2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston/Akiyama Before Kingston/Akiyama

23. Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs. Jun Akiyama/Konosuke Takeshita AEW Rampage 11/18/22  

ER: Ever since Dream Match Wrestling started in 2001 with King of the Indies, the most common way it's been naturally presented is as Matches Paying Customers and Internet Fans Want to See That Maybe Haven't Happened. It's much less commonly presented as Match Participant's Dream Opponent. Eddie Kingston's dream opponent is Jun Akiyama, and fighting a 53 year old Jun plays into every part of Eddie Kingston's 3 year + retirement tour. We never got any of Kings Road Eddie against the All Japan or NOAH rosters we all loved. We missed out on dozens of Eddie Kingston singles matches against Baba acolytes because Kingston only went to Japan for a week with Osaka Pro. Kingston's only singles match in Japan at the time of this match was against Kanjyouro Matsuyama, one of those Japanese wrestlers who has wrestled a couple thousand matches but is still obscure and only spoken about by real freaks. You have never brought up a wrestler as plain sightedly obscure as Kanjyouro Matsuyama, and we should instead all be talking about Eddie Kingston's fun but disappointing singles matches against Takeshi Rikio and Keith Walker. 

Well, now Eddie actually gets to fight Jun Akiyama in a singles match, and this match is the great teaser tag the night before that match. And what's great about it, is how they perfectly understand that it's a teaser to the singles match, and they work every little tease of Eddie and Jun going at it. What's even better is that Eddie and Jun don't even go at it until the end of the match, and I also think it's the weakest part of the match. More focus and dedication was placed on making the teases special than the actual brief squaring off: Kingston throwing a running elbow at Jun on the apron after tagging out, Akiyama kicking at Kingston on the apron after tagging in, Akiyama bailing on a pinfall attempt after a piledriver on Ortiz to not give Kingston the satisfaction of breaking up said pin, Kingston taunting Jun while giving Takeshita a nasty face lock and then not giving Jun that satisfaction by stopping his own pin. It was all hugely entertaining, and again, more so than their actual exploder trading at the match's conclusion. 

I thought Ortiz looked incredible. He looked great in peril, he looked perfectly in sync with Kingston during their runs - hitting a cool neckbreaker drop and throwing Takeshita into a neck-breaking Kingston DDT is the kind of spot that never looks natural but was smooth as silk here - and he fed for Akiyama brilliantly. I don't think Akiyama is washed. No, he seems to be working as smart as ever and seems to know the limitations that come with being a wrestler in his early 50s. But on Akiyama's hot tag Ortiz did an incredible job feeding for him, bringing all the speed and completely hiding the fact that he was moving all around Akiyama. Akiyama wasn't exactly Steven Seagal standing in place forcing everyone to run at him, but he wasn't not doing that, and I think Ortiz completely masked it. The match ending breakdown was a lot of fun, and for a guy I don't typically connect with I thought Takeshita's had an Actually Great Kawada sell off Kingston's wicked backdrop suplex, and I appreciated that his best elbow of the match was used to shut down Ortiz'a fire. It's a risk to run a Dream Match Teaser right before actually running the Dream Match, but this was an excellent tease.  

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST