Darby Tony Hawk’s Underground Allin, you get down from there this instant! You’re going to break your neck, young man!
Last night, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) held its annual All In pay-per-view event in London. It was a pretty solid show all around: I really enjoyed the debut of New Level (formerly WWE’s New Day), the women’s title match between Willow and Mercedes Mone (sad as I am about the outcome), and the multiple matches in the show where AEW seemed committed to trying to fit as many guys into a ring at once as possible, which is one of my favorite bits.
However, there was one bit that I hated. I also loved it. I also hated loving it and loved hating it. All of those. It was the moment during the show, traditional at this point, in which Darby Allin climbs up on something very tall and jumps off of it.
This happens at some point during almost every PPV that Allin is in, and many of his other matches in between, too. For those who don’t know him, Darby Allin is a short, skinny (relative to his many more beefy colleagues) punk rock wrestler whose whole thing is essentially embodying a skateboarding skeleton. Sting (yes, THE Sting) is his mentor, and for years also his tag team partner before Sting retired, though he still shows up now and again to go to bat (literally, with a baseball bat) for Allin. Allin skates, obviously, and is apparently friends with Tony Hawk. He’s got a tattoo of his spine down his, well, spine. He wears make-up resembling half a skull on his face, apparently symbolizing feeling “half-dead” after surviving a car accident as a child. He’s a daredevil and thrill seeker: he climbed Mt. Everest last year, and proposed to his girlfriend at the top, then married her days before a different PPV earlier this year wearing a suit coat decorated with images of bones. He routinely participates in unhinged stunts during his wrestling matches, often involving things like glass or tacks or (most recently) explosives. Once he got hit by a bus, and when he came back to wrestling afterwards, he showed up wearing a ridiculous fluffy pink jacket specifically so that if someone was flipping channels, they’d be inclined to stop on a skeleton in a pink jacket holding a skateboard.
Allin’s finisher is called the Coffin Drop, in which he climbs up on something, crosses his arms over his chest like a dead man, and drops down onto his opponent back-first, as if he were a corpse falling on them. It is cool as hell, every time, and also terrifying to watch whenever Allin is jumping off of anything other than a regular ring post…
…which he usually is, these days. Allin loves to jump off of tall things! He’s jumped off ladders, scaffolding, and parts of the stands where the audience sits. He’s jumped onto things like tables, chairs, the horrible metal stairs that lead up to the corners of the ring, coffins (obviously), glass, and other people (lots). He also likes launching himself at people like a rocket, somewhat similar to Zork’s signature move in The Duskbloods. But it’s really the whole jumping-off-of-stuff thing that’s Allin’s signature.
Last night, Allin faced the excellent Kevin Knight and successfully reclaimed his TNT title belt. It was a great match. Allin started bleeding within seconds of it starting and I’m not even really sure how, which I mention only because it’s such a quintessential Darby Allin thing to do. This was a “falls count anywhere” match, which means at some point the two were definitely going to leave the ring and wander off into the arena somewhere, most assuredly for the sole purpose of Allin finding something to jump off of.
And find it he did. It’s a hilarious moment if you know Allin’s whole deal. The two went up the very long ramp to the big stage-y area where entrances happen, Allin chasing Knight with a baseball bat, bequeathed to him earlier in the match by none other than Sting. The pair scrapped their way over to one side of the stage, near where one of the massive, Triforce-looking lighting rigs touched the ground. And you can see the exact thought process going through Allin’s head as he sees the rigging. He takes a beat, surveys the rigging once, twice, before his eyes light up and a sick, maniacal grin crosses his face. Every person in that audience knows what he’s going to do next.
Up he goes! Into the rigging! Higher and higher! I don’t know how high that was, but it was certainly too high. Get down from there, Darby Allin! Get down this instant!
Wait, no not like that!
He’s not done, of course. He sees Knight on the stretcher below him. Falls count anywhere, right? One last coffin drop, then, right onto Knight’s retreating body, knocking him from the stretcher and setting him up for a pin. Darby Allin, bay-bee.
Every time, it’s an incredible spectacle to watch. Great entertainment. Great TV. And every time I am terrified that surely this time Darby Allin is going to break his goddamn neck.
I know! I’m part of the problem! I am participating in it! Watching it, writing about it, cheering it on and also cringing and screaming at the TV when he jumps! Allin is a deeply unconventional wrestler, particularly in his looks and build and style, yet he’s been (briefly) AEW World Champion. He’s really fun to watch in the ring: he’s clearly very talented, great on the mic, and makes skillful use of his small size and absurd stamina reserves to pull off excellent matches. But I don’t know if he’d get nearly this much attention if he didn’t routinely gets the shit kicked out of him doing over-the-top stunts.
Also though, I don’t think Darby Allin would stop jumping off of stuff, even if every member of the audience permanently tuned out right now! The man has figured out what enables him to live his life, specifically, to the fullest, and for him that involves doing increasingly dangerous things. I kind of respect that? And also am clearly entertained by it? And also deeply wish he would stop now, while he’s still hale, because one of these days it’s going to go horribly wrong (as absurd wrestling stunts have been wont to do!)?
Darby Allin, please don’t climb on that. No good can come of this. Come down right now. I selfishly want you to stay alive and keep wrestling, and I’m happy to trade that for less blood and fewer broken bones when you do.
