10 Most Messed Up Moments In Wrestling Matches
1. Jon Moxley And Eddie Kingston Get Creative
To close out the list, here's a worked wrestling spot so inspired that one would hope it inspires other workers to better conjure the feeling of revulsion and vicarious pain.
AEW Full Gear 2020 capped off what many considered to be the greatest programme of the year.
Jon Moxley, the man who to many salvaged the very industry by being such a great man in such an awful year, badly wanted Eddie Kingston to see sense. Eddie would not. The years of mainstream rejection had turned him ugly, and that ugliness was articulated with a series of spellbinding, utterly believable promos. The premise of the match was incredible; there was no quit in Kingston because he'd promised his own mother he wouldn't. In the end, he had to quit. He was about to get garrotted. Referee and old friend Bryce Remsburg appealed to the man he still knew was in there somewhere to close a chapter rich in texture and the interior lives of the characters.
During the match, with Mox's back punctured by barbed wire, Kingston - and this was so f*cking great because it was an object that actually would be present in the environment of a wrestling ring - grabbed rubbing alcohol from the doctor and poured it all over Mox's back. It was water, obviously, but wrestling is a work. It's all in the selling.
Mox sold you on the idea that he was burning.
Kingston sold you on the idea that he was gone enough to do it.
The object itself sold you on the idea that it was real.
This was deeply intelligent work more affecting than most actually real horror shows.