Steve Cook’s Fave Five: November 2020

It’s a new month! You know what that means, right? It’s your monthly dose of positivity from a man that’s been accused of being negative more times than he can count. Most of those times were by people I haven’t seen in years. I would love to roll up on those people here in 2020 and be all like “YOU SEE WHY I’M SO NEGATIVE?”.

True genius is never appreciated in its own time.

I am doing my best to rectify that with this column. Appreciating true pro wrestling genius in its own time. Booker T gets a reference here because he popularized the Fave Five back in the day, and we’re keeping it going now. Here are my five favorites at the moment I’m writing this!

5. Matt Sydal

It’s always nice to see an old friend, isn’t it? Matt was quite the talented kid, you could tell when he was working his way up through the indies and then Ring of Honor that he was in store for big things. At the time, the idea of somebody his size not named Rey Mysterio making it big in WWE seemed like a bit of a stretch. Evan Bourne didn’t have an awful run though! It could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse. He got over pretty well as a spunky underdog and had a successful tag team with Kofi Kingston. I was skeptical of the Air Boom name, but it worked!

I know that Matt Sydal worked some other places after leaving WWE. Unfortunately, I wasn’t watching a whole lot of Impact Wrestling when he was there, or Ring of Honor when he was there, or even New Japan when he was there. Sydal had knee surgery towards the end of 2018, and was out for most of 2019. His Impact contract expired, and he was a free agent. He’s kept that status & worked various places, recently appearing on both ROH & AEW television. It was fun to see him wrestle Delirious again in the Pure Tournament, and although he had quite the botch in his AEW debut, they did some ret-con work to pin that on Michael Nakazawa putting baby oil on the ropes.

We don’t know for sure where Matt Sydal is going, and that’s a large part of the fun.

4. Tracy Williams

I had heard good things about the man known as “Hot Sauce”, but I was waiting to see them. His spotlight episode of ROH TV didn’t do much to win me over. Not entirely his fault, unless he told them to put that Bully Ray match on there.

His performance in the Pure Wrestling Tournament won me over. After a good showing in the first round, he & Fred Yehi tore the house down in Round 2. Spectacular match. Another good showing and a win over Jay Lethal later, and Williams went to the finals. He would lose to Jonathan Gresham, but people had to be impressed with his matches in the tournament. I know I was!

A Ring of Honor with Tracy Williams as part of its foundation has a chance to succeed.

3. Shotzi Blackheart

I wrote about Shotzi and how she should book NXT fairly recently, so I don’t want to belabor any points I made there. It’s pretty obvious that I wasn’t alone in noting Shotzi’s brilliance at Halloween Havoc. Everybody’s jumping aboard the Blackheart Bandwagon, and nobody can blame them for that. She’s become a star with the NXT fanbase, and it’s not going to end at Halloween Havoc. See, William Regal also appreciated Shotzi’s performance as Havoc host, and he offered her a match with anybody of her choosing.

Her choice?

.@ShotziWWE chose anything but a shortcut! She'll face Toni Storm TOMORROW NIGHT on #WWENXT!

📺 Wednesday, 8/7c @USA_Network https://t.co/NV4FRChoMo

— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) November 3, 2020

Could we have asked for anything better to get people back in a good mood after all of this election divisiveness & hullabaloo? Surely we can all agree on enjoying Shotzi vs. Toni. Back in the day I would have been torn over who to root for. Now, I just enjoy two badass chicks going at it. Gonna be good!

2. WALTER

It’s easy to forget about WALTER. He works the NXT UK circuit, which was inactive until recently. The group is also full of sex perverts, and not the fun sex perverts like we see in the Dark Order. The type that are creepy and have no redeeming value, even for the sake of sports entertainment. It’s easy to ignore the show and to hope that WWE quits putting these types of folks on their Network.

However, there is one man that occasionally makes it worth a watch. The Ring General. There are few things more emotionally satisfying in wrestling than seeing WALTER beat the crap out of some goofy NXT UK young boys. Like last week, when WALTER and Ilja Dragunov went at it. People actually talked about the match, which is the first time I remember that happening for an NXT UK match since…WALTER vs. Pete Dunne?

Sure, there were parts that annoyed me. They did the goofy end-match spiel that everybody does where the loser takes 15 moves that should have been finishers & kicked out. And I was ready to give them some credit when WALTER slammed the kid on the floor, steps, apron, then did a top rope splash. Surely that was the finish, and I was going to give them credit for Dragunov not kicking out of too much. Whoops. But that’s modern-day wrestling.

I can’t let those flaws take away from the sheer joy of WALTER beating people up. And since they’re all people I haven’t heard of, and likely sex perverts based off the NXT UK average, I don’t have to feel bad for the poor bastards across the ring from him.

1. Eddie Kingston

"I never quit and NOTHING in my life, and I'm not gonna quit on the 7th. You're gonna have to go to a very very dark place…and you know what Jon…I live in that place" – @MadKing1981

WATCH #AEWDynamite NOW on @TNTDrama! pic.twitter.com/4pWldjKfZz

— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) October 22, 2020

It wasn’t that long ago that Eddie Kingston was contemplating retirement.

It was even more recent than that when Eddie Kingston was selling his boots to pay the rent.

Now look at him! The Mad King is main-eventing AEW Full Gear, facing Jon Moxley in an I Quit match for the AEW Championship. Who had that on their 2020 bingo card? Two former CZW Champions who were among the most gifted talkers of their indy wrestling generation in a nationally televised company’s main event program. It’s a beautiful thing.

Every time I’ve ever heard Eddie Kingston talk, I’ve had no doubt that everything he said was what he believed. There aren’t many people in wrestling I can say that about. He makes you believe. He’s a huge betting underdog heading into Full Gear. It would be a massive surprise if he made Moxley quit and became the AEW World Champion.

But, man, this is 2020.

Nothing surprises me!

Do you have a Fave Five? Let me know in the comments or on the Twitter!