7. Malcolm Jones (c) vs. Drake King – EAW Championship – Pain for Pride 14
The final image of Malcolm Jones that comes across some peoples’ minds show him recovering in a wreckage at SoFi Stadium following his defeat by the hands of Drake King. This is an unfortunate mischaracterization of what Malcolm Jones was, and it is one that Elitists should pray never comes around to bite them in the you-know-where should he ever return. Malcolm Jones was one of the most feared Elitists in the history of this company. By the time he defeated Terry Chambers to become the EAW Champion, he had already positioned himself into having nothing to prove before he even reached the age of 30. New Eden, spearheaded by Drake King, created the incentive for Malcolm to do more than just be a great champion. Voltage reached a point where most on the roster were unwilling to coexist with New Eden as an entity – and Malcolm Jones sat at the top of that list of names. Drake King was already a household name in his own right, winning the 2021 Grand Rampage match puts you on a list of a select few, and this was only a cherry on top of what was already shaping up to be an impressive career. As mentioned earlier in this article, the EAW Championship match at Pain for Pride is supposed to feature two Elitists at the top of their game. The title that represents this company in name should have the absolute best of whoever is competing over that title, and much like EE and HBB did a decade prior, Malcolm Jones and Drake King came into that night with the best that they had. MJ and Drake had quite possibly the definitive EAW Championship match in the history of that title, they truly left everything out there that evening. There is no telling what Malcolm Jones would have accomplished if he had left that night still the champion with New Eden disbanded. However Drake sealed the deal where it mattered most, ending the event in Los Angeles as the EAW Champion with New Eden still intact. Not to mention – on Drake’s part – setting a major milestone in what is shaping up to be one of the greatest runs we have ever seen.
– HRDO, EAW VP, former World Heavyweight Champion
6. Starr Stan (c) vs. Brian Daniels vs. Devan Dubian – Answers World Championship – Pain for Pride 8
You can’t think of a three way dance without thinking of the ‘Elite Triple Threat’ match at Pain for Pride in London. EAW went out on an insane limb by hosting a half-season international tour, culminating on June 27, 2015 in the world famous Wembley Stadium. Most familiar with “Elite” are familiar with the trio consisting of Starr Stan, Devan Dubian, and Brian Daniels who banded together during Season 8. Many may also remember the student/mentor relationship between Starr and Devan dating back to 2011. Who could forget their extraordinary encounter at Territorial Invasion of that same year, when Devan fought a valiant, but losing effort over the EAW Championship? Well a lot of time sure did pass between the Summer of 2011 and the 8th ever Pain for Pride, and quite a bit had changed in that span of time. Devan Dubian went from being a wet behind the ears upstart to a bonafide star, and Brian Daniels destroyed whatever stigma may have existed of him being underneath Robbie V’s shadow. Dub and Daniels co-won that years’ Grand Rampage match, proving even the most climactic match of the EAW calendar as insufficient to settle what