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AEW Men’s World Championship
Title versus Hair
Maxwell Jacob Friedman versus Darby Allin (c)

Darby Allin will have been AEW Men’s World Champion for less than 40 days once he steps into the ring with Maxwell Jacob Friedman for their match at Double or Nothing.

In that time he will have defended the championship seven times, with MJF his eighth defence. This is the only way Darby knows how to do anything. His first run with the TNT Championship he defended it eight times in 186 days. His second run? Only 28 days as TNT Champ but he got in four defences.

Darby has burned both ends of the candle as AEW Men’s World Champion. I’ve heard the complaints about how it has diminished the title by allowing someone to not face top contenders but basically anyone who made an open challenge. Tommaso Ciampa, Brody King, Kevin Knight, PAC, Konosuke Takeshita, Sammy Guevara, and Speedball Mike Bailey. Are these top contenders? Technically no, but people do understand this is how wrestling used to be for like… decades right?

This is once again a wonderful example of people holding AEW to a standard nobody else is held to and then criticized for not meeting that standard. Darby Allin proclaimed himself a fighting champion. “Oh does that mean he’ll fight anyone who challenges him on the street” In the context of pro wrestling? Yes!

The model of the fighting champion run tends to be Bret “The Hitman” Hart back in 1992 when he beat Ric Flair on a house show. Who were his opponents? Was he facing Hulkster, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior, Ted DiBiase, and Rick Rude? No, he faced The Berzerker. The Mountie. Papa Shango. Virgil. Intercontinental Champion Shawn Michaels (that was the Kevin Knight defence for people not paying attention), Fatu, and a first year Razor Ramon. He eventually went down to his biggest challenger in Yokozuna, who got two cracks at him before their WrestleMania match.

The whole point of a fighting champion is the contenders are out of the window. It’s no longer planned championship matches with rest and strategy. You’re getting your nails dirty.

In Ten Questions in May 2026 I talked about how a fighting champion is great and a contender champion is great but you have to commit to them. AEW has often flubbed it when committing to a contender champion. They’ve had them work random defences (Adam Page defending against Lee Moriarty is a good example of this, or MJF defending the AEW Men’s World Championship on the indies against Alec Price and Zilla Fatu) instead of always having built up number one contenders to face.

Meanwhile, the fighting champion run by Darby Allin has been perfect. This is exactly the way it should be. He should feel like he has to take on guys like Brody King and Sammy Guevara, not because they are top contenders, but because he feels he can’t duck them. He has history with them. He owes them these matches more than he owes a top contender. And in every match that goes by? He gets a little weaker. We can see it.

This all builds to this match with MJF, which again, I’ve heard criticism that Darby Allin made MJF put up his hair instead of something more significant. What, like the ability to get a title shot ever again? Only a dumbass would do that. Darby doesn’t want to prevent MJF from being champion because beating him for the championship was the greatest moment of his life. Beating him again? That’s just sweeter. Being able to humiliate MJF in the process is far more valuable than taking him off the chess board.

All of this should be simple, easy to understand concepts. The heel has tried to de-legitimize Darby’s run and Darby hasn’t cared about a word he said. He knows MJF is just trying to make excuses, and the only way to push those excuses back into him is to humiliate him again.

We are now set up for a confrontation between the two where the finish feels inevitable. Darby Allin has pushed his body to the absolute limit. But… what if he’s got that game seven heroics in him? What if he beats MJF in New York, at Double or Nothing? He might not last much longer. Might lose the next open challenge he accepts, but MJF will forever have to live with the humiliation of being shaved bald and looking exactly like Joey Matthews in the 2010s.

No really. Watch this and tell me that isn’t bald MJF.

This has been a really well built main event, complete with making you wonder just how long Darby Allin can last as champion, and just how long MJF can last not being champion. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the end of the road for Darby, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t the end of the road for this program. For all of the dumb obvious questions people have had during this program, I don’t think any of them change the fact this feels like a big main event for a title that feels even more valuable due to the run Darby has put forward. He said he was going until the wheels fall off and that’s made for great weekly TV.

There might still be rubber left on those wheels.

Photos by All Elite Wrestling