AEW RISING AND FADING STARS: Darby Allins’s silence after his return, FTR starring in the tag tournament, Jet Speed losing their way, MJF irritates Hurt Syndicate

Another week of wrestling is in the books. Wrestling lost one of its biggest, and most controversial, stars in the history of the sport in Hulk Hogan. Personal feelings aside, the man was a giant in this sport and, while I have heard some criticism of how AEW handled the situation, I would disagree. Tony Schiavone’s small speech about Hogan on Collision was fitting.

Back to AEW this week, we had some ups and downs but I enjoyed both shows this week. I also see now why Jon Moxley did not just fade away after losing the AEW World Title as they set up a match between Mox and “Hangman” Adam Page for this week. That should be great.

Now let’s get to the list!

Rising Star of the Week

FTR: Cash Wheeler & Dax Harwood

Who doesn’t love a good tournament? With a, sort of, refocused attention on the AEW Tag Team division recently, I am a fan of this tournament to give us the next AEW World Tag Team Titles challengers.

FTR is the winningest team in AEW history. Even when you didn’t think of them as one of the best over the last couple of years, if it’s a straight up two-on-two match, they are. FTR has not lost at tag match since AEW Dynasty in April of 2024. FTR has had two time limit draws and lost one fall in a two-out-of-tree falls match during this time, but no losses in straight up tag matches.

Is this FTR’s tournament to win? I think it is. After winning their opening round against Jet Speed, now FTR is off to face a not typical tag team in Austin Gunn & Juice Robinson a/k/a The Bang Bang Gang. So for me, that’s another win coming for FTR who should not lose to a non-regular team like Gunn and Robinson.

After that, it’s anyone’s guess who they will face. The other side of the bracket has the team they have gone to war with recently, The Outrunners. It also has a team they have gone to war with historically, The Young Bucks. Also, over there are two newer teams to AEW in the Gates of Agony and – I can’t believe I am going to type this – Brodido (I very much dislike these types of team names) which is Brody King & Bandido. Good team, but horrible name. None of those teams has been presented as well as FTR recently. The Outrunners somehow beating the Bucks and then, probably, GOA seems like the best bet.

Like I said, this is FTR’s tournament to win. One motivating reason would be the beat down from The Hurt Syndicate, courtesy of Adam Copeland. I also think a team like FTR is the biggest test, on paper, that The Hurt Syndicate will have. Add to that the MJF element. Plus the fact that FTR and MJF have history (anyone remember The Pinnacle?) and it makes everything all that more interesting.

Speaking of MJF…

First Runner Up: MJF

Maxwell Jacob Friedman is one of the most intriguing men on this roster who wrestles so infrequently, but it’s okay. When you have the workers AEW has, you don’t need to wrestle every week. MJF has shown he can also go in the ring with the best of them; I don’t want it to come off sounding like he can’t go in the ring. That said, when you can talk the talk like MJF, you don’t need to wrestle all the time, but you need to be on television every week. MJF has been that guy for a while now and it will continue.

This week we saw a huge crack between MJF and the rest of The Hurt Syndicate. While I think it’s the first step towards their breakup, I don’t think it is over yet. MJF is just now being the typical arrogant and selfish human he is.

So now how arrogant will MJF continue to be? He has a guaranteed shot at “Hangman” Adam Page and his AEW World Title. On top of that, MJF is in the number one streaming movie in the country today “Happy Gilmore 2” (61 percent Fresh among critics!). I gotta say, I thought MJF was really good playing one of Happy Gilmore’s four sons. Coming from a home where I personally have four brothers, you might think the way they portrayed them is over-the-top, and in some ways it was. In other ways, it’s exactly how a group of male siblings raised by a guy like Happy Gilmore would act.

As with each week that I hear that MJF is going to have a promo, I just think, “What is this guy going to say this week?” This week should be more of the same.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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Fading Star of the Week

Darby Allin

I know we are just two weeks into his return, but the fact that we have seen Darby on screen for a total of about 17 seconds is an issue. Don’t get me wrong, I understand what they are trying to do with his Sting like “mind games.” I just don’t like it because he is not Sting.

Sting was a very special wrestler to me and a lot of people, WCW’s “franchise player” and the guy early WCW tried to build around as a top star to compete with the WWF when, the now late Hulk Hogan was the biggest star of wrestling. That said, he wasn’t at the height of his popularity until WCW had him stop talking and hanging out in the rafters. Sting had such an aura about him and Darby’s is just starting, but it is not at “Crow Sting” level, yet.

Back to Darby, I just want to hear a mission statement or anything from him. The Death Riders threw him down the stairs on the final ever Rampage at the end of 2024 and all we have heard from him since his comeback was that five second clip played during All In Texas. That is almost eight months and nothing from one of the most popular guys on the roster.

I think this can be turned around, easily. Just give Darby a camera and let him create one of his vignettes. Let Darby explain what he wants to do right now, which appears to be he wants to destroy the Death Riders.

Again, this can easily be turned around and Darby could be on the Rising Stars side next week. I just want to hear something from him.

1st Runner Up: Jet Speed

One of the last teams to challenge for the AEW World Tag Titles has had a rough go of it since challenging for those belts. Including that loss to The Hurt Syndicate, Jet Speed has just 1 win and 3 losses in their last four matches.

They are still establishing Jet Speed, which was why it didn’t seem right that they were in a tag title match so quickly. This has been something recently that AEW also did with Megan Bayne. She lost an AEW World Women’s title match to Toni Storm after she racked up over 10 straight wins. The difference is that since Bayne’s loss to Toni, Bayne has not lost a singles match since.

So, if Jet Speed is going to be a long-term team in AEW, they need to start racking up some wins. This tournament could have been set up to give them at least 1 win before eventually losing, but they did not happen.

So where will Jet Speed go from here? It’s anyone’s guess but it does feel like the AEW Tag Division is light on true babyface tag teams. Jet Speed definitely fits that classic babyface role and the crowd seems to like them, but what happens next is anyone’s guess.