AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/14 - 9/20

AEW Collision 9/19/26

Darby Allin vs Myron Reed

MD: I don't think you understand how good Darby Allin really is.

Look, don't take offense at that. I don't think I'd fully grasped it and I've written up around a hundred of his matches. Through five years of doing this weekly, the tags with Sting, the TNT title runs, the World title run, the battles with Joe, and Mox, and Christian, and everyone else, I think I just didn't let myself see it all the way. 

I inherited Darby. Phil and Eric started this feature. I didn't come on until a couple of months later. I had been doing Found Footage Friday and French Catch Tuesday. I'd never really written about modern wrestling on Segunda Caida up until that point. They chose Eddie, Darby, Dustin, Bryan, Punk, as the 5 Fingers. I'm not sure I had ever even seen a Darby match before the Punk one. 

And there are truths I've brushed up against, sure, the idea that he can make people believe in a way that no one else in wrestling today can, that they believe in the pain he is going through, in how he pushes himself through it, that they believe in him. And yes, maybe it straddles a line in a post-kayfabe world, but if people believe everything else on the show is an act, they believe that he's really dying for them, and that if he does make it back (to hit his spot or mount his comeback) then he's really finding miraculous resolve to do so. 

I figured that part out a while ago. Some of it is a work, some of it less so, maybe, but it's held together by his selling. Even if he felt like he could jump up and run free after taking a big bump, he makes sure to milk every iota of sympathy, slowing down the match and leaning as hard as possible into consequence. This is accentuated by the fact that he is small, he does seem fragile, almost skeletal, and he's up there against wrestlers who are larger than life (even if life might not be as large as it once was), that are certainly larger than him. He uses his body as a weapon, a bludgeon, a pointy stick right into their eyes. If he's David fighting one Goliath after the next, his own body is the rock that he puts in the slingshot. Factor in his trainwreck bumps, his ability to be lawn darted across the ring (or out of the ring or off the apron or the guardrail or the stage), and it's a jarring combination of offense and offended that is like nothing else in the history of pro wrestling.

Hyperbole? Maybe. But that's where I've been lacking. Exactly where I've been lacking, and I'm someone who catches grief sometimes for overreaching with such praise. 

There are wrestlers today who can work an older, more measured style where mostly everything makes sense, is emotionally grounded, holds together, has consequence. There are wrestlers today who can do amazing things athletically, more amazing than anyone before them, hit amazing spots and dives and take amazing bumps, like nothing we've ever seen. And yes, there are a few scant wrestlers who are always on, that bring a level of intensity and commitment to character and performance, that they lose themselves in their wrestling, and in doing so they allow us to lose ourselves as well for a time. No strings.

Darby is, I think, just about the only one who is in the top, top category in all three of those things. I can't think of anyone else in that perfect Venn Diagram (maybe Athena, MAYBE, but as spectacular as she can occasionally be with her spots and athleticism, I'm not sure it's quite the same, and sometimes (sometimes) logic fails in the face of what she wants to do). 

More than that, no matter who he's facing, he forces them to follow these lines as well. He forces them to exist in a world where things make sense, where there is consequence to every action, where everything is more visceral and brutal and horrific and vivid. He covers up their tendency to put the means before the ends. He creates a world where viewers can lean hard into their suspension of disbelief, and any wrestler that goes up against him is now a denizen of that world. He makes whatever they bring to the table not just better, but realer, more vibrant, more wonderful, more magical. He's a skeleton key to a different world, not the world of the 1980s Crockett, not the world of Puerto Rico bloodbaths or 90s Japanese wars of pride and escalation, but something all his own, something that takes the excess of modern wrestling's endless firework shows and grounds it in a pulpy, gritty, stomach-clenching post-apocalyptic wasteland where you can't just think, can't just be above it all, can't just chant "This is Awesome", but instead have no choice but to feel. If you have a heart and you have a soul, then Darby Allin will crash right through them and make you live vicariously through him and make you feel alive.

He let Myron Reed be his best self here. Don't get me wrong. Reed is spectacular. Fireworks? He's got those. He checks so many boxes. But I've never seen a Myron Reed match that made me feel this way. I've never seen a Myron Reed performance that made me feel this way. 

They worked it like a title match to start, even if only for the first minute, feeling out, holds and counters (watch Darby's foot on the go behind or during the headlock; he has a wrestling background, but more than that, he can portray himself as someone with a wrestling background). It sped up almost immediately to quick pin attempts and Darby dropping right down into a headlock on a kip up attempt. Darby kept the advantage with a sky high step up armdrag, and then he rolled this way and that, teasing a dive, stretching his control of his own body, of the space between them, of the canvas of the wrestling ring in a way he only is able to do when facing an opponent closer to his size. Darby can dive across the ring to create space while having it not feel like a roll for a sake of a roll but instead meaningful, essential, laudable positioning. There's something about the fluidity, the physics, the way he takes an advantage that might have been harder otherwise that feels like a human game of chess.

He's won matches this year with quick Coffin Drops out of nowhere, and he went for that here, only to get knocked off the apron like only he can (a calculated risk gone wrong, a poor chess move but a chess move nonetheless). We've seen this a lot by now, but no two Darby bumps from the top off the apron to the floor are exactly the same. The control of his body even in the face of gravity seems impossible, but somehow he manages it. It's the perfect transition spot, the perfect spot to take the show to commercial. Here though, because of what Reed brought to the table, it was just the prelude. Darby maneuvered himself behind the ring post on the floor, normally a relatively safe spot, and Reed bounded right over the post taking him out, a good moment to take it to break made even better in the most spectacular way possible.

Reed controlled. Darby came back by using his own body as a back springboarded weapon, and took them back from break with a Superplex. From there, things were even, one big move (sold excruciatingly in the best way possible for a Saturday night TV match with a hierarchy difference) after the next. Reed hit his dangling Flatliner from the rail but missed the 450. Darby hit the Code Red and a torpedo of a suicide dive. Reed rolled out of the ring to avoid the Coffin Drop and when Darby went for another tope, Reed caught him with a cutter on the floor. This time Darby rolled to the apron, but that let Reed hit that huge, memorable cutter off the apron to the floor. Reed then set up a chair (and I'm not quite sure why because things went back towards the ring; there's almost always a method not just to Darby's madness in his matches, but to any other madness as well, but this felt a little dubious to me, even though the payoff was amazing). Regardless, we know how the chair ended, collapsed horrifically beneath Reed's flipping body as he tried for a dive and Darby moved. One of the craziest spots of the year to say the least. Darby rolled him in, hit the Coffin Drop and won. 

Let's call the chair here the exception that proves the rule. It felt a little opportunistic. Reed had used it to help himself up after the cutter. It took me out of the match a little, but just a little. Just a few extraneous words in a word problem, something you can sweep under the rug. You very often don't have to sweep anything anywhere while watching a Darby match, and certainly never for long (not long at all here), but Darby makes it easier to sweep something away than any other wrestler alive.

That's the point. Darby doesn't shy from the modern style. He embraces it. He embodies it. Always bigger. Always more. The sort of "Evolutionary" inevitability that some people invoke to when it comes to athleticism and action and fact-paced "workrate." Often slick or tricked out. But I'd argue (and even those that might disagree with me often would probably agree) that it's a different lane than the Ospreays and Omegas (both of which have their own separate lane really; so maybe it's more a different parallel highway going the same direction) of the world, maybe. Darby's is a path that is more focused on commitment, on a sort of brutal realism that doesn't wink, doesn't show strings, doesn't reveal the trick. It's more focused on consequence, on taking a beat after big spots before rushing to the next because the spots are so big and the trainwreck so disastrous that nothing else would even be plausible. He brute forces sense and sensibility into modern wrestling. 

And I honestly don't think there's a person alive, maybe myself included, that's done a good enough job giving him the credit he deserves for managing it. 

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ROH TV 9/17/26

Satnam Singh vs Matt Mako 

(1) Life isn't fair. No aspect of it, not even pro wrestling, is a meritocracy.

That said, life is full of opportunities and life is full of challenges. There are things you have control over and there are things you do not. Some people whine and complain over the things outside of their control. Some people face the challenges head on and make the most of every opportunity.

In a fair world, in a just world, Matt Mako would be the #1 contender for the ROH Pure Rules Title. He has the background, the skill, the constant push to make himself better and better, Just in the last few months, he's defeated Tim Bosby, Cheeseburger (who pushed Lee Moriarty to his limits), Tim Thatcher. And yes, he's been on the other side of the ring of Moriarty once or twice. One time, Moriarty went so far as to hire the Hurt Syndicate to tag with him, some might say in order to dodge Mako.

Yet, here he is in the WJCT Studios in Jacksonville, no ring entrance, looking across the ring to one-in-a-billion, a giant billed at over 7 feet tall and over 400 pounds, Satnam Singh.

Satnam is not Khali or El Gigante. He is toned, agile. They've been hiding him here, an attraction that is not allowed to attract, a force slowly being built up week after week with no apparent purpose but destruction.

(2) And he continues to hone his trade, continues to get better, continues to add new moves to a repertoire that would be fine if it was as simple as could be. He stalks around the ring with a fluidity that his predecessor giants couldn't have hoped for and he racks up wins quietly, an obvious contender to anything he'd want to challenge for, a mountain to be overcome.

To Mako, this is a challenge. He meets it not with resentment, not with malaise, not with fatalistic resignation. He meets it as an opportunity. He himself is trained, honed, a warrior used to battling all sizes, all shapes. The larger the opponent, the more chance there is to make a name for one's self. Fell Goliath and be remembered forever. There is glory in that. There is pride in that. It is undeniable.

