CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston (AEW - 11/13/2021)

No one is getting worked up over anything. Its wrestling dude. 

I appreciated that aboout both Punk vs Kingston & Danielson vs Kingston. Neither over stayed their welcome.

Phenomenal on first watch, more phenomenal on second watch. It's another one that lands even better after seeing the build up (which was short, but that in-ring segment was incredible and they really didn't need a whole lot more after that). This was basically a street fight from the jump, but not a pro wrestling street fight with your kendo sticks and ladders; a street fight between two guys who want to punch a hole in the other's face, which is really the best kind of street fight, the kind that spills from a bar or a supermarket or boxing gym into the middle of the road. Eddie walloping Punk with the back fist as Remsburg tries to separate them was an amazing way to start it, and Punk's lights on but nobody's home selling was spectacular. When he flips Eddie the bird before even standing back up you have a pretty good idea of what this is going to be like.

I thought both guys were tremendous, for similar reasons in the broad strokes sense - selling, timing, all of that - but also for how they took pretty different character paths as the match went along. This might've been the first time Punk got audibly booed since coming into AEW, and I guess it's a look at how things might go whenever the Page feud really picks up. Both of them were babyfaces and Kingston has about as much of a die hard following as Punk at this point, but even if Punk expected the crowd to be split going in he obviously rolled with some of the punches here. It was noticeable in his previous AEW matches as well, where he was clearly going with the flow and tapping into what the crowd were after. In the Sydal match it was playing up the body slam, and there was no way he could've expected that crowd to be rabid enough for a fucking body slam that he planned it beforehand. It was improv and it was brilliant. When he jumped on a near-lifeless Kingston and started clubbing him about the head I don't think he expected the crowd to side so completely with Eddie, especially considering they never showed much displeasure earlier when Kingston was trying to rip Punk's ear off or bite a chunk out his head. That moment in particular didn't seem to precipitate a change in Punk weather vane, because there were points earlier where he leaned into the idea that he wasn't the hero in this tale, but if nothing else it was a culmination of things. Those things being the tease of the five-knuckle shuffle, the pause and grin as he acknowledged the boos while blood streamed down his face, and my favourite bit, the three amigos while the crowd chanted Eddie. The latter might've been something they did plan, as the PPV fell on the anniversary of Eddie Guerrero's death, but he knew those Eddie chants were for Kingston and he decided to do the Guerrero spot THEN and I don't think anybody needs to worry about him getting heat whenever they properly turn him heel.

Kingston was phenomenal again. There's a realness about Eddie that almost no other wrestler can capture. He's raw in a way that not even Punk is, and after the Players' Tribune article he's relatable in a way that almost nobody is. Not necessarily in the sense that most of us can relate to wrestling on indie shows for fifteen bucks a night, more that we can relate to the broader struggle and sentiment that he conveyed so perfectly in that article. It's difficult not to want that man to succeed, and Punk WAS kind of a dickhead to him on Dynamite. Eddie captured every bit of that rawness in his performance and the crowd were going to live and die with him. Plus he tapped into that lunatic vein of his and tried to send Punk to the hospital, which at the end of the day is what we came for. Wiping Punk's blood over his own face like war paint, the mocking GTS call followed by the "what a jack off" gesture (legitimately one of the greatest moments in the history of our sport, btw), his unbelievable selling, just everything he did from the second he walked onto the ramp. This also might've had the best Frye/Takayama spot since the actual Don Frye and Yoshihiro Takayama were whomping each other in the face and I pray to the old gods and the new that we get this match up again in 2022. And incredible bitta wrestling.

I want to bump this match because I think it’s that good.

This match is only helped by watching Joe v. Necro before or after. Hearing Punk and Eddie on commentary in that match kinda highlight the differences I was talking about in my assessment of this match. Eddie always comes off as the genuine article and Punk comes off as an imitation of the genuine article. He is trying sound both smart and irreverent. Punk is trying so hard to get his Rob Naylor line across because it gets no-sold.

That’s this match. Punk is a try-hard prick in buildup, the execution and aftermath.