I'd never even heard of Adam Cole or Kevin Steen, would pay money to see them again. Beyond Steen being the natural babyface in Canada against a heel champ, Cole's heat was tremendous. The conceit of wrestling is getting folks to believe something they know to be fake; the crowd's natural, reflexive hate for Cole made them want Steen to bash him worse, and Cole sold his offense so tremendously — the entire outside-the-ring segment with the ringpost horseplay and powerbombs onto the apron were delicious — that it made the crowd truly believe that they were going to see a title switch. After Steen piledrove an interfering Michael Bennett, the vast majority of the crowd seemed to have bought into a narrative created entirely for their hate for Cole's fictitious persona. This is, in a nutshell, great wrestling. The finish was fantastic, too: a sudden superkick finish after backflipping out of a package piledriver caught the entire crowd off guard and struck with genuine shock. Probably 75 percent of the crowd stuck around to watch Steen sell his injuries after the match, heartbrokenly take his wrist tape off and humbly thank the crowd to raucous applause. It probably would've been more if the only way in and out of the lower bowl of the venue wasn't climbing through a crack in the hockey penalty box.
Why is this man named Adam Cole? Initially, I was weirdly excited by the fact the main event featured two guys wrestling under their real names, though admittedly, I continuously wanted to call the ROH ace “Eric Cole” instead. I love people who perform under their real names, especially in realms where it's not expected — rapping under your real name is the toughest. It's no shock that Harley Race and Ric Flair (surname respelling permitted) are the icons that they are. Oh, how bummed out I was when I Wiki'd Cole and realized that he actually passed up his real name, Austin Jenkins, in favor of the hypergeneric “Adam Cole.” What gives, dude? If I met someone named Austin Jenkins, one of my immediate thoughts would be how pro-wrestling-appropriate that name is. This seems like a tremendous oversight to me.
