Saturday, 6PM CST: Joe Biden is President-Elect and Eddie Kingston is challenging for a World Championship on Pay-Per-View. Things are fine sometimes.
0. NWA Women’s World Title: Serena Deeb [c] vs. Allysin Kay
Allysin Kay has delivered anywhere I’ve seen her: killing it against Mia Yim in the Mae Young Classic, cutting great promos on NWA Powerrr, or slaying douchebags on Twitter. She and Serena Deeb worked a Buy In match that was fine but had a dark match vibe to it, just some solid exchanges before a dragon screw leg whip straight-up led to a single leg crab hold. **1/2
1. AEW World Title Eliminator Tournament – Final: Kenny Omega vs. Hangman Page
These two guys, huh. A couple of WRESTLERS. One found his potential in Japan before finding his voice in America; the other found his voice in Japan before struggling to find it in America. That tracks, right? They delivered what they do, at a higher “level” than many guys who do this kind of thing are capable of doing. It’s impressive and athletic wrestling insanity mixed with an actual aura of competition, which is a tough thing to do when everybody is trying to do that kind of thing. It’s both genuinely good and genuinely just astounding.
Incredible dives and bumps, sweet counters, nasty strikes, logical shifts in momentum… just dudes being bros. You really have to respect fitting a couple guardrail spots in here too – take that, Kidani. ****1/4
2. Orange Cassidy vs. John “4” Silver
Orange Cassidy saves the big stuff for PPV: he showed off chain wrestling with PAC, showed off fire with Jericho, and on this one that rat bastard John Silver tore out his pockets! These two had an amazing little in-between match that captured some independent spirit, Silver mugging for not just a PPV audience but an invisible front row of fired up children.
They lost a little momentum towards the end as they headed towards 10 minutes, but a fun match. “He’ll probably live to be a hundred and fifty!” said JR tonight of Cassidy… we can only hope. ***
3. TNT Title: Cody Rhodes [c] w/ Arn Anderson vs. Darby Allin
Cody is Cody Rhodes again and while the trademark aficionado in me respects it the wrestling fan in me thinks he should’ve had to fight a wrestling match for it. Either way I loved this absolute WRESTLING match, led mostly Cody operating on seven different levels: this guy is just a flat-out great worker sometimes. He was flexing and being a shit early until Darby’s tope to the BACK which was a great way to show he wasn’t messing. Another great way to show that somebody isn’t messing was Cody just lifting Darby with a hammerlock and tossing him onto the elevated ramp like absolute trash.
The way Darby Allin moves is incredible too, occasional grace mixed with DANGER!! It was a strong contrast opposite this Cody: willing to do an avalanche-style Crossroads to put Darby down, failing, then quickly becoming a guy doing repeated bodyslams as no less than Arn Anderson screamed STAY DOWN… like that Horsemen heart was beating again. The sudden cradle finish came off like the perfect end to this too, a match that got a ton of story across without following any particular convention. ****
4. AEW Women’s World Title: Hikaru Shida [c] vs. Nyla Rose w/ Vickie Guerrero
This wasn’t as good as the Double or Nothing match and they didn’t really have much new to say, but Shida throwing herself at big Nyla Rose is a pretty great match-up. Loved Rose applying The Claw to Shida’s knee as well as the payoff where after Nyla got cocky and lifted Shida up after a 2-count early in the match, Shida dropped a Falcon Arrow off the top rope and pulled up Nyla before 3. ***1/4
5. AEW World Tag Team Title: FTR [c] vs. The Young Bucks
This was a really good straight-up wrestling match where they both naturally played The Rockers and Brainbusters early, which makes you wonder why they had to take the whole “emotion” aspect out of it. Like, it’s nice to switch things up but sometimes you can just use a pair of babyfaces!! There was some truly awesome stuff here outside of the standard goodness too, like Harwood’s slingshot powerbomb and the spike piledriver counter of the Meltzer Driver setup and Cash doing a springboard 450, but the actual on-screen mention of #DIY kind of sums this up: cool, but not AS cool. ****
6. The Elite Deletion Match: Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevera
This was oddly placed and kind of a slog, but the Gangrel and Shane Helms cameos were so brilliant I can’t say another bad word. Hire Helms for everything.
7. If MJF Wins, He Joins Inner Circle: Chris Jericho vs. MJF w/ Wardlow
MJF’s Jericho entrance was something else, and he and Jericho delivered the ideal 2020 Jericho match. Instead of fumbling around trying to keep up with high spots, Jericho just brawled with MJF but they made sure nearly everything had a thing or moment to it: MJF’s extra bumping, Jericho mugging to the camera, or just a simple revenge spot like Jericho clotheslining MJF over the top rope because MJF did it to him. For a semi-main event match that ended with a cradle, this was more effective than White/Ibushi. MJF is twenty-five years old. 25!!! ***1/2
8. I Quit Match – AEW World Title: Jon Moxley [c] vs. Eddie Kingston
I watched Eddie Kingston’s rise up the independent ranks from afar, only getting a taste of him as a tag team wrestler with Blackjack Marciano and then random YouTube promos as I drifted from following independent wrestling. He always came off a little self-important to me, a guy who I’d probably get on with talking Kobashi matches but one who I couldn’t always take seriously because of that very fact. He can rip a promo, oh yeah, but did it translate to the match? To the payoff?
GODDDD am I a stupid idiot. Eddie Kingston rules. Whether it was self-important enough or not after 15 years it just became real. He is a guy that just cares, providing good wrestling matches little touches of credibility to make them great: he puts his dukes up at the start, fires off a stiff kick as he’s trading elbows with Mox… you know there is a thought behind this, an attempt to make this more intense and chaotic than the other thousand championship matches. They managed that.
But here’s the thing too – I’m working 9-5! Usually more! I got a kid! Sometimes I don’t have the time or energy to see or appreciate these little touches, these finer points. I usually watch pro wrestling on my phone more often than not. And sometimes I just want to see guys beat each other up and tribute Misawa and bleed from the mouth and head. They managed that too.
Moxley is a presence, but Kingston brought the goods: it was an I Quit match where they were trying to hurt each other so bad that one guy said… I Quit!!
Like, actually: the approach here on everything, from suplexes to holds to mat wrestling, was to hurt a man bad. The suplexes were on chairs or thumbtacks, the holds were done with barbed wire and often turned into straight-up chokes. Kingston brought out the rubbing alcohol, because OBVIOUSLY. And he did one of the best ever “quits” too, super quiet and desperate and ashamed. This was a glorious example of two thugs trying to hurt or choke each other to their permanent conclusion. More World Title matches should be like it. ****1/2
Happy Thoughts: The Elite Deletion should’ve gone on earlier and The Young Bucks should’ve kept it simpler, but this was a great card and great show. 9/10
