Eddie Kingston and Chris Hero Deliver an Ovation-worthy Last Man Standing Match

Going back to the 2000s indie scene for this run of BIG EGG, I’ve found myself running over and over again into a question that’s probably only interesting to me but is, I think, worth asking: 

Why wasn’t I into this stuff as it was happening?

I would be, eventually, of course — getting to call an Eddie Kingston match during my brief moment behind the mic is something that still causes my heart to swell with pride when I see him on TV now — but there’s a big gap in my knowledge and understanding of independent professional wrestling in the US that I’ve had plenty of time to fill but not enough interest to do so. Watching Eddie Kingston and Chris Hero brawl through the gymnasium door and past a couple of onlookers who are copping a pretty unconcerned lean against the wall, I think I have part of my answer: there is, like with ECW crowds, a sense of ironic detachment from wrestling on the part of the audience, a sense that they are “in” on the thing they are watching, and I’m too much of a softie for oppositional engagement with mediums I love.

That’s a pretty wide (and frankly unfair) blanket to throw over the notion of indie wrestling, one that I eventually came to shed when it came to ECW and that has gradually unraveled the more I’ve actually watched this era/style of wrestling, but it isn’t until some lady in the crowd calls Hero a pussy that I find myself on someone else’s wavelength — at least someone besides Hero and Kingston is steeped in the kind of deep hatred that necessitates a last man standing match. There is a lot of hatred to go around here, too. Early on, it’s Eddie who revels in it the most, both when he’s on top of the brawl and selling the effects of his former maestro’s offense. He’s both nastier than Hero, gouging at his eyes and throwing headbutts, and more focused, leaning into what will hurt his opponent the most as opposed to Hero’s showier chop-socky backfists and thrust kicks. When he does get distracted, it’s because his hate for Hero leads him to try to incorporate an unexpectedly broken beer bottle into the proceedings, leading to a cutoff. 

When things feel too cooperative — Kingston and Hero executing a very of the moment do-si-do on an attempted vertical suplex through a table — providence provides a table that does not break under Hero’s weight. It’s a gnarlier landing, but without the visual spectacle of broken wood the two have to hit the accelerator, trading headbutts on the floor. If it feels a bit goofy when Hero flies into the wall by executing a Stinger Splash, Kingston quickly brings things back down to earth by throttling him and saying “I’m going to take the life out of you, motherfucker. Do you understand me?” When Hero breaks Kingston’s choke by gouging the eye, you almost swear you can see Hero’s thumb press down into Kingston’s eyesocket. 

By the time Bryce Remsburg begins his first count, I’m mostly past these small issues of tone. It is 2007 — ECW has been dead for six years and the WCW/NWA that produced white hot brawls has been dead even longer, but that’s the lane Kingston and Hero have chosen to occupy, and when it’s King absorbing the measured blows of his enemy, willing himself back into the fight by cursing Hero or his own sore limbs out, you can feel the spirit of those brawls in a gimmick that had, to this point, a mostly-checkered history in the mainstream. 

Then Chris Hero throws a chair from the third row, catching Eddie Kingston in the face. 

It’s not the first time someone in this match has thrown something with precision at someone else’s head, but Kingston gets up from the shot to the face bleeding and angry, stomping and clubbing at Hero as he gets back into the ring with a chair in hand. In cutting Kingston off with a chairshot to the gut, Hero’s character work in this match blossoms: he’s been indignant about Eddie all match, but he’s finally being a real bastard about it, pressing a chair into Kingston’s head before stomping on it, putting some real weight behind a chair-assisted senton, and using a chair to add more torque and insult to a Boston crab. Every element of Hero’s well- (and at times overly-) rounded arsenal is brought to bear on his student, but it’s not for show: throttling Kingston and paintbrushing him with the blood dripping from his nose, it’s clear that everything he’s doing, even the “chairton,” comes from a place of spite. “This is what Eddie Kingston wanted,” Hero says during a 10-count.

It’s what I want, too, as Kingston is one of his generation’s best at engendering sympathy. He has mine from here, valiantly taking Hero down for punches and a guillotine choke, only to be warded off with punches to the side and a gross backdrop driver. Herio’s a monster in this segment, too, not waiting for Kingston to put up his fists when he gets to his feet on a standing 10-count before drilling King with a powerbomb so stiff that it wouldn’t look out of place in a 90s junior heavyweight bout. Blood smeared across his face, chest heaving as he rises, you believe Eddie when he mouths back “you’ll have to kill me, motherfucker,” just before Hero moves on to the next phase of his attack, stomping at his hands to take away the backfist.

This is, I think, as brilliant a transition to the later third of a last man standing match as you’re going to find without a WWE budget backing something more high-concept. The whole match, every time Kingston has gone down, he’s gotten back up to a pugilist's stance, both fists raised. He is a man with a puncher’s chance, someone whose every advantage thus far has followed a headbutt or a punch, a man who is prone to respond to violence or disrespect with a haymaker … and now every one he manages to land is going to hurt him as much as it does Hero. Getting up is going to hurt, supposing Hero lets him do so under his own power. Kingston’s rally — machine gun chops, throws, and big kicks — is electric, but when he and Hero settle in to trade blows, he’s throwing forearms instead of fists. His fastball has been taken away. 

Fuck a fastball, though: with seemingly nothing left to burn, both men start throwing headbutts, kickstarting a sequence that ends when Kingston levels Hero with a lariat. Had the match ended here, I would have been satisfied. I know that ending a last man standing match with a lariat would have been seen as weak at the time, maybe for all time, and it would have meant losing the stuff with the guardrail that follows, but the interstitial between the lariat and Hero bringing the guardrail into the ring feels a bit too professional wrestling for this stage of things, punctuated by an attempt at a chair-assisted cravat cutter that’s more stunning in theory than execution. 

I get it, though: in matches like this, you’ve got to go big, and by the time Chris Hero double stomps a guardrail into Eddie Kingston’s gut, both men have taken and connected on enough home run swings that nobody in that IWA Mid-South crowd is too cool to withhold their emotions, willing Kingston back to his feet before Remsburg can count him down. Beaten to a point beyond pain, Kingston is basically feral, screaming as he takes and doles out punishment, landing a backfist and willing himself to take Hero out with his own backdrop driver. If you pretend not to hear the guy in the crowd yelling “do one on the guardrail” like he’s the only motherfucker in the world who hasn’t heard of Chekhov's gun, the violence of Kingston actually doing so may just surprise you. One second beforehand, a commentator says “this isn’t worth it, this is where people break their necks.” A crowd of jaded wrestling fans deep into night two rising to their feet to give Eddie Kingston a standing ovation would disagree. So would I.

Rating: **** & ¼