The night things changed

Where is Kip Sabian, anyway?

Kip and Sammy Guevara faced off in the first non-WWE match that I ever watched live. It was close to the only non-WWE match I had watched, period. Save for a couple YouTube clips and maybe a full New Japan match at some point, I was one of many fans who hadn’t been exposed to the different wrestlers and different styles that were out there.

Kip and Sammy both flew around the ring. The action was fast. The moves were crisp and delivered with purpose. After years of watching WWE, which is objectively slower if nothing else, it was the speed that stood out first. Then there was the volume of high risk moves packed into a single match.

That match mostly flies under the radar, but I always remember it as an ”ah ha“ moment for me and my enjoyment of AEW. Anytime those two are on TV, they have a chance to deliver a moment or a match that feels unique to AEW. Sammy had lots of chances over the years. Kip’s career arc had more fits and starts. Nevertheless, I associate them both with AEW’s feel as a company.

Whatever they get up to from here, they’ll always have their tone setting match at the first ever Double or Nothing.

“He’s not going to AEW. Not happening.”

In so many words, that was my brother every single time it came up that Jon Moxley might join the upstart wrestling promotion. There was a lot of noise about the artist formerly known as Dean Ambrose and the potential for him leaving WWE back in 2019. Given the uncertainty that AEW would even last as a company, it was a big deal to think that any WWE star might risk it.

It was a big deal when Chris Jericho signed on before the company’s first show. It was a big deal when Moxley showed up to confront Jericho and Kenny Omega near the conclusion of the first ever Double or Nothing.

Perhaps it was the culmination of the particular conversations I was having in the lead up to that show, but I was skeptical that Moxley would actually show up. When he did, I was surprised to the point that my reaction was a little delayed when the cameras showed a man in a leather vest strutting through the crowd. With “MOX” spray painted on his back, the guy who would end up being the heart of the company had just completely changed the game.

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