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

AEW Dynamite 6/3/26

MJF vs RUSH

MD: Conflict in Literature:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/20 - 4/26 Part 1

AEW Collision 4/25/26

RUSH vs Adam Priest 

MD: Adam Priest knows the score. He might be Any Style. He might be the heir to Alabama wrestling. Some days that means he's a Dirty White Boy. Some days it means he's virtually an Armstrong, a modern day Bullet. He might be in his own lane when it comes to getting under people's skin or even getting them to back him when it matters most. Hell, he might even be in his own lane when it comes to finding a way to scrape out even the most unlikeliest of wins.

But he's smaller. Lower on in the rankings. An underdog. Not the biggest fish in a new pond that's a hell of a lot bigger.

Adam Priest knows the score. He knows it as well as anyone.

And he doesn't give a damn about it.

RUSH isn't a wrestler. He's not a luchador. He's someone whose name is in all caps. He didn't ask for that. He didn't demand it. He earned it. It's undeniable. He's an out of control bull. He's violence and volatility. He's two fists, two feet, one head, no mercy, coming right at your face at all times.

He's the embodiment of seething fury mixed with smug assurance. He wears a bull mask out from the back and somehow seems more dangerous when he takes it off. He slaps his chest and the fans chant his name. He rolls back and makes the center of the ring his home, calm as can be, fist outstretched into the air, potential energy just waiting to explode.

So what does Adam Priest do? He takes a few steps out and punts that mask down the ramp. He puts his life in his hands and then outstretches that selfsame hand for a shake. When RUSH kicks it, he shrugs it off like it was nothing. "Now why did that guy go and do that? I'm a sportsman." He knows the score. Don't let him fool you about that.

They start wrestling. It's inconclusive. Priest ducks away and puts his fingers on his forehead, bull horns, bucks a bit for good measure. RUSH sees red. 

Was Priest trying to throw him off? Make him make a mistake? No, I don't think so. Priest knows the score. You can't fight the tide. Priest knows all about the tide. You can't beat it, but maybe you can make it work ten times harder than it ought to along the way. You can't kill the bull but you can leave your mark on it, and give the people a hell of a show in the process. 

Because what's a man without his pride?

They get scrapping. RUSH gets the better of it. And Priest? He just asks for some more. The commentators take note. The crowd takes note. RUSH takes note. If you can't win, then lose as big and bold and bright as possible.

RUSH controls through the break. The feed goes for a minute and we come back and somehow, miraculously, Priest has fought his way back. No idea how. We're almost better off not knowing. He's Any Style Adam Priest after all. Could have been anything. All that matters is that he's taking his pound of flesh, and that Tony Schiavone calls him hitting an Alabama Jam. Living the dream. 

It turns to a nightmare quickly enough. RUSH sidesteps, hits a German off the ropes, takes Priest outside to thrash him against the guardrails a bit, pulls him back inside. Priest  absolutely messed with the bull. So he got the horns. 

But no one's going to remember the horns. For once, all anyone's going to remember is that this bastard was brave and daring and sharp and good enough to mess with the bull. 

And what about us? The people viewing this. Why do we watch wrestling in the first place? It's not to count kickouts and give out star ratings. It's not. Some people have lost sight of that, but it's not. 

It's to feel something. You know what made me feel something? Priest kicking that mask down the ramp. It wasn't a 450. It wasn't some tricked out counter. It wasn't barbed wire or light tubes. It was just one absolute bastard drawing a line in the sand because he could. He knew the score. We knew the score. He just didn't care. He REALLY didn't care. He didn't care so much that we couldn't do anything but care for him.

There's a magic to that. There really is. And wrestlers like RUSH and Priest help us remember it when the rest of the world has worked so hard to make us forget.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 4/6 - 4/12

AEW Collision 4/11/26

RUSH vs Anthony Bowens

MD: I'll get to the PPV in a couple of days, at least Darby vs Andrade, but I wanted to take a quick stop over here first because this was interesting and Rush is RUSH.

I complained a couple of weeks ago about how Bowens vs Moxley was a bit like mud, something where the alignments and the objectives didn't seem all that clear, something where having disparate, unrelated, conflicted characters interact with one another didn't make the world feel richer necessarily, but instead more confusing.

Yet this, which really wasn't all that different, worked for me, and that just shows you that sometimes art doesn't follow rules and patterns exactly how you'd expect. That's part of why you actually engage with it. 

This match was to determine the number 2 position for the Casino Gauntlet for the vacant TNT title; a chance for a chance. Bowens is still coming off a pretty rough year where he had a strong but overstuffed babyface presentation, where some plan (which we will never know) failed to work out, where they glommed him on to Caster again, and where it all fizzled out. Now he's trying to audition for what's basically a two man stable in the Opps, and the Opps really ought to just take him all things considered. I have no idea where this will land. Hook/Shibata/Owens vs the Conglomeration sounds fun. Who knows? But it means that while he's never really done anything overly heelish (just annoying, not evil) and he sort of presents himself as a babyface with babyface trappings; he can still be sympathetic due to his size and fire, but his current motivation is to become a heel. Sort of. 

And Rush is RUSH, right? He's recently back from injury. He's in the heel locker room, but he's more of a force of nature. You can argue Moxley is a force of nature too, but he's one that tries to explain himself, even if it's in mysterious and arcane ways. Rush doesn't try to explain himself. If you mess with the bull, you get the horns. He's there to run through people, to espouse the value of brotherhood, to cause as much destruction as possible. Cheer him? Boo him? Fight him? He doesn't care. He's Rush. He's an attraction, the personification of violence. 

But still, he's almost always up against babyfaces, right?

There was a moment, right when the split first happened, when I saw Bowens as a potential Kenta Kobashi type figure. There was something about his size, his likability off-camera, his presence, his fire. And you could see him fighting Mox again and again, just like Kobashi fought Hansen, getting a little closer each time. You could see him battling Joe, or Big Bill, or yes, absolutely, Rush, and he would build himself up into someone that the crowd could get behind, could believe in. 

And while that's a hint of a memory now, dust floating in the ether, this match almost feels like a proof of concept for something that now will never be. 

They went to strikes immediately, and Bowens, wanting to prove something to Hook, to himself, to TK, to the crowd, to history, stood up and fired back. You could tell that Rush was a little surprised, more amused than bemused, probably. But you're not going to beat Rush striking, and Bowens didn't. He got swept under immediately, dumped like trash in the corner for the Horns dropkick fakeout, had to endure the Tranquilo pose and then was goaded right into a power slam. 

Business as usual then, despite a little spark. Bowens isn't just someone who received a pep talk or ate a beatdown. He's a guy with his back against the wall, at the end of his rope. He's volatile. And as Rush pushed him too far and took him too lightly, he exploded ramming blows up and down Rush's head and face repeatedly. He tossed him to the floor and rebounded him off the rail. This was Rush's domain, but Bowens wasn't hearing it. Nothing was going his way, life itself had turned against him, and if he was going to have to shout into the wind, then he would shout. Yet still, he found time to scissor someone in the crowd, found a moment to toss a catch phrase at the camera. Even in the midst of brutalizing not just a opponent, but THE opponent, he still didn't know who he was, who he should be, who he could be, save for that he was the hero of his own story. 

Thankfully, Rush was there to keep him focused, spitting in his face (and drawing a kick). Bowens ground down on him with a cobra clutch, and the crowd, unsure of who to cheer for and unable to treat Bowens as an underdog given how the match was playing out, started to back Rush. He's an attraction after all, and if they can't cheer anything else, they will cheer violence above all. 

Rush escaped, hit a front dropkick and pressed Bowens, but, perhaps to his surprise, Bowens pressed back. The fire, once awoken, wasn't ready to go out quite yet. That's the strength of Rush, his ability to draw that out of someone in that Hansen-ian way. They went back and forth. Rush snuck in a winding back suplex. Bowens charged forward to stop the Horns and hit his twisting DDT in the ropes. They crashed into one another in a way you'd expect out of Rush but not out of Bowens. 

And through no real fault of his own, Bowens came up short. The gas tank couldn't outrun the storm, especially after spending so much of the match driving headlong into it. Rush took things back outside, got some revenge against those barricades, and rolled him in to lay in the Horns.

It was a testament to what Rush is and has always been and a testament to what Bowens could have possibly been and could, maybe, somehow, someday be. And even though it was as full of grey shades as the Mox vs Bowens match, it worked far better nonetheless. 

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

AEW Dynamite 3/25/26

RUSH vs Darby Allin

MD: This match was a gift.

Professional wrestling can be so many things, but one of the things it can be, one of the best things, is a release. It can be an invitation to take all the worries of the world, all the frustrations, all the sadness and darkness and pain, and to just lean in, lock in, hang on, and let go. 

It's functioned as this for generations, the artistic use of simulated violence as a means to quell the violence in our own hearts, as a conduit to let us scream along, wince along, clench our fists and gasp as we channel all of that emotion into a safe outlet.

It is succor and sanctuary. It understands. It knows that now and again we need to tap into the primal, tap into something grisly and raw and passionate, something forbidden in everyday society. It forgives. 

Through most of what wrestling offers us today, we can be awed. We can be entertained. We can marvel. We can wonder. We can be impressed. We can feel smart. We can feel connected. We can feel elation. And yes, some of us can chant "This is Awesome." 

All of those can be found in pro wrestling in one form or another.

But that wasn't this. 

In an age where we, as a society, have been given other invitations, public ones, harmful ones, toxic, manipulative ones, to be our worst selves in the very worst ways, this form of pro wrestling is an invitation to be our worst selves in the best of ways. 

And maybe, maybe the sanitized, produced, athletic, and choreographed form of wrestling that taps into something OTHER than our worst self is better.

But my god, we're only human, aren't we? And if we're going to get some release, let's get it through this, just like our parents could, like our grandparents could, like our great grandparents could, and like our children and their children will hopefully still be able to someday.

It is a gift. It was a gift to us, watching at home, and it was a gift to the people of St. Paul in the stands.

Even a match like this was beholden to the limitations of modern televised wrestling. There was a commercial break. They set it up well. Darby wiped out massively on a tope attempt, the sort of trainwreck you expect from him. The doctor was checking on him. Rush menaced, and then he basked.

And St. Paul chanted "Fuck ICE." They're not the first, but previously, it was tied to Brody King's meaningful presence or tacked on to already existing "Fuck Don Callis" chants. Here it was unrelated to any of that. From these people who needed to combine their voices and chant it so badly. Why then during this pause in the main event, certainly not the only pause in the show? Why get it all out here? 

Because through their sheer intensity, through their planned and spontaneous artistic expression of violence, Rush and Darby opened the floodgates of emotion and gave this crowd an invitation to let it all out. Pro wrestling.

And how did they do it?

Rush ambushed Darby right at the start, shoved him off the top rope on his entrance. That wasn't a surprise. The mood was in the air ever since the match was announced, as Rush made his entrance, fist pumping to the music, as Darby skateboarded down and everyone wondered when the violence would begin. 

This was "no countout" and they made use of the stipulation, brawling around ringside. Rush immediately went under the ring, probably for the wire he uses to choke people. It wasn't there. That gave everything an immediate feeling of being natural, organic. It drew you in. It wasn't a botch. It was the panacea to carefully planned out spots that define every other match on the card. You got the sense that Rush simply wanted to hurt Darby with any means at his disposal and if he couldn't find the first thing, he'd take the second.

And he did just that throughout the match, with Darby returning the favor when he could. This wasn't a "no disqualification" match, but he could toss Darby into the ringsteps and cause him to bump head over heels into the barricade. He could sit Darby in a chair and topple him over. Later on, after a now bloodied up Darby did hit a tope successfully, Rush would end up in that chair to eat a missile dropkick off the top to the floor. 

There was another moment during the break which was just as organic. Rush walked over and took Taz's water, pouring it over himself. It felt like a fully formed, completely "on" character doing exactly what he would naturally do in the moment. Every pro wrestling match would be better off with two or three moments like this, just someone making use of the situation in front of him, even if it meant things go off track for a few valuable TV seconds. Part of the appeal is the live improvisation. It's always been part of the appeal.

