Eddie Kingston's Wrist So Bright, Look Like Sunny Delight

Eddie Kingston/Darby Allin/Jon Moxley vs. Anthony Greene/Bear Country AEW Dynamite 9/29/21 - FUN

ER: This played out like one of those early 2000s WWF Metal matches where they'd get a couple of hot east coast indy guys you'd recognize from an issue of PWI and let them tease a couple of their signature moves on their way to getting dropped on their heads. Punk is unsure if it is Bear County or Country but is a man so has no problem asking, and casually coolly covers up his lack of prep by saying these are big boys and Country is a lot more acreage. Our superstars handle this great, allowing some resistance to a good squashing, but squashing nonetheless. I love how Kingston came in to break up Bear Country's big tandem splash with a pointed dropkick to the knee, and both Boulder and Bronson took gnarly suplex bumps on the back of their heads before winding up on the floor to get wiped out by a nice Coffin Drop, and I dug when Greene suddenly stalled Kingston and Moxley and got ahead of himself, then had his twisting crossbody stonewalled by both of them. This whole thing was good vibes. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Lance Archer AEW Dynamite 10/23/21 - GREAT

ER: This match was really shaping up to be the best Lance Archer match we've seen, until an accident cut things short but inadvertently added some extra intrigue. Archer utilizes his specific problematic offense really well, following through on his big lariats and boots, and Kingston leans into it and makes the bumps feel like devastating after effects of getting too close to Lance Archer. Kingston jumps Archer and beats his ass on the entrance ramp and they immediately go into a couple fun stunt spots, with a random white haired Village of the Damned kid all grown up getting dragged over the guardrail by Archer and then chokeslammed into Eddie. Kingston lights up Archer in quick bursts, whenever he can make his way in between all of the Archer big man moments. There's a great spot where Archer goes to hit his inverted crucifix bomb out of the corner, and we get a prolonged, interesting Kingston reversal out of it. Kingston is so great at taking offense, because he lands with a real thud. There are guys like Ricochet and AJ Styles who are great at taking offense, but because they use their gymnast athleticism to make moves look like superhero offense. 

But I like how Kingston takes offense with an almost lack of grace (and you need to understand how much actual body control you have to possess to land with that kind of graceless thud), and here he wriggles down out of Archer's crucifix, slowly works him into a dragon sleeper, aims to keep dragging him back down into a stretch plum, and ends by breaking the hold with hard punches to the temples. The second Archer's free, he blasts Kingston with a lariat to the back of the head. Eddie's chops really slice off Archer's chest, but those seem better than taking Archer's stomp out of the corner, which punches Kingston into the mat like an assembly line drill punch. The finish is scary but covered up enough to make it look like a really strong worked injury, as Archer misses a moonsault and bounces off the top of his head. It all happens so fast that even watching the replay doesn't *really* make it any clearer, that line between planned missed spot and career ending neck injury blurred by happenstance. I don't actually know how the finish to this match would have gone, and I don't know if Eddie Kingston was supposed to advance in the World Title tournament before the injury happened. But if he wasn't, it's kind of a really well written way to get Kingston into the 2nd round of a tournament while giving him a win over the rampaging Archer. Obviously, I hope Archer will be alright (and all signs point to that now), but the match they were giving us was going really well. Let's get that full match on the books when Archer heals. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: To Infinity and Beyond vs. Bear Country

19. To Infinity and Beyond vs. Bear Country ESW 2/22/20

PAS: TIAB is my favorite heel tag team in the world, and it was fun to watch them work babyface again. Most of this match was solid tag stuff, brawl on the outside, working over of Colin Delaney, fun hot tag to Cheech, but they really kicked into gear with the finish run. I am a bit jaded on near fall tag finishing runs, but this one really had some bangers. Bear Country is still a bit iffy on little things, but they know how to do impressive big moves. There is an awesome spot where one Bear Country guy backpacks the other, and do a double cannonball just smushing Cheech. TIAB are so good at stringing things together, and they really build to a hot finish. Bear County's finisher has Boulder put Bronson on his shoulders, and then throw him on a prone opponent; the first time they try it Cheech moves out of the way, the second time Delaney hits a doomsday device, with Bronson taking a nastier bump then the one that broke Henry Godwinn's neck. That pretty much put it over the edge to MOTY list level to me.

