2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Dickinson vs. Kingston

63. Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Dickinson Limitless Wrestling 1/19

PAS: This was these guys working a tough guy match full of hard shots and suplexes. It is a match structure with lots of possibility for bloat and nonsense, but Kingston can hold a match like that together and Dickinson's Jersey Unite the Right marcher energy meshes well with Kingston's semi-retired Brooklyn weed dealer vibe. Loved all of the full body throws, none of suplexes looked cooperative and all of the shots were nasty. I especially dug Kingston's selling of the kick to the ear, and Dickinson was getting lit up with Tenryu chops. This wasn't the masterpiece the Kingston vs. Yehi match was, but I enjoyed it a bunch.

ER: Two of my favorite wrestlers, and I believe this is the first time I've seen them head to head. And not everything worked in this match, but if you're a fan of both guys then you got to see them do some stuff you'd want them to do. I liked Phil's "full body throws" description, because that was my first takeaway from this one: These two were hoisting each other into heavy, ugly throws, one meaty guy to another. Kingston doesn't do a ton of throws usually, and it's something he should explore because they look good. Neither man goes along easy with the throws, only making them look more important. Kingston is an expert at selling that kind of offense, especially loved when he stood up trying to massage out a sciatica flare up. If I thought Kingston throwing a bunch of suplexes was odd, we also get to see him barrel into Dickinson with a tope. I...I'm not sure when I last saw Kingston do a tope, so I was all in. There were a couple of awkward strike exchanges, a couple things that didn't quite land, but these two are also pros who can recognize when something doesn't quite land and make up for it. They mix up the strikes enough to keep it interesting, and I loved how Kingston started getting the upper hand and that's when Dickinson broke out the big kicks to the chest. I also loved how he was committing all the way on the kicks, so that when Kingston dodged we got a great moment of Dickinson getting caught up in the ropes. If you dig these guys (and why wouldn't you), you'd dig this.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST