This was for Miro’s TNT Title.
I was at this show, and with regards to the Punk/Darby match, it was a wildly different experience watching it on tape a month later compared with watching it live. They’re very different experiences that often reveal different things about a match, and neither is specifically better than the other. What works live doesn’t always translate after the fact, and matches that are great with a lot of cameras and the benefits of production don’t always work quite so well a few rows or more back from the ring in-person.
I say all of that to say that this is a match that’s great both ways.
Watching it live, certain things stood out that you would expect to stand out. The moments of big time offense, the big twists and turns of the match, the work on Miro’s neck, and Eddie Kingston’s hyperdramatic back selling. Eddie’s the sort of a wrestler who works in just about every room and he’s able to get so much out of his hurt back and communicate that pain with big broad strokes, but also never losing any sense of realism in the process. The story of it all also worked incredibly well live, back vs. neck, and then also the character-based turns that the story took late in the match.
On film, it’s even better.
In the obvious ways, you get a closer look at everything. Every great little facial expression made by each man, but also at things that didn’t pick up quite as well from rows back, like biting the hand (thank you) and these little attempts to grab onto each other whenever possible. Particularly great in this regard was the way Eddie hurled himself into Miro on the apron to knock him off of it to set up a dive. From a while away, it seemed like a shoulder or an elbow, done on purpose. A lot closer up and from a new angle, it’s just Kingston recklessly hurling his body into Miro’s, which is both so much more exciting of an attack, but also conveys a sense of desperation in a much stronger way. It also lands with a much more emphatic thud when experienced this way.
In a purely auditory sense, this match gains so much on tape.
Not that this was ever a match that felt soft in person, but holy shit.
Hearing the blows from rows back is different than hearing them from up close, and the welts that form on Miro’s chest as a result of Eddie’s repeated chops added a good amount this go-around. The thud on Miro’s shots was also the sort of thing picked up a little less by the in-person experience than by cameras up close, and it adds a lot to this. Instead of Eddie just having trouble with this mountain of a man, there’s the added element that this is a mountain of a man hitting back just as hard. There’s the pure lizard brain element that I appreciate, but it’s also a match with a story that’s just slightly improved when one has a greater appreciation for the punishment inflicted, and that goes with every close-up visual I didn’t get to see live or every shot thrown that’s a hundred times louder on film.
Certain things about this work no matter what though.
Kingston and Miro have a remarkably simple story to tell, and tell it with tools just as simple. Miro’s neck is weak, but he’s still stronger and less beaten up overall than Kingston. It’s about chops and clubs and throws on the bad neck of Miro and the back of Kingston that Miro’s able to hurt early on.
More than just that, it’s yet another one of those classic Eddie Kingston stories. The neck work pays off, and he’s able to hold off Miro just enough to start to stack up damage upon damage. Unfortunately, in his effort to stop a German Suplex, he winds up yanking the top turnbuckle pad off. Eddie manages suplexes and the Backfist to the Future, and has Miro beaten, only to lose a second on the count because of the referee getting the turnbuckle pad out of the way. If he was still a villain and had removed the padding on purpose, it would be a classic piece of comeuppance, but as he’s not and as it results from a pure fluke, it’s a tragedy. Unable to help himself, Eddie then tries to utilize the advantage created in his justified anger, only to get stopped by the referee now. The rules once again seem to only come into play when Eddie tries to do something to get ahead, resulting in Miro sneaking in a low blow, before a round kick to the head and his all-time great bicycle Superkick for the win.
No longer facing consequences of actions, it’s down to just bad luck, and nobody has more of it and in worse places than Eddie Kingston does. He slipped up once, trying the old ways, and that’s all it took. Every great loss includes some lesson or a moral to the story, and here, it’s that Eddie Kingston cannot make a single mistake. He has to be perfect, and the moment he isn’t, someone is waiting on him. It’s a perfect match and story to throw into a larger career arc, Kingston having largely reformed and bettered himself, but ultimately unable to achieve because for the most fleeting second, he tried the shortcut. While the world was waiting for Eddie’s slip up, Miro was able to sneak in and actually cheat and steal the win. It’s not fair, but that’s Eddie Kingston for you. Once again, deserve’s got nothing to do with it.
Eddie Kingston is the best loser of a generation, and while this isn’t the best Eddie Kingston loss of the year, it is the most Eddie Kingston loss of the year.
It’s the best opening match of the year, but it’s more than just that.
This is an ideal sort of wrestling match to me. Both violent and dramatic, with every action being the result of two great characters being hurled at each other and reacting in natural ways. Not a long match, but one in which every moment has some point. Either it’s mechanically great or it’s going somewhere. One way or another, every piece of this match is one of consequences. A perfect story coupled with some of the best action you’ll find anywhere in wrestling all year, and it’s the best match on a really great show.
One of the best matches of the year, full stop.
***1/2
HANDWERK 