A match that'll mostly only be remembered for Sting taking his life into his own hands with a chaotic ladder and table spot, the party main event featuring Sammy Guevara and 'The Painmaker' Chris Jericho against Darby Allin and Sting more than made up for a Forbidden Door trios effort alongside Minoru Suzuki and Tetsuya Naito that simply didn't cut the mustard.
There, what felt like two nasty misfires resulted in the contest falling apart, and (thankfully) with none of that to contend with here, the match was the loudest and craziest of the night having previously occupied the literal opposite spot.
A bloody Chris Jericho survived a Scorpion Death Drop but lost clean to the Scorpion Deathlock, which obviously had additional connotations in Canada. This'll obviously feed more into the collapse of Jericho's relationship with Guevara, but 'The Spanish God' couldn't do much to help after Sting almost lost his teeth smashing him through a table.
It really was a sight to behold - the 64-year-old flying from a ladder in the ring through Sammy on a table on the floor was as terrifying as it sounds, not least because he was lying across two tables and the second one greeted 'The Icon' mouth-first. A subversion of his relationship with Allin, this was Sting wanting to show his protégé/friend (and in reality, the audience) that he was still down for chaos when it was required.
It'll spark yet more conversations about safety, and they're not not cogent. But in terms of making a memory rather than risking it all for a forgotten pop, this was undeniably successful.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for 10 years. Alongside the production of daily written, audio and video content covering WWE and AEW, he also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot on the UK's wrestling podcast charts with over 10,000 episodes and 70,000,000 total downloads. He also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House!, Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast, and has guested on long-running Sunderland AFC podcast Wise Men Say.
With WhatCulture, he has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. He has also been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana, 411Mania and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling.
Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in music and culture magazines The Crack, Pilot as well as Sunderland AFC's premiere fanzine A Love Supreme. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it every other Saturday at the Stadium Of Light, and at Cribs gigs nationwide.