Darby was a clear underdog here. He had set a dozen traps for Gabe Kidd the week before, but here he was trudging through nature naked and with only his wits, skill, bravery and resolve, and Rush was the storm. The advantages he got where daring, defiant, and clever. He pulled the apron curtain out to trap Rush's foot. When Rush was leaned back in his Tranquilo pose, he pounced at him from across the ring to attack. He moved out of the way as the Horns corner dropkick came sailing in causing Rush to wipe out which allowed him to float over with a jackknife pin to win it. 

These were not sure things by any means. In the first two cases, Rush fired back. He would be quick to cut Darby off with an eyerake, a headbutt, a sharp kick. Darby won, not with the Scorpion Deathlock, not even with the stylized Last Supper, but instead with whatever flash pin he could sneak on to escape with his skin intact. 

It was eleven and a half minutes, with a chance to take a breath, or to express pent-up frustrations with that breath, in the middle. They let things set in. They made sure to portray massive physical consequence to everything that happened. It was a war but not necessarily a sprint or a bomb-fest. Even when they did a strike exchange, there was contrast and things were not just absorbed without immediate meaning. 

It didn't need to be a twenty minute epic to grab  you by the soul and twist. It was a match that made the most out of every second, even the seconds where Darby was convalescing or Rush was basking, preening, or seething. That sort of inaction and reaction can be just as consequential as any spot, maybe even more so.

No matter how you used that breath during the commercial break, you were almost certainly catching it by the time the match ended. Maybe your heart felt lighter. Maybe you felt inspired to run through a wall. Maybe you were left jittery, not sure what to think, not sure how to feel. But you did feel. Maybe it had pulled you away from the worries of the day. Maybe it had dragged you right through them to the other side. But wherever you were, it wasn't where you had began and you were almost certainly better off for the journey.

Pro wrestling can be so many things.

But it can be this too: organic, raw, visceral, meaningful, beautiful, terrible, and brisk, if only we let go and allow it to be; if only the wrestlers can let go and dive in and commit themselves to it fully and fearlessly.

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

AEW Collision 11/15/25

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

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

It can be an opportunity. 

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

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

It can be an excuse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ROH TV 11/13/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Hyan/Maya World

MD: Here's what makes pro wrestling great. 

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

And all that? That was Athena selling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/6 - 10/12

AEW Collision 10/11/25

LFI (RUSH/Sammy Guevara/Dralistico) vs. MXM TV (Johnny TV/Mason Madden/Mansoor)

MD: Hey, it's a multifunctional TV match. In and out in under 4 minutes, not counting the set up. That gave everything the sense of chaos you want out of a Rush match. Now that Caster's no longer doing the challenge (at least temporarily), this fills that spot on the card, gives fans the surprise of not knowing who will come out, lets Mansoor stooge big (here flipping onto his face and then trying foolishly to attack Rush), lets the challengers figure out how to deal with the problem of Mason Madden (catching him mid-pose with tandem kicks and then dodging him as he crotched himself) and work fairly even with Johnny to start. They fit in a huge spot with Dralistico crashing Johnny into the guardrail on his 'rana, a bit of sizzle with Taya hitting one off the apron herself, and then, just like last week with DCF, the big bomb train on Mansoor. Put LFI over strong to set up their trios titles challenge, entertained the crowd, filled a few minutes, and set things up by having Eddie's music interrupt them for the next match. Perfectly effective pro wrestling right here.

Eddie Kingston vs. Beast Mortos

MD: Another week, another match, another step to climb. You watch Eddie and you feel his pain. When he gets knocked down, that hurts, yeah, because of course it does. But it hurts him to get up too, to turn the body, to get his feet under him, to press up against the weight of the world and find his way back to his feet. It hurts. It doesn't hurt Speedball when he gets up. It doesn't hurt Kevin Knight. It hurts Eddie. Every single time. 

It's a contradiction lately. Every time it gets harder than the last. Yet every time it gets easier too. Because he's working his way back out of his hole, working his way back up to the light, working his way back to who he was when he won the Continental Classic and held three titles at once. 

But yeah, it hurts.

He was more of himself here. Two weeks ago, if he tried a shoulder block on Mortos, he'd crumble. Now he stood firm. He forced Mortos out of the ring, forced him to ask for a time out, forced him to push the dissonance hard. He's so big and so fierce and he had to rely on an eye poke. That hurt too but it probably felt good and right, because Eddie forced him into that spot. That was a victory right there, the only sort of victory Eddie knows, the kind where he ends up with a finger in his eye for his trouble.

Yeah, he went for the uraken right off the bat, because Mortos is a threat and because Eddie's not yet Eddie yet, not really, not all the way. But when that didn't work, he didn't stop, he didn't look down, he kept on pressing. And that meant that while Mortos got the better of him for a time, that he was able to fight back, able to get under him and hit an exploder, and able to hit a uraken that didn't feel like a fluke for once, that felt instead like like a more commanding, more dominant strike. 

So yeah, it hurts, it all hurts, it'll always hurt, but with each step, Eddie gets closer and closer to finding himself once more. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/29 - 10/5

AEW Collision 10/4/25

LFI (RUSH/Sammy Guevara vs Cha Cha Charlie/Shayne Stetson
Eddie Kingston vs Dralistico

MD: It's a bit odd to have both Eddie and Darby back to be honest. I was used to leaning hard on that "And Friends" parenthetical to make these run, and that meant getting to pick and choose as opposed to take what's thrown my way. There's a lot of value in the latter approach because wresting is innately interesting to write about, even when the angle of entry can be trickier. Of course Dustin is down, but that's still a two-to-one difference and probably with more frequent TV matches. Anyway, this was great, because it was two segments with my guys back to back one bleeding right into the next. 

The tag was a rout obviously. I do have a prevailing thought about Sammy. He's very comfortable in the moment now, very good at walking on water. By that I mean that in this pairing, he's less prone to doing one linked spot after the next. Instead he's just sort of living the experience that is teaming with Rush. I don't agree with every single creative decision he makes in these moments (like Charlie dancing here), but I am acutely aware that he's living in them far more than in any previous point of his career. His matches feel more alive. Maybe they feel a little weird as he works out the act with Rush, but it's some of the most interesting work I've ever seen him do, just finding his footing in a world that's so different from late 2010 indies. IF, and this is a big if, this has time to develop, Sammy could come out of this someone to watch.

Eddie's always worth watching but he's especially so in this run. It's very clear after this match what I suspected after the Bill match. He's working a Japanese hurt comeback. Again, I didn't agree with every single creative decision on how he chose to show it, but it was much more overt here. I just wish the announcers would pick up on it. Eddie would do a bit where he'd take a chop and fire back and then take another and just collapse as he tried to fire back the second time. Obviously Eddie would have never wrestled like that usually. So he's really trying to express that he's not well yet, that he's not ok yet, that he's still climbing.

And for the most part, the fans got it... sort of. I'm not sure they knew why Eddie was having so much trouble, but they were willing to stick behind him as he continued to fight and crawl and climb. They clapped him up in the corner, for instance. Of course, then Dralistico committed a cardinal sin and took the claps over for himself without being nearly heelish enough for it.

Still, Eddie kept going, kept mixing gnashing defiance with pained collapse, again and again. And once again he won on a fluke uraken. There's something here and I really do think it's just a matter of better cluing the fans in on it. 

AEW Dynamite 10/1/25

Darby Allin/Kris Statlander vs Wheeler Yuta/Marina Shafir

MD: Not that long ago, we had good reason to rewatch the Brisco Brothers vs Road Warriors Tornado Tag match from 83. While it felt organic and chaotic, both good things, it didn't feel nearly as compelling as we would have liked. Look, I'm the biggest proponent in the world of wrestling that feels alive and gripping in the moment, and most of the time, that means a balance between what's planned and what's natural and plays off the crowd (even if it's played off by calling spots that are memorized and honed through repetition). But in an environment like this, maybe you need a slightly different balance to maximize the potential.

There were a lot of moving parts here. Statlander had just had her big DDP moment, refusing the Death Riders and escaping through the crowd. Frankly, she's in a weird place overall and I can't tell you exactly what they're trying to do with her. That felt like a huge moment and they followed it up here. She obviously has the title, but instead of continuing to brush up against the Death Riders, she's moving towards Toni for the PPV. Kris vs Toni is a huge singles match for the division, but it feels a little like DDP turning down the NWO and immediately feuding with Sting instead of them. 

If that's the case, then it means this was the only chance to blow off the Yuta stuff, and I have to admit, he felt like a big deal here. There was a moment relatively early on after the immediate ambush-driven shine (where Statlander did a great job basing for Shafir climbing all over her by the way) where Darby shifted the tides of fate by crashing into a chair. More on that later, but here it let Yuta really dominate him through the break. We've seen Yuta's skin the cat (slip the cat?) sneak back in after getting tossed with the immediate go-behind into a German but here was the fist time I remember it being used by him as a heel (it's usually a babyface spot!) so effectively as a cutoff for a hope spot. 

The comeback was another one of those twist of fate moments, where Statlander first reversed a suplex out on the announcer table and then a similar one with Yuta, avoiding the thumbtacks he laid out and laying him out onto the sea of chairs they'd tossed into the ring. Look, Darby was here so this was chaotic with a bunch of huge bumps, but it was very controlled chaos, almost ritualistic. As a Tornado Tag they couldn't avoid men and women getting at it like they're usually fairly careful about but even in the sea of violence, it was kept in pocket as an escalation to set up a big moment in the finishing stretch. In that regard, I thought they got the balance just right between discipline and wildness. 

My only regret is that they're not staying with this a bit longer. Marina vs Kris would have been a sufficiently big match for WrestleDream (though with Joe vs Hangman, which will be great but maybe isn't a huge selling point), Toni vs Kris could actually main even the thing. If they needed that, fine, they can always go back to this. But as is, I'm not at all sure that Kris truly finished her redemption story and there's probably still some meat on that bone. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 9/22 - 9/28

AEW Collision 9/27/25

Eddie Kingston/HOOK vs Big Bill/Bryan Keith [Tornado Tag]

MD: So here's what I think is going on. I think Kingston's having a comeback like Japanese wrestlers traditionally come back, where they really struggle in their first few matches and they need to build back up in a very kayfabe sense. Yes, some of it is that he's against Bill, who is, in fact, Big, but that's just the feel I get. He was on the shelf for over a year. He's not as young as he used to be. He's a fighter, a slugger, even a champion, but he's got to pull himself back against some of the hardest competition in the world. It's such an Eddie thing to do. Everything is a struggle. Everything is hard. But then everything becomes worth doing and every victory, even small ones within matches, mean so much more.

The problem is that it's 2025 and we're in the US and no one's actually telling this story in a way that the fans can understand. There hasn't been a video package on it. Commentary isn't talking about it. Here, Bill and Keith took out Eddie early and he was just there on the floor while they double teamed Hook (as it was a tornado tag) and Bill sort of ran interference blocking off Eddie from getting back in. 

And it 100% fit the idea that Eddie has to build back up and regain his strength and power and stamina and just find who he is again and until then, Hook has to survive on faith against adversity. And as an aside, some of his selling as he was pulling himself up with the ropes was just excellent. Best I've seen out of him. Worth noting. BUT to the fans in that audience, I think they just had no idea why Eddie wasn't rushing the ring, because he's Eddie, and of course he wants to get in a fight. And eventually they did and of course they got behind him then, but the last thing you can afford is for fans to question their faith in Eddie because things just aren't properly explained to them.

ROH TV 9/25/25

LFI (RUSH/Sammy Guevara) vs Ross/Marshall Von Erich

MD: This was filmed during the Philly residency, towards the end, and it definitely had a lot working against it. Sons of Texas vs Shane Taylor Promotions and Rush/Sammy vs Outrunners both worked because the crowd had someone to latch on to. But in neither case, that someone was one of the teams in this match. They were anti-Texas and anti-cowboys and they were certainly anti-Sammy. They were vaguely pro-Rush but it's easy to get behind the Outrunners, even in Philly. If this was in WV the following week, it probably would have worked better.

