PAC v. Darby Allin - No Count Outs for the AEW World Championship - AEW Collison: Fairway to Hell
In honor of the wrestling talent of Benjamin "PAC" Satterley after his tragic and sudden death at age 40, I wanted to take a look back at PAC's final AEW World Championship match against Darby Allin on the May 9th, 2026 episode of AEW Collision: Fairway to Hell.
A key aspect to AEW's resurgance since 2025 has been better vibes, especially on Collision. The single biggest aspect of this to me is the embrace of unusual venues. In the deepest pit of post-Punk AEW, putting 1400 in a basketball arena that could fit six-to-eight-thousand was providing a low-rent and low-energy environment. Tony Khan came up with an idea a bit more clever than just moving to smaller buildings, which is considering the MOST interesting buildings you might be able to work if you simply don't consider seating 800 a non-starter.
Fairway to Hell is one of those shows, taking place in the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, a building for the TMRW Golf League, an indoor live golf/e-sports hybrid thing the PGA sponsors with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. It's trying to make TopGolf into some shit you watch.
The important part is that it's a modern e-sports type production arena:
And it's also a golf course:
Darby and PAC had a hot recent history and their matches involved high levels of brutal violence.
Now I'm going to assume you are a thinking person and not insult your intelligence by pointing out that we are in a no count outs match and are making strong efforts to remind everyone of the space. Sometimes you don't have to be that clever in wrestling, you just need to give the people what they want.
Immediately Allin rolls out of the ring and takes the long walk around the gates back to the course, taunting PAC at the edge of the bunker. Perhaps considering revenge for PAC's previous pre-match obliteration of Allin on an early year's Dynamite, Allin wants to take advantage of the lack of count outs to fight in the environment. They immediately lock up above the bunker and start throwing only haymakers.
The boys really get into the yardiness of this match by of course taking a bunch of big bumps in the bunker.
PAC gains the edge after a belly-to-belly suplex and performs the Brutalizer in the trap. The match cannot be decided out here though, this is not falls count anywhere. It has to go back to the ring. A commercial break follows that was not on the tape. By the time the match PAC is tying Allin's neck chain to the tag rope.
PAC is blasting Allin with huge damage moves. His long-setup running lariat is a misstep and Allin recovers enough to trip PAC, allowing Darby to spring in behind for the Scorpion Death Drop. A near-fall and Allin tries to head to the turnbuckle. He's slow enough for PAC to recover and deliver this rather brutal looking avalanche falcon arrow:
Darby is able to kick out and roll from the ring to recover. PAC follows and sets up a table to splash onto Allin. Again the long setup kills PAC and by the time he's in the air for the 450, Allin has exited the scene, sending PAC crashing through the table alone.
Darby recovers enough to toss PAC back in the ring where he applies the Scorpion Death Lock, the same move PAC tapped to in January. The stakes of this one are too high and PAC crawls to the ropes. Now Shafir, Garcia, and Yuta are out, mostly to annoy the ref and distract Allin's attention. He is indeed distracted enough for PAC to attack his blindside, setting up a tombstone on the ring stairs, incapacitating Allin for whatever is next.
Yuta and Garcia's actual purpose is now made clear—they are the construction crew. These Bob the Builder bitches start constructing a table altar in the entrance. PAC, unwilling to finish the match instead of using his lemmings' device hauls Allin on his shoulders for the long march up the stairs to the second deck. A commercial cut missing on tape later, Shafir, Referee Stephon Smith, PAC, and Allin are in the stands above the entrance. Unable to effectively defend against PAC, Allin gets yooted through the tables below.
Only because it takes forever to manage to get the corpse of Darby Allin into the ring after this, with PAC having to go the long way back around and down the stairs despite his urgency to do so, does Darby actually kick out of the pin attempt. PAC seems sort of lost at this point on what to do. The Blowjob Brothers distract Stephon again with a chair while Marina slides PAC the title. Darby however summons enough fighting spirit to pop to his feet, boot PAC straight in the dick, then blast him with the procured title. Coffin drop and 1, 2, 3.