After shaking hands, Mako comes in with a strategy. If you take a giant's legs out, he becomes a man, and put Matt Mako up against any man alive and he has at least a fighting chance to win. He starts laying kicks into those legs. It's what Inoki would do. It's what he did do against Andre and Ali both. A few shots to the legs makes Satnam cautious but that opens his stomach up for a spinning kick. Go for the most-vulnerable spots. Go for the softest spots. Make life fair.

The problem is this: one shot from Satnam is worth ten from anyone else.

(3) And Satnam gets his shot. One headbutt. Mako staggers back. Satnam whips him off the ropes. What Mako needs is distance, to avoid shots, to have time to plan is next attack. He rolls under Satnam's swinging arm, hits a dropkick to the shoulder. He can't let up so he charges right in. A half second too late. For a man his size, with his reach, a giant, Satnam is just too quick (It's not fair). He gets a foot up and Mako wipes out.

That gives Satnam the advantage and he uses it to play with his food, chopping Mako in one corner than the next, whipping him in. But Satnam isn't used to this level of oppontent. He's been trained up, but he's been trained to give the crowd a show since he can so easily run over most opponents.

Mako uses that space to make a strategic retreat to the floor. Satnam is no normal giant and he gives chase. Mako is ready and lays in some shots to the stomach. It's not enough. Satnam tries to whip him into the post, but Mako snatches it on the way around and propels himself into the ring.

Now he has the high ground. Satnam realizes it too. There's a moment of exasperation on his giant face. This is not like most of his matches. Mako is not like most of his opponents.

What's next is inevitable. Mako catches him with a dropkick to the knee on the way in. He lays in the kicks and drops Satnam to one knee.

(4) Mako charges in, having made Satnam just a man. But Satnam IS not just a giant on his knees, but a full-sized man in that space. Mako couldn't train for that, not really. There's no live experience for it, and from that kneeling position, Satnam hits a normal sized clothesline.

A surprise, but Mako can deal with surprises. Satnam follows up with a choke slam attempt, ready to end this. Mako turns it into a Cross Arm Breaker (his specialty). Satnam lifts him immediately up, but Mako shifts around him for a choke. Satnam tosses him off, but Mako is quick to lay in gut punches again when Satnam goes to grab him. He shoots those kicks to each leg. He manages some knees as Satnam staggers. He's hitting him from every angle, doing so admirably but he's unable to hone in on any one thing. There's just too much of Satnam and one shot could end it all.

And it does. Mako ducks Satnam's desperate clothesline but he runs right into a press up cutter, the sort of move no one Satnam's size would ever be expected to do, the sort that even Mako couldn't prepare for.

Still, the look on Satnam's face is telling. It was three and a half minutes, but it was a three and a half minute war. He hadn't been pushed like that before on ROH. Life isn't fair. It's not fair to face a giant, not for anyone, but maybe it's more fair for someone like Matt Mako than most. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 8/17 - 8/23

ROH Death Before Dishonor 8/21/26

Daniel Garcia vs Adam Priest

MD: Throughout the history of pro wrestling criticism, there has always been a premium on what was done: what (hot) moves, what spots, what popped the crowd, hot finishing stretches with a lot of kickouts. And of course, the execution of those things. Did things hit clean? Were there botches? More often than not, it wasn’t about the impact those things had on the crowd, but instead a sort of “Russian Judge” approach like the reviewer was scoring Olympics Gymnastics. How much action did the match contain? How well did the wrestlers hit their floor routine? And maybe, just maybe, how much innovation/variation existed in that action? 

Rarely, if ever, was the actual narrative of the match discussed. How that action fit into an overall story was considered almost beyond the point and even sometimes something that got in the way. I’ve seen reviews that mentioned either the overarching story being told by the wrestlers or specific character beats and flourishes in their reactions as things that got in the way of the match, as opposed to being the heart of the match itself. In the eyes of these reviewers, they disrupted the possibilities for action within the match.

I’m not sure what drove this approach, whether it was a need to feel superior, a need to cope with inferiority complexes about wrestling, resentment towards wrestlers who leaned harder on story or character beats over action as if they were somehow lazier for doing so, or just personal preference, but it would be looking at a movie review and having them focus only on the special effects and stuntwork (or maybe just the cinematography if we’re being kind) instead of the writing, acting, or overall direction, let alone things like the art design or sound.

That is to say that you could watch this match and focus just on the action and big spots. In this match, it’d be Garcia shrugging Priest off the top when he went for a superplex, and Priest’s stalling superplex later. It would be the gimmicky figure-four leglock that went out of the ring and rolled up the ramp. It’d maybe be Priest’s pile driver. Or maybe you could hyper fixate on some of the technique, the scrambling early, some of the trading of holds down the stretch, some of the false finishes like the stretch where Garcia put his foot on Priest’s head or when Priest got the half crab on. And maybe you’d call it an ok match that couldn’t compare to the spotfests on the rest of the card.

But if you did this, you’d miss so much of what made this match stand out as special.

I care about that story. I care, maybe even more so, about the characters at play. Moves are great, but we’ve seen them all. Bumps. Spots. Sequences. Reversals. When something somehow manages to be innovative in 2026, it stands out because everything’s been done, but then it’s over and copied six times. It’s ephemeral. What’s timeless is the human aspect of pro wrestling. Who are these characters? What makes them interesting? How do we related to them? How does their character shape their actions and reactions? How do they interact with one another and the crowd?

Let’s map our way through this one a little. Work with me here a bit because I truly do believe this is a different way of tracking a pro wrestling match.

First, the setting. This is a ROH PPV, where they have time to breathe. No commercial breaks. No real time constraints. It’s in the midst of a very broad card with a tag team spotfest and a bomb-throwing title match, and two Pure Rules matches, and a Fight without Honor. It’s for an opportunity, an opportunity that neither man had, to enter the Continental Cup tournament in the Quarterfinals, face Claudio Castagnoli, and potentially go to Wembley. In both cases, it might be the only possible chance they’d have to get on the biggest card of the year. For Garcia, it’s a chance to prove himself against his fellow Death Riders, to show he belongs, to show he can hang, that he’s not just the most junior member. For Priest, it’s the best opportunity he’s had in his entire AEW/ROH TV run. Clear motivation driving both of them.

There is a way to watch wrestling where you focus on their creative emotional choices, their faces, their body language. Priest came down to the ring slapping hands. He shook Bryce’s hand. He shook Bobby Cruise’s hand. He moved with purpose, intensity, but played up the southern gentleman motif as well. Garcia was doing push ups with Marina, huddled with her, slunk down the ring with that chip on his shoulder, an undertone of mouthy petulance. The Code of Honor handshake is a wonderful way to immediately establish character and tone. Do they shake? Do they look their opponent in the eye? It sets the stage for the match. Here, the shake was clean, quick, brisk. It opened the door for the possibility of a clean Continental wrestling match, something which Mox always preached but never truly practiced. 

Of course, there is a third character at play in any wrestling match, the crowd. They began to chant for Priest. That’s something he’s still getting used to given that he menaces the indies, up and down, as one of the more hated men in America. On ROH TV, though, in front of this Philly crowd, he was the favorite, and he basked in it, hyping them up, maybe even pointing it out to Garcia. That poisoned already murky waters. They scrambled on the mat (the first lock up being another way to set the tone). Priest went for a snap suplex but couldn’t get it. Too close to the ropes. He maybe took a few seconds too long to break it and Garcia, boiling over already, maybe frustrated by the crowd, maybe frustrated by life itself and his lot in it, shoved Priest back angrily. 

Priest followed with a headlock. Garcia shrugged him off and ran through him, basking in the tiny triumph, the first in the match. They went running again and Garcia stopped before a Priest leapfrog and piefaced him with one hand. He continued to get in Priest’s face, shoving him back, taking up his air, asserting himself. So what did Priest do? He shrugged and kicked Garcia in the shin. Action. Reaction. Character.

The match was maybe two minutes in but the lines were clearly defined and compelling. Active, engaged characters acting with motivation and drive, reacting to one another and the crowd. This is what gives all of those spots and moves and innovation meaning and purpose. It underpins it all and makes it resonate. They were showing us exactly who they were and what made them interesting and worth caring about. They care so we care. 

From here, Garcia responded with aggravation, having an answer to every Priest shot. He overstretched though, wanting it too badly, already gotten to a bit, and found himself with his foot caught in the corner. That let Priest start to wear it down. The crowd went up for Priest again and that distracted him, allowing Garcia to fire back. Priest went low with a chop block to cut him off. 

Just like Priest was caught up with the crowd’s reaction, he was a bit ahead of himself overall. He went for the half crab too early then went for a superplex too early. Garcia shrugged him off to the mat, forcing his leg to jam on the way down. Now both men had damaged legs which would inform the rest of the match. Priest moved right in to reassert the advantage, but Garcia caught him in the ropes and dragon screwed the leg from the outside in. He then hopped to the floor to celebrate his small victory, jawing with the fans and getting right in their faces. Was it the smartest tactical move? No. Was it absolutely what Daniel Garcia would have done and part of what makes him so engaging? Absolutely. 

You can trace these trends through the rest of the match. Priest used the crowd to help him fire back up, refusing to quit or back down, Garcia resorting to a cheap throat shot to cut him off. Garcia got distracted mocking the crowd during his ten-count corner punch and Priest was able to take advantage of the space. Priest hit a series of nasty dragon screw leg whips which Garcia sold in a unique stalling way, but Adam got caught up as the crowd wanted just one more and that allowed Garcia to lock in a sleeper. Their mistakes are human mistakes. Their resilience is a very human resilience. The balance between the two is where the human interest in the match resides and the human interest is far better than any series of complex choreographed spots that exist for its own sake and to pop a crowd.

