WWE Smackdown Live: The 10 for February 12, 2019

8. Gauntlet, part the fourth

Kingston is in bad shape and A.J. Styles knows this. But Styles also knows that Kingston just defeated three of the toughest, most legitimate male talents on the SmackDown roster. So, brutalized or not, Styles certainly has to fear Kingston at this moment, which makes his offer to Kingston to give up and not go any further double-edged.

Though in the ring for over 45 minutes and just moments after being attacked by a very large, very angry man, Styles’ proposal brings Kingston’s adrenaline back up. Kingston’s willingness to get in Styles’ face snaps him of his feelings of sympathy and the bout can begin in earnest.

Styles is a smart veteran and knows just what to do to make Kingston uncomfortable — take his legs, and thus his ability to take to the air as well as out-pace his opponents, away. He focuses on Kingston’s left knee through much of the match and it keeps working. Kingston then hits desperation mode, attempting multiple quick roll-up pins just hoping that one will catch Styles off guard. It doesn’t work. As Kingston reaches the 60-minute mark, Styles locks in the Calf Crusher and Kingston must tap out, defeated.

There are many unifying threads to Kingston’s one-hour run, one that has so many thinking back to Seth Rollins going start-to-finish for more than 60 minutes and winning a gauntlet match of his own last year. The Rollins connection generates the possibility that Kingston is en route to a golden year of his own. But the ways in which Kingston’s opponents approached him also has in common Kingston being underestimated. Spending years as part of a comedy tag team trio (and an entertaining one, and one that has won multiple championships) has caused folks like Joe and Styles to consider Kingston’s talent part of a larger thing and not something that can stand on itself. But Kingston is not new to this rodeo. Just as we as fans must approach him differently now, so do his coworkers.

What Kingston did on Tuesday was amazing. Any time any wrestler can go for 45 or 60 or more (nearly) consecutive minutes, it serves as a major, unassailable example of the work these performers and athletes put into their careers every day. These are the kinds of things to show to non-wrestling fans who simply dismiss the medium as “fake.”