Cody vs. Eddie Kingston (AEW Dynamite 7/22/20)

Match Reviews

Pro wrestling is not a meritocracy.

Last night, I put up a tweet arguing this exact point in response to Booker T’s assertion that a hashtag campaign on Twitter was a cheap way to force creative to reassess their use of Naomi on WWE television. According to Booker T, Naomi has to earn those opportunities with her talent in the ring. It’s an incredibly ignorant especially from someone like Booker T. The WWE is a corporate machine in a capitalist society which has historically overlooked the talents and needs of people of color. That’s why in the decades long history of the WWE Championship, only two people out of fifty-two have been of Black descent.

Even in a fantasy world where race doesn’t play a factor, not all opportunities are created equal. Someone like Naomi isn’t given the same chances to display her abilities as other people might. That’s just the nature of having more wrestlers than there is time to feature every one. And even on that front, Naomi’s already ahead of the curve of hundreds of others because she has a multiyear contract with the largest wrestling promotion in the world.

Does that mean that Naomi’s automatically better than the hundreds of independent pro wrestlers in the world?

Of course not. Wrestling isn’t a meritocracy.

If wrestling were a meritocracy, Eddie Kingston would have been a World Champion on national television a dozen times over by now.

Being a wrestling fan for fourteen years means that there’s lots of opportunity for very real cynicism to seep into one’s mindset. I’ve been watching wrestling long enough to see people who deserve better get less and vice versa. That’s the way of things. Crushing as it is for a viewer, one can only imagine the very real emotional and economic effects this might have on someone actually working in the industry. Every day for both fans and workers alike, there is some reminder that the business owes you absolutely nothing.

Eddie Kingston’s story as a performer and as a worker is one of the sorest reminders of that. Just last year, that idea of “No one is owed anything in this business” almost reached its natural conclusion as Kingston announced that he would be hanging his boots up at the end of 2019 if he didn’t end up signing a contract with a national promotion. Luckily for the world, those plans didn’t push through as the birth of his nephew inspired him to keep performing.

After eighteen years in the business, there was no reason to believe that anything might change for Kingston. The constantly revolving line up of talent on the independents meant that he would never want for work. Someone was always leaving and a worker the caliber of Eddie Kingston could always be relied upon to add some credibility to any roster. It wouldn’t have been hard for Kingston to continue making regular, high quality bookings on the independents. But with each passing year, it seemed less and less likely that either AEW and WWE would find any value in what he brought to the table as both promotions have sharply pivoted towards signing much younger talent.

But then, as it always does, wrestling starts to play its tricks on you.

Cody has been the TNT Champion on AEW Dynamite for a few months now. One of the key features of that title reign has been Cody’s insistence upon defending the title every week with an open door to challenge for it. Not only have signed AEW workers come to challenge for it but unsigned indie prospects were given the opportunity to come work for AEW as well. Ricky Starks set the tone for this as his appearance made it known that the TNT Title would be used for the company to try things out with unsigned talent.

In line with this, AEW marketing began teasing the potential for other indie favorites to come to Dynamite to challenge for the title. This was a major part of the social media marketing for Cody’s upcoming defenses. The posts would often encourage fans to suggest unsigned talent that they would want to see on AEW television. The internet being what it is, the fans rallied together to make their voices heard. They propped up a single talent as their champion to go up against Cody.

That person was WARHORSE.

IWTV Independent Wrestling Champion WARHORSE has been angling for a match against Cody on social media for a long time. As one of the more prominent figures on the independent scene today, it’s not a huge shock that the fans took up his cause and brought it to AEW’s attention. The online fervor for a WARHORSE vs. Cody match became so strong that AEW openly acknowledged it when Arn Anderson suggested WARHORSE as a possible challenger to Cody’s title.

But beneath the deluge of tweets calling for WARHORSE, another name was bubbling up.

Just a few weeks earlier, Eddie Kingston cut a fiery promo after a great match with Brett Ison. He laid out his demands: an NWA World Title shot against Nick Aldis, a TNT Title shot against Cody, and a match against Zack Sabre Jr. Kingston likes to run his mouth, it’s part of his appeal. That brazen openness for a fight has been there throughout his entire career. It was there in 2011 after winning the CHIKARA Grand Championship and calling out CM Punk and it’s here now with him listing three high profile names on the wrestling scene to answer his challenge. With the one promo, Kingston did what only the greatest of pro wrestlers can do at the peak of their powers.

He inspired hope. Perhaps this thing will happen.

And it did. These are the moments wrestling fans wait years for. Crumbs of joy like this are the dangling carrots that drive us to bear years and years of self-imposed sunk cost fallacy living. They gave Eddie Kingston a shot and anyone familiar with King knows that’s all he needs.

https://twitter.com/AEWonTNT/status/1286090046009819137

There’s no fanfare, loud music, or pyro for Eddie Kingston to open this episode of Dynamite. That’s now what he’s about. It’s not glitz and glamour he’s ever been after, just a wider stage to practice his violence on. He comes out with a microphone in his hand–always a good sign–and cuts a passionate, riveting promo. Because of course he does. That’s what Eddie Kingston does. I defy anyone to listen to Kingston threaten to gouge out Arn Anderson’s eyeballs and tell me that this man doesn’t understand pro wrestling.

The match is, of course, great. What did you expect? Kingston lays his shots in with the violent determination of someone who’s scraped his way up from the bottom and is now fingertips away from the very top. On commentary, Excalibur notes that the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak forced Eddie Kingston to sell his wrestling boots to pay for his mortgage. As with everything in Eddie Kingston’s career, this match excels because it’s so real.

Kingston is great, that’s a given. If any of you clicked on this review, you would have probably expected me to say so already. So I’ll make an effort to take the time to praise Cody. As with most of Cody’s best matches, this works because it strips away a lot of the smoke and mirrors that Cody tends to hide behind. Arn doesn’t get involved, there’s no Brandi at ringside, there’s no lengthy storyline that Cody feels the need to play into due to his obsession with 80s territory wrestling. Here, they’re just fighting, and Cody takes a beating from Kingston. All the credit in the world as well for taking the thumbtacks bump. This match didn’t need the thumbtacks bump but Cody wanted to make Kingston look dangerous and it worked.

The shadow hanging over this match is that Cody does win in the end. In the hands of a lesser worker, this feels like a violent betrayal of truth and logic. But Kingston’s always been smarter than that. One of his greatest talents for years now has been offering lesser opponents realistic opportunities to get one over on him. In this case, it’s Kingston’s notoriously bad leg. Given even the briefest moment to breathe, Cody goes after the leg with a chop block. He goes to finish things off with the Figure Four but Kingston makes him earn that submission, by god.

This match is fucking great. And it’s even better because of who was involved. Wrestling owes us nothing so when the stars align to grant us something so simply joyous for just a while, it feels like the best thing ever. Watch this match, sign Eddie Kingston, put him on TV every week. Wrestling is easy.

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