The Curious Case of Darby Allin
A Man with No Name winning the championship makes complete sense
Darby has finally done it. He has become the AEW World Champion after nearly 7 years with the company. An idea that was flirted with previously, but never fully executed on has become reality. The wrestling world as a collective are trying to come to grips with what this means. Ratings are up, MJF is doing some of his best work throughout all of media putting over AEW and MJF just beat Kenny Omega. Why would Tony Khan do this?
I have the answer to that. It was always the plan. You just weren’t paying attention.
Darby has always been viewed as an underdog in AEW. He is significantly smaller than the rest of the roster, can get thrown further and higher than anyone else and he generally doesn’t spend a lot of time on the mic in front of the crowd. His character isn’t just about shattering physical glass with his body but also that metaphorical glass ceiling that people try to place him under. Darby embodies a punk rock spirit by fighting against the establishment. This isn’t about fighting against his own company; it is about fighting against the pecking order that his peers and wrestling fans try to force on all wrestlers. There are power levels at play here that need to be shaken up. Darby has been battling this ever since he started. He is resilient despite what he puts his body through, despite the losses he has accumulated in high profile matches and how many other chosen ones there are. It blows my mind that every 7–14-year-old boy doesn’t view Darby as their favorite wrestler. He taps into a part of the culture that has never been fully realized by the larger wrestling community in recent years.
I could go through the history of Darby Allin in AEW and explain why him climbing Mt Everest and holding the AEW flag at the summit meant more than just a photo op. I could touch on how his feud with The Death Riders was a win and a failure. He didn’t dismantle them as he might have hoped for, but he knocked their confidence levels down a few notches while improving his own. Maybe his tag run with Sting, closing out the legendary career of the WCW Legend that led to him feeling acknowledged and worthy of being in that spot. Perhaps I should go into how the headlock takeover loss to MJF years ago putting him at his lowest point in his career to now coming full circle and catapulting him into the world title scene?
I think I will sum up why Darby winning the title makes complete sense by invoking the name of a character from another Warner Bros’ property…. Arya Stark
The smallest of the Starks, Arya always had a rebel spirit. She was defeated so many times, yet she kept fighting through it all. She kept training and took down her family’s assassins. She trained to become anyone she needed to be. Everyone believed that one of the other characters would be the one to take down the big bad Night King. In the end, there was only one person who had endured enough to be able to strike when no one else was paying attention. The same applies to Darby Allin.
MJF wasn’t ready. Similar to The Night King who had just defeated a dragon and was confident he could conquer anything, MJF wasn’t prepared for the person who had been training to take him down. He thought he was already defeated. MJF’s focus for maintaining his championship wasn’t there as he thought he had beaten people much higher up the food chain than Darby. He just defeated Kenny Omega at the strongest he has been in years, how could you blame him?
That small window of opportunity opened up and Darby was ready to strike. Online discourse is that MJF lost in a squash match which is hardly the case. Darby had been preparing for this. He knew all of MJF’s tricks and wasn’t going to let this opportunity to save AEW from what he views as a terrible representative of the company slip by him. It all makes sense. Arya used the Valyrian Steel Dagger which had history to defeat The Night King. Darby used the headlock takeover that had history to defeat MJF.
The power levels in AEW have been changed. People including myself have compared it to Foley winning the title. Someone deemed as not champion worthy, surpassing the expectations and actually having a run with the title. The chase now goes from who can beat MJF to who will main event All In? Can Darby hold it until then or will he lose it quickly to the next challenger? He has finally learned how to capture the world title. Did he learn how to keep it too? Time will tell.