AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/1 - 12/7 Part 2

ROH Final Battle 12/5/25

Athena vs Persephone

In so many ways, pro wrestling storytelling is about the creative and strategic demonstration of vulnerability. Both babyfaces and heels find their true strength in knowing when and how to deploy it.

This then was a story of three vulnerabilities.

Coming into the match, Persephone had Athena's number. Maybe Athena is a fallen goddess but Persephone is one at the height of her youthful power. She was able to keep up with her athletically to start, no small feat. Even when Athena got a temporary advantage, Persephone turned it back around. When she went to mind games, switching hands and dancing to mock Persephone (and maybe her superior strength) on the test of strength, Athena got clocked in the face for her trouble. 

The champion allowed the cracks to show, heading to the floor for a time out. She returned to the ring with another left-handed handshake (the first one refused by Persephone). This was a ploy for her can't miss magic forearm, but her younger opponent had her scouted and avoided it. Back on the floor, Athena tried to whip Persephone into the rail only to have it turned around on her. Nothing was working. Everything was failing. The walls were closing in already. 

That left her desperate, full of an emotional sort of vulnerability that she was confident enough to show. Diamante was out to second her, and she saved her boss from getting tossed into the stairs (generally Athena's own tactic). That allowed Athena to launch an ambush. She dove off of the stairs at Persephone knee-first, but Diamante's presence meant she couldn't hit a meteora but instead had to drop backwards into a code-breaker, taking the advantage but also badly harming her back.

She carried that second vulnerability with her for the rest of the match. It defined everything she did, every reaction, every bit of strategy, the possibilities at play. Selling isn't about holding your back after a move. It's not even about holding your back before a move. It shows consequence, yes, but it also defines the state of play for a character. Athena, far better than most, portrayed this pain throughout everything she did. It impacted how she moved across the ring, how she hefted Persephone up for a suplex, how she failed to heft her up for her more advanced signature offense. It made her a half step slow and a half step sloppy. It increased her desperation and doubled her paranoia. It created an underpinning of panic even as she tried to celebrate her advantage (and all but caused Athena's eyes to bug out as Persephone lifted her up out of the Koji Clutch down the stretch). 

And of course, it ultimately lead to Persephone not only being able to come back, but also able to put Athena's title at as much risk as it had ever been.

To defeat Athena, a wrestler has to not just be lucky, as Persephone was here (even if she had created her own luck) but also, as a character, be able to wrestle their very best match.

And that was the third vulnerability, Persephone's relative youth and overexuberance. 

Once she took back over from Athena and started doing damage, she repeatedly took her eyes off the prize. Right after taking over, she made a little pose as if the belt was around her waist. Her first real cover was lackadaisical. After slamming Athena into the announce table brutally, she went out of her way to say it had been for the commentary team and stuck her tongue out to either them or the crowd. 

And most of all, after finally hitting her Razor's Edge finisher, after Athena still managed to barely kick out, she completely lost her cool, pounding on Athena wildly and rushing up to the top rope to try to put her away. Athena followed her up, hit a killer German back into the ring, and then dropped her with the O-Face for a skin-of-her-teeth win.

Wrestling isn't math, of course, but a good match can often be defined by one good vulnerability. This one had three and it was the mix of the three, two character driven and one a situational result from one of the others, and the wrestlers' dedication and courage to show such weaknesses, that made this match sing.

Eddie Kingston vs Josh Woods

MD: Never in the history of pro wrestling has a tune-up match been more necessary.

In fact, I'm not entirely sure that a tune-up match has actually ever been necessary before this. Usually it's just a way to get a little more heat/momentum for a wrestler before a bigger match. That's not even true. Usually it's just a way to fill TV time and allow the announcers to hype the upcoming bigger match. Rarely does it make sense in practice. 

Here it absolutely did.

Look, I love Eddie Kingston. We all love Eddie Kingston here. And yeah, he's been interesting to write about, and I am absolutely looking forward to write about his match with Samoa Joe. While I'm going to be surprised by how it plays out, I've got the hook in my head already (not that Hook). 

But he has been trudging through mud. He came back from injury and through design or simple reality (pretty sure it's design), he's been slugging it out, one step after another, dragging the weight of all that he is behind him. It's going to seem counter-intuitive to some people, but that's compelling. The best match is not necessarily the one that moves the fastest and hits the cleanest. It's not the one with the most stuff. When you come across a match or a story where you actually have to invest time, effort, focus, patience, almost always, the payoff there, so long as there is payoff, can mean even more. Anyone can invest in an Ospreay match, right? It's candy. It's fluff. It's special effects. This is a journey. And it's a risk too. You know Ospreay's going to get you where you're going, even if you're a baby strapped into a car seat and going around the block to make you stop crying. 

You can trudge through the wasteland watching Eddie Kingston and who knows if you have any idea if you're going to actually get there. Maybe, in 2023 you did. We're in 2025 now, almost 2026, and who the hell knows? 

But you know what? I think this match took us one step closer. 

It reminded me of Roderick Strong vs Erick Stevens that I wrote-up recently. 

Much like Stevens in that match, Eddie knew he needed something from Woods. What made this a tune-up is that you could squint and see Woods in the Ops. He's got that same sort of dogged skill. It's exactly what Eddie needed to throw himself up against.

And I think he worked the match like someone who knew he had to pick up speed, dragging all that weight behind.

They shook at the beginning (it's ROH after all) and Eddie got him right in the corner, and he didn't chop. Why not? Because chopping then and there wouldn't help him. It wouldn't give him what he needed. Now, later on, after Woods had wrenched at his arm, had tossed him around a bit, had charged at him from three different corners. When Eddie chopped later on? Well, then it mattered, it showed that he had it in him, that he could slug, that he could fight. It reminded a body that's still waking up from a year+ out of the ring what it's like to fire back. But he needed something to fire back against first. When Eddie hefted him up to top rope and slung both of them off with a superplex? That's not something you see Eddie do all that much, but he needed that impact, he needed to jar his bones and his spirit, to realign his spine so it could be one with the ring. And when he dropped the strap and started tossing Woods around? Well, that just felt right, didn't it? In a way things hadn't felt right for a long time. When he had dropped the strap against Shibata recently, he got a cheapshot for his trouble. This though? This was one step back towards the light, one step towards the promised land. And then, when he shouted Samoa Joe's name before hitting the DDT and picking up the win? Well, you ask me, that shout wasn't for Joe and that shout wasn't for us, but that shout was for Eddie, because he still needs to feel it, because maybe, probably, unfortunately, tune-up match or no, he's not quite there yet.

But here's the thing. All that weight Eddie's dragging? It's emotional weight. And if you let go and invest and have patience, he'll end up dragging you along with it and you'll get where he's going and it may not be where you thought you wanted to be, but it's where you needed to be. And honestly? That's a hell of a thing for pro wrestling to accomplish. Let's see how far he can take us on Wednesday Night.