ER: Yeah To Infinity is probably my favorite regular tag team in the world (now that Jollyville have been on hiatus), and I agree that it's fun seeing them back working babyface (though I also would have liked to see the dynamic in reverse, because they would have been incredible sniveling heels against the 600+ pound Bear Country). Bear Country are a team that should eventually get good if they keep getting ring time, as they have a lot of cool ideas but aren't very good at doing things like subtly getting into position for offense. Luckily, To Infinity are really good at things like that. I liked Delaney eating a long beating from BC, really made me excited for their eventual comeback (Cheech finally just leaping onto Bronson with a choke turned into a triangle was a smart way to stop getting squished), and the comeback to the finish was when this really got good. We got a couple of big nearfalls, my favorite being this brutal piledriver/powerslam by Boulder than slammed Delaney while smashing Cheech between Delaney and Boulder, and I was pretty shocked when Cheech kicked out of that tandem cannonball (really something that looks that much like a human wrecking ball needs to be protected, couldn't believe they didn't have Delaney break up the pin instead of Cheech kicking out). We got a couple cool uses of dives, as Delaney does a wild plancha leaping up to the top rope to take out Bronson, and later Cheech flies through with a tope on Bronson to leave Delaney free for the pin. The finish run had one of those great stretches where Cheech and Delaney hit shot after shot, in a similar pattern as other matches, but always with a couple things turned and twisted around, with the best one here being a Cheech facewash to Bronson that ended in a dropkick through the ropes to Boulder. The Doomsday Device was one of the crazier and near fatal spots of the year, Bronson dropped STRAIGHT off Boulder's shoulders on to his head, and I can't believe they continued to go through with the finish. Still, pretty impressed how Infinity clearly went as easy as possible on him while making it look as good as possible.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Monday AIW: 200th Show 11/2/19

CPA vs. Wes Barkley

PAS: Not sure what the point of CPA is. He doesn't seem to be doing the clip-on tie gimmick anymore, and now his gimmick seems to be middler at a local comedy club. There was some OK stuff with a knee injury, and I like Wes, but undercard singles match isn't what he does well. CPA goes over with a facebreaker on his bad knee, and I am perplexed.

Danhausen vs. VSK

PAS: What is it with crappy three initial wrestlers going over cool AIW regulars on this show. Danhausen is a great tag guy, but as a singles wrestler he is a little too concerned with trying to get over his memes. Still his actual work was pretty good, while VSK seemed to over enunciate every action, and his offense seemed to be all complicated ways to drop a guy on his own knee. They do some thing at the end where Danhausen drinks a White Claw, and spits at Derek Director, and yadda yadda. Tik Tok wrestling stinks.

Zach Thomas vs. Wheeler YUTA

PAS: Thomas is pretty fun to watch, he is a big kid who bangs away. YUTA is pretty dancy and the dancy YUTA parts of this match aren't great, although Thomas looks pretty good throwing fast armdrags. When the match settles down to Thomas throwing bombs and YUTA avoiding him and using his speed it gets fun. I really liked the couple of times Thomas just hurls his body into Yuta like a fullback trying to open up a hole.

Lee Moriarty vs. Alex Shelley

PAS: I was absolutely dreading this when I saw it on the match list. Moriarty is a guy with a tendency towards swing dancery and Shelley is the all time maestro of that style. While this match certainly had more than it's fair share of somersaults and dipsy dos, it had some other stuff which made it watchable. Shelley actually worked pretty stiff, and did a nice job as a pissed off veteran against a young guy, and Moriarty did some nice arm work leading to some big Fujiwara near falls after some pretty La Mistica's. I still don't think I would recommend this match, but I liked it way more then I thought I would, and it is Shelley's best match since coming back to AIW.

