AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 6/16 - 6/22

AEW Dynamite 6/18/25

MJF vs. Mistico

MD: MJF presented himself at his most noxious, donning once again his USA (Gringo Loco) styled gear from his International (American) title run from last year. He was flanked by the Hurt Syndicate, out there with their belts. He jawed with the crowd. He sat on the top turnbuckle staring towards the top of the ramp, Lashley, Benjamin, MVP in front of him. 

And then the music hit. There was always a shrouded religiosity to Mistico, maybe not even so shrouded as he had debuted as a worked disciple of Fray Tormenta, but this felt like a religious experience, like a true celebration, as over ten thousand faithful sang along to Me Muero. And it should well be celebrated. While the moment made for amazing TV, while it went viral perhaps, it's not something you'd see on the other channel. 

For decades, that would have been because of Vince McMahon and his incessant need to control and repackage, to build on success elsewhere by tearing down and rebuilding in his own image. This instinct was bad enough in the 80s and 90s, where humiliation and self-loathing self-consciousness towards the industry that was making him rich ruled. It was even worse in the 00s and beyond when he had won the wars (and failed at every other outside endeavor). 

Now, it's less about spite and spittle-laden snarling ego and far more about simple business. TKO/WWE doesn't want to promote any wrestling that they don't fully control. Maybe they'll bring in someone like Hendry but it will be attached to their own development brand, a way of showing everything else to be lesser than WWE, or if it makes it into the spotlight, it will be to show the world its true and proper place as a vassal. It's in TKO's interest to present all wrestling traditions, both in the States and worldwide, as secondary and subservient to WWE, to rename and reconfigure so that it can own as much as possible and profit off of all of it as much as possible. It's all just business now. 

This was not. This was reverent and respectful. This was Tony Khan going into someone else's home and giving them a gift, one that did not tout the glory of AEW but instead paid homage to their own wants and dreams and desires. 

Maybe it was bad business, but it was beautiful pro wrestling. 

And it left MJF sitting there, covering his ears, staring out a crowd smiling and singing and reveling. It left him fuming like a petulant child because the world did not revolve around him. And it set the tone perfectly for the match to come. 

This was a man not just at war with a wrestler, but with a crowd, with a people, with the Other, with the advice of his mentor, with the raging torment of self-consciousness and self-loathing within his own heart. If Mistico's entrance, the music, the symbolic tearing off of the Sin Cara mask, the brandishing of the flag, and the appeals towards the crowd, was a celebration of pro wrestling, of lucha libre, of culture, then MJF, taking it all in and overreacting like as in immature scrooge, served as no less than a stand-in for Vince himself, and here, upon this holy ground, he put himself forth so that pro wrestling could symbolically defeat him.  

In many ways, Mistico is the perfect opponent for MJF, because Mistico is a star. He's not a star just because he was presented as one, not in 2025. He's not a star because he can do amazing physical feats that no one else can match, not in 2025 when his handspring back elbow has him landing on his feet. Maybe all of those things led him to being a star over the years, but he grew into that role and learned from the experience and now he gets it as well as anyone alive. He knows when to appeal to the crowd, knows when to fire up, knows when to shrink down, knows when to fan the flames and lower them. That is no small thing. There are only so many true stars left in the world of pro wrestling, here in this age where the tenets of workrate and of the junior heavyweight style have won their own wars. 

MJF knows what to do with a star babyface. He knows what to do with a hot crowd that's inclined to hate his guts. To his credit, he knew what to do with MVP on the outside as well. The answer? Commit. Commit fully. In this case, that meant a performance where he tried to make it seem like he was above it all, like it was all beneath him, but the harder he leaned into that, the more he let the crowd know how much it was getting to him. It was in the look on his face, in the way he moved, in the shortcuts he took, in the way he couldn't press an advantage directly but instead had to grind and taunt, had to tear the mask, had to try to humiliate Mistico (and thus the crowd) instead of just beating him. 

When put in an environment like this, he knows how to strike the balance so well. It meant Mistico surprised him early with a Code Red, treated more like a stinging shot to give him comeuppance for his antics to show him that he couldn't simply have his way with Mistico. Later when Misticio tried it when it'd matter more, he had an answer. It meant that he made full use of the Hurt Syndicate, both as a transition where he hid behind them only to burst through and then later to help punctuate his cutoffs of Mistico's hope spots, tossing him out and distracting the ref as he did damage.

And Mistico's hope spots were just as good as you'd want, because he knew when and how to bring the fire and then when to, for instance, have have Shelton put it out with by dropping him on the guardrail. Maybe the best bit of hope was towards the end of the match as MJF was retreating, letting frustration overtake him. Max made it to the top of the ramp but then caught a charging Mistico and drove him down with the most forbidden of all moves, the Martinete, a tombstone onto the unforgiving ramp (not like the ring was all that more forgiving, but that's beside the point). By then, MJF would have been content with a countout, but Mistico, bolstered by the crowd, sat up heroically before forcing himself to stumble back towards the ring, finding a way to have his cake (the heroic moment) and eat it too (the selling to further engage the crowd) like the star he is. 

What makes MJF stand out relative to some of the more ironic heels of the 2010s (some of which lingered into the 2020s) is vulnerability. The character tries to make it seem like he's better than everyone and everything around him, but through his actions and expressiveness, he shows how much he cares. He's constantly selling every slight perceived or otherwise, and the more he tries to deny it, the more blatant it becomes. It shapes his actions, so that even when he wins, he loses on some level. But he still wins, and everyone else has to deal with him and his inner writhing and the fact that they can't escape him. And thus he gets heat and thus the cycle continues. In some ways, he's perfectly made for our times. And he was perfectly made here to survive La Mistica due to Hurt Syndicate distraction and then, after Mistico survived a foul (that other all powerful weapon of lucha libre) behind the ref's back, lose his cool, throwing a second foul right in the ref's face.

He lost by DQ. He lost because he got upset. He lost because he no longer had faith that he'd be able to win. He lost all the more so with his post-match antics taking Mistico's mask, but he can claim victory for the image of him standing there wearing the mask. And that's a heel for you. He loses when he loses. He loses when he wins. But he claims otherwise either way. Vulnerability is everything and more often than not, Max is brave enough to embrace it. Against a star, in front of a crowd like this, with the sanctity of pro wrestling itself on the line, it is, as I noted, beautiful, beautiful stuff.