At one point, they found themselves at an impasse, each having grabbed the other’s leg, two men intertwined through fate and determination. That was even more true during that figure-four which rolled up the ramp. Part of it was spurred on by the shared legwork throughout the match, sure, but so much of it was sheer stubbornness, with neither wanting to be the first to find a way out, neither wanting to be the first to blink, to let the other see him blink, to let the crowd and the world see him blink.

Priest was infinitely resourceful. When Garcia (leaning hard into his Death Riders rearing) managed to beat him down, he always had one last trick to use. He’s not big to begin with. He’s used to fighting from underneath and he did so literally, tossing a knife-edged chop into Danny’s knee so he could hit the pile driver. Garcia survived it though, managed one last trip using a dropdown (the oldest trick in the book but one that almost never works, fitting that it did here), and locked in the Dragontamer for the win. Post-match, he limped through the crowd from whence he came, while Priest convalesced in pain and disappointment.

It was a hell of a match but it was a hell of a match as much (more so if you ask me, far moer so) for who they were and how they presented themselves as for any specific thing that they did. There’s not really been a critical tradition of us examining that in pro wrestling. If anything it’s been lumped into the category of “charisma,” but charisma, to me, is much more about a certain sort of over the top dynamism, and really, in a lot of ways, goes back to popping crowds instead of serving narratives. 

A narrative was served here, driven by character, by actions and reactions, and the prideful, tempestuous, driven, and all too human souls underneath. That’s what makes this one of the best AEW/ROH matches of the year and a quiet triumph. Interesting people doing interesting things in interesting ways to interesting effect. Motivation, character, consequence, where the action serves and is shaped by the narrative instead of forcing it, kicking and screaming, to drag breathlessly behind. That’s the ideal and they absolutely nailed it here. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/3 - 8/9 Part 1

ROH TV 8/6/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs RPG Vice (Trent Baretta/Rocky Romero) 

MD: Where's Eddie Kingston?

Oh, well, have you seen Eddie Kingston lately? He had had a bad leg injury. 

Yeah, well, I have seen Eddie Kingston. I saw him vs Joe. I saw him vs Charli. I saw him in Germany vs Tihanyi and in London against Manders and in 8 man action on ROH. I haven't seen him again Cannon and Hot Sauce though but he's done that too. 

As I write this on Friday, the day after ROH aired, he's about to face Mason and then he'll be back on AEW TV in the Continental Cup against Doyle (edit: I'll hit that next week, but we all saw him there).   

So I have seen Eddie Kingston and I can speak to Eddie Kingston. One thing I can say, without a doubt, that there's no scenario more compelling for the sometimes fascinating and always frustrating morass that is Jon Moxley's last year than to see him interact with Eddie Kingston.

But that's beside the point. 

The point is that Eddie is right here on ROH, teaming with Ortiz against RPG Vice. This was set up by Eddie and Ortiz talking about how they want to face the hungry young talents and by RPG Vice saying they just wanted an easy win. It was set up by RPG Vice being taken by surprise by Warner and Zayne and Eddie and Ortiz making the save post match. 

It's on ROH TV. It's studio wrestling. It feels like wrestling for the sake of wrestling. It hits just right.

What it feels like, and I mean this in the best way possible, is 1997-8 WCW Saturday Night where you'd have the NWO B-Team facing off against Rick Steiner and ... let's say Brad Armstrong. I don't know if that specific match ever happened, but it's something which makes the world seem a little more vibrant and lived in, something with low but personal stakes. A skirmish in a broader war between the Don Callis Family and everyone else.

And in some ways, Eddie feels like Rick Steiner in 98. Still as over as can be. Still a presence. Still a Star. The fans would pay to see him. The fans would chant his name. He can get under someone and throw a suplex. He hits hard. And when first Rocky and then Trent tried to get in his face late match when he had the Stretch Plum on, one stare from Eddie had as much of an effect on a crowd as ten moves from someone else.

He's credible. People believe in him. 

A great booker could make magic out of that. I think there are only two or three guys on the roster that can move a crowd the same way (Bandido, Briscoe, and maybe Hangman though that's frayed a bit). 

A matchmaker though? That makes it a little trickier. But I think the answer remains true, because I saw the Manders match and the Joe match and I especially saw the Evans match. I can imagine Eddie against any member of the Death Riders and what that could look like with the right positioning and the right framing? 

Do I think he could have Omega vs Okada or Komander vs Dorada or Fletcher vs Ospreay right now? No. But they're already on the roster, more or less. Do I think Omega vs Kingston would be special? Yes. Do I think Fletcher vs Kingston would be special? Yes. Do I think Moxley vs Kingston would be special? I think there isn't a match the company could currently put on that would be as potentially special if it was framed by Kingston calling Mox out like no one else could. MJF vs Kingston is up there as well. It'd have a different flavor than MJF vs Briscoe. 

Do I think that there's a heel run in Eddie where he could base for all other guys in those equations? Yeah, I do think that too. World got away from him. Chip on his shoulder. Fans love him but I think he could get heat if anyone could. He stands out as different on a roster which has so many overlaps, but he could still interface with those guys in so many compelling ways.

Ortiz worked the brunt of this one. It had multiple bits of heat with multiple comebacks, a fairly unconventional style. Trent and Rocky's arrogance caused them to slip up once or twice. It was compelling. It had the crowd. There were Eddie chants. There was even a This is Awesome chant. It felt longer than it was, but not in a bad way. It felt like it could have gone either way. There were a few very specific things that Eddie did (a hand sell after a Gotch Pile Driver, turning his head at the start of the match in surprise as the fans chanted for him, the way he handled those Stretch Plum moments) that were as good as what anyone else in the world is doing. Post match, RPG Vice got their heat back laying out Eddie and Ortiz and then Eddie in the back (with Mance and Ortiz with him), cut the most human, believable, compelling promo I heard all month, just like that. Again, it felt like the NWO B-Team and some people will tell you that's a problem, but not me. There was real utility to those guys doing their things in their own way on Saturday Night, a big fish in a smaller pond making the world feel more lived in. 

So where's Eddie? He's right here, and if you can't see the unique value he offers in 2026, it's you who have a small idea of what pro wrestling is and what pro wrestling can be. 

 Athena vs Janai Kai [Proving Ground]

MD: I came into this one thinking it wouldn't be too unlike the "Athena In Action" match on Collision a few weeks ago against Ava Everett. I thought Athena did a good job there emotionally selling Everett getting one over on her and surviving one of her moves, even if she didn't give her much offense.  

Hierarchy matters in my mind. Yes, I know you can have Omega give a long match to Angels or Flair to Mike Jackson or whatever and they could be good and they might even still serve purpose, but maybe they're almost too good for what is needed for the big picture and maybe they could serve a more important purpose in a better way. The more over someone is, the more established they are, the more dangerous and protected they are presented, the less it takes to get an opponent something tangible with them.

There are people who will disagree with me on the balance. It works the other way as well. The more a heel like Athena gives her opponent, the more it means when she goes over them. Theoretically, there's a balance where she gives a lot and that puts over both the opponent and Athena. But how much was Ava Everett supposed to get over on her? How much did Athena need to show Everett was an opponent worth facing? It's a balance, right? And I think the balance for Everett was different than the balance for, let's say Persephone or Maya World, and somewhere in the middle, you have Kai.

Athena started the match (post left handed dainty handshake, of course) with a lock up. When she didn't get her way she immediately stepped on Kai's exposed foot and got a headlock out of it. Already, it raises a flag. Why would Athena have to go to such lengths. Kai lifted her leg for momentum and turned things around. Athena got the better of the exchange and mocked Kai for being called the Kick Demon. Kai came back with a kick. Athena ducked away in a panic, barely dodging it, and then jumped into Billie's arms on the outside. Athena, on her way back in, started immediately in on the legs, showing how dangerous she felt Kai was and how seriously she was taking her.

If Kai got nothing else the entire match, that would have been substantial. She got Athena to go dirty early. She got her to scurry out. She got her to treat her like an actual threat. Considering the hierarchy difference, that's actually a lot. It's a ton. Yes, Kai is a name to those who pay attention. She's been featured on MLW. She's a unique wrestler. But she's 0-8 in ROH coming into this match. If she didn't get a single piece of offense in the rest of the match, she'd still come out looking better than she came in just for putting Athena on her back foot and making her take her seriously.

But they seem to be pushing her towards a bigger role and she ended up getting quite a bit more, coming back with kicks, forcing Athena to pull the hair, forcing Billie to get involved on the apron, surviving a nasty curb stomp, and then only losing because Billie intervened with the title belt. Maybe she would have lost anyway, but you got the sense she was going to survive the ten minutes. 

With just that first bit, she would have come out better off, entirely on the strength of her own confidence and Athena's ability to let things get to her and give things emotional resonance, to cash in on the value she has banked up over the last many years. But by giving Kai all the more (and by Kai taking it for her performance matters here just as much), she came out of this with a post-match promo and a match with Billie ahead of her and it all feels entirely credible. Details matter and the details here worked exactly as they were supposed to. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/13 - 7/19

ROH TV 7/16/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Adam Priest/Tommy Billington vs Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty/Shawn Dean/Carlie Bravo)

MD: I can hear it in your head.

Ospreay VS Brooks Was 8 Minutes Long With Will Working From Underneath When He's The Title Contender? What's The Ticket Sales For All In? How About Summerslam? Did The Dynamite Rating Hold Up? What Did Collision Do Against SNME? Danhausen Brought Out Karl-Anthony Towns? WWE Is Booking New York? Does That Mean There'll Be A Grand Slam To Counter SaudiMania? Someone Posted A Hogan VS Michaels Clip. Got To Post A Take On That. Dave Didn't Post The Mercedes/Maya Star Rating Yet? But He's In Arena Mexico. What's Going On With Sammy? What's Aminata's Contract Status? What About Bayley? Alvarez Says We Should Criticize AEW. Some Fans Say We Just  Should Focus On The Positives. Why Am I Typing This Like Ric Flair Tweets? What Did Styles Say This time? It's G1 Season. Big TJPW Show To Catch Up On. The TNT Champion Is Challenging at the PPV Again? Liv Morgan Supports Conversion Therapy? Tony Khan Is Playing 5 Star Booker? The Triangle of Madness Have Stardom Titles Now? 

