July 2023

On a strictly emotional level, there’s something immensely fulfilling about seeing Kingston live out his dreams in front of a raucous crowd. For the longest time, it felt like Kingston’s ambitions of paying tribute to his heroes by wrestling someone with a direct link to one of them wouldn’t come to pass. If seeing Eddie make his entrance at Korakuen draped in championship gold didn’t tug at the heartstrings, his performance here certainly will. Pride is a funny thing. It can deceive you and lead you down a dangerous path. For Eddie Kingston, pride means fighting through the pain despite his struggles. That was the central theme of this match. Early on, Kingston twea…

There’s so much to love about this match. Starks and Cage play the role of the bumbling goons who can’t seem to get on the same page early on, which leads to some fun stooging where they crash into each other. Punk has shown such a knack for tag-team wrestling since his return. The babyfaces tagging in and out as they deliver arm-wringers to their opponent is a classic spot, one I’m sad we don’t see more often. I was grinning from ear to ear as Cage forced Allin to fight for control over a roll-up. Cage also feigned a back body drop on Allin and switched directions while he was going up, which looked particularly painful. Allin always looks like he’s been shot out of…

For context sake, this was billed as "Punk vs. Joe IV" and was part of AEW's 2nd Owen Hart tournament. The story coming in was that CM Punk had never defeated Samoa Joe. Early on, the majority of the crowd seems to be behind CM Punk, though you can hear a smattering of "Joe's Gonna Kill You" chants. Obviously, these two have plenty of history, but one needn't know every aspect of their rivalry to enjoy what they did. Joe was tremendous to start after Punk missed a crossbody, at one point chopping Punk off of the top rope and onto the arena floor. From there, Joe went to work on the outside as the match went to a Picture-in-Picture commercial break. That was unfortuna…

I was genuinely surprised that this match wasn't being hailed as an "instant classic" by everyone who saw it. I'm guessing around these parts, there are plenty of us who enjoyed the hell out of this match even if, in some other places, fans criticized it for starting too slow, relying too much on facial expressions, and emphasizing melodrama over action. To me, those elements were features, not flaws. I don't always love Roman's acting and, against certain opponents, it has looked particularly out-of-place, but here, he was able to share the stage with The Usos and, most impressively, Solo Sikoa (who might have actually stole the match). Yes, they worked the first h…