Learn about the history and origins of the For Your Consideration series at voicesofwrestling.com/2021/11/30/for-your-consideration-2021-introduction

The Young Bucks vs Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston
AEW Double or Nothing 2021
May 30, 2021
Daily’s Place
Jacksonville, Florida

During the year, I sometimes like to think of the best matches of the year and which wrestler has been having the best output. There is one match that my mind keeps going back to, and it’s the one I’m asking you to consider and remember: the Young Bucks vs Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. This match kept going back to my mind so much that I started to wonder if I was seeing it with rose-colored glasses thanks to the awesome first hour of Double or Nothing 2021. I rewatched the match and I can confidently say that it is indeed one of my favorites of the year. My rule is if you remember a match fondly, it probably is.

While not the first AEW show with a full crowd, it was their first big show with a full crowd during the pandemic. After more than a year with wrestlers being the crowd and with just a few people in Daily’s Place, this time all of the fans came back and they showed how hungry they were. The first two matches were great with Serena Deeb vs Riho and “Hangman” Page vs Brian Cage killing it, but something I never forgot is the pop when “Wild Thing” played over the arena.

Moxley and Kingston’s entrance started being shown with them walking from the back, and when they entered the crowd area, people were going apeshit. The men were walking around the crowd, throwing stuff, feeling the energy. A few months later and that pop still gives me goosebumps. I also got a bit emotional on my end since this was Kington’s first show with a full audience. He was one of the new hires that had not wrestled yet in front of a full AEW crowd.

The Young Bucks had their entrance and they had been acting so assholish that people could not help but boo them nonstop, even a crowd that had not seen them in a while. You will not hear a single Bucks cheer here. Why? Moxley and Kingston were that good in this match. That is how good the four of them were. The Bucks entrance ended when they were posing, streamers were thrown, and Moxley and Kingston started beating the hell out of them.

The following 21 minutes were great pro wrestling. They did not reinvent the way tag matches worked, it was actually a pretty normal match. But the energy, the Bucks performance as the assholes, Kingston’s heart and being the perfect tag partner, Moxley’s being a tough-as-nails guy that could not get killed, made this match really special.

This was a feud that had been going on for a while, with even the Bucks preventing Moxley from regaining the world title. As I mentioned, Moxley and Kingston attacked the Bucks at the end of their entrance, so this match started with a brawl on the outside before the bell rang. They were desperate to make their opponents pay.

When the Bucks started getting the better of Moxley outside, Kingston did a beautiful tope con giro that broke the advantage. Moxley and Kingston even fucked up Brandon Cutler inside the ring, who was spraying the Bucks on the outside with his patented cold spray can (remember this for a future paragraph). This distraction gave the advantage to the Bucks and made the ref ring the bell.

After the bell rang, the faces had the advantage for a while. They even did a fake tag to screw with the Bucks, but the Bucks found a way to control the match. They had Moxley under control for a while, cutting off any attempts of a hot tag to Kingston. The Bucks are so great as assholes that a funny part was when Matt Jackson threw Kingston off the corner, he pretended to be him and did a fake hot tag to Moxley, and then went back to attack Moxley.

My man Moxley got tired of being beaten up, and was able to do a piledriver to each Buck, an act that made the Good Brothers appear. Remember them? They did not distract Moxley that much since Frankie Kazarian (remember him?) took out Karl Anderson and Kingston took out Doc Gallows, which turned this quickly to a two-on-two match again. Still, Matt took advantage of the situation and hit Moxley with Cutler’s spray can (remember that from earlier?) behind the referees’ back. We got a bloody Moxley now. An angry Moxley.

Angry Moxley could not be knocked down: not even an Indytaker on the outside. He got up after everything. The Bucks even did a Shield reference that got him more riled up, but he was tired and got knocked down again. When he could, he took down the Bucks and gave the hot tag to Kingston.

The arena was full of “EDDIE! EDDIE!” chants, and once again I got goosebumps. This crowd definitely elevates this match. This is the part of the match where the Bucks lost control and they were being reversed all the time. Moxley and Kingston even gave Nick a Doomsday Device with one of Buck’s sneakers. There was a Paradigm Shift for a really close two count.

But then the Bucks were lucky enough to take down Kingston and land a couple of superkicks directly to Moxley’s face.  They tried a pinfall but the fucker got straight up at one. Three more kicks and he was down. The Bucks eliminated Kingston, and they had to hit three BTE Triggers to finally kill Moxley and win the match.

This match hits me in everything I love in pro wrestling: four of my favorite’s in AEW having an amazing tag team match. I loved how the Bucks wrestled the match, like I always do, and their control period was beautiful. I loved that Moxley was so mad and so full of hate for the Bucks that they had to hit him with everything to knock him down. I loved the moment when Kingston had the hot tag and the arena went nuts. Not even the interference spot bothered me because it was minimal, even though the distraction might be confusing for someone watching without the context.

The Bucks vs Moxley and Kingston is just an amazing pro wrestling match, and in a year where the Bucks had other amazing matches, this is one of their best. I think that this match has been out of love for some this year because each of these wrestlers have had a very memorable back half of the year. Each of them have gone on to other memorable feuds that will probably be remembered more by the time 2022 comes around.

Still, this is classic tag team wrestling with modern flavor. How can you not love this match?