2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Drake

9. Eddie Kingston vs. JD Drake EVOLVE 1/18

PAS: This was a no DQ match for the WWN Title, but it wasn't a plunder brawl, instead it was worked more like a dirty bar fight. Kingston is almost like a legendary lucha rudo at this point like Negro Casas or Blue Panther, his greatness has basically turned him technico everywhere. However this was a throwback heel performance by Kingston as he is pretty vicious, going after Drake's eyes and biting at his ear. Drake has a tendency to get a bit cutesy for me, here he is pretty much focused on throwing hard shots, wrestling like a fat guy, not a fat guy showing off his juniors offense. We get some classic Kingston selling, as he dings his hand early throwing a punch, and it gets worse and worse as the match goes on, including a point where Kingston has to try to unjam his fingers. I thought the finish was a slightly flat, but most of the time this was a great thumping fight and another entry in Kingston's WOTY resume.

ER: Kingston is so good that when Phil sent me the link to a weird Chinese site to watch this match, I asked no questions and clicked the link. I literally took a 2 hour office computer security training less than two days ago, with full immersive section on not clicking any kind of links you don't recognize, but I hear "Eddie Kingston No DQ Match" and all my new training went right out the window. And it was so so so worth it. This was my favorite King performance of the year, and King is easily the #1 wrestler in the worth this year. This was a No DQ match, but zero time was wasted on props, no table set up, no messing around with chairs, no geek show nonsense, they just spent that stip getting unprofessional as hell with strikes. The first half of this was filled with some unbelievably nasty shots, my favorite being these two nuts throwing full arm open handed chops right to each other's neck tendons. God, man. 

Kingston shakes his fist out early on a punch, and that hand gets gloriously worse as the match goes on. He initially tries punching with it, but it slows him down more every time he tries, so soon switches to full open handed strikes: big chops and hard palm strikes to every part of Drake's torso. At one point Drake rolled back in the ring and on his way under the ropes Kingston shot putted a palm right into his kidney. Drake wisely changes paths to power offense, taking advantage of openings Kingston leaves him (Anthony Henry running interference on the floor doesn't hurt) and that allows Drake to land some shots of his own, the best being when he dishes a couple of kicks to King's back and then stomps right on that bad hand. King gets a uranage, Drake gets a couple big slams and a lariat, and King has one of my all time favorite strike combos I've ever seen him throw: Abandoning his bad right hand, he throws to hard closed fist lefty punches to stitch up Drake's side, and when Drake's head dips in recoil and Kingston anticipates it flawlessly, meeting Drake's face with an enziguiri. There was no overkill in sight, no shocked expressions after 2 counts, just deserving nearfalls and Drake hitting his moonsault that always makes me suck in my breath, his low angle whipping his body harder into his opponent while always looking like he's 2 inches from breaking his damn neck. This was an absolute classic, and my favorite Kingston performance in a year with almost too many favorite Kingston performances to count. This is a real legendary year for him.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST