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Darby Allin had to delay climbing Mount Everest because he was hit by a bus crossing the street. The AEW World Champion is an impossible person in pursuit of the unreal, whether it’s standing atop the world’s most famous summit or holding All Elite Wrestling’s top prize. He’s also now the proud owner of both accomplishments, and as he heads into the biggest match of his career this Sunday at AEW Double or Nothing 2026, it’s that same belief that no passion is out of reach which has Allin at the top of his game.
Salary details in pro-wrestling are hard to obtain, but there’s a greater than 0% chance that Allin would stay with AEW for a treasure map and a flight to the map’s “X.” Some people want fame, some want stability, but he’s always chased that next thrill, that next impossible moment. Even joining AEW in its infancy in 2019 was a worthwhile risk for Allin, who was then wrestling for WWE-affiliated Evolve. “When AEW first started, a lot of the people that were asked ‘AEW or WWE,’ they played it safe. They went to WWE. I was the exact opposite,” Allin recalls to Uncrowned.
“I'm like, ‘I need to be in AEW. I don't even know what AEW is, but I need to be there.’ So I was down for the cause from the start.”
Darby Allin is one of AEW's truest homegrown stars. (Ricky Havlik, AEW)
Ricky Havlik
His most recent far-fetched feat was bulldozing MJF for the AEW World Championship in April, then deciding to defend the title every week (or twice a week since May 9) against a wide range of challengers. Where some title reigns are built on the longing for that big match, or the steady growth in tension between the champion and challenger, Allin’s not one for longing or pacing. He’s always prepared for the next wild feat, and he’s made his championship reign an extension of his constant, chaotic pursuit of the thrill.
“There's no method to the madness,” he says. “I'm literally just out there every single week, two times a week, just going insane. I think it sums up everything of my style.
“People have these notions of a world champion. ‘Hey, a world champion, you need to earn a No. 1 contendership [in order to challenge me].’ I'm here to give everybody the opportunity, because year one, me being [given] the opportunity to wrestle [Chris] Jericho the third week of AEW TV, I took the ball and ran with that. That showed me to a whole lot of new people. So the opportunity is like, ‘Hey, anybody wants a shot?’ Let's get it through this notions of, oh, you know, the title needs to be defended once a month. No, it's twice a week, baby.”
Over the past five weeks, fans have been privy to the entire Darby Allin experience. He’s been clotheslined from the top rope to the arena floor by Kevin Knight, he’s been Blue Thunder Bombed off the apron by Konosuke Takeshita, he’s been tossed off of a balcony through a quartet of tables by PAC. But for Allin, it was the first defense of his newly-won AEW World Championship that really resonated with him, setting the tone for the breakneck pace of his maiden run.
In late April, he found himself the target of a reinvigorated Tommaso Ciampa, who won the AEW TNT Championship in Ciampa’s first match with the company. Ciampa took the match inside and outside of the ring, finding new ways to attack and maim the new champion at every turn. Ultimately, Allin used his mentor Sting’s Scorpion Deathlock submission to kick off his reign with a victory. “Nobody knew what to expect,” Allin says. “And that was, to me, you had to hit a home run with that match, you know?
“I was out there taking an Air Raid Crash from the second rope to the floor, [and the reaction from the fans was,] ‘Yo, this championship run might end tonight,’ you know? ... You’ve got to set the tone, man, and people [didn’t] know what to expect. And that's kind of a nice introduction of what are we about to see.”
Each title defense since has showcased an opponent with a new style, with many willing to take the match all over the arena (or indoor golf course) if necessary — yet the ever-resilient Allin not only survives, but risks his safety as well as theirs to put a stamp on his eventual victory. Visually, his most impressive feat was besting AEW’s hard-rock Hercules, Brody King. The two had previously shared one of AEW’s most impressive visuals, when King infamously applied a sleeper hold to Allin on the ring apron in 2022’s Royal Rampage match, and then literally hoisted him off the mat surface, leaving Allin dangling in the air, unconscious on his way to dropping and eliminating him.
This time around, Allin outmaneuvered King and dropped him on his head outside of the ring. When King barely beat the 10-count and got back into the ring, he was hit with two Coffin Drops and defeated, securing Allin’s second successful title defense. The 5-foot-8, 180-pound Allin stared down — and took down — the 6-foot-5, 290-pound King, but that’s simply what he does: Seek out mythical feats and do all he can to make them mortal.
“I love that that's my calling card,” Allin says.
“[I want people to] know my life is in danger. I love that feeling. I don't get that when it's just me versus another cruiserweight, [where] it's just survival and you feel everything. And a lot of that is not selling, it's just survival. ‘Let's get through this,’ you know? But I live for stuff like that.”
Allin has granted MJF his title rematch this weekend at Double or Nothing, and has invoked the classic “Title vs. Hair” stipulation — meaning if MJF doesn’t win the title back, he’ll have to shave his head Billy Joel bald. It’s an especially tough ask for the image-conscious, aspiring leading man MJF is, and also what makes their rivalry so compelling. Both men actively pursue their outside passions, but neither seem particularly impressed, or invested, in the other’s interests. “I don't think people understand how hard it was to train for Mount Everest while wrestling full-time and balancing those out,” Allin says. “You can go jump on a nice little movie set and say, ‘Oh, I'm balancing being a movie star.” (MJF has been in multiple films, most notably ‘Happy Gilmore 2.’)
“[But] a lot of people who climbed Mount Everest straight up just focused on climbing Mount Everest, not jumping off a 20-foot ladder through glass. You know? Like just dodging all these bullets left and right, getting ready [for the climb].“
Where MJF aspires to the style and glory of the territory champions of yesteryear, Allin is inspired by some of wrestling’s most unconventional acts who found their way to superstardom at the turn of the century, most notably Mick Foley and Jeff Hardy. Like both, he’s not afraid to climb to the highest places and crash down to the deepest caverns with the utmost confidence. And like both, he exists apart from who is traditionally presented as a world champion — and he absolutely wears that as a badge of honor. “It means everything [to be AEW World Champion],” Allin says. “It's the company that's given me everything inside the ring and outside the ring. They let me truly live my life to the absolute fullest. So to give back, I would love to be the face of this company.
“Before the show on Wednesday where I beat MJF, I was out there in the pouring rain days before hanging flyers for the show all around the city. You tell me, what other motherf***er is going to do that? … I would like to think that I'm the hardest working and most dedicated to what AEW represents.”
That dedication to his company, his craft and his outside passions not only caught the eyes of Allin’s employers, but also his mentor: Turner Television’s favorite son, the man they call Sting. From his first AEW match against Ricky Starks and Brain Cage, to his swan song against The Young Bucks, Sting opted to partner with Allin for every outing before retiring in 2024 as one-half of the AEW World Tag Team Champions. Early on, Sting saw the parallels between the two, from their humble beginnings to having a real life away from your work. “He didn’t have an uncle, a father, a cousin, a brother, a friend, nobody that helped him to get into the pro-wrestling industry,” Allin told me in 2022.
Sting was on-hand for Allin's unlikely title win. (Ricky Havlik, AEW)
Ricky Havlik
“He slept in his car. His address was his car. Same with me. He didn’t have a lot of food to eat. At times it just stayed with me. He came in and busted his butt. And he thinks outside the box. He is willing to risk. He never dogs it in the ring. I talk about ‘balls to the wall’ … anything that has to do with art, anything that has to do with risking your life, he’s going to do. This guy is jumping off bridges 100 feet high. He’s jumping over houses with cars. He has [an] interest in skateboarding. He loves to just be out and about and rubbing shoulders with people that love to experience life to its fullest.”
The admiration is mutual, as Allin got to learn from someone who didn’t need wrestling anymore, but used it as a conduit to teach, and to help a new company establish itself as a power. “That means everything,” he says. “To be put in wrestling with a guy as legendary as Sting, but be as humble as Sting? I want to learn from the guy inside the ring and outside the ring. And I've learned from him so much outside the ring of how to just be a human and not be so ego-driven. To me, this wrestling game is just a 15-minute ride. I want to leave the same person I came in. And I feel Sting is the best person to do that. He could look at himself in the mirror when this is all said and done and know exactly who he's looking at.”
Darby Allin, heading in the match of his life, has found a way to turn the pictures in his head into the stories he stars in, whether he's on the clock or off to some magic locale. His wrestling and his hobbies are intertwined, in that he’s doing all of the things people say they want to do but find reasons to put on the back burner. The AEW World Champion has taken the term “workhorse” to a new level, pushing that plow uphill week after week. On Sunday he’ll be across the ring from a man hell-bent on both being king and reclaiming his crown, but, like everything he does, he’ll push his body harder than what seems possible to keep that feeling of the impossible off his back.
“You literally have to be willing to risk it all,” Allin says, “and that's why I'm where I'm at right now. I'm willing to go places no one else is willing to go, and that sets me apart. There's the 6-foot linebacker — ain't as crazy as I am. He ain't willing to push it as hard as I am. He ain't willing to go to the very end, deep, deep, deep waters that I'm willing to go.
“It all starts in the mind. So whatever body you've been given with God … turn whatever negative into the biggest positive, and that's what I've done. That's what my thing is.”
Continue reading...
Salary details in pro-wrestling are hard to obtain, but there’s a greater than 0% chance that Allin would stay with AEW for a treasure map and a flight to the map’s “X.” Some people want fame, some want stability, but he’s always chased that next thrill, that next impossible moment. Even joining AEW in its infancy in 2019 was a worthwhile risk for Allin, who was then wrestling for WWE-affiliated Evolve. “When AEW first started, a lot of the people that were asked ‘AEW or WWE,’ they played it safe. They went to WWE. I was the exact opposite,” Allin recalls to Uncrowned.
“I'm like, ‘I need to be in AEW. I don't even know what AEW is, but I need to be there.’ So I was down for the cause from the start.”
You must be registered for see images attach
Darby Allin is one of AEW's truest homegrown stars. (Ricky Havlik, AEW)
Ricky Havlik
His most recent far-fetched feat was bulldozing MJF for the AEW World Championship in April, then deciding to defend the title every week (or twice a week since May 9) against a wide range of challengers. Where some title reigns are built on the longing for that big match, or the steady growth in tension between the champion and challenger, Allin’s not one for longing or pacing. He’s always prepared for the next wild feat, and he’s made his championship reign an extension of his constant, chaotic pursuit of the thrill.
“There's no method to the madness,” he says. “I'm literally just out there every single week, two times a week, just going insane. I think it sums up everything of my style.
“People have these notions of a world champion. ‘Hey, a world champion, you need to earn a No. 1 contendership [in order to challenge me].’ I'm here to give everybody the opportunity, because year one, me being [given] the opportunity to wrestle [Chris] Jericho the third week of AEW TV, I took the ball and ran with that. That showed me to a whole lot of new people. So the opportunity is like, ‘Hey, anybody wants a shot?’ Let's get it through this notions of, oh, you know, the title needs to be defended once a month. No, it's twice a week, baby.”
Over the past five weeks, fans have been privy to the entire Darby Allin experience. He’s been clotheslined from the top rope to the arena floor by Kevin Knight, he’s been Blue Thunder Bombed off the apron by Konosuke Takeshita, he’s been tossed off of a balcony through a quartet of tables by PAC. But for Allin, it was the first defense of his newly-won AEW World Championship that really resonated with him, setting the tone for the breakneck pace of his maiden run.
In late April, he found himself the target of a reinvigorated Tommaso Ciampa, who won the AEW TNT Championship in Ciampa’s first match with the company. Ciampa took the match inside and outside of the ring, finding new ways to attack and maim the new champion at every turn. Ultimately, Allin used his mentor Sting’s Scorpion Deathlock submission to kick off his reign with a victory. “Nobody knew what to expect,” Allin says. “And that was, to me, you had to hit a home run with that match, you know?
“I was out there taking an Air Raid Crash from the second rope to the floor, [and the reaction from the fans was,] ‘Yo, this championship run might end tonight,’ you know? ... You’ve got to set the tone, man, and people [didn’t] know what to expect. And that's kind of a nice introduction of what are we about to see.”
Each title defense since has showcased an opponent with a new style, with many willing to take the match all over the arena (or indoor golf course) if necessary — yet the ever-resilient Allin not only survives, but risks his safety as well as theirs to put a stamp on his eventual victory. Visually, his most impressive feat was besting AEW’s hard-rock Hercules, Brody King. The two had previously shared one of AEW’s most impressive visuals, when King infamously applied a sleeper hold to Allin on the ring apron in 2022’s Royal Rampage match, and then literally hoisted him off the mat surface, leaving Allin dangling in the air, unconscious on his way to dropping and eliminating him.
This time around, Allin outmaneuvered King and dropped him on his head outside of the ring. When King barely beat the 10-count and got back into the ring, he was hit with two Coffin Drops and defeated, securing Allin’s second successful title defense. The 5-foot-8, 180-pound Allin stared down — and took down — the 6-foot-5, 290-pound King, but that’s simply what he does: Seek out mythical feats and do all he can to make them mortal.
“I love that that's my calling card,” Allin says.
“[I want people to] know my life is in danger. I love that feeling. I don't get that when it's just me versus another cruiserweight, [where] it's just survival and you feel everything. And a lot of that is not selling, it's just survival. ‘Let's get through this,’ you know? But I live for stuff like that.”
Allin has granted MJF his title rematch this weekend at Double or Nothing, and has invoked the classic “Title vs. Hair” stipulation — meaning if MJF doesn’t win the title back, he’ll have to shave his head Billy Joel bald. It’s an especially tough ask for the image-conscious, aspiring leading man MJF is, and also what makes their rivalry so compelling. Both men actively pursue their outside passions, but neither seem particularly impressed, or invested, in the other’s interests. “I don't think people understand how hard it was to train for Mount Everest while wrestling full-time and balancing those out,” Allin says. “You can go jump on a nice little movie set and say, ‘Oh, I'm balancing being a movie star.” (MJF has been in multiple films, most notably ‘Happy Gilmore 2.’)
“[But] a lot of people who climbed Mount Everest straight up just focused on climbing Mount Everest, not jumping off a 20-foot ladder through glass. You know? Like just dodging all these bullets left and right, getting ready [for the climb].“
Where MJF aspires to the style and glory of the territory champions of yesteryear, Allin is inspired by some of wrestling’s most unconventional acts who found their way to superstardom at the turn of the century, most notably Mick Foley and Jeff Hardy. Like both, he’s not afraid to climb to the highest places and crash down to the deepest caverns with the utmost confidence. And like both, he exists apart from who is traditionally presented as a world champion — and he absolutely wears that as a badge of honor. “It means everything [to be AEW World Champion],” Allin says. “It's the company that's given me everything inside the ring and outside the ring. They let me truly live my life to the absolute fullest. So to give back, I would love to be the face of this company.
“Before the show on Wednesday where I beat MJF, I was out there in the pouring rain days before hanging flyers for the show all around the city. You tell me, what other motherf***er is going to do that? … I would like to think that I'm the hardest working and most dedicated to what AEW represents.”
That dedication to his company, his craft and his outside passions not only caught the eyes of Allin’s employers, but also his mentor: Turner Television’s favorite son, the man they call Sting. From his first AEW match against Ricky Starks and Brain Cage, to his swan song against The Young Bucks, Sting opted to partner with Allin for every outing before retiring in 2024 as one-half of the AEW World Tag Team Champions. Early on, Sting saw the parallels between the two, from their humble beginnings to having a real life away from your work. “He didn’t have an uncle, a father, a cousin, a brother, a friend, nobody that helped him to get into the pro-wrestling industry,” Allin told me in 2022.
You must be registered for see images attach
Sting was on-hand for Allin's unlikely title win. (Ricky Havlik, AEW)
Ricky Havlik
“He slept in his car. His address was his car. Same with me. He didn’t have a lot of food to eat. At times it just stayed with me. He came in and busted his butt. And he thinks outside the box. He is willing to risk. He never dogs it in the ring. I talk about ‘balls to the wall’ … anything that has to do with art, anything that has to do with risking your life, he’s going to do. This guy is jumping off bridges 100 feet high. He’s jumping over houses with cars. He has [an] interest in skateboarding. He loves to just be out and about and rubbing shoulders with people that love to experience life to its fullest.”
The admiration is mutual, as Allin got to learn from someone who didn’t need wrestling anymore, but used it as a conduit to teach, and to help a new company establish itself as a power. “That means everything,” he says. “To be put in wrestling with a guy as legendary as Sting, but be as humble as Sting? I want to learn from the guy inside the ring and outside the ring. And I've learned from him so much outside the ring of how to just be a human and not be so ego-driven. To me, this wrestling game is just a 15-minute ride. I want to leave the same person I came in. And I feel Sting is the best person to do that. He could look at himself in the mirror when this is all said and done and know exactly who he's looking at.”
Darby Allin, heading in the match of his life, has found a way to turn the pictures in his head into the stories he stars in, whether he's on the clock or off to some magic locale. His wrestling and his hobbies are intertwined, in that he’s doing all of the things people say they want to do but find reasons to put on the back burner. The AEW World Champion has taken the term “workhorse” to a new level, pushing that plow uphill week after week. On Sunday he’ll be across the ring from a man hell-bent on both being king and reclaiming his crown, but, like everything he does, he’ll push his body harder than what seems possible to keep that feeling of the impossible off his back.
“You literally have to be willing to risk it all,” Allin says, “and that's why I'm where I'm at right now. I'm willing to go places no one else is willing to go, and that sets me apart. There's the 6-foot linebacker — ain't as crazy as I am. He ain't willing to push it as hard as I am. He ain't willing to go to the very end, deep, deep, deep waters that I'm willing to go.
“It all starts in the mind. So whatever body you've been given with God … turn whatever negative into the biggest positive, and that's what I've done. That's what my thing is.”
Continue reading...
