2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

30. Eddie Kingston vs. Drew Gulak Chikara 6/14

ER: I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I'm glad I caught it eventually. It's Gulak taking 90% of a match, while Kingston battles back and turns in one of his all time finest sell jobs in history (and you know how highly we think of King's selling). Gulak targets Kingston's right arm from go, and keeps clubbing and clubbing and yanking on that arm until Kingston is flopping it around as if he fell asleep on it. Gulak is throwing these awesome clubbing strikes the whole match, just grabbing King's arm by the wrist with his left hand, and crashing down across with his right. He has to do this a dozen times, and it looks painful as hell every time. That's not his only arm attack, as the rest of the time is filled with him bending it around the ropes, smashing it over his shoulder, dropping it over his knee in the only cool backcracker variation, bending it in all sorts of ways, and the whole time Kingston is just in agony. Quackenbush was really good on commentary, pointing out how Kingston is a creature of habit, and even though it's in his best interests to not use that arm, he's still going to try to use that arm, and while it's not in his best interest to talk trash while taking a beating, he's obviously going to talk trash while taking a beating. King peppers in brief comebacks, an enziguiri, a spinning backfist with his limply swinging dead arm smacking against Gulak's chin, Gulak's plan to deaden that arm working as Gulak is able to snap off an awesome tornado lariat. Gulak is all attack all the time here, hitting a big missile dropkick, headbutting Kingston in the stomach (Kingston holds his stomach and moans and heaves like he just lost an ill-advised hot dog eating contest), and late in the match Kingston suckers Gulak into trying that headbutt again, catching him with a beautiful sitout powerbomb. Kingston is able to throw Gulak, and dumps him with a backdrop driver for the win, and I loved how Gulak sold it, really made it look like a worthwhile way to finish off a guy who had just been dominated, Gulak managing to be one of the few who can pull off a "sit up and look dazed" sell after a taking a big move without looking like a total hack. This is 100% exactly what I wanted out of 15 minutes of Kingston/Gulak, and it somehow exceeded my expectations. Gulak turned in such a fantastic performance, yet it's nearly impossible to take your eyes of Kingston as he gloriously method acts his way through an arm injury. Eddie Kingston: The Michael Moriarty of wrestlers.

PAS: Kingston is really amazing at pulling compelling performances out of minor matches. He is like a great character actor who can knock out two scenes in an action movie, and elevate it to the next level. Gulak is really good at working a body part, and Kingston is amazing at selling a body part and you put that together you end up with something really compelling. There was some really nice unique twisting and turning of the arm by Gulak, a lot of the armbars were turned just so. I loved Eddie working his dead bicep muscle to try to get some feeling out of it, and him throwing the backfist like he was hitting him with a dead fish was great. The Kingston finish did feel a bit abrupt, but Gulak did a great job of seeming completely stunned, and while I am used to indy wrestling matches needing ten suplexes to end a match, I certainly don't want wrestling to be like that.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON