Eddie Kingston is Behind The Diner Selling Marijuana to a Minor

Eddie Kingston vs. Thomas Shire vs. Joe Black vs. Matt Kenway AWE 11/3/19 - FUN

PAS: Kingston vs. Shire was one of my favorite matches of the year, but I never think this really got going. I did like that they mainly focused on one on one matchups, rather then running through a bunch of complex four way spots, and Kingston and Shire were really throwing heat both at each other and the other guys in the match. Black has a great look, he looks like an even more jacked Sabian, but I didn't have a great sense of his ring work and had an awesome loony dog collar match in 2020 . This was built up as a big Kingston win because of his history with Black, and I feel like they might have some good singles matches in them, hopefully AWE uploads more of their back catalogue to IWTV


Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. Butcher and the Blade Empire State Wrestling 11/23/19 - FUN

ER: This doesn't quite rise up to the level I thought it could, but I'm happy we got to see these teams cross paths. Things felt almost a little too structured, especially during the parts where Butcher and the Blade were in control. I was impressed how quick Homicide was moving around, really working quick sequences even when it was setting up stupid stuff for The Blade (like that indy BS where Homicide will get knocked down with a move, hard enough that it makes him get right back to his feet, in time to get put down with another move). Kingston worked great shtick, was yelling from the apron the whole match, tagged in only to whiff on a backfist on The Butcher and gets dropped hard on the mat, then rushes to tag out. Even when Kingston is focusing more on making jokes to the crowd, he's still someone who will take a couple of high back bumps in a match. Homicide and Kingston's energy made this one for me, Kingston throwing big chops before taking a beating, and the finish was really nasty with Butcher suplexing Homicide right across Blade's knees, Blade sliding in at just the right time. This never lagged and had a lot of good, but the high floor didn't make way for a high ceiling. If they ever cross paths again I wouldn't be shocked if they did it even better. This felt more like Kingston and Homicide squaring off against Kazarian and Daniels to me.

PAS: This had it's moments but overall it didn't totally work for me. I thought Pepper Parks was pretty bad in this match. Kazarian is a good comparison, because he had that "old guy trying fast juniors wrestling" vibe to it. Butcher isn't great but he hits hard and the exchanges with Kingston were the highlights. This was house show Eddie, and he is a really great house show wrestler, shit talking, strutting, jaw jacking with the crowd. He still takes some big bumps and such. Didn't love the finish run, but the actual finish was badass. Worth watching for sure, but not a real standout.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Gains vs. Romero and the Bump of the Decade

32. Ace Romero vs. Anthony Gaines ESW 6/30

PAS: A week after the WALTER vs. Darby Allin classic in EVOLVE, this felt like an indie version of that match, with Romero as a fatter version of WALTER and Gaines as a somehow seedier, somehow crazier version of Allin. Romero beats on Gaines with stiff chops and throws, and Gaines tries to avoid getting smushed and still fire back. They even have the same chop to the ringpost transition as WALTER vs. Allin. There is a really fun spot where Gaines hits a flip dive to the floor and bounces off of Romero like, simile fails me, a little guy trying to flip on a guy three times his size. Romero takes a really crazy bump where he tries to land a leg drop on to Gaines on the ring apron and ends up crashing his tailbone on the apron, totally nuts for a dude this huge. Of course the match builds to Gaines's insane pounce bump, which has justifiably gone viral. Gaines gets pounced over the top rope and thrown half way to the locker room. It was truly shocking and nuts, and the kind of thing that should get both guys more bookings. I am not a fan of how quickly Gaines went back on offense, as that move really should have ended the match, but this was still a pretty great match with some really memorable individual moments.

ER: This match is the very rare instance where my girlfriend hears about a match before I do. We were chatting when we got home from work and she says, "Hey I saw this crazy wrestling bump on Instagram. Some huge guy chucking a tiny blonde guy into the crowd." I immediately assumed that some kind of Darby Allin clip had made the rounds somehow, but lo, we now appear to have Darby acolytes, bred from the finest vintage death bump era Kidman stock. Romero is a giant fat dude, one who I've had a few matches sitting in drafts for a couple years, waiting on me to do a Indie Fat Guy Investigation on him. And he's all I ever could have wanted. He pummels Gaines around the ring with big chops and gives him a nice opening by hitting the post on a missed chop. He appropriately sells Gaines' offense, letting Gaines bounce right off him on a big flip dive, like a bird flying into a window (ehhhhhh, Phil?). Romero is not just a hefty dude, but he's also a lunatic. His missed legdrop off the middle rope to the apron was flat out nuts. It's a crazy spot when Damien Wayne does it, so a dude twice the weight of Wayne bouncing from apron to floor is just flat out unexpected.
And then there's the Bump of the Decade, and it really is pure PCP-fueled crazy. And it opens up an interesting discussion on what really is the official bump of the decade. The first one that came to mind was Brock missing a kneelift and whipping himself ass over elbow from the ring to the floor. That one looked like Brock could have died. Then I thought of Meiko Satomura splashing onto Aja Kong's outstretched feet and bouncing off them full force. The Crazy Crusher/Hellstorm ladder match was LAST decade, so this bump is certainly a top contender, and it would be fun to get any other contenders written up here on the site. I fully agree with Phil that Gaines was back in the game way too early, but to his credit he did take that crazy bump, there was no cheating; he took a Pounce, turned his body into a Hail Mary pass down the length of the entranceway, and lived to tell about it. If you can physically go back on offense after taking a bump that could have left you unresponsive, then I guess just go back on that offense. And throughout the match I did really like Gaines' offense. He has these cool diving punches that I've never seen before, some cool strike and kick variations, all stuff that looked good against a huge guy. Romero hits a fantastic sitout powerbomb, and the kickout is believable as Gaines ended up at such a high angle that he basically rolled through the pin with his body's own momentum. I love these monster vs. insane bumper with no health insurance kind of matches, and this is possibly the only match to make one of our lists and also become a meme.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Barnett v. Thatcher

