AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/3 - 11/9

AEW Dynamite 11/5/25

Athena/Mercedes Mone vs Willow Nightingale/Harley Cameron

MD: Mercedes Mone is a star. Athena makes her shine all the brighter.

I'm quite high on Mercedes for much that she does. I think her reactions in the moment are believable. Her matches are ambitious in many ways. She has an incredible work ethic. As an ace, she's tremendous at treating each and every opponent differently; I loved seeing her switching up her taunts and crowd interactions for Olympia's strength for instance. 

That said, there is often a rehearsed feel to her matches. It's a perfectionist's bent, a practice makes perfect sort of feel that's impossible to escape. While the matches feel alive in the moment, sometimes the overall effect is a little plastic, a little blunted. It's more DDP than Randy Savage. That's fine. 98 DDP was great. But it's not transcendent.

Athena, endlessly reactive, endlessly electric, as dynamic as any wrestler in the world, helps Mercedes transcend herself and become her own personal Randy Savage.

They worked so well together here and it felt natural as could be, a meshing of two disparate but tangential egos, two parallel characters, two parallel paths to a flawed sort of kayfabe greatness. You could see it right from the get go when Mercedes pulled a seething Athena to fawn over the belts and how it transitioned right to the two of them almost immediately switching gears with Mercedes seething behind Harley as she entered the ring and Athena posing with her big Yaaaaaay! after their successful initial ambush of the babyfaces. 

The structure was double heat, but Harley carried both face-in-perils. That fit the hierarchy very well. It allowed Harley to gain sympathy, allowed Willow to come in like a wrecking ball after the first hot tag, and allowed Athena and Mercedes to look like the very best in the world as they took over with a tandem backstabber out of nowhere, the wild Athena dive through Mercedes' legs, and an absolutely perfect but still chaotically organic double team move where Athena basically hit Mercedes with the MoneMaker but right onto Harley. 

That unique no shine/double heat structure let them utilize a Willow blind tag (instead of a conventionally hot one) after the break and allowed for things to break down a little early without it feeling unearned or unbalanced. The finish, with Statlander coming out to disrupt Billie and the belt and distract Athena (who had just hit one of her super impressive strength spots), furthered the Full Gear title match and set up a few matches in the future including Athena vs Harley for the ROH title. 

My big takeaway, however, is that while I understand Athena and Mercedes going out like this (they were almost too big to continue on in the tournament and this furthered other storylines) the pairing, either feuding or teaming, is just too good not to go back to sooner than not. 

It's pro wrestling. You need your stars shining as brightly as possible as much as possible, and Athena burns brightly enough to be the perfect spotlight for Mercedes Mone.

Samoa Joe/Powerhouse Hobbs/Katsuyori Shibata vs Eddie Kingston/HOOK/Hangman Adam Page

MD: Keep your eye on Eddie Kingston.

I came across an obituary of Gene Wilder a week or two ago. In it, the writer noted it was a known secret in the acting industry that actors that wished to "better themselves would do well to watch a movie with Gene Wilder in it and pay particular attention to him in a scene when someone else is speaking, someone else has the focus. He was always acting in those moments too, reacting or listening in perfect character and supporting the scene with his presence. A lot of good actors are good when they have something to do. Gene Wilder was good all the time."

I had immediately connected that to Negro Casas actually, and the work he did in trios matches when he wasn't the main focus of a feud.

But then I saw this match and it clicked here as well.

Eddie's not even in this feud. Eddie is HOOK's plus-one. But he managed to do something that was absolutely a contradiction here: he not only stole the show, but he then took what he stole and donated it back to his partners. 

Here's the key: he's constantly, consistently both engaged and engaging. Someone can be the one but not the other and it goes both ways. I love watching Ultimate Warrior on the apron in tags, but he's not necessarily responding to what's happening in the moment and adding to the overall match. There are also plenty of guys able to put their arm out for a tag but not also able to use it to draw you into the match. And Eddie draws you right in while making it about what's going on in the ring and not about himself. 

