarty sees himself as the present, the time-tested Pure Champ, but without the recognition or respect he deserves. And Hechicero is just a malignant spirit, Bandido and a title shot ahead of him, a wretched, brilliant creature that just wants to ply his craft and hurt people. 

In parts of the match technique drove things and the wrestlers grappled evenly, looking to create opportunities. But when those opportunities arose, it was their personalities that defined the action, this a direct opposite of so many 4-ways where the necessary over the top spots override and overwrite personality. Moriarty was the one who went out of his way to get multiple people in a submission at once, leaning into his bravado and swagger. Garcia always had an eye out for what Nigel was doing, seeing him as the biggest threat, as the one he'd never faced off against (only teamed with). And Nigel? Nigel may be a sympathetic figure given his journey, but there's something of the rogue within him, of the scoundrel, but even more than that, the stone-faced realism of a man that has been through life's wringer. When his opponents were in simultaneous submissions, he laid in an opportunistic stomp to break it up. In a similar moment, he dropped an elbow on Garcia. And then, when it seemed like Garcia had his Scorpion Deathlock on while he himself had the London Dungeon locked in, he threw a nasty, chippy, possibly even underhanded elbow, flooring Garcia. It wasn't personal; in fact, it was even regretful on some level, but it was life, the only life Nigel knew and the only life that he could possibly have left.

And all throughout, the technique was as compelling as the personalities. Handfighting, moments of leverage, tricked out takedowns, lightning fast pin attempts that never felt like needless waterfall spots existing for their own sake. They solved the problem of someone laying out by almost constantly having wrestlers paired off, and here it worked because success for one wrestler didn't mean a headdrop or huge bump but instead gaining advantage over a limb or locking in a hold. 

While watching this, I had the sense of something incredibly rare in 2025: the feeling of watching something brand new. Usually things that are touted as new are instead just "more." Bigger spots, more excess, more people, more risk, brighter colors and flashier fireworks; adding another few floors to a tower that already exists. Here though, even the foundation felt new. This feels like something that could be done again with the same wrestlers or different ones, with huge stakes, incredible techniques, and opportunities driven by personality.

They could have done this the old way, could have had all of the holds be tandem things, could have done so many more suplexes, could have slipped in a tower of doom spot and some dives, could have gone around the world a few times with all of their finishers. That would have been safe as crowds tend to be more favorable towards those things than I am. This was not safe. It was brave and it was daring and in its own way, it was brilliant. So much of that was on the courage to trust that the crowd would come along, that their own skill and personality and commitment would win the day. But win the day it did, and in doing so they broke ground on something that felt brand new and very worthwhile.

CMLL 8/15/25

MJF vs Zandokan, Jr

MD: Another data point has arrived from Arena Mexico and the results are conclusive: the system works. Pro wrestling is a wonderful, gripping, engaging, vibrant art form, and it is as strong as ever in a fabled place where the fans can live and breath on every heroic and villainous act and find exhilaration in every single punch (yes, there are punches there too, not just chops and forearms).

The combination of MJF, with Jon Cruz at his side, in Arena Mexico, is the best act in wrestling today, and so much of that is due to the sheer commitment to everything that's always worked, the timeless, universal elements of pro wrestling, an appeal to the heart based on morality and identity and pride. 

This replicated a number of the elements from MJF's previous appearances in Arena Mexico, most especially the recent title win over Averno, but in every way, it took the act even further. Now Cruz was out dressed like Abraham Lincoln, still taking editorial license on MJF's insults stretching them this way and that, as his twisted, fawning C-3PO. Zandokan's response was perfect, shutting it all down instantly so the match could begin and getting a crowd that was already inclined to support him due to his upstart rudo charisma fully behind him. But then, of course, Max hit the floor to massive boos. The game had begun.

And what a game it was. At Zandokan's first touch, Max rolled back out and complained (on the mic with translation) about hair pulling. Then, of course, later, when it came time to cut Zandokan off, he pulled the hair and mask himself. Perfect hypocritical pro wrestling symmetry meant to get heat. When Max was in control, he made sure to punctuate each and every offensive move or cut off by rubbing it in the face of the fans, and they booed huge. Whenever Zandokan fired back, MJF sold for the back row and the back row was duly elated. Cruz intervened all the more which meant that when it was time for Zandokan to really come back, Cruz got to bump huge for him as well. Chekhov's Gun was loaded and fired and the universe was placed in perfect balance. 

The dive, when it came, was singular and spectacular, smashing MJF who had been draped on the guardrail (again a likely unintentionally but wholly meaningful parallel to how he lounged on it when he ducked out of the ring a first time). And they build to an exciting series of finish attempts before Max had to go an extra mile to get the ref out of position so he could hit another foul and steal the win, a payoff to the match and a set up for the post-match Mistico challenges to come. 

With so many different opponents each with their own quirks and history (imagine him against Blue Panther or Ultimo Guerrero or Barbaro Cavernario, etc.), this match, as much as anything else, was proof positive that the act isn't just one spectacular firework meshing old and new, but instead something with real legs and that can bring real joy each with each and every outing. 

Read more!

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

CMLL Viernes Espectacular 8/1/25

MJF vs Averno

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Dynamite 7/30/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Toni Storm/Alex Windsor

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

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

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

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

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Max Caster vs Rush

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!