This was closing the circle on the Sammy turn and checking the box but it could have been a lot more heated and a lot more fiery but I think they knew the crowd wouldn't get behind it as much. It needed a bit more because I've never quite seen THESE Von Erichs in a situation where they could get hot like their dad and uncle (and that could still come if they ran this back in Texas or somewhere else) and because Sammy and Rush are still coming together. Sammy's sort of figuring out the act and the possibility in the moment. And there is a lot to tap into there given the personalities at play but you kind of wish they could get a house show run to work it all out first. 

So instead of the Von Erichs getting revenge for what Sammy did and almost getting the titles, the crowd bounced all over the place until they had fun with Marshall's hat. That, at least, built to a nice moment of comeback but ultimately, I think this just had too much working against it. If they ran it back in two months in front of a different crowd, who knows? 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/25 - 8/31

AEW Dynamite 8/27/25

Darby Allin vs Claudio Castagnoli (Falls Count Anywhere)

MD: Johnny Valentine is attributed with the quote "I can't make them believe that wrestling is real, but I can make them believe I'm real," and it's a quote that doesn't have a lot of meaning in 2025, that shouldn't have a lot of meaning in a post-kayfabe world. But Darby makes it mean something. In so many ways, this was a tribute to ECW, the most of which being the tribute to the Bam Bam vs Spike press slam.

But my memory of ECW had a lot more garbage can lid shots. Not quite this. Even that press slam was into the crowd which was somehow softer than the announce desk. That had more of a celebratory feel to it and this was far more grisly, the commentary cutting out so that the trainwreck could happen in deathly silence save for whatever utterances the shocked crowd could make.

And even then, the bumps kept coming. And even then, Darby's primary offense was to use his own body as a weapon, and Claudio flaunted his superhuman strength, something that we all believe is very real indeed. And when Claudio shows real personality like his annoyed impatience at the commentary team taking too long to move? He's even better.

I have things that I prefer in wrestling. My prevailing logic is that the best wrestlers are the ones who get the absolute most out of the absolute least. That's the artistry to me. But I'm not about to deny how special Darby's bumps are, not about to diminish how he puts his body on the line. But I'm also not about to say that's the entirety of the equation. 

Because it's not. 

How did Claudio get Darby into Press Slam position in the first place? Darby had been in the midst of a comeback after all. He had just climbed a support pillar and launched his own body into Claudio. He was in charge for maybe the first time in the match. But then his body simply gave out. In the midst of firing off, he dropped to his knee, held his back. No one else in wrestling is selling like this. No one else makes sure to show the toll of absolutely everything in the way that he moves. So many others would take offense and then move absolutely normally when it was their turn to take over. Not Darby. He makes you feel like he's real, like he's in that much agony, and here it served the story and let Claudio fire back. 

Likewise when he was mounting a defiant comeback on the floor. You can call it late match selling or full body selling, but even just moving away from Claudio, even just leaning into throw a shot, the way that his body lurched and strained and stumbled was best in the world stuff. People may complain about the bumps, but so long as he sells like that, they're not gratuitous. Do I think they're essential? For someone that can sell this well? It's tricky because the audience is conditioned to expect certain things from him and they're conditioned to think he can take a certain amount of damage, but then wrestling is symbolic and fans can be conditioned otherwise. I personally think he could get by with one big bump a match instead of seven. Or even one big bump every three matches and it'd all mean just a little more. He's that good at selling and he'd still make it feel that real.

But either way I can't deny how great it is to have him back on his TV. And either way I'm sure as hell not about to look away because both the car crash and Darby somehow walking away (and triumphing!) are some of the most compelling things in pro wrestling..  

ROH Death Before Dishonor 8/29/25

RUSH/Sammy Guevara vs Outrunners 

MD: And lo, we change out Dustin for Rush and TK continues to get me to write about Sammy Guevara. The good news here is that he was made for the 2300 Arena and these Philly Fans who were born to hate him. And honestly, I really liked the dynamic between him and Rush. I likened Rush to Randy Savage not long ago and the parallels are striking. He has that same unpredictable energy, puts his all into his physicality, expresses a sort of paranoia thinking the world is out to get him in the ring.

And he cares first and foremost and entirely earnestly about his family. He loves his dad, just like Savage loved Poffo. He looks out for his brother, just like Savage looked out for Lanny. And here, Sammy became a new brother to him, and it was touching in its own twisted way. Rush seemed honestly thrilled for everything Sammy did. When the fans were chanting expletives at him, all he heard was the world singing his new brother's praises. 

Sammy fell right in line. It wasn't always smooth but it was always natural. When Rush dropped down into the Tranquilo pose, it took Sammy a second to catch up, but when he did, he did his breakdance spin right down to match him. They weren't always on the same page, but they got there, and once they did, the act worked for all its contrast and for how heartfelt Rush, monster that he is, seemed to be about the arrangement. 

And the Outrunners played their part. A lot of that was to give Rush and Sammy something to push against, but they're an act that probably would have gotten grief in the Arena at various points (and probably would have been over big at others; it depends on where they were in their lifecycle), here everything built well to the double elbow. That's one other thing about Rush relative to Savage. Despite his need to look tough and protect himself, he's still willing to give when it's times to give, willing to play ball to serve the match. I imagine that's doubly so when he's going over and winning a belt.

Anyway, on night one, this act worked. We'll see what sort of staying power it has and how consistent Rush can be with it. 

Athena vs Mina Shirakawa

MD: The fact that this match kept the crowd after the spectacle that was Bandido vs Hechicero is remarkable. Some of that is that the finishing stretch in that match was a little more measured than Bandido vs Takeshita despite still being huge and weighty, but so much of that was on the two personalities at play here. 

Mina is magnetic, electric. She is a star. She knows how to work a crowd, to move hearts and minds like an idol is trained to. And Athena has the best reactions in wrestling. And react she did, fuming, seething, furious over Mina's antics, even before the bell as her new Meanie Minion let his eyes and notoriously weak attention span wander and as Mina played right in to the Philly/Dallas rivalry.

