[2009-05-23-ROH-ROH on HDNET #10] Chris Hero vs Eddie Kingston

[TonyPulis'Cap]

These two have lots of history, having a great feud in CZW prior to this, and that chemistry is on show here, even though this is a short TV match. That history between the two is hinted at here, or implied without ever being made explicit on commentary, but helps the atmosphere for the match given we are in the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia and many in the crowd probably knew it. 

This is a hard hitting sprint, and given their previous rivalry they go straight at it from the opening bell. Early on Hero strikes just the right balance in backing away from Kingston's onslaught but not being a full on cowardly heel. Both guys lay in their strikes and in their brawling on the floor. There's one great spot where Kingston is distracted by Sara Del Ray on the outside and Hero takes him out with a brutal looking baseball slide dropkick from his blindside. 

As we know now from his rise to prominence in AEW, Kingston is a really sympathetic seller, bringing real emotion into his matches (even a short TV match like this one) and that rallies the crowd to his side, when Hero's antics at this point often got him cheered despite being the heel. Unfortunately it ends in a rather lame DQ when Kingston wont break in the corner, but he does make up for it by hitting ref Todd Sinclair with a nasty snap punch which gets a pop from the ROH crowd who always used to get on poor old Todd's case. Even those this has a  crappy ending, and is only 5/6 mins long, it's a really fun sprint where they pack a lot in. (***)