Some of that is his strength as a storytelling but I honestly believe so much of it is his foundation as a fan. He remembers caring. Hell, he watches certain matches over and over and over again because he still cares. He cares as much as anyone reading this and as much as the person writing this and he's able to channel that feeling into what he was doing here. 

That meant he showed his disgust when Samoa Joe started the match by dodging Hook and tagging out to Shibata, that he sold chops as if they were hurting him, and that when Hook was trying to fight back (and after Hook hit the suplex that threw his back out the rest of the way), he'd lean halfway into the ring to try to will him over to the corner.

And when it was time for him to get in there, he did exactly what he should. That meant getting beaten on by Samoa Joe in the corner, his comeback chops ineffectual. It meant being able to fire back against Shibata but cutting himself off due to the fact he's still working his way back to full strength. It meant that when it was time to mount a comeback, he climbed that hill and almost, almost worked with Hangman to hit a tandem Uraken/Buckshot (we need to see that at some point, TK, just saying; you've teased it now and let the heels rob us of it so you have to pay it off). 

And then after Hobbs crushed Hangman at the top of the stage, he found the inner strength to fight back against all the odds one last time. That's the only shame here. If this match had five more minutes, it could have been not just a double heat, but a triple heat, with Hook making that first tag to Eddie, with Eddie coming back after a 3-on-2 beating, and then with Eddie having to crawl back after Hangman got taken out, lasting just long enough in that All Japan Trios style for Hook to recover, even if it would all end in brave but futile heartbreak. 

But that's still out there on the table for another day. What we got was the best supporting player in all of wrestling pouring his heart out for yet another one of his award winning roles (not that he'd ever admit it, but those who watch closely... we know). 

Don't believe me? Next time you get a chance, just keep your eye on Eddie Kingston. You'll see it too.

Darby Allin vs Daniel Garcia

MD: Styles make fights. Contrast makes the world go round. Character drives action. 

Three sentences. Three true statements. You put them together and you get this match. While Darby is accomplished on the mat, he's no Daniel Garcia. While Garcia has a chip on his shoulder, has been training with Moxley and has been fighting full of grit, he's no Darby Allin. The difference between these two drove this one. In the ring, whether it be in the early feeling out process or trying holds down the stretch, Garcia had an advantage. When things hit the floor or got dirty, Darby tended to have an advantage. 

But Garcia was going to blink first again and again, because he had more to prove, because he couldn't get out of his own way (that's the character bit). That meant teasing the dance after choking Darby with the turnbuckle connector protector. It meant trying for an additional suplex (or neckbreaker) after hitting a superplex. It most especially meant mocking Sting when he had the Scorpion on, which ultimately cost him the match. 

There was a third character in this one as well ( and I don't mean PAC who set up a nice nearfall countout), the ring itself. They could have done this straightforward, eye gouges, ear biting, armbars and headscissors, but they chose to go inventive with it instead. After using the turnbuckle protector, Darby stuck Dany's arm in side the ringpost. Garcia's big transition to heel offense was trapping Darby in the apron. The stairs were used liberally. Garcia hooked Darby's chain to the corner. Pretty clever stuff all around which added to the chaotic nature of the match while keeping it character-driven and laser-focused on the contrast between the two. 

Three sentences that point to true north for almost every match and Darby and Garcia followed the map to their destination here.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/14 - 4/20

AEW Dynamite 4/16/25

Athena vs Mercedes Mone

MD: There was a post that went viral a month or two ago where people were besmirching the good name of Manami Toyota because she didn't hit some of her stuff clean. I've some issues with Toyota structurally (because of course I do) but that's the last thing I'm going to criticize her on.

You want wrestling a little rough around the edges. You don't want everything to hit clean. You don't want things to look collaborative, even when you know they have to be. You want that grit, because with grit comes determination, and through determination, you get emotion that you can latch onto as a fan. Go back and watch Jumbo from the 70s, watch Fujinami from the 80s. Watch the sweat come down grimacing faces and veins all but popping out of necks. That draws you in, immerses you. It doesn't make for as good a gif but it makes for a far better match.