65. Bitcoin Boyz vs. Bear Country vs. To Infinity and Beyond vs. 40 Acres

PAS: This is what I came here for. The AIW four way tag match is pretty much a guaranteed blast every time. This is almost all new teams for this format, so it cements my belief that To Infinity and Beyond are the glue of this match structure. Fun structure here with two teams of beasts (Bear Country and 40 Acres) and two bumping heel teams (TIAB and Bitcoin). There is a fun spot early where Colin Delaney stumbles in between a face off between Bear Country and 40 Acres and ends up getting smashed by all four dudes. AJ Gray has really leaned into fucking people up and I am here for it, when I first watched him he was more of a thick highflyer and now he wrestles more like shorter Stan Hansen. Bear Country are a fun indy version of the War Raiders, perfect for this kind of match as they can hit their big dude spots and not have to put a full match together. Bitcoin Boys are neat, two tiny opportunistic little jerks who absolutely get obliterated.

ER: Love this. At this point I'm going to be shocked whenever AIW runs a 4 way tag match that doesn't wind up on our MOTY list. And this one has Eddie Kingston on commentary, which is such a beautiful combination of the very best things that it would be like In N Out also becoming a dispensary. Kingston talks about how he thinks Cheech is an ugly dude, compares him to Giant Baba, drops gems like "What is Delaney gonna get powerbombed for the fifth time?" or "He probably learned that from Quackenbush. So did I. Doesn't mean I use it though." Kingston loves this kind of chaos and the glee in his voice while the chaos is happening just makes me enjoy my favorite match structure even more. We get some great sequences and set ups all throughout, too many to mention. Bitcoin Boyz are super new, and they fit in nicely by bumping big (Taylor takes maybe the bump of the match when he gets tossed over the top, tries to hang on, and basically falls down the ring steps and winds up 15 feet away from the ring; at the same time Mikey was taking a cutter from Delaney into a Cheech German suplex that landed him on his neck and shoulders), Delaney and Cheech continue to run everything - my favorite team in 2019 - and here's Delaney getting crushed by everyone bigger than him, then coming back and working nutty spots on Cheech's shoulders (ducking  a Smooth clothesline that sends Smooth to the floor on a low bridge), then flipping over (baaaaarely) when Mikey hits a crossbody off the top while he is still on Cheech's shoulders. AJ Gray was out here murdering folks with lariats, PB punched Boulder right in the face, Boulder hits his cool powerslam/powerbomb combo on TIAB, the dive train lands big, it all rules. And The Duke is out there, you know he's gotta take a shot that allows him to sell better than anyone else in the match. He eats a punch on the floor and then sprawls perfectly into the guardrail to hold himself up. After the match he even gets into it with Ted Dibiase, and AARP Dibiase throws a great punch and then a shockingly gorgeous Russian legsweep while holding Duke in the million dollar dream. Another AIW show, another great 4 way tag.

49. Manders vs. Big Twan Tucker

PAS: This was the rubber match of my favorite indy series of the year. The first match is still the best, as it was totally out of nowhere, but this ruled too and these guys have some real chemistry. Tucker has an awesome intensity which is hard to teach, when he comes out it feels like some shit is about to pop the fuck off, and Manders is a perfect foil for that as he is unwilling to do anything but charge into the abyss.  Both guys only have one speed. There is a hilarious moment on commentary when Eddie Kingston mentions that Twan was trained by Johnny Gargano and Manders was trained by Tyler Black and I just imagine how horrible that battle of the trainers would be. Loved Manders breaking out Twan's elbow combos early, only for Twan to fire back and smash him right back. There is another great moment where Tucker has Manders in the corner and he unloads with a 10 punch combo to the body, working his kidneys like a heavy bag. Twan also has some awesome strength spots,  including snatching Manders mid air during a three point stance clothesline spot attempt. I did think Twan's rana out of the corner may have been a bit too cute for this match, but it was a big pop.  I think this may have gone a couple minutes long, as it is hard not to get a bit gassed working their pace. Still what an awesome collision, I love both of these guys unconditionally.

ER: Yeah these are two guys I seek out at this point, but I've yet to see them look quite as good against others as they do against each other. They have real chemistry and really bring out that something from beyond. Manders throws the Twan elbows and that is a mistake as Twan lays them right back in, then tenderized his torso with a punch of great corner punches all fired at the body. The chops land hard, shoulderblocks look like they would put most cars up on two wheels at least for a bit, Twan hits a boss Thesz press, there are a few huge slams and suplexes, and I actually like the Twan rana. These two were both just eating every nasty slam and strike and then getting up for more, and I liked how the rana shifted things from just another big slam into something that distracted and sort of threw off Manders. The Twan spear is iconic, and these two really can't do wrong against each other.

