While these two are no strangers to each other under another identity, this is disappointingly one of only two singles matches that they’ve ever had. With Gulak wrestling as himself, it’s the only one they’ve ever had period.
It’s hard to say this lives up to the pressure of being the only Eddie Kingston vs. Drew Gulak match that exists.
It’s even harder to say that this wasn’t great in spite of that.
While deliberately having a match that seemed more muted and restrained match, Kingston and Gulak are still such an easy sort of slam dunk easy math pairing that what they set out to do doesn’t matter quite so much at all. It doesn’t matter as much what the specifics are of what they do, because they’re so perfect at every little thing. It especially doesn’t matter because while they wrestle a quieter sort of a match, it’s still the exact kind of match that this pairing was always capable of excelling at. Gulak attacks a part of the body, and Eddie Kingston guts it out. It’s a sure enough thing that all of the little adjustments don’t affect this as much as they might affect most other matches and most other kinds of matches.
The only major impediment is that Gulak attacks the right arm of Eddie Kingston instead of Eddie’s left long, not allowing Eddie to do the thing he’s the absolute best in the world at, but it still means Eddie gets to sell. He’s not as great on the arm as he is on the leg, primarily because he requires the use of his arms later in a match more. Still, he’s beyond incredible in this specific role as the aggrieved and hobbled killer. People say Eddie Kingston is realer than everyone else and that goes for everything about him, inside the ring and out, but it always feels especially true with performances like these. He’s able to perfectly balance the actual physical pain with this sort of anger at himself for not being at his physical best with a believability and grace almost unmatched throughout wrestling history, only ever bested at times in the role by the man who King reminds me the most of and who he honors that that black and yellow (that’s right it’s Shane Douglas somehow?).
Mechanically, it’s perfect too. Gulak can tear up an arm in a lot of ways, and he turns up the brutality here to make a more believable Kingston foe. It’s the same sort of wrestling on paper, but there’s a marked difference between this and what he does in EVOLVE. It’s less science than it is combat, adjusting perfectly to the feeling present in every single Eddie Kingston match. The purely mechanical isn’t just the realm of Gulak in this match though. The most impressive things to me came out of Eddie Kingston and the small ways he furthered the story of a bad right arm. There’s a point early on where Eddie gets up shaking his arm, but does so with it extended to Gulak, as if to feed him it to keep the focus there and nowhere else. Eddie also takes the injured right arm to the next level by not grabbing his right forearm with the left hand when trying to grab a Crossface, but grabbing the right elbow instead, unable to put any pressure on the forearm, wrist, or hand on the damaged arm. It’s the smallest touches, but with wrestlers this great, it always is.
In the end, some things are unavoidable, sadly. If Eddie wins, he has to use his right arm, and this is absolutely a match Eddie should win at this point. Eddie lands a Backfist to the Future, and compounds the damage with a Backdrop Suplex to guarantee the win despite the bad arm, importantly always registering the damage to himself as well.
It’s not the sort of ending I love in a match like this, but few can likely do it better and smarter than these two.
Even working a decidedly undercard match in the middle of the card, talent simply finds a way. Especially when working a match like this that plays to almost all of the best things both men are capable of. It’s not what it could be or what it should be, but given the careers that both man have had and will go on to have, neither is any stranger to making the most out of table scraps.
HANDWERK 