Eddie vs PAC

AEW Dynamite New Years Smash 1/13/21

Eddie Kingston vs PAC  

MD: A few years back, Eddie Kingston got to live out a lot of his pro wrestling dreams, getting to participate in the G1, facing off against some of his Japanese heroes and sitting down to talk with others. I wonder though, back in early 2021, when he stepped into the ring with PAC to finish off this mini-feud, if he saw endless opportunity before him. I wonder if he saw an opponent who had the rugged, unrelenting toughness of Dynamite Kid, the ingenuity, innovation, and dynamism of Liger, and the adaptability of Fuchi, who could go from a comedy spot to a technical title match to brutality at the blink of an eye. Who PAC evoked the most to me along those lines was probably Kuniaki Kobayashi, who always seemed primed to explode with seething intensity. But of course, in the end, PAC was unique, blazing his own trail and creating his own pro wrestling alchemy.

Likewise, I wonder what PAC saw in Eddie that night. Eddie wears his inspiration on his sleeve, sure, but he comes from a place of genuine, real caring. In a world of irony, he might be big and broad and over the top at times, but that chip in his shoulder drives right through the heart of you. 

This was still months away from the spark lighting and Eddie truly connecting to a returning crowd. At this point, he was positioned in that heatseeking, big talking 1984 Roddy Piper player/coach role. He'd gathered together the Butcher, Blade, and Bunny, and the Lucha Bros. Well and good until PAC came back after 8 months being forced away by the pandemic. The Lucha Bros chose PAC and Eddie took it out on them, keeping them backstage in the most violent way possible so they couldn't support Fenix in his title match against Omega.

There was still something just a little cartoonish about this Eddie, but he was committed to the role and leaned into it. In fact, for the first third of this match, he leaned into absolutely everything, a perfect canvas for the artist of violence, the human weapon that was PAC. 

PAC exploded into the ring with a missile dropkick. Eddie threw himself backwards into the turnbuckles and tumbled out of the ring to show the world just how explosive a missile it was. PAC followed it up with a dive, getting right in the camera after, punctuating the athleticism with that unmistakable seething energy.

He followed it up with four pump kicks in the corner. He was varying his offense, modulating it, taking his time, accentuating his point. This was a man who wanted to savor this. This was a man who wanted his opponent to suffer. You bought into the story being told. Eddie deserved to suffer. He had to. Why else would such a force of brutal justice rain down upon him like this? Eddie was the ideal human sponge to absorb the incessant vengeance of PAC.

Eddie is so good at little gestures. They're a bit overdone in pro wrestling now, that last middle finger before a killshot, but Eddie can pepper them throughout a match. Here he was on his knees selling and he shot a chop to the leg. Ineffectual in the grand scheme of things, but Eddie was alive and Eddie wouldn't quit and it was going to take more to put Eddie down. He showed it to PAC and he showed it to the world. 

PAC kept pressing, endless forward motion, but he overshot. Eddie was able to get one elbow out of the corner, one foot up, was able to drop a knee off the turnbuckles onto PAC's skull. Then he tossed him out so his minions could do damage. He was playing a role, playing it well. After Bunny raked PAC's eyes, Eddie was right there to hit him with an Exploder on the floor. 

Now it was Eddie's turn to take his time and lay it in. He targeted PAC's damaged neck (a neck he had damaged himself with a DDT a few weeks prior). More than that, though, he added insult to injury, pulling at PAC's beard, jamming his face into the bottom rope. In return, PAC seethed once again, the picture of fury waiting to be unleashed.

And unleashed he was. PAC fired back then sidestepped a charging Eddie to hit a German off the ropes. That took them into an extended final third of the match. Both threw bombs. Both caught one another with cutoff shots. Eddie hit a backfist and enziguri. PAC then got him when he was on the top rope with one of his own (Eddie did make an over the top face at that, leaning into his nefarious role maybe harder than he had to; like I said, it'd all click a few months later. And anyway, it was satisfying to see; Eddie deserved it). 

Then came the superplex, both men selling it like the huge move that it should be. Eddie tried another DDT hoping to break that neck he had previously injured, but PAC held on to the rope and hit one last dropkick. Eddie, again doing that sort of immersive selling that he's so good at, reached at PAC, reached and reached, unable to do anything else, reached far later than anyone else would have, even right before the impact as PAC sailed off the top onto him with the Black Arrow to secure the win. 

PAC was a force here. Eddie was stubborn and underhanded and unrelenting. Both of them came in with chips on their shoulder in this one, and it was how those chips scraped up against one another that made this engaging and unique. I don’t know what they were thinking that night, but I know how I felt watching the match. For all the people that they may evoke or may be inspired by, there's only one Eddie Kingston and there was only one PAC, and we only got to see them face off in a singles match one time, but at least we got to see it.