While Stevens has a storied history a little over a decade ago, he may as well be a new wrestler this year in his limited engagement run. An indie guy in great shape who throws a lot of elbows, chops, and head drops and who also dabbles in submissions isn’t nearly as interesting or charming to me as the meatier weirdo in a mohawk doing power moves in a world that didn’t embrace that as much, and it certainly isn’t the expectation a lot of us had going into this. As a result, a lot of his work this year has been a culture shock as a result and/or just sort of there when combined with the natural rust that a guy’s just gonna have after spending most of the decade doing other stuff. Still, the reality half of the expectations vs. reality split screen isn’t all that bad, and this is the best he’s done all year. While he’s good in this, this is is greater primarily because this has Eddie Kingston in there, and Eddie Kingston fucking rules. Stevens does a little tribute in an early chop exchange with an Eddie Kingston style delayed sell by doubling over for a moment, a sell that Eddie’s made a lot with over the years, only for Eddie to top it later on with this absolutely gorgeous adrenaline-wearing-off sell.
That’s the highlight, but the match is full of those great little things. Stevens doesn’t offer me anything like that, but he hits hard and executes better than ever in this run, so I’ll echo initial sentiments over this being his best match since the return. It’s not fair to call it an Eddie Kingston carryjob, because it would have still fallen just short if he couldn’t hold up his end, but it’s fair to call this a match that I’ll remember as a great Eddie Kingston performance. Stevens overwhems him at the end not with heavier hands, but with more diverse striking, going to elbows too at the end while Eddie stuck to chops only. He follows up a gnarly elbow with a Northern Lights Bomb for the win.
HANDWERK 