Josh Barnett v. Timothy Thatcher ESW 12/16

PAS: I am all in on Barnett joining the ex-MMA guys doing indy wrestling. Both Barnett and Thatcher have done Snake Pit training and the first part of this match had some really aggressive mat work, including some really nice big boy take downs by Barnett, he is my favorite guy to watch grab and throw someone. I liked Barnett's body kicks a lot, but he kind of whiffs on a high kick and Thatcher does some really OTT selling for it. Thatcher has some very Fujiwara aspects to his game,  he does a great German counter into an armbar, but he should take the Fujiwara style of only selling for things that connect. I did really love Barnett's flurry in the corner right before the finish, very cool mixing up of body and head shots. Fun stuff, glad this showed up.

ER: I really love pro wrestling Josh Barnett. He reminds me of some of the bigger RINGS guys, and there's no one bigger today who does the mat grappling style. Thatcher is one of the bigger guys in that trend and Barnett just dwarfs him. The grappling was predictably good here, with Thatcher rolling to try to get that arm, at one point tossing him with a cool gutwrench (with Barnett subtly grabbing at his shoulder afterwards). Barnett brings some real pain to kneebars and tries for some cool rolling headlocks; his strikes are great and the flurry to end the match (before his epic clutch suplex to finish) was my favorite part of the match, throwing out knees (his knee strikes all match were great), body shots, quick shots to the face and neck, and impossible to defend assault. The missed high kick was extremely awkward, as Thatcher sells it all the way to the back, and it's made entirely more awkward by the crowd being mostly silent the entire match. Watching Thatcher deflate towards the mat in a deep space vacuum of silence after the only missed strike in the match just bummed me out. But, we have the rest of the match, and that was good.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Indy Stuff That Caught My Eye

You know how it goes: You're on YouTube watching something, and then something in the corner scrolling menu catches your eye so you follow that link, and then you see something else that sounds good, and you realize you've been watching wrestling on the toilet for 2 hours and you're legs have gone numb. Wait.

Biff Busick vs. Colin Delaney (Empire State Wrestling 5/16/15)

This immediately leapt out at me as I love Busick, and hadn't seen a Colin Delaney match in several years. Delaney has to stand as one of the weirdest WWE signings in history, definitely one of the weirdest guys to get his own action figure. I don't even think he had 30 matches in the company. Okay, I looked it up and his action figure is certainly weird, but in the *same* series that his action figure was in, there was a Cherry action figure. Cherry is probably a weirder person to get a WWE action figure. So goddamnit, Delaney isn't even the weirdest person in his own series to get a figure. Wow. I would have loved to see the marketing roll out for that action figure series. "We're expecting a big quarter, we got action figures coming out for Festus, Katie Lea AND Paul Birchill, Colin Delaney.....Cherry......At this time we're going to skip all questions regarding this quarter's action figures." And hey this was fun! It wasn't quite up to Busick's normal level, but it was fun seeing Delaney in the Busick style, working over headlocks (all the front facelocks, side headlocks, and all the fighting over them) and getting battered with uppercuts. I loved Busick's big uppercuts to cut off Delaney. He had one like a missile as Delaney was coming off the ropes, and another as Delaney was coming off the top rope. I wish things hadn't ended on a Malenko/Guerrero roll-up sequence - even if theirs looked more plausible than most - but I dug this.

Jeff Cobb vs. Vito Rea (Wrestling For Charity 6/14/15)

This was a catch style match and the match (show?) had the bottom rope removed. I had never heard of Rea before but he is apparently an Italian who has represented Italy several times at the FILA World Championships for Grappling, Pankration and Amateur MMA (most commonly known throughout the nation and by your parents as the WCGPAMMA, one can only assume). So you have two guys with legit amateur experience and we get 10 fun minutes of them battling over leglocks. We get some fun hard-earned reversals and we build to a nice butterfly suplex from Rea, but Cobb fights for a waistlock on the mat and turns that into a completely flat out great deadlift German. He fought it all the way from the ground to a low crouch, all the way up and over. Looked so awesome. For whatever reason the match is a 10 minute time limit so ends in a draw. I really would have liked to see this build to a finish, but what we got was fun.

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