Stop

Just stop.

Breathe. Take a breath.

None of that is going anywhere. 

Or it is, but you don't need to go with it for a few minutes.

It'll be there when you get back. Or the next thing will. Or the next. Or the next.

And you won't miss much of anything. It's fine. It'll be fine. There's something better for you out there.

A match.

A professional wrestling match.

It's full of story but not part of any storylines. 

It didn't go viral. Haven't seen a single clip from it. 

But it has eight practitioners of their craft, artists. Guys who have been around the block, guys who are on the rise, different sizes, shapes, styles. 

Twelve and a half minutes of freedom from everything above. It's on Honor Club. You have to want it to watch it. You're going to be surrounded by people who want it. It's in front of a studio audience there to see hours of wrestling. Small, intimate crowd. People who care. People who love it. People who are passionate enough to love it that much for what it is and not for all the noise around it. 

Where's Eddie Kingston been? 

Here. He's been here. Teaming with Ortiz. Wrestling with the younger guys. Wrestling the younger guys. Staring off against Shane Taylor. And yeah, you've missed him, but you don't need to miss him. He's right here waiting for you. 

Just get off the never-ending train to nowhere. Take a breath. Relax. Watch some pro wrestling that exists for the sake of pro wrestling. To entertain a crowd. To make Honor Club worth the price. To get guys reps. To create something out of nothing.

What does it look like when Eddie and Ortiz team with Priest and Billington? What does it look like when Shane Taylor Promotions come out at full strength? What does the clash of the two look like?

Aren't you curious? Even though it's not going to score you any points in any online argument. Even though it probably won't even get a look from the Observer. Even though this episode of ROH only has ONE vote on Cagematch. 

Doesn't that still sound interesting? Doesn't it sound more interesting than a lot of things that you feel far more obliged to watch and follow and post about?

Trust me when I tell you that it's better for your soul.

It was sure better for mine.

And yes, there were stories galore here, because characters drive stories and look at these characters. Ortiz and Bravo to start. Does Bravo respect the Code of Honor? No. He's tells the crowd to shut up and has a single finger on each hand for Ortiz instead. Mood set.

They trade rolling leg picks. Bravo goes under and around the leg. Ortiz gets behind him with a hammerlock. They burst into rope running. Ortiz drops down, gets a leap frog, hits an armdrag. Great way to start a match.

More stories. Eddie comes in and hits a Japanese arm drag on Dean. Dean yelps that it's an illegal move in the United States. Small crowd theatrics, maybe the best kind? Billington tagged in intending to chop down Taylor. Fearless bulldog mentality but up against a tank. Contrast makes things interesting. Styles make fights. It took Billington, Priest, and Ortiz working together to take him down. Things (like Taylor's size) mean something, have significance. 

Sometimes you want to see like vs like too. Adam Priest is any style. Lee Moriarty is the pure champ. They face off and Moriarty goes for a rolling leg pick of his own, but Priest had seen it twice so far in the match and jams it with a nasty back elbow to the jaw.

But then, Priest gets swept under. Transitions are structural, as important as any part of the match. Moriarty distracts the ref as Priest hits the ropes. Dean trips him and hits a stunner onto the apron, Bravo hits a knee drop off the apron, Taylor hits a legdrop on it. It takes mere seconds and changes everything.

Adam Priest, maybe the best heel of the 2020s, is out there playing face-in-peril, constantly reaching for his corner, constantly dragging himself across the mat, looking for any sign of hope and trying to create his own when there's none to be found. But STP stretch and do their thing. They toss him to the floor and swarm him. Bravo works small, little flourishes full of confidence. Dean has that same confidence, but he works bigger and more over the top with it. Moriarty is precise, contorting body parts, hitting suplexes, holding bridges (just as confident). Taylor is a wrecking ball. Priest tries to fire back on him. It doesn't go well for poor Adam. 

Nevertheless, Priest doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. He keeps on running, keeps on fighting, and manages to double down with Bravo after simultaneous clotheslines. He gets the hot tag. Eddie comes in like the (beloved) maniac he is. The Kobashi chops in the corner. He directs traffic. His team unloads and then toss Bravo in for an exploder. STP comes back and do the same to Eddie, tossing him in to a Taylor uranage. Things have broken down but even in chaos, there's a beautiful undercurrent of symmetry and order.

It's an 8-man tag. Plenty of people to break up pins. Plenty of offense to feature as well. Things waterfall. One guy rushes in to hit a bit of signature offense, then the next, but it all happens so quickly, and here in the finishing stretch after the meat of the match has already been consumed, that you can relax and enjoy it. The subsequent dives cleared the ring and the finish had Priest's half crab, a missile dropkick out of nowhere by Billington and dueling roll ups leading to the pin.

The progression was just right. Opening exchanges. Shine. Heat. Comeback. Chaos. Completion. All underpinned by contrast and character.

Sometimes a match can "just" be a match. That's not an insult. It can be wonderful. That doesn't mean it lacks story. It doesn't mean it doesn't draw you in. In some ways, it helps you let go and can draw you in all the more. It cuts out the distractions and lets you focus on the passion and the craft.

That doesn't mean there aren't things coming out of this I'd want to see too. We got a taste of Priest vs Moriarty. What does a Pure Title match between the two look like. We've seen Infantry vs Ortiz/Kingston once, but there's way more left on the bone. And yeah, Billington wanted to challenge himself against Shane Taylor. If he wants it that badly, I'd want to see him have the chance.

In a world without house shows, where the analytics of every quarter hour of TV is carefully examined, where fans are pushed by the algorithm to care most about lore, divisive arguments, and what's trending, a match like this can be a breath of fresh air.

I got the train for twelve minutes and just enjoyed myself. You can too. You'll be better off for it. A match like this is a gift, an increasingly rare gift. Log off for a bit and go open the present. 

You can be present. It's okay. The noise will be waiting for you whether you want it to be or not.

Enjoy the gift while you can. We don't get enough of them anymore.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/15 - 6/21

ROH Global Wars Cincinnati 6/18/26 / AEW Collision 6/20/26

Athena vs Syuri / Athena vs Maya World

MD: So, why do we watch?

I've been watching Athena as ROH champion since 2022. In that time, I've seen her defeat Yamashita, Nightingale, Sakura, Sakazaki, Hogan, Starkz, Martinez, Rose, Abadon, Catalina, Persephone, Windsor, and on and on and on, some multiple times. Plus, you might say the heart of the title run, the connective tissue, has been the Proving Ground matches. There have been so many of those. I've seen a lot of Athena. Anyone following ROH has.

So what's the appeal now so deep into the title reign? What made these two matches stand out against everything else last week? 

With some wrestlers, familiarity breeds contempt. You start predicting moves before they happen and while there's a sort of comfort to that, comfort only takes you so far. Athena is the definition of unpredictability. She is volatile, tempestuous. It's at the core of her character and generates the energy that draws you into her matches. But just as important, with Athena, the familiarity you develop gives you a launching point. 

For some wrestlers, it's all about spots and counters. The action drives character. The cart leads the horse. It's all about getting to the big idea with little care on how the match actually gets there. With Athena, character drives everything. Because the character is so good, so dynamic, so engaging, "everything" becomes full of organic, interesting destination points, maybe even more so than those matches that are contrived to get to certain spots. Who she is drives what she does. And she will react differently to every opponent and every situation. 

Knowing her past (encounters and otherwise) with Syuri and Maya made so much difference here. Despite her close connection to Maya as mentor and lack of such with Syuri, there were similarities. Both opponents had gotten the better of her in one way or another, and the list of those who had done so over the last few years is very small indeed. Syuri had successfully defended her IWGP Women's Title against Athena earlier this year. Maya is the one blemish on Athena's ROH singles record, surviving a Proving Ground match. She subsequently took he to the limit in the title match she earned and the Survival of the Fittest that followed. Maya may be billed as the It Girl, but there remains a sense of Final Girl to her as well, the one who might be fated to end the horror that is Athena. It's not quite a prophecy, not quite an inevitability, but it's as clear a possibility as any other right now. And Athena knows it. 

Of course, with Maya there were other factors at play. Her run through the Owen Hart Tournament, a title shot at All In on the line, is a bittersweet Cinderella story. Her brother passed away recently. Despite that, perhaps because of it, she threw herself into her work, becoming a last second substitution for Sareee and defeating Skye Blue to propel her to the semi-finals and to another match-up with Athena. The character of Athena has professed tough love when it comes to her minions. While there always seems to be a self-serving undercurrent to that, it's hard to deny the results, and occasionally, very occasionally, hints of humanity poke out from the monster she's become, though usually only to get swept away by the rage and fury of the fallen goddess. Meanwhile, Athena herself has lost in the semi-finals of the Owen tournament twice. As she carries ROH on her shoulders, she's been unable to reach the highest peaks in AEW. 

And of course, and this would be true if she was facing Shafir or Statlander in main events or Forza or Nixi XS in proving ground matches, Athena is excellent at not just finding the kernels of truth between herself and opponent but in crafting a dynamic character which will create such opportunities in the first place.

It's easy to compare and contrast how these matches played out and see that aspect plain as day. Look at the first few minutes of both. With Syuri, she extended her (yes, left) hand, Syuri took it graciously, Code of Honor met with some respect. Then they went at it, a feeling out process. Athena more than held her own, but Syuri, having the superior confidence and momentum since she won the last match, pressed her advantage. Athena didn't get dominated but she was absolutely on her back foot, forced to be reactive in the face of Syuri's technique, agility, and aggression. It was a bit of a role reversal compared to how she would normally bully around her opponents. It's actually somewhat rare that someone can get a conventional shine on her. This wasn't quite that, but it was far closer to it than usual, and it was fascinating because of that.

With Maya, things were completely different, and I don't just mean the fact it wasn't an ROH match so there was no Code of Honor (she was quick to shove Maya down and taunt her with her own M/W hand signals instead). This had more of an exhibition or celebratory feel. A playful feel. It reminded me a little of the Willow ROH match where they hit finishers of previous ROH champs. That had thrown me at the time but this didn't. Here, they went counter for counter, tit for tat, cartwheeling through things, rolling around the ring with cradles. There was a showy element to it. I'm not saying that the character of Athena was taking it easy on Maya, but I do think she was perhaps giving her some rope, was letting her shine. You might call it kindness, knowing this was Maya's moment in the sun after all that she'd been through, but knowing Athena, it was probably more like false hope. She was playing with her food, building confidence so that she could snatch it away. After the fact, she might even claim it was magnanimous, but it would have been her lying to herself, the world, the heavens. She held a grudge against Maya for taking her to the limit three times in the last few months, once literally in the Proving Ground. And perhaps even more than that, she now realizes that there is a chance that she is Cronus, not a god but a Titan, with Maya as the Zeus set to someday overtake her.

Of course, Athena is equal parts wrathful and resourceful and she was able to take over on both opponents. With Syuri, it was on the apron, absorbing repeated knee shots to hit a brutal twisting power slam upon it. With Maya, the moment that she Maya stepped just a bit too far, when her confidence was growing just a bit too much and she was maybe about to get one over on Athena, her mentor squashed her like a bug with her Something Evil variation on the floor. No Koji Clutch follow up needed here. It was all about contorting her, crushing her, and opening the door for the damage to follow. 

And the damage she did upon both opponents looked quite similar. With Syuri, it was a bit more focused. With Maya, it was somewhat more meandering, more playing to the crowd, more rubbing it in Maya's face, but it was equally brutal for both. Yet both would come back and get a measure of revenge. Here, however, is where the matches once again deviated. One of the joys of ROH matches and about Athena's run as a whole, is that there's more room to breathe, less need for commercial breaks to help drive the match (Maya came back right when they were returning from break, for instance). Instead of going down into the finishing stretch, the ROH title match was allowed to have an extra level of complexity. Syuri took Athena off the top rope with a hold and started to dismantle her arm. They were already past the conventional heat segment at this point, but it added an extra wrinkle which would make the remainder of the match more interesting. 

Athena would have to both escape submissions and fight back with one arm. Meanwhile, Syuri would shift her focus to bigger bombs in an attempt to put Athena way. As they fought to the finish, they traded those bombs, including Athena pulling out moves she only does rarely, like a Tiger Suplex. Syuri pushed her advantage (both the momentum with which she started the match with and that gained from the damaged arm) and Athena came off as something of a vulnerable champ who could lose at any moment, deepening the drama. Despite that, she was able to hit one last clutch reversal, slipping through the legs for a pumphandle tombstone, setting up the O-Face and her getting her win back and retaining the title. 

With Maya, things were very different. Athena survived Maya's comeback through familiarity, having an answer for everything Maya tried. Yet, Maya kept coming, her refusal to back down shifting Athena into the sort of reactive state she had been in against Syuri. That ended in disaster for Maya, however, as both women found themselves on the floor, and then up on the guardrail, with Athena getting the best of the moment and driving Maya down onto it with a Rock Bottom.

The match opened up emotionally from there. As it looked like Maya wouldn't beat the count (a 10 count here as opposed to the 20 count in ROH), Athena reached out to pull her in. It seemed at first like another magnanimous gesture, Athena giving her protege (though not minion) a chance to win or lose in the center of the ring, to not squander her opportunity on a fluke. She immediately began to berate her over her brother's memory, however.

Why do we watch Athena? Because she's dynamic and complex. Because she is the roiling ocean, an active volcano, because she is a villain that may not be sympathetic, may not be relatable, but that is all the more fascinating because of her strengths and her faults.

At first it seemed like she was offering a hand to Maya to lift her up. Then, as she berated her and Maya exploded upon her, it seemed like she was trying to awaken something within Maya, to try to make her fight all the more, to make her the best she could be. Here's where that familiarity comes into play though. That's not what she was doing at all. She was luring her in. It wasn't that she wanted Maya to be able to win or lose in the ring. It's that she wanted to put her down once and for all, definitively. It's not that she wanted Maya to rise up and fight. It's that she wanted her off her game and frazzled. That's why she was able to catch her in the corner and take her down, setting her up for the O-Face. Maybe if the wind had blown a little different or the sun had shined through the trees Athena may have decided differently and found just a modicum of grace. But it hadn't and she hadn't, and now it was time to end Maya.

The O-Face is one of the most protected moves in wrestling. Barring a fluke roll out of the ring or a foot on the rope, it ends matches. That's important. People love surprise kickouts and artificially propped up exciting finishing stretches, but it's so much better to define something, to make it important, to reinforce its importance, and then, when it really, really matters, when you want to make someone, when you want to highlight her journey and put her over the top, then and only then, to have someone kick out. Only then. Only when it matters the most. You build up capital, build it and build it and build it, and then you pay it off. That's the most powerful tool in pro wrestling.

In some ways, that's a symbol for Athena in general. Some people say she takes up too much of the air in her matches, that she overwhelms and eats up opponents, but she always reacts when things don't go her way. She sells it emotionally, because she expects to win, expects to dominate, and so often, lives up to her own expectations, thus creating that expectation with the fans as well. In that regard, she reminds me of Stan Hansen. By enforcing so strict a baseline, it means any deviation from it carries great rewards for an opponent who can step up and force it. 

Athena hit the O-Face clean. She pinned Maya cockily. Maya kicked out. Athena sold it like the shock, the transgression, the offense, the violation to the order of the universe that it was. She had invoked Maya's brother. She had awoken something inside of her. She had thought it would be something Maya couldn't handle, a means to the end that was the O-Face, but it was instead something that Athena couldn't handle, something stronger than her most dangerous weapon, something powered by love and not hate and therefore, something that Athena could no longer tap into or understand, no matter what she might claim. 

Maya got a fluke small package, but Athena pushed her way out. Then, much like Stan Hansen before her, inevitability, hierarchy, maybe even fate upon her side, Athena reared back to hit a lariat of her own. Maya ducked it, tied Athena up, pressed all of her weight down upon her, and heard the ref count three. 

Post-match, Athena embraced Maya. There's no way to know if that would have been the end of it, if she wouldn't have ambushed her if Mercedes hadn't come down. That's part of what makes Athena so interesting after all, the wild unpredictability. Even if she had spared her, it wouldn't have been heroism but instead another streak of false magnanimity from a fascinating villainess. 

So why do we watch? 

The consistency, the variance, the commitment, the familiarity, the unpredictability, the truth and the contradictions. 

How could we not? Why would we ever look away? 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/8 - 6/14

ROH TV 6/11/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs The Workhorsemen

Punch in. Knock out.

That's the creed of the Workhorsemen. It's built into their name. Carpenters. Good hands. Guys you want to anchor your card. Solid. Unshakable. They'll give anyone a tough match. Can credibly beat any other team on any night. Do work that anyone would be proud of. 

So that's on one side. On the other? Eddie Kingston and Ortiz. Eddie's here in ROH not to give back, not to teach, not to train, not help even, but to give the young lions of the company someone to push off against, someone to show heart against. 

That's well and good for Billington, for Price and Oliver, for Cole Karter or Griff Garrison. 

Not JD Drake. Not Anthony Henry. They've been punching in and out for years and they've seen one kid after the other get the fame, the fortune, the recognition, the opportunities. Life happens. It's happened to both of them. Maybe if things had gone a little different, one of them would have been the Continental Champ, the ROH champ, would have gotten Ortiz' chance to shine. Eddie fought for what he had. Ortiz made the most out of opportunities. But they would have too. 

Do they whine? No. Do they quit? Never. They keep punching in. They keep knocking out. They keep fighting. Maybe there's a chip on their shoulder, but given how they use it, that's a good thing.

This was just a really good mid card tv tag. The characters and the expertise drove it. That chip on the shoulder? They found the middle ground between that driving everything and classic tag team knowhow. For the latter, Ortiz especially was so good at being in the right place at the right moment for the right effect. I wasn't a huge fan of the Ortiz/Santana combo because it was a little too much of the same, maybe a little cute when it came to some of the tandem offense, but you put him in with contrast, and so much of what was great about that team gets to shine without any distractions.

Then you put him against the Workhorsemen who excel at controlling the ring and creating opportunities both for themselves and their opponents and then making the most of the former and cutting off the latter, and it just works exactly like it's supposed to. Maybe more than anything else, I love how they created time for one another. Henry would hang on against an opponent just long enough for Drake to recover and assert himself. Drake would just do the same, biding time until Henry was in the right spot so he could push his opponent into their corner for a trip. There's an element of trust and understanding that most teams never quite reach, but when you see it in practice, it's a special sort of magic.

And then Eddie was there to add the spice and, despite what the Workhorsemen might want, to be someone for them to push off of. Certainly Drake did, jawing, chopping, slamming into Eddie. Henry did as well, going so far as to throw a bunch of Kawada kicks just to make him angry. Then, when it came time for the comeback, one that was very much earned through missed tags and drawn refs and other Southern tricks, he came in like the folk hero he is, chopping away and giving everyone grief (most of all himself, like always), before a leapfrog from Ortiz set Henry up for the DDT.

Just a really good way to spend twelve minutes. Yeah, there are tag team belts stranded in Mexico right now, but this was pro wrestling for the sake of it, guys fighting for pride, fighting because the bell rings and they're faced off against each other, fighting because they're wrestlers and pro wrestlers wrestle, and we, as pro wrestling fans, watch them wrestle. Hell of an arrangement we have here. 

I don't get a lot of feedback out here. That's part of why I post on Twitter now too. Even then, I don't get a ton. But I did get sent a post a year or two ago on BlueSky where someone said that not everything needed a thinkpiece or a review of 1000+ words, that, in this case, Rhino vs Manders didn't and that it just diluted everything. Now, of course, I was going to write earnestly and honestly about a DEAN match, but I think it's something worth poking at.

Pro wrestling criticism, writing about pro wrestling, is fairly underdeveloped. I don't think what I do is honestly all that great relatively. I do my best but this is a hobby. It's just a sparse ecosystem.  In a world where the bones have been picked for years and years, I don't think anyone would need me. Wrestling isn't like that. Most of the writing has gone to the best, most lauded, most canonical stuff. You can probably read a decent amount about Flair vs Steamboat. You probably can't read a ton about 1981 German footage. You also probably can't read a ton about a mid-card match from 1993. 

You can probably read a lot about Okada vs Tanahashi from January. You probably won't read a lot of people thinking about Workhorsemen vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz tag from ROH. But there is beauty to be found in this. I don't know how many stars someone might give it. 3 and a half? The show itself has 7 votes and a 5.something on Cagematch. But limiting yourself to canonical five star matches misses so much of what makes pro wrestling amazing. 

I think there's plenty of joy to be found in the crates, in the trenches, in the margins. It's work looking fir the greatness in the smaller moments and even a sort of craftsmanship and serenity in moments that aren't conventionally great. 

These four are so good at what they do and what they do has value and worth. So long as you open your heart to it, it will make you feel something and isn't that what this is all about? These are complex characters who have lived full lives and that can not just distill that not just through promos, but in their ringwork itself. They played with the conventions of the form, remixing and refracting complex emotions through it. There is room for it in this world. The world (of pro wrestling but in general) is better off for it. And to me, that's absolutely worth writing about.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 3

AEW Supercard of Honor 5/15/26

Survival of the Fittest: Athena vs Billie Starkz vs Maya World vs Yuka Sakazaki vs Trish Adora vs Zayda Steel

Chapter 1: Zayda Steel

When opportunity knocks, Zayda Steel answers the door. She bet on herself, left the possibility of artificial glitz and glamour to rekindle her love for Pro Wrestling and start back at the bottom. Hard work is rewarded and she found herself under Christopher Daniels' tutelage. She lost a proving ground match to Athena back in April but found herself with a second chance, defeating Hyan to take the injured Persephone's spot in Survival of the Fittest. 

The match itself began with Athena and Billie at odds, Billie not wanting to tow the line. After a bit of shoving, Athena dragged Billie out to the floor by her hair to try to get her back on the right page, her page. Zayda saw opportunity knocking once again and she, Maya, and Trish surrounded the two of them. Athena tossed Billie into Zayda and ducked Maya and Trish's blows. 

Later on, opportunity would present itself again. Athena had survived the onslaught of Maya, Yuka, and Trish and was standing dominant in the ring. Zayda, throwing caution to the wind, slipped in with a chair and tossed it right at the champion's face. With some effort she lodged it in the corner. Maybe it took her just a bit too long, as Athena was able to reverse the subsequent corner whip. Zayda crashed hard and Athena pinned her, feet on the ropes. There would be other opportunities, other days, and Zayda would be there, ready and waiting.

Chapter 2 - Trish Adora

Trish Adora made her own opportunities. After crashing into Maya when Athena ducked, she sat out, watching Billie and Yuka criss-cross and rope-run against Athena and Billie. She asserted herself when the moment was right, chip on her shoulder, power coursing through her, and took out Billie and Zayda with a double spear. 

After Zayda was eliminated, Athena tried to continue on with the chair on Yuka. Maya may have been the one to come in with a Kendo Stick to break it up, but it was Trish who snatched it from her and flexed and stretched with it, beating Maya first with the stick and then with a chair. 

While she was busy with Maya and Billie was fighting with Yuka, Athena set up a lego set of chairs on the floor. Satisfied with her construction and feeling far more animosity towards Maya than Trish, Athena suggested a fortuitous alliance, Athena and Trish leaning down hard on Maya. But Athena doesn't have allies, she has minions, and Trish Adora is no one's minion. Refusing to let Athena berate her on the apron, Trish fired off on the champion and chokeslammed her through her own chair tower. 

Billie, initially at a loss, became enraged and targeted Trish. She had set up a table and had been working to put Yuka through it, but now she turned her all of her attention to hefting Trish up onto the announce desk and putting her through the other table. Trish fought her off, smashing Billie with a Death Valley Driver onto an announce desk that did, much like Trish herself, simply did not break. 

Back in the ring, Trish went for the kill on Yuka, throwing the Lariat Tubman at her. Yuka ducked and it hit a stumbling, still recovering Athena with the lariat instead. Trish went to capitalize but Yuka caught her with the Merry-Go-Round and pinned her. Trish had been a force in the match. She had the champion beat and it was only due to an interloper that she didn't have her pinned and eliminated too. There's more on the bone there. Athena needs challengers, and Trish, like always, has a point to prove and the strength, skill, attitude, and wherewithal to back it up.

Chapter 3 - Yuka Sakazaki

Yuka drifted through the match, the smile on her face tempered by a grit of her teeth. When everyone surrounded Athena early, it was Yuka who picked her moment and came off the apron to actually get her. She fought evenly against both Athena and Billie as the match went on. After Billie failed to put Trish through the table, Yuka successfully managed to put Athena through it, not just insult to injury after getting chokeslammed into the chairs, but injury to injury as well. 

When Trish hit the Lariat Tubman on Athena, Yuka could have hung back and let Athena get eliminated from the match, ensuring a new champion, but that's not how Yuka operates. She meets the challenge before her. She is a creature of action and motion, of life itself. Athena had tossed a trash can into the ring and despite Athena pleading and begging Yuka not to do it, Yuka struck true. Yuka may be good natured, but she wasn't about to have the wool pulled over her eyes. Instead, she took trashcan in hand and maneuvered to the apron, hitting her magical girl splash with the can. Again, Athena was saved, this time by Billie.

Thus ambushed, her moment lost, Yuka quickly fell to Billie's Avalanche Starfall cradle facebuster. But as she went to the back, she knew that she had the champ all but beaten and that she could hold her head high.

Chapter 4 - Billie Starkz

Which brings us back again to Billie. Billie, Billie, Billie. Twice rebelled against Athena, twice defeated. Inaugural TV champion, lost the belt. Made it to the finals for the inaugural Pure champion, lost. 22 years old and woefully lost. A new college graduate, but forever a MIT Student. 

Her defiance here was feckless and quickly subsumed. Her fire? It came and went. She fought hard against Yuka, only to get swept under and choked in the ropes. She was infuriated by Trish's action and went right at her, only to be dropped onto the announce desk with a Death Valley Driver. She saved Athena with a chair, but those chair shots seemed to lack a certain amount of heart. 

After eliminating Yuka, it was now two-on-one against Maya. Athena was hurting so maybe Maya had a chance, but Billie was able to come out on top in their exchange with a Destroyer. That meant when Athena did make it back into the ring, two kendo sticks in hand, things looked very bad indeed for Maya. Athena tossed one to Billie, dark master to apprentice. But where Billie's heart is clouded, Maya's is pure, and she fought back, right to the point where she was jousting with Billie on the top, chairs draped upon the mat beneath them. Athena went to strike Maya. Maya moved. Billie got cracked and then crushed with a powerbomb off the top. 

Maybe there's a light off in the distance. Maybe there's a path towards it. But for Billie Starkz, it seems so very far off.

Chapter 5 - Maya World

This left Athena and Maya. While she is, in her own way, an apprentice to Athena, Maya's never been a minion. Instead, she's become the possible heir apparent that Billie no longer is, the Final Girl who might be able to not just survive the horror story that is Athena, but to be the one to actually end it. If Billie is looking for a light, Maya glows all on her own, a light to combat Athena's darkness.

But she wasn't going to be able to defeat it here, not in a match like this. Up until this point, the threat to Athena had been the numbers, the unpredictability. There could well be a final encounter between Athena and an ascendant Maya, but not on this night and not in this way. 

That's not to say she didn't account extremely well for herself. She did. She turned the tide very quickly. Athena had used every weapon imaginable (save maybe for the ladder that she and Billie had set up in the ring), leaving her just her own precious belt left. Maya ducked it and took over with a nasty DDT on the apron. She hit her Reinera slam but couldn't put Athena away. Then she went for the ankle lock. 

Athena can sometime be craven, can often be underhanded, but she was no quitter. Billie, holding a white towel, on the other hand, is prone to being overcome by emotion, and she had so much to feel here: the sting of defeat and disappointment, the further sting of her defiance once again deferred, her honest care and affection towards Athena, no matter how she treated her. Put all those together, and she had every reason to throw in the towel. Athena wouldn't let her though, not just stopping her but altogether dragging Billie into the ring.

That was the distraction Athena needed, and one giant O-Face from the top of the ladder later, Maya, her own brightness temporarily extinguished, was staring up at the lights, and Athena had survived another day.