They were evenly matched to start, but Athena was a half step off her game, thrown as she was. It meant Mina was the aggressor, and again, Athena's reactions here, just the look on her face as she successfully cartwheeled out of a headscissors takeover only to have to avoid a series of kicks... it's like nothing else in wrestling today. She's so alive in the moment, so present, so able to cut all the strings and just exist as her character at all times.

They set it up early to make it seem like Mina believably had her number, right to the moment where that damaged hand went smack into the ringpost on the outside. Athena dodged, expressed true malicious glee at the mishap that followed, and immediately went to work. She smacked the hand on the commentary booth, smashed it behind the stairs, tied it up in a turnbuckle pad and kicked away. She wrestled like a madwoman unleashed, embodied the chaos that she, a fallen goddess, represents. She took her time, playing to the crowd, dancing, smiling, facewashing Mina with her foot. Sometimes it let Mina get a moment of hope, but she snatched it away. A complete performance by maybe the most immersive performer in wrestling.  

The character of Athena rides these waves of chaos and fury, and sometimes, it doesn't work out for her. Here, she had her heart set on hitting a running kick on Mina while she was seated on the outside. It failed once. It failed twice, and suddenly the match opened back up. Athena's leg was wounded and Mina honed in on it, both with offense like the ringpost figure-four and with cutoffs like a dragon whip on the way back in. All throughout, Athena's selling was amazing, working on one leg, fighting through the pain but making every effort seem almost mythic. 

In 2025, the most interesting way to talk about wrestling isn't necessarily to note dropped limbwork. So long as it's plausible, I look at it more of a lost opportunity than anything else, primarily because of how compelling Athena's limping selling was here, because of how much weight it gave everything in the match. Even then, I don't know if I'd have been frustrated by Mina dropping the hand selling through her working on Athena's leg and the big bombthrowing that following except for the fact that it started with the hand being broken and they went back to it at the end. Just something to note. For me, if Mina gave some lip service to it through the third quarter of the match, it would have kept everything tighter. More of a lost opportunity than an overall blemish.

That's because last quarter of the match was incredibly compelling, with them slugging on their knees, throwing bombs, the drama of the Koji Clutch and the Figure-Four, how Athena stopped the Glamorous Driver Mina by going to the hand and then survived it when Mina finally hit it. And at every point, whether she was kipping up or escaping the third Driver attempt by going up and over, Athena showed the toll of the match by selling that leg, by reacting in the moment, by being the most alive pro wrestler in the world. 

So they kept the crowd even though that was a minor miracle, and so Athena had another great match as she marches on to 1000 well-deserved days. 

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

AEW Collision 8/9/25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CMLL Viernes Espectacular 8/1/25

MJF vs Averno

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

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

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

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

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

AEW Dynamite 7/30/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Toni Storm/Alex Windsor

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

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

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

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

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Max Caster vs Rush

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

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

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

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

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

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/26 - 6/1

AEW Collision 5/25/25

Top Flight/AR Fox vs RUSH/Beast Mortos/Dralistico

MD: One of my favorite lines is that wrestling isn't math except for maybe when it comes to tag team structure. The idea there is that tags work best when the heat is longer than the shine or everything breaking down in the finishing stretch. That way you build up the drama, bring the crowd up for hope spots, take them down for cutoffs, and squeeze as much pressure out of things as possible before the hot tag. But so much of what I believe in is to set up baselines. Baselines are useful to ensure that the crowd has a certain expectation and reacts accordingly, but they're also useful because once in a blue moon you can subvert them to high effect. If you don't have baselines or if you subvert them too often, then you may create sensation in the moment, but it tends to lack substance and staying power.

If there was a set baseline for tag team wrestling in AEW (and I'd argue that it's iffy at best) this match would have done a great job subverting. It had everything break down right from the get go and only settle down into a sort of heat midway through before everything went wild again. LFI create a special sort of chaos that allows for this, the same way that Abby or Brody might in years past. Here, they ambushed right from the get go, tossing Top Flight to the floor and focusing on Fox. Rush pulled off the pad and they immediately made the exposed buckle dangerously important by having Fox do everything in his power to avoid being slammed into it. Because of their cruelty and hubris in not settling on violence but instead wanting to escalate things, Fox was able to get some space and set up a huge dive train (with Rush plastering Fox on the floor after he crashed into Dralistico and Dante hitting an absolutely crazy dive on Mortos before hyping up the crowd).

The heat then only started when they managed to finally toss Fox into that exposed buckle to cut off the early comeback. Chekhov's Gun loaded and fired to high effect. I would have liked to see the buckle play into things a little more afterwards but it was absolutely necessarily. After the break, Darius took the hot tag and hit his usual hot comeback sequence and everything broke down again, before LFI finally swept them under for a definitive win. So yes, way too much chaos and mayhem instead of building up pressure but by starting with the heels in charge and basically trading in the shine for that extra bit of heat and two comebacks, it all still worked out okay. Still, the more they stick to establishing that baseline, the more an exception like this will feel extraordinary and not just commonplace. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/21 - 4/27

AEW Collision 4/26/25

RUSH vs AR Fox

MD: I liked this because it was so different than almost every other AEW match. It didn't go two segments. There wasn't a commercial break in the middle. Yet Fox is a guy who has gotten both focus and competitive matches as of late. You need baselines and certain things are timed for ratings, but now and again you need exceptions, for things to feel different, to be weighed by hierarchy. I actually think the company's been doing a pretty good job of that at late, whether it be the use of Blake Christian or Max Caster's challenges or what. It keeps things moving, gives an air of unpredictability and makes stars feel like stars.

Fox is very good at what he does and while not all of those things are always the things I value the most, he does enough of what I value extremely well that I'm certainly happy to give him credit. Here, right from the get go, as Rush charged in with a forearm, he bumped and sold all around ringside, not just throwing his body into it, but being vocal and expressive. This wasn't going to go long but Fox went out of his way to make every moment jump off the screen. While that's not necessarily hard when you're up against rush, this was not a one man show and the sum of these two together was more than if Rush was up against someone without Fox's talent.

Then, after Rush took him just a little too lightly (tranquilo) and Fox came back. With just two or three moves, Fox left an indelible mark in the people watching live that night. It was a packed show, to the extent that the crowd couldn't quite get up for a really good main event (Kyle needed to be bleeding as he was fighting back defiantly, sorry; that's probably what the match needed). But they're not going to forget just how far Fox sailed across the ring from the top with his swanton (after he ran around the ring to get Rush from a surprise angle on it which was a clever but you don't usually ever see). Rush shut him down almost immediately thereafter but it did hit all the marks. Not everything has to shoot for all the stars. This was efficient and effective and I wouldn't mind seeing them run it back with Fox getting just a little closer.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 2/3 - 2/9

ROH 2/07/25
AEW Collision 2/08/25

Athena vs Carolina Cruz
Dustin Rhodes vs Izzy James
LFI (Rush/Dralistico/The Beast Mortos) vs Ares Alexander/Brick Savage/Jay Alexander

MD: All squashes for my guys this week. So let's talk about squash matches and these ones in specific. A wrestling company should use every tool at its disposal. One of the things that drew me to AEW when I started watching in 2021 were the Dark/Elevation squash matches. I like contrast. I like a baseline that can be used to escalation from. All three of these matches had purpose, function, form. None of them went particularly long (though the ROH match had more time to breathe because ROH has less constraints). All of them allowed some idea or concept to be brought into the world in a way that felt organic and natural and not overly contrived.

Athena's match was at Daily's Place, and had that real Dark feel to it (with a crowd nutty enough to chant Blue Pants at Adam Priest of all people, even as he got over in front of them). It was her first match back after her time in Japan and it reminded people just who she was, that cross-section of intensity, unpredictability, and malicious mirth. She sat Billie down at ringside and made her watch. She menaced Paul Turner. She shook Cruz' hand clean but then assaulted her. And then post-match, she beat her around the ringside area like she was Stan Hansen. Billie interjected but it was both too late and too little (also too little to incur Athena's wrath). So it was a stagesetter to remind people where things stood and hint just a little of where they may one day end up.

Dustin's was reminiscent of one of his last times on Collision, then against Johnny TV. This was to heat him up for MJF and give him an excuse to do a post-match promo. The promo then had been on Jack Perry and him aping Hard Times. The last two or three promos from Dustin have been more from the heart and better off for it. This was only a few moves deep but I like that one of them was the Cross Rhodes because it was a big screw you to MJF for invoking Cody's existence and main event status, just a standing tall babyface act of defiance to show that Max can't get under his skin. I loved the MJF vs Templario and MJF vs Oku matches last year, by far my favorite of his (with the Strong match #3). I'd love that same invading heel champion spirit in Austin, like Flair in Dallas. I think it would work great over the crowd (if, as always, Max is just confident enough in himself to let himself stooge/feed/cheat/heel).

That brings us to LFI. No dissension between the brother and Mortos despite what we saw last week. This was each guy getting one shot in to set up a post-match. They'd focused so singularly on one opponent each getting over a big move, that the other two were fresh and fired back until they got swept under. That led to Komander trying to make a save but falling to the numbers game and Hologram finally getting to make his big return. All functional stuff that will likely set up a match between these guys who are generally used a attractions.

Three squash matches, three different purposes, all character driven and character based and all moving things along in their own way. These matches existing allows for a different narrative effect than just having backstage promos interrupted or having fairly even fifteen minute matches. Every tool at the disposal. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/27 - 2/2

AEW Collision 2/1/25

RUSH vs Max Caster

MD: I can write hundreds of words about how and why Bowens could be the Kobashi of AEW if he just believed that he could be, that he's the perfect wrestler for the back half of this decade, that he's the perfect wrestler to differentiate AEW from WWE, that he can be organic in every way they're plastic, heartfelt in every way they're self-referential, an underdog that gets closer and closer and closer to the goal with the fans behind him every step of the way.

But Anthony Bowens was not in this match. Max Caster was. And I think maybe he turned a corner here, weirdly enough. The consistent low key matter-of-fact confidence, the denial of reality around himself, the way he put his hand up to do the LFI salute in a kind of "yeah, yeah, right?" way. "Go away" heat is a thing, and I don't quite think Caster reached that point yet. What is "Go away" heat? There's something I like to call the Samoa Joe test. Would the fans rather see a wrestler get beat up by Samoa Joe or would they just rather not see the wrestler at all. For instance, I do not think the fans would currently want to see Chris Jericho get beat up by Samoa Joe more than they would just not want to see Chris Jericho (Here is my major thought on 2025 Chris Jericho btw: https://x.com/MattD_SC/status/1886137775092584452). I think they still would very much enjoy seeing Caster beat up. I think they liked it here.

Speaking of wrestlers pulling from the past, I half think that Blake Christian is well on his way (if he wants it and he should because it fills a niche) to becoming another sort of sleazy player/coach in a Chicky Starr vein, but maybe it's Caster that can bring in a heavy (Mad Dog Connelly's still out there!) and shift half a step to the side. Because otherwise, I'm just not sure what the payoff is here. People will enjoy an open challenge where Caster gets thrashed as an attraction but only for so long. They had him lose right out of the gate so it's not like they're building to him getting comeuppance either. Nor does anyone want to see him redeem himself. So I just don't know... Unless the answer is him bringing in a monster and shifting half a step to the left to manage him, wrestling occasionally (while still proclaiming that he's the best of course). We'll see, I guess.

Which brings us back to RUSH. Love Rush. Loved him here. Loved him crashing across the ring to squash Caster. I talked him up huge a month or two ago and if you believe the internet news, he then got suspended for taking liberties (again) immediately thereafter. He is so visceral and unplanned (feeling) and dynamic. He's totally different from everything else in the company, certainly different from what WWE offers. The poster-child for that difference, but it's a double-edged sword and he leans too hard into who he portrays. You don't get the genius without the madness and all that, but I am not unsympathetic that they can't do more with him.