Almost nothing in this match looked like it hit clean but almost every single thing looked like it hit nonetheless, and it hit messy, and it hit dirty, and it hit after deep struggle, not just a struggle between the wrestlers and one another, but a struggle between the wrestlers and themselves as they worked to heft up their opponent. One might think that would pull people out of the match (feel "botchy"), but it did exactly the opposite. It drew them in all the more because it gave a viewer something to push off against, something real to underpin the fantastical world of pro wrestling, something worth believing in.

What, then, bridged the gap between two people struggling to hit moves and a match so gripping that it's still hanging on to me almost a week later? Some of it was the stakes. This was a big, first time match, champion vs champion, hot act vs hot act. The outcome was up in the air.

And that crowd wanted it so badly. The crowd reminded me of the crowd for Ospreay vs Danielson, a crowd that was reverent, almost too reverent, that was just happy to be there, that knew they were seeing something special. That it was in Boston meant that Mercedes wasn't even a de facto heel, and no one really got cheered or booed. It reminded me too much of that Ospreay vs Danielson crowd, where they weren't necessarily reacting to specific moments but instead just were glad to be there, glad for anything that happened. It's the sort of crowd that you can do anything for and that you can do nothing for. That Fletcher, Callis, the Death Riders were so over as heels later on (and Nick Wayne for the ROH taping) was such a testament to them and their performances both on that night and over time. So it was a special crowd, but that too was a double edged sword. I would have liked to see this somewhere other than Boston. I'd like to see it again somewhere other than Boston.

What really put it over the top for me though was the reactions of Mercedes and most especially of Athena. You watch her face throughout the match, watch her eyes, and you see someone reacting in the moment to everything that's happening, every success, every failure, every advantage, every mistake. Even if she might make the same sort of shocked face you'd get out of other wrestlers (let's say the Adam Coles of the world) on a two-count kickout, there's something that her eyes do a moment later as she shifts gears that almost no one else in wrestling is managing.

And here, it was contagious. I'm not sure I fully bought into the lock up that took them up the ramp and back but once things crashed out on the ring with the fight on the apron and the dive later, everything clicked for me, including Mercedes' own reaction. I haven't seen her this alive in years, and it lasted through the second battle on the apron, through the tombstone sequence, all the way to the finish. I don't know if this is the destination for All In or not. I don't know if Athena's just headed back to ROH where she can continue to anchor it. I'm not sure if she's made for live TV since she's so used to freedom and excess, but as an attraction, she makes everything (and I mean everything) more special around her whenever she's around. Even if there's maybe a potential cost to that, it's one worth paying now and again.

ROH TV 4/18/25

Dustin Rhodes/Ross Von Erich/Marshall Von Erich vs MxM Collection/Johnny TV

MD: There was a moment at right around the halfway point on this one where I was wondering exactly what they were going for. MxM and Johnny took out the champs on the way to the ring and Dustin was on the floor for almost the entirety of the match, but there was a modified shine here. Ross and Marshall fought off everything Mansoor and Johnny threw at them.

And then it hit me, I'm watching Von Erichs. That's exactly what Kerry and Kevin would have done in this situation, and it would have gone just like this for them right until Mason came in, because in this situation, Mason was Gordy and even if the Von Erichs could stand tall and fight off Buddy and Michael, they weren't going to be able to handle Gordy too. Von Erichs are a force of nature but then so's Mason Madden, and I'm not sure I've ever felt that quite so much as I did here.

Everything built to a great hot tag sequence where they made sure to nail Dustin again on the floor so it could go around and around a few times until he finally got in there. By holding back Dustin (as beloved a star in the hearts of the fans as AEW has) so long in these six-men, not only does it really give Ross and Marshall a chance to shine, but it also ramps up the pressure for Dustin to come in and hit his stuff.

This had lots of clever bits down the stretch including the set up for Shattered Dreams off a missed Mason shot and a claw-assisted triple nut shot that was sort of like a pro wrestling Rube Goldberg machine in the best way. There was a lot of wrestling to watch over the last few days but I'm glad I caught this one.

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

AEW Dynasty 4/6/25

Daniel Garcia vs Adam Cole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kyle Fletcher vs Mark Briscoe

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

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

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

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

AEW Collision 4/5/25

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

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

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

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

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

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