Chapter 6 - Athena

Diamante rushed out to help Athena celebrate. They browbeat Billie, though not with any real malice or seriousness. As things stood, it was all well past the point of that. For the most part, Billie had come through. 

More than that, through hook and crook, Athena had come through. She had defended her kingdom, had stood strong in the face of maybe her greatest challenge. The numbers were against her, and yes, at times she hid behind Billie, but at others, she faced three people down at once, running from corner to corner to inflict damage and pounding her chest in victory after the fact. 

That led to her getting a chair thrown at her face by Zayda, of course, and in truth, she had terrible luck (hubris?) with the weapons in the match. Every time she tried to escalate, furiously kicking the set-up chair out of the corner to use it as a weapon (that organic, alive element of unpredictability that Athena brings to her matches that almost no one else in wrestling can match), setting up the chair tower, the table (well, that was Billie who set it up), bringing in the trash can, trying to use the belt... it all backfired on her. She survived, but only because Yuka saved her once and Billie the second time. 

Were she just a queen, she might fall to circumstance like this: a plot, a conspiracy, the odds being against her, but she's more than that. She's the forever champion, the fallen goddess. Someday she will fall, someday she must, and yes, her own hubris might be a large part of it, but it will have to be both epic, and this war was epic, and personal and intimate, in all the ways that this was not. 

As a match, it was smartly put together, mostly solved the multi-person problem of people just laying around (in part, by eliminating Zayda relatively early so that the numbers were off and Athena could either be convalescing or setting up contraptions to be used later), and was extremely character driven. 

As a story, it call came together fairly well, leaving much on the table in the best way. Yuka, Maya, and especially Trish all have a claim for the future. Billie's tension percolates all the more as she desperately grasps at light now even further beyond her grasp. 

As a defense, it is another giant notch upon the largest belt in wrestling, as Athena shakes the dust of her peers off and marches ever towards the greatest legacies still left before her. 

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

ROH TV 5/7/26

The Infantry vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Dynamite 5/6/26

Kevin Knight vs Darby Allin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/23 - 3/29 Part 2

ROH TV 3/26/26

Athena vs Maya World

MD: Throughout Athena's historic (and extremely lengthy) reign, there really have only been one or two logical conclusions for who might take the title from her. Early on it seemed like Willow Nightingale would make the most sense, and then over the span of a couple of Final Battles, it could have well been Billie Starkz. Willow has moved on in a way where it just wouldn't make sense anymore. With Billie, they didn't pull the trigger, and while they could heat things up for a third time, it would take a lot of work to get there. I'm just not seeing it. There have been a lot of other great one-off opponents but nothing that sparked any strong sense of inevitability.

The thing with a reign this impressive is that opportunity was bound to naturally come again in time. That's just the way of it. 

And now it has with Maya World. She checks a lot of boxes. She's young, brash, confident, Texan, inspired by Athena, even a protege, but not really a minion. 

She's the first person ever to take Athena to the limit in a Proving Ground match. For a layperson, that doesn't sound all that impressive maybe, but Athena's wrestled over thirty of them in around three years. For anyone who just drops in on the PPVs or complains without actually paying close attention, the sum of these make up one of the most substantial parts of her reign, where she comes in and absolutely demolishes game opponents, looking very much like the steamroller that she is. 

Look, if I had to distill just one truth about Athena's ROH reign, it's this:

The reign is a horror movie and Athena's the killer. 

There is always a Hitchcockian sense of menace underneath the surface. Athena might offer her left hand daintily for the code of honor, might let out a big "YAY" when things go right, might start things out with athletic wrestling exchanges, might show vulnerability as she gets overconfident or has a limb worked over, but at some point in every match (and so, so many post-matches), the switch flips, rage boils over, and she becomes a monster. 

While this was an excellent match, in watching it, I just couldn't figure out if Maya World was the Final Girl, that last survivor in a horror movie that turns from victim to hero as she confronts the killer, or if she was someone along the way blissfully unaware of the fate before her. 

Does her familiarity with Athena mean that she can counter Athena's best weapons, can even use them against her, that she knows all of her former mentor's tricks and has the confidence in herself to overcome them? Or does it mean that she's lulled herself into a sense of false security because she thinks she knows it all and that maybe, just maybe, even Athena of all people would go easy on her relative to others? Did she maybe think that Athena would go out of her way to beat her but that she wouldn't really hurt her, wouldn't become the monster that would tear her from limb to limb. Not Athena, not to her?

Regardless, Athena, having failed to cut the knees off the competition in a Proving Ground match for the first time, came in thrown and Maya came in ready. 

Maya refused the handshake (and the controlled contact that came with it), dodged Athena's strike to start, jammed an armdrag after hitting one of her own, and vaulted out of the way of a fevered charge into the corner. She followed this with an early flurry: an enzuigiri, the super-sharp Billy Catanzaro full nelson into a backbreaker, and then a fisherman's suplex, just like that. 

Maya forced Athena to escape to the outside, and even there, in Athena's element, she was able to match Athena blow for blow. Right until she couldn't. She had reversed a whip into the stairs, but instead of immediately following up, she set the stairs up for something else; it's one thing to be a little out of your element and another to dive deep under. Athena caught her with a cross-chop to the throat and reverse waterwheel dropped her face first into those stairs.

And thus, the monster started to stir, but only just. Despite the Proving Ground match and the start of this one, much like how Maya possibly couldn't fully comprehend the maliciousness of the person before her, Athena's own ego couldn't let her see Maya as quite that much of a threat. So she trash talked and preened and jawed with the ref, allowing Maya little openings but then cutting her off. Athena hit her tumbling punch in the corner and followed it up with a belly-to-back, giving hope and then squashing it gleefully.

But in playing with her food, she allowed Maya to get just a bit more than she had intended. Athena crushed her in the corner and as she rushed out to set up for another assault, Maya burst out behind her and snatched on surprise waistlock and almost got back into it just from that. Almost. Athena took a few lumps before cutting her off with a flying kick to stop a leap and then knocked her of the ring out with a baseball slide. Maya made it back in but only to end up in the Koji Clutch.

Maya survived the submission by making it to the ropes. She was surviving. She was coming back again and again. She had an answer for so much of Athena's signature offense. It was an affront, blasphemy, hubris even. Through this defiance alone, and despite Athena's advantage at this point of the match, cracks were starting to show.

Athena once again lost her focus. Instead of grinding down, she took the time to slap and berate Maya, and Maya, as she had all match, took every opportunity to fight back. They struck at each other evenly (though Athena's shots had more behind them, but that's true against almost anyone). Maya fought Athena out to the Apron and went for a pile driver. Athena jammed it and lawn darted Maya to the floor with a brutal suplex.

Athena made it in first and allowed herself to gloat as Maya struggled to rise up and beat the count. At this point, it felt like Athena was putting on a show, convincing herself with feigned glee that a countout would be just as satisfying as a pin or submission. The glee faded as Maya made it at the last second.

Back in the ring, they cycled into a strike exchange where Athena got the better. Maya was able to counter a second belly-to-back and move into roll ups. She came out of that on top, using a bridging Fujiwara escape on a double leg, only for Athena to get the better again with a curb stomp.

That's when things took another turn, one that would lead to everything boiling over. Maya avoided the O-Face by charging in and hit Athena's own shotgun dropkick/front tumble punch combo. It didn't look quite as good as Athena's, but it was insult as well as injury and set up an attempt at the ultimate insult as she went for her own O-Face.

Billie came out distract. Hyan came out to even the odds. Eventually, Athena took umbrage on this and slammed into Hyan with a tope. That just let Maya go for her Reinera Slam, but Athena turned it into a roll up and followed it up with a destroyer. Despite that, she was still unable to put Maya away. 

Instead, she started berating her once more. At first, this seemed like it was one step too far, was everything Maya needed to stop playing around, to make that fateful transformation into the Final Girl that could vanquish the monster. She chased after Athena once again, running up the ropes behind her to hit a twisting sunset flip bomb. She followed it up with a gutwrench facebuster not unlike Athena's own, and then went back up again for the O-Face.

It seemed however, that Maya's awakening, admirable as it might have been, only served to fully awaken the monster that was and is and that will forever more be Athena. As well as things had been going for this potential final girl, the final boss had a final form after all. Furious at Maya going for the O-Face not once but twice, she unloaded on her with uncontrolled stomps and strikes. She hefted her up and hit a Tiger Suplex (which is a very rare piece of offense for 2020s Athena; I can't think of another time I saw her use it this decade). She pulled her out of the ring to break her once and for all on the previously positioned stairs. 

Hyan intervened. Billie hit her from behind. They both spilled into the ring. Chaos ensued. Diamante arrived with the belt and Athena used it to clock Maya and hit her own O-Face to end it. An anticlimactic ending, perhaps, one that proved nothing except for that Athena was still champion and Maya was not.

Therefore, I was left wondering. Maya had an answer to so much of Athena's offense. She subverted and stole her share of it. She came close not once, but twice to hit the O-Face. It had taken everything but the kitchen sink to put her down. But then, had Hyan not intervened on the outside, would there even have been anything left of Maya to put away? 

Only at the very end did she really face the monster in its true form, and in that moment, she certainly appeared to come up lacking, arms laced behind her, dropped on her head. 

So is she the Final Girl after all? The one who might end the reign of terror? Or is she just another victim waiting to happen, one that's going to end up as just one more bloody example, maybe the bloodiest example of them all.