PME vs. Dr. Dan/Parker Pierce

PAS: PME has really mastered the art of the old school southern tag, and while Dr. Dan and Parker Pierce aren't close to the top heel team in AIW (no diss as AIW has an amazing tag division), but this is great stuff. Really reminds me of a Rock and Rolls tag against a fun random heel team like Jake Roberts and the Barbarian. You can just plug and play. Pierce is a blast in this, some real hard shots, a great spinebuster and even a hook kick. Dr. Dan has some fun stooging and takes his one horrific bump per match (dropping off the top rope through a table). PME had some fun wrinkles in their formula including some nifty stuff with the legal man and how that effected their near falls. I hope PME keeps these titles for a long time because there is a seemingly endless batch of fun teams to match them up with.

Erick Stevens vs. Matthew Justice

PAS: Meathead ECW brawl which is something Justice is adept at. Goes way into overkill as you would expect, but we do have some big stunts, including a spear through a door, an avalanche death valley driver through a table, tons of head drop suplexes and a spot where Fonzie lays a half a dozen chairs and pieces of doors in front of Stevens face for a coast to coast dropkick. There were 10+ times this match probably should have ended, and it eventually lost me a bit. Still a fun spectacle, and Stevens gets to cross this kind of match off his bucket list.

58. Eddie Kingston vs. Tre Lamar

PAS: This is Eddie as old man Tenryu which is a really great Eddie look. He works over Lamar and makes the kid earn his stripes. He does all of the parts of the Tenryu shtick well, the contempt, the grudging respect, the panic when things aren't working out, and finally the determination to finish the kid off. I liked Lamar in this a bunch too, he hit and run well, and really timed the big moves well. I especially loved the double stomp near falls, with Kingston rolling around the ring in pain and Lamar shocked in disbelief.

ER: This feels like the kind of tough match that Kingston can have in his sleep at this point. I love domineering Kingston, because few guys are better at being domineering in a ring in 2019, and I don't know if anyone is as good as Kingston at being the domineering guy who starts to lose control. I love him stalking the ring, knowing Lamar's moves before Lamar is throwing them, always there waiting with a big chop. And I love once Lamar starts getting a couple over on him that Kingston's big mouth keeps getting him in trouble, like when Lamar comes up a little light on a running knee and Kingston calls him out on it, only to then eat a much harder running knee. Kingston sells that kind of stuff like a god, going loopy and grabbing a muscle memory double leg from the ground, even selling a nerve twitch in his neck from yelling. I did think Lamar came up a little tentative in spots, unnecessarily physically moving a standing Kingston into a spot to take something from the apron, and he was a beat behind hitting the enziguiri after a Kingston backfist (I was already not going to like him hitting immediate offense after taking a backfist, so it really should have looked devastating). But Kingston must have sensed my dismay as he decided to just throw backfists until Lamar stays down, and I am fine with that.

Nick Gage vs. Joshua Bishop

PAS: I thought this was a fun performance by everyone in this match although the match itself was a little disappointing. I don't think Gage is a great wrestler, but he really has a presence and means something in way few wrestlers in the the world mean something. Bishop getting the win over Gage feels like big moment in his career. It is tough to work a big stunt show like this after Stevens and Justice pushed it to 11; no chair shot or table bump is going to mean much after that explosion. Wes Barkley was great on the outside, he took the two biggest bumps in the match, and was Jimmy Hart level annoying.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from Beyond All Hands on Deck 9/22/19

KTB vs. Erick Stevens

ER: Real nice 7 minute sprint, both guys felt like they were really pushing pace. It's like when a starting pitcher throws one inning in the All Star game, and suddenly he's added 4 MPH to his fastball because he knows he's not going to be throwing 110 pitches. This was a great showing for KTB, with Stevens taking plenty of tough bumps of his own, but really shining a light on KTB. I didn't realize this would be worked so quickly, but they started fast with hard shoulderblocks and never really slowed down. KTB had a couple of big slams but also wound up in the sand, and Stevens took zero seconds of hesitation to nail him with a great bullet tope. I'm sure the guys and gals on this show will be finding sand in their gear for the next several gigs, but I bet doing a crazy tope is made that much easier knowing that sand is there to catch you if your opponent doesn't. We even get some sand thrown in the eyes, which feels like something Finlay would have done had he worked any of the early Bash at the Beach shows. And one of the commentators makes me laugh with an Actual Good "shades of", as he drops a "Shades of Paul Orndorff vs. The Renegade from Bash at the Beach '95. I was there, you were there," to which the other commentator replies, "...I wasn't there." Loved it. KTB hits a picture perfect Asai moonsault, Stevens hits a German when KTB goes up top for another (I like when guys establish offense early, leading to openings for their opponents later when they go back to the well), and I kept digging all of KTB's running attacks. It felt like he would run into the ropes and feel like he wouldn't necessarily know what he was going to do when he hit Stevens, but in a good way. I loved the way he caught Stevens on the top rope, hit a running elbow into him, and then just shrugged him over his shoulders. Stevens' comeback was fiery, really I dug all of this.

Team Tremendous (Dan Barry/Bill Carr) vs. Bear Country (Bear Bronson/Bear Beefcake)

ER: This show appears to be full of hot sprints, and I am always going to be cool with that. This is tornado rules, so the ring was constantly filled with big dudes crashing into each other. I really like Dan Barry, he's the smallest guy here but hits harder than the others, his offense always focuses on results rather than style (look at his nice impactful dropkick through the ropes), and he's the guy who typically ties things like this together. This had a ton of fun action, with Bronson hitting a tope early and Barry following that up with a slingshot senton to the sand. We get plenty of lariats and avalanches from the real big men, Carr and Beefcake, nice big boy sentons, big ass Bossman Slam from Carr, and cool power spots like Barry getting powerbombed into Carr (with Beefcake impressively deadlifting Barry off the mat), or Bear Country setting up a tandem electric chair spot only for Barry to do a simple inside cradle and topple their bear stack. It would have been easy to see everyone getting in each other's way due to the tornado format, but they did a great job at looking reckless while nicely building things. I'm not sure why I slept so long on Team Tremendous. They have several years of stuff that I skipped past on Evolve shows (I think the whole cop thing came off too Chikara for me and I never gave it a full chance) but I have dug Barry in everything I've seen him in the past couple years. I ain't missing any more.

Chris Dickinson vs. Kenn Doane

ER: Dickinson is an established property at this point, and it's cool seeing a former WWE come in and not be treated as a holy entity because they were on TV a decade prior. So many times a former TV guy will be brought in as a special attraction on indies, and the local guy he's fighting will treat it like the fight of his life and it plays as a showcase to the former TV guy with the local guy narrowly getting a win. Now, Doane is obviously different from someone like D'Lo Brown, he's still a premier athlete and can provide something other than nostalgia, but it's cool that he would come in and work a show like this and Dickinson is the one rightly booked to look like the big deal. Doane is good at wrestling, but also doesn't seem to want to do it full time, and he's a cool opponent for Dickinson. We also get the addition of Christian Casanova and Cam Zagani running interference for Doane, so Dickinson is in there against essentially three guys and comes off even cooler for it. Doane has some nice athletic stuff, real nice dropkick and crazy vertical leap on his flying back elbow, but also throws a mean right hand, and I love his cocky athletic guy persona. If he wants it, he feels like someone who could be a major name on the indies. And it was great that he came in knowing that the best thing for him to do would be to highlight Dickinson's star. And Dickinson looked great. He hit hard and missed big, everything he did looked like he was 100% committed to wrecking Doane. But he really came off like a big deal when he was finally wrecking Doane's lackeys. Hitting a running Pazuzu bomb on Zagani to the floor is a great holy shit spot, as it's not a move that's easy to hit clean, plenty of bad landings possible. But the visual of Dickinson running across the ring with him, wearing the captains hat, tossing him to the masses, was awesome. I loved how Doane put over the finishing leg lock, really reaching desperately for the ropes, getting pulled deeper into the ring with each desperate grasp, before finally tapping. I'm curious to see more of Doane outside of Beyond, and Dickinson just looks like a star at this point.

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