Currently, Darby Allin is chasing the AEW World Championship, and it feels half-alive like the daredevil’s persona and make-up. For clarity, and for my sins, I’m a Darby Allin fan. I wrote back in 2024 how Allin would be the AEW World Champion at AEW All In Texas because there was personal and industry history that aligned so perfectly.
Besides mirroring Allin’s history with Cody Rhodes for the TNT Championship, there was the potential parallel with Sting saving WCW from the NWO. All would’ve, could’ve, should’ve fantasy booking, I admit. An interpretation I championed because a potential story made sense.
Yet, by December 2024, I’d already changed my mind. The Death Riders’ inconsistency, the realisation that Allin didn’t need the AEW World Championship to either ascend to the main event or fulfil that story. The story with Hangman Page was better. It had something Allin both then and now did not have. Personal stakes. Since 2024, Creative and Allin, both the character and the person, have undermined his credibility as a potential AEW World Champion.
Picked a Pinnacle
None of us knows if Allin was pencilled in to win the AEW World Championship at All In Texas. Yet Allin’s choice of words at the time rings true at present. Some fans perceived that when given the choice of two pinnacles to climb, Allin chose Everest.
“I already feel like I’m the champion of the world. I don’t need the championship belt to feel validated because I’m already winning in life. I feel so free and happy. I’m grateful for everything.” Darby Allin, WTF with Marc Maron, transcript from Sports Illustrated.
Literally saying he doesn’t give a “sh*t” about needing to win the world title, it’s an easy reference point for the present. What’s changed since 2024? Why does Allin’s character suddenly care? The reasoning, save AEW, is old hat. The artificial heart and soul that AEW first became stale with The Jericho Appreciation Society and persisted through to Death Riders at one time.
The implication from Allin that AEW needs saving from MJF ignores that this second reign has already avoided the mistakes of the first and more. MJF has changed to become the main antagonist of AEW. Allin’s character motivation has become stale and stuck in the past. Allin and Creative are relying on what’s worked before. Yet we know from AEW history that the company’s philosophy actively exposes weaknesses.
It’s not about choosing the wrong mountain. It’s that Allin’s character remains in the same place he’s always occupied. If Allin is to be more than a challenger of the month, an actual contender, then Allin needs a different peak to die on.
It’s Not Enough to Die
Allin might bleed AEW. Shockingly, it was MJF rather than Allin who, kayfabe or shoot, got the AEW initials tattooed on his body. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if you cracked Allin open like a chocolate bar, he’s got AEW embedded in his core. Jokes not yet aside, Allin is synonymous with AEW in a way few are.
The problem is, Allin’s willingness to put himself at risk has become one-note. Critics often use Darby Allin’s stunts as a strawman for the alternative’s excessive violence, missing more obvious and legitimate criticisms. Allin is more than a stuntman. Yet it has become one by creative default.
When Allin declared he would die for the AEW World Championship, a tweet from Lucy of the Wrestling Groupchat Podcast sums it up. While hilarious and over the top, but true, Allin is willing to kill himself against every opponent. Be thrown down flights of stairs, off balconies onto flaming tables and glass.
Death means nothing when Allin, since Everest, has spoken repeatedly in interviews about finding fulfilment and content. If Allin has no real struggle, the chase or title win means nothing. But as a practising nihilist, I can tell you, the belief system is as misunderstood as how non-fans perceive wrestling as fake. I will not psychoanalyse Allin, the man, but the character’s portrayal often reflects a surface-level nihilism. Apathy and emotional disconnect for the uninitiated is easy.
Nihilism: Filling the Void
Nihilism is not pessimism, cynicism, or edgelord angst. It’s about recognising that external drivers and sources of meaning shouldn’t matter to you. You find freedom by choosing your own meaning based on internal and subjective desires, not societal standards, unless those align with you.
We choose our meaning. The true reality of nihilism is best exemplified in the words, actions, and intro video of Willow Nightingale. Nothing matters, smile anyway.
You don’t have to be religious to think that French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s assertion that there is a God-shaped hole in every human heart is true. As the psychologist and atheist Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Anxious Generation, humans have a spiritual need to fill the void in themselves. Modern society will try to fill this with content and business if we don’t try to fulfil it with something meaningful.
It’s clear that Allin, the person, doesn’t care for the traditional trappings and status symbols of conventional success. Allin is content, but wrestling and storytelling require conflict. Internal as much as external. This sudden decision to go for the AEW World Championship is jarring because Allin’s reasons for needing the championship are false and unbelievable.
If given a reason, fan perceptions can change. Look how MJF adjusted his character after Worlds End when some fans feared history repeating. MJF changed. Many of the other established AEW stars who needed to change to evolve their characters did. What Allin’s character needs is a new meaning to change.
Making Meaning
AEW creative is guilty of surface-level nihilism with Allin. Relying on Allin’s physicality, extreme risks, and violence to compensate for missteps. I’d argue Allin was not elevated in victory over Jon Moxley. Needing Sting’s intervention, plus a boring coffin match with Gabe Kidd, what did Allin achieve besides Ws?
Allin did not save AEW or Moxley. In fact, what saved Jon Moxley was AEW itself during the Continental Classic. Like Orange Cassidy, another wrestler trapped in a nihilistic spiral, Allin feels like a cog in the machine rather than an essential component.
Undoubtedly, Allin loves and needs AEW. It’s where a logical story and characterisation could easily come from. Following the footsteps of Swerve Strickland, MJF, and Hangman Adam Page, the Championship isn’t a belt. It’s not about status or being called a world champion. It’s what it metaphorically and symbolically means to the champion’s internal struggle. It’s about self-actualisation and dealing with an internal struggle. They need the belt to be complete. To be whole.
Whilst Allin might prefer arthouse cinema to Hollywood, the AEW World Championship is the McGuffin that will promise a change in the hero. For Allin, the story could be, despite everything, that void won’t be filled by anything but the meaning he instils in the AEW World Championship. Perhaps it is the only thing that will make him feel fully alive. Like Page, Moxley, Strickland MJF, he’ll have to learn that’s not true, but that new meaning may anchor his character thereafter.