Time will tell, but what is clear is that for the first time in well over a year, there is a path that feels possible, a path that might make sense, a light at the end of a tunnel. But that light, like it's been so many times before, might just be Athena on her way to turn yet another great hope into roadkill.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 3/9 - 3/15 Part 1

ROH TV 3/13/36

Athena vs Maya World [Proving Ground]

MD: Studio wrestling stemming from recent events when Maya, with Hyan and Deonna, stood up to Athena/Billie/Diamante back during the collaborative Metroplex show. Maya being an Athena protégé has not necessarily been a key part of her presentation so far in AEW/ROH up until this point, but I'd argue that she and Hyan don't necessarily have a clear, defined presentation relative to some others.

Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they tagging? What brings them together past an opportunity taken when others did not? What do they want out of life? What are their similarities? What are their differences? Etc. So far, it hasn't been super clear.

This helped though.

In some ways, Maya feels like even more of a "minion" to Athena than even Billie, because Billie was romping up and down the indies for a couple of years before arriving to AEW and finding her away under Athena's thumb. From a story perspective, one might wonder then why Billie was on TV with her and Maya was watching from the sidelines and then, once she arrived, left to her own devices.

Maya seems pretty happy with her lot in life though and doesn't care to ask those questions. Athena, on the other hand, in wonderfully hypocritical fashion, takes offense at Maya opposing her, complains about Maya crossing a line that Athena herself never truly drew.

Which brings them to this, a chance to make an example out of Maya, to teach her a lesson as she'd taught Billie lessons before, at the end of a forearm. But to show that Maya was even more beneath her notice (even as she was obviously getting under her skin), this was instead a proving ground match.

And Athena meant to prove her point right from the get go. Left hand extended. Her usual dainty code of honor handshake. Right into the magic forearm. Athena stomped Maya in the corner and started in on the ref, the crowd, Maya, the world. She wanted it too badly, however, showing that vulnerability which makes her stand out as much as the intensity. It's a give and take with her and once Maya got just a bit of distance between them, she took, forcing Athena to run into a very clever rope-assisted spin kick.

Now it was Maya's turn to take advantage of Athena's mistake. She had caused it by getting under Athena's skin and now she pressed the issue and reaped the benefits. She hit a series of moves, including doing damage on the floor. The problem was, in the micro, time was against her. She could keep Athena on her toes, but it was too early in the match for her to keep Athena down.

Athena got up. She reversed a whip, caught a kick, snuck in a knee, and then jammed both knees right into Maya's face in the corner. She would then, of course, lean on Maya. Maya's hope spots were solid and believable and tended to come not because of any mistake Athena made (she had already made her mistake at the start of the match and wouldn't make it again), but because she had such familiarity with Athena's offense.

Eventually that let her dodge just enough moves to come back all the way and things went back and forth with bombs, blocks, and roll-ups down the stretch. Maya managed to dodge the O-Face and position around to hook in a Reinera slam just as the bell rang. We were meant to wonder if maybe she could have snuck a win there; all it takes is three and this was deep into the match. But we have seen Athena survive far more than that. No, instead, this was a moral victory, a draw in a Proving Ground match, something unheard of in all of Athena's forever reign, and an opportunity for more. Phantom pin or no, what we're actually left wondering is if Athena would learn from her mistake or if her fury would overwhelm her all the more in their next encounter.

ROH TV Special Friday Episode 3/13/26

RUSH vs BEEF

MD: Two wrestlers. All Caps. You know what you're getting. Look, I have been fairly hard on Dralistico in specific situations when he's up against a babyface and playing a heel, not even a de facto heel, an outright heel, and he tries to steal the clap up and the cheers, not in a jeering way like, let's say, Yuta does, but to really get the crowd behind him. 

And yes, to some degree, Rush does this too, he does. He eats guys up. He takes the air out of the room. But unlike Dralistico or just about anyone else, he's beyond the realm of such expectations. He draws the eye that much. He turns the head. He locks you in so that you can do nothing but hang on and go for the ride. He's Ultimate Warrior and he's Goldberg and he's Buzz Sawyer. There are so few wrestlers in 2026 that can carry that sort of energy. He is an attraction. 

He's not treated like an attraction. He's not used like one. But he is one. Sometimes, I get the sense because of how he's presented, the fans don't really have any idea what they're getting into until that bell rings and the power takes them. 

And it rang here. He kicked away the code of honor. The great thing about this is that Beef, himself, can be sort of an attraction, an everyman. Is he more Hillbilly Jim than Dusty Rhodes? I don't know. Ask me again in five years, but also don't downplay the connection a guy like Jim had with the crowd. Beef has it too. They went off the ropes to start, Beef crashing into Rush, Rush holding his ground. That's the thing about Rush. When push comes to shove (no pun intended), he does give, he does show ass, he does falter. He just makes his opponent work for it and then he takes twice as much back as wrathfully as possible. Here he won that exchange by taking Beef out on a leapfrog allowing him to land an explosive dropkick, but then he ate a bunch of BEEF's fun pokey punches, stooging around the ring for him.

That stooging was short-lived; because he is Rush, he started to fire back. Look, I am not a strike exchange sort of guy. But the strikes being exchanged aren't generally these strikes and not from these two. There was something rough and raw and wild here, something completely out of control. It wasn't pretty. It was far more about the throwing of the strikes than the withstanding of them, and as much about hyping the crowd up and getting into it as anything else. Rush would take a shot and then channel it right into the crowd as he waved his hands to try to rechannel the pain. It went from Beef's hand into his chest, into his arms, into the crowd, back through the crowd, into Rush's body, and then back at Beef. If that's not pro wrestling, I have no idea what is. And it all built to Beef just slapping hands one after the other, an out of control dynamo that wan't to lash back at what had been hurting him. 

It worked until it didn't. Rush caught him, thrashed him one last time with a forearm, sent him spiraling down to the corner. He teased the Horns, rolled back into the Tranquilo pose, and really never looked back from there. Beef had put up a good fight, a noble fight, an admirable fight, but there was a big hierarchy difference here, and all he could do was to try to catch his breath, to keep alive, to roll to the floor to recover. That's the last place you want to be against Rush though, and the end had already begun. The fans knew it too. They embraced Rush, let him lean back into a flag and bask. 

And in a different setting against a different opponent with different stakes on a different stage, maybe it would have frustrated me, but here, on an episode of ROH on YouTube in front of a crowd that just wanted to feel something, anything, no matter what, what can I do but throw up my hands and grin along. He's an attraction being an attraction. Hang on, ride the wave. He comes. He goes. He gets injured. He gets suspended. He gets grumpy. Let's enjoy him while we have him. Now and again we're allowed nice things.

Top Flight/Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs MxM/RPG Vice

MD: We talk about moments. Usually we talk about moments negatively when it comes to WWE because they fabricate unnatural ones and put them above and beyond matches, right? But moments are an important part of wrestling because they're an important part of wrestling matches, just like they're important in any other form of fiction. They should stem from the characters within the match naturally. They should be built to and they should pay off. One of the great fallacies of wrestling discussion of this decade is that it's either/or. It's not. It's all organic. That's true with promos and angles and matches and it's true with moments around and within matches.

And here, they did a great job of building to character-driven moments which had meaning within the match. Part of the joy of a match like this is to see the weird interactions. You have Top Flight interacting with Ortiz and Kingston. I was as interested in how Eddie would interact with Daniels post-match during the hand-raising as anything else in the match. That doesn't mean I don't love action. It just means that I find these characters and their history and all that they carry behind them fascinating as well. It's not either/or. It's additive. And Eddie looked as happy as I've seen him in ages post match celebrating with these guys, and I loved to see it.

There were big spots. Of course there were. Top Flight was in there. But my favorite moment in this whole thing was when MXM got Trent to pose (after trying to do so earlier in the match). He lingered too long and it ended up a transition allowing the babyfaces to take back over. That was very lucha-coded to me (though a lot of people wouldn't think of it that way because of the way lucha has been minimized in the States over the years), cocky heels doing cocky things either too many times or for too long and paying for it. What's great about it is that if the babyfaces did it, it'd be a big culminating moment, like Brody King finally doing the macarena but because it was the heels, it was them getting stooged. 

This was a lot of fun and it's always great to see Kingston in the mix with younger and contrasting talent. That's the strength of him. Yes, he can trade chops with Minoru Suzuki or whatever, but it's so much more interesting when you put him in there against a Lee Moriarty or Soberano, Jr. or, I don't know, Doink and see what happens.

AEW Dynamite 3/11/26

Dogs (David Finlay/Gabe Kidd) vs Orange Cassidy/Darby Allin

MD: This match was a cog in the storyline machine, a set up to the Roddy turn (or non-turn or whatever you'd call it) and setting up the six-man for the PPV, but it was also a way to really debut Finlay and make a statement about just who and what the Dogs were. They had that pretty amazing enhancement match on Collision, but this punctuated that real well in an actual match.

They're different than almost every team on the roster because they're dogged, just incessant energy. They have big spots for down the stretch, but for a lot of the body of the match, they just stay on their opponents. If you put Connors in there as well, then he's just throwing himself at people. With these two, it's more catching, like Finlay caught Darby on his dive with a forearm in order to really take over after the initial ambush and fire back. I liked how much they made Cassidy work for literally every inch when he was fighting from underneath. There were one or two times I thought he was about to make the hot tag but they dragged him back like their namesake and it really worked for me. 

And of course, Darby and Orange are the secret main character team of AEW, an odd couple that feed into one another in perfect, subtle ways. To make a very dated comic book reference, they're the Defenders of AEW, a non-team that absolutely work. I get there's mileage out of Roddy and Cassidy (a similar if less subtle team-up) right now, but I'd love to see Darby/Cassidy against FTR or hell even the Bucks (and for me to say that..). They're the TV workmen of the company and I'd be really interested to see a fighting champions run at some point. 

Anyway, this really got the job done and I hope that Finlay, Kidd, Connors get the freedom to keep working matches like this. So much of it was still all action but it was stifling and oppressive in the best way at the same time.

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