2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Allin vs. Aichner

106. Darby Allin vs. Fabian Aichner EVOLVE 1/18

ER: We loved basically every Darby Evolve match from his time there, and there are still a ton we hadn't seen. Evolve was a promotion I really loved while also a promotion that I didn't actually follow regularly. Fabian Aichner was the Evolve champ at one point? News to me, pal. Aichner has become one of my favorite WWE roster guys and this is him right after losing that Evolve title, and aiming to take all of his frustrations out on Darby's body. Like the greatest Darby Allin matches, a lot of this is his larger opponent (and Aichner was at the height of his beefiness in this match) hurling Allin disgustingly into hard walls and surfaces. Aichner got a lot of mileage out of literally just running Darby into the guardrails and turnbuckles, not even doing any actual offense, just running a man into things. His actual offense does look really great (if you can't make your offense look good against Allin, you should rethink your moveset), with some strike combos that really move Darby, a wicked pop-up powerslam, awesome brainbuster, powerbomb into the ringpost, all of it great. 

Darby picked his spots well, hitting a great low tope and dodging out of the way of an Aichner running knee, sending him patella first into the post. I really liked how they moved to the knee injury portion of the match, as it wasn't immediately after Aichner hit the post. Aichner rolled back in and went back to decimating Allin, with Darby only taking control when Aichner's knee buckled on a powerbomb and Darby landed with a Bombs Away, then went hard after Aichner's knee. I love how the match went from Aichner dominating, to Allin suddenly having this great in, to Aichner panicking and getting the hell out of there with his feet on the ropes. The finish was cool for a cheap finish, with Aichner essentially just throwing Allin off the top rope with an inside cradle. Allin went splat, Aichner used the feet for leverage, then walked off. It played nicely into their match the next night (where Aichner smashed Allin during his ring entrance) and I thought it was a cool way to run the same match on consecutive nights. 

PAS: I hadn't seen very much of Aichner before, but I enjoyed him as a meathead with fun power offense. He was a bit mechanical in between spots, but when he got his hands on Darby he brought Darby down really hard. I liked the delayed knee sell, I really bought that knee bar as a near fall. Darby is so fast, that staying with him is like trying to stay in front of Kyrie Irving. You throw a bum knee into that equation, you are drawing dead. It seemed like Aichner was out of answers, until he violently threw Darby down from the top rope and put his legs on the rope to steal one. Darby versus a strong guy is a really great match up and we need to see a John Silver match on Dark or something.   

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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

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