5 Ups & 2 Downs From AEW Dynamite Grand Slam 2023 (Results & Review)

2. Eddie Kingston Gets His Moment

Early in the Grand Slam opener, Claudio Castagnoli systematically attacked nearly every part of Eddie Kingston's upper body.

With a brutal, enterprising backdrop suplex onto the ramp, and some wicked blows with his fists, he worked the back of Eddie's head. He worked the face. He worked the chest with uppercuts. He then damaged Eddie's arms and stamped out the use of his hand. It was a gruesome scrap sprinkled with beats of wit and hope. Eddie fired back with pissy shots to the gut, but he was lashing out more than anything. He was physically outmatched, and on his big night to boot - but that story was told to convey that you could bruise every bone in Eddie's body, but never his spirit.

Deeper into a beautiful display of wrestling in every definition of the word, Kingston again attempted a hurricanrana. Playing further off the finish to their match at ROH Supercard Of Honor, Claudio again reversed it into a pin of his own. Eddie kicked out; he would not be denied. His spirit could not be broken.

On the night of the hero's journey culminating, Eddie paid tribute to his own hero Toshiaki Kawada by slaying his final boss with a power bomb and high stack pin. The sort of match in which a desperate punch to the gut got a huge reaction, the Arthur Ashe crowd was locked into this on a deep emotional level from minute one.

Special, immersive, important: how wonderful that Eddie Kingston embodied the qualities of mainstream wrestling at its best.