Now I have wonder if the answer isn't even to try. Use him like they use Suzuki instead. Let him wrestle in Mexico or New Japan (Strong?) or RevPro and then bring him back in as an attraction. I still think the way to sell out All In Texas is to pay LA Park to lose the mask to him, but if you can't do that, then just bring him in now and again to create a buzzworthy match where he can lose after taking his pound of flesh. I don't know what else can be done if he's not able to be counted on week to week. Maybe they should lean into the rumors, play up the idea that he's unpredictable and you never know what you'll get from him. You can't contain what makes him special. You can just hope to channel it in a positive direction.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/11 - 11/17

ROH 11/14/24

Dustin Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs Love Doug/TJ Crawford

MD: Dutch having Dusty's cowbell as one of his last students is a good compelling real life wrinkle to the feud. I think on some level, I don't want to think about Dutch having a life outside of being a member of the Righteous though. It's not like they're wildly fleshed out as characters. I don't know why Vincent became who he is. He's just here fully formed and snapping, so it's kind of weird to think of Dutch in development doing promo class with Dusty. It'd be interesting if they were able to link this to how he fell somehow. I guess it's a sort of "don't open the door, unless you are willing to fully walk through it" sort of deal. Unless they're putting the belts on the Righteous, they're kind of okay as two dimensional characters who serve as physical threats. If they're going to try to do anything more out of them, I think we need to get to the heart of what makes them tick more. This could be a good step along that road or it could be messy depending on how this places out.

Likewise, the idea of Dustin and Sammy having a tag match and the Righteous having one on the same show, with a Righteous beat down after the former, is a pretty good bit of work too. Just nice, straightforward booking keeping things moving. Here it let them introduce the cowbell too, carried by the commentary. And the Righteous' new finisher which is Vincent picking someone up in a fireman's carry and then Dutch hefting both of them over his shoulder. 

The match itself was fun fluff with Shot Through the Heart feeding and feeding and feeding, with no care for the rules. Normally, I'd cry foul but they basically just kept running into Dustin and Sammy's offense, save for a brief respite while they were waiting for Sammy to hit a dive. It fit the characters. It fit the moment. It put Dustin and Sammy over strong right before they were about to get wiped out and the emotional element was to be introduced. Just good episodic pro wrestling TV.

AEW Rampage 11/15/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs Alec Price/Richard Holliday

AEW Collision 11/16/24

RUSH/The Beast Mortos vs The Acclaimed

MD: The squash on Rampage was effective. We've seen Mortos basing for smaller luchadores and working against other talent equal, but it was very nice to see him just crushing people. The Buzz Sawyer-esque power slam stood out as much as anything else. 

The Acclaimed match needs to be unpacked a little more. Let's talk about the Acclaimed first. Something has to give. I don't know what that is yet. Traditional pro wrestling booking would have it look like Caster was going to go with the Hurt Syndicate and Bowens be the one to do it first. That would be a mistake. For one, Caster can't be a babyface. He took the FIP here and it felt GOOD. It felt great to see Rush take the cord and flip him over his head to the floor. That was one of the most refreshing, rewarding, satisfying moments of the year in AEW. You want to see him get beat up. And it's wrestling, so he can use that, not as some sort of edgelord heel like he's been as a face, but instead as a stooging, heatseeking, scummy, scuzzy Eric Embry/Rip Rogers type. It's obvious by this point that Perry isn't going to really lean into that so there's still a window. 

That leaves us with Bowens. I think Bowens could be a successful aggressive, athletic heel, sure. But why? He's one of the two most likable guys in the company off screen. He's got a great story. People want to get behind him. He's short which would be a detriment as a heel but works fine as a babyface who can go and who can bring it. Look, I get it. Whatever the company wants to do right now, it's not Tsuruta-gun vs the Super Generation Army. Maybe we'll get there in a few months, maybe not. Daniel Garcia is Misawa in that case. He's 100% Miswa, unquestionably Misawa. Maybe Hook is Kawada, maybe not. There was a world where Yuta could have been Kobashi but he's Taue now, the turncoat. Bowens is one of the only guys in the company that can be Kobashi, that can push up against monsters bigger and stronger with him through heart and intensity and passion alone. Just let him be himself and let him face off against all the darkness in the world. The fans will get behind him. They got behind the Acclaimed an idea, a concept, a hand gesture, an attitude. They'll get behind Bowens as a person. I'm sure of it. He just needs to believe in himself and to have the company believe in him. The fans believing in him? That's the easy part. 

And then there are RUSH and Mortos. Given what's happening with the Acclaimed right now and just the general positioning of LFI I would have much preferred a roll up pin after Mortos wiped out in the corner as opposed to him eating the Arrival/Mic Drop combo. It might be counter intuitive but one protects him more than the other. You can forgive a banana peel roll up more. 

Here's another "Look". Look, I get that RUSH has a history of... you know, everything under the sun, right? Being uncooperative, having a few injuries, supporting Cuatrero, all sorts of stuff. But if you're going to have him on your roster and pay him well and use him steadily anyway, USE HIM. There are maybe four people on the roster (with two of them being Mox and Athena) who can bring the same level of seething, immersive intensity. Rush is a generational talent. When he was gone more often then not, it was fine to use him as a sort of gatekeeper/mercenary for bounty situations because he's instantly credible just by showing up in the ring. Now that he's a more of a weekly character, he can't just be a normal guy. 

I'm pretty sure that one of the biggest matches they can put on for the Texas All In, at least if you care about walkup, is finally getting LA Park to put his mask up against Rush's hair. Rush's hair was one of the biggest draws in Mexico for years in the 2010s. Granted, I don't know the lucha politics nor do I want to in this case. The point more is this. He draws the eye. He captures attention. He has that feel to him of "Well, it's not all real, but maybe it's a little real when this guy is in there." Someone said a few days ago that if Rush knew what Caster had been saying on his rap, the match might have gone very differently. Obviously on one level you don't want that, but it's a double-edged sword. Genius and madness go hand in hand in pro wrestling, and you have to tap into the talent you have as much as possible. Give him a brass knucks title and feud him with the wildest people on the roster. Build to he and Moxley completely dismantling the set in the world's craziest no contest. Make him the threat that Bowens has to overcome over time like Hansen to Kobashi. Something. Anything. He's lightning in a bottle. Use him to light up the world.

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