Hilarious match, the sort of thing a kid thinks of when thinking of the craziest spots possible and these guys went out and performed it.
In Memoriam Ben "PAC" Satterley
PAC was a generational talent of the current era, often referred to as your favorite wrestler's favorite wrestler. His death just one day after his final match on AEW's All Out PPV was shocking and incomprehensible in the same way Eddie Guererro's, another generational talent suddenly struck down in his prime, was.
I’m on a plane going home from Mexico and on it with Pac. 1 of my favorite people in the Wrestling. IMO the best Wrestler to come out of England since the 80’s and they were Rollerball Rocco, Marty Jones and Fit Finlay. That’s no knock on the incredible UK talent around today but I come from a time and style where being credible was part of the job. Pac is the only wrestler that when I see him wrestle I think he can beat me up and his wrestling is so much more aggressive and credible. Again, there’s brilliant UK wrestlers who I rate highly and am huge fans of but not as much as him. That’s just me and my opinion. Neville v Aleister Black from the UK tournament in Blackpool is one of my favourite bouts I saw live in the last 20 years. Last nights Roman v Penta rates up there with it. No need to argue as I don’t read comments.
One thing you hear over and over from his peers was that PAC was a bridge to Japan for a lot of modern talent whose careers were largely defined by Japan such as the Young Bucks, Zack Sabre Jr., and Ricochet. He is foundational to the current era. PAC was instrumental in driving PWG's early buzz online. He was arguably the biggest standout of the black and gold NXT era and was half of the best feud and best match of NXT against his longtime frenemy Sami Zayn (f.k.a. El Generico).
In an alternate timeline somewhere we got the Adrian Neville & Sami Zayn ska tag team in NXT.
PAC & Sami skanking was the smile I needed today.
This is what Triple H took from you.
Also the NXT match:
These boys were nuts:
you were a firecracker
He was then the focus of the last genuinely good piece of WWE programming, 205 Live, a show built around the momentum from the aptly named Cruiserweight Classic. He later risked his career to stand up against the lack of respect from WWE and their unwillingness to move him to the main show despite proving himself repeatedly against top main roster talent. He held out a year in protest and when he did secure his release, went back to Dragon Gate as a full-time roster member for almost a year, anchoring one of Dragon Gate's most successful runs.
PAC then pulled off the most important business moves of an already illustrious career by being one of the founding members of AEW in 2019. His most notable match was probably the first singles with Orange Cassidy at the last pre-COVID AEW PPV, Revolution 2020 which established Cassidy as a force on the roster. PAC missed significant time with injuries but was also instrumental in establishing two titles: the workhorse All-Atlantic Championship (later retooled into the International Champtionship), and the AEW Trios Championships as a third of Death Triangle with Penta and Fenix.
PAC returned from another extended injury abscence and the company exits of the Lucha Bros. to join Jon Moxley's Death Riders faction where he spent the last of his career as a productive upper mid-carder that was slowly building background buzz for a probable transitional World Title in the near future.
I cannot understate how much buzz PAC had with indie fans at one point. All my entire suite would talk about at 2018's All In was if PAC would show up. He did not but we were surely on the right track. I was lucky to be able to see him wrestle live a few times including two of the very best matches of all time in AEW: vs. Ospreay at All Out 2024 for the International Championship the and vs. Okada at Dynasty 2024.
Wrestling would be a lot better today if more people took wrestling as seriously as Ben Satterley. PAC's talent feels almost unimportant listening to his friends and family speak of what a beautiful and humble friend Ben Satterley was, but he chose to give his life to the business and we have to consider it with the historic import it held. There was never a time when PAC ever hit his peak. He was better at age 40 than he was at any time in his career. Fans all over the world will never forget his contributions to the sport.