2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. Coyle

Eddie Kingston vs. Rory Coyle North Wrestling 2/1

PAS: This was part of Eddie's UK tour, which was his last run as an indy wrestler before signing with AEW. Coyle is kind of a Newcastle Kingston, a brawler with good mic work, who clearly idolizes Eddie. This was a fun weapons brawl with Kingston pounding on Coyle with punches, choking him with a plastic bag and hanging him with booster cables. Coyle breaks out a VCR and videotapes, and gets a videotape smashed on his head before eating two backfists. But he stumbles to his feet and hits an air raid crash on a VCR, which is a sick bump for Kingston to take in this kind of special appearance. Fun example of the big name coming in to take on the local barstool legend.

ER: This really is Kingston going to the UK and fighting an acolyte, and it is exactly what you want. Eddie Kingston playing UK rock clubs feels like a natural fit, no doubt has better crowd mic work than a guy making small talk while tuning his guitar. The match gets changed to No DQ as soon as it starts, and something tells me the match would have been worked exactly the same way if it hadn't. I liked the crowd brawl, always fun to see how tightly Kingston throws strikes in the middle of a packed in crowd, and - while this might sound blasphemous to some - I think Kingston is a more consistently high end crowd brawler than LA Park. Kingston is more consistently engaging and his brawls are more relatable, whereas Park is more like being in awe of a celebrity walking past you in the supermarket. Kingston wraps a plastic bag around Coyle's face, clamps a jumper cable on Coyle's tongue and cheek, and we get some gnarly spots around a bunch of VHS tapes and a VCR that Coyle brought out with him. Getting a VHS tape smashed into your face would hurt like hell, and that pain comes through. Coyle takes a couple bumps on the tapes and you can see his body bouncing off awkward tape corners, it's great. King's backfists have never looked better, both looked like real KO shots. That's my only real problem with the match, as Kingston has established one backfist as something that almost always wins, TWO backfists definitely shouldn't see a man getting back to his feet. But I think Coyle selling the backfists and his struggle back to standing were good, so it was handled as well as possible. King's post-match promo is unsurprisingly great, man knows how to sell injuries during promos so well, and he knows exactly what tone to take with the crowd after a loss. The man knows how to connect with people out in the Moors as well as he connects with people in Queens. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST