AEW Fight for the Fallen

“This is great pro wrestling, because the fans are loving this.” These were the words of All Elite Wrestling commentator Jim Ross and, though the man possesses at least some bias in that he works for the company, they adequately characterized AEW’s July super-card Fight for the Fallen. In spite of a few hiccups, Fight for the Fallen reclaimed some dignity for professional wrestling, both in the ring and out.

Most of the matches impressed, especially the tag team contests. Early on in the card, a three-way tag match featuring the Dark Order (Evil Uno and Stu Grayson), Anjelico and Jack Evans, and the team of Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy, set a sizzling, spot-happy pace. It was hard to keep up with the innovative offense, which featured, among other maneuvers, a choke suplex, a Black Tiger turnbuckle bomb, and a double-team Gory Special into a Diamond Cutter. This latter maneuver won the match for the Dark Order. A more conventional tag match between the Lucha Brothers and SoCal Uncensored (Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky) also offered up moves far too adept for WWE programming. The Lucha Brothers successfully executed a top-rope Canadian Destroyer, a rapid, rope-aided solebutt, and a stomp-capped double-team package piledriver (for the win).

Portrait of the artist as a young (Omega) man

Singles action did not disappoint, either. AEW Championship contender Hangman Page pounded Kip Sabian with, among other super-moves, a bridging pump-handle suplex, a backdrop onto the apron, and a powerbomb onto the ramp before pinning him with an Ax Guillotine Driver. Nonetheless, the highlight of the match came when Sabian silenced an elderly, ornery fan at ringside by kissing him on the lips. The matchup between Kenny Omega and CIMA started off deceptively slow, but then all at once accelerated, getting very intense, very quickly. CIMA answered Omega’s precision strikes with a Schwein (“White Noise” to WWE fans) onto the apron that occasioned the chant of “You killed Kenny!” throughout the building. This was not WWE “wrestling”, and these were not WWE fans. The strong-style stallions went on to exchange very stiff blows in NJPW fashion, before Omega summoned the One-Winged Angel to score the pinfall.

The main event was a tag team contest between two fraternally predicated teams: the Young Bucks and the Rhodes brothers, Dustin and Cody. The match didn’t reach the fever pitch of the evening’s previous tag contests, as could be expected given the inclusion of the fifty-year-old Dustin Rhodes. Nonetheless, the former Goldust hung in there with the former Stardust, even pulling off a Canadian Destroyer/Styles Clash combo. The Rhodes boys also victimized the Bucks with simultaneous turnbuckle groin kicks, formerly known as the “Shattered Dreams” in the days when WWE was still compelling (that is to say, the days of the WWF). Nonetheless, the Young Bucks fought back by taking a page from wrestling video games and employing the ever-demoralizing stolen move tactic, hitting a Crossroads on Cody. In due course, they perpetrated the unfailingly gaudy Meltzer Driver to secure the pinfall. Afterward, the Bucks attempted to apologize to Cody and Dustin for the gamesmanship tactics they had employed in the lead-up to the match, but they were unfortunately cut off when several key members of the AEW roster processed themselves out to the ring. This interruption did not happen for purposes of storyline, but rather for time considerations. In cringe-worthy fashion, numerous AEW mainstays took the mic and made reference to having gone over time, with some even questioning whether or not they were “still on the air.” They were, and thankfully, before signing off, the cameras were able to capture the presentation of a $150,000 check to the Victim Assistance Advisory Council. This group aids people who have suffered on account of gun violence in America; these individuals were the “Fallen” referenced in the title of the super-card.

Aside from the inventive maneuvers, this social conscience was perhaps the most refreshing aspect of AEW’s Fight for the Fallen. WWE has, of course, traditionally kept its cause-themed super-cards military-centric, as is best exemplified by their annual Tribute to the Troops shows. Military personnel make incalculable sacrifices and undertake unfathomable risks, and so supporting them is a laudable endeavor. But Vince McMahon and his underlings have rarely if ever made a business decision that wasn’t calculated, and so anything bearing the WWE logo is inherently exploitative. Thus, Tribute to the Troops has always smacked of easy positive publicity or, in wrestling terms, a cheap, patriotic pop. Moreover, such an event aligns itself fairly squarely with the American military-industrial complex, situating capitalist interest in close proximity to martial might. As such, Tribute to the Troops clearly courts the more conservative elements of WWE’s fan base. Fight for the Fallen was altogether different. Rather than proffering the predictable plaudits for the people of the American Armed Forces, AEW has been brave enough to identity an egregiously overlooked (and ever-burgeoning) group—the victims of gun violence. Here AEW has displayed the corporate cojones to call out a distressing problem in the United States, one that much of mainline America (and certainly the WWE) have determinedly chosen to disregard: the fact that it’s a risk just to go out in public. AEW is willing to label gun violence as the blight on America that it is, rather than tacitly accepting it as an ignorable downside to sacrosanct Second Amendment freedoms. In acknowledging that America is far from perfect, AEW has demonstrated a moral maturity that the WWE simply does not have. Believe it or not, professional wrestling can (and does) have a socially responsible side, and by cultivating this at Fight for the Fallen, AEW defined itself in marked contrast to the amoral late-capitalist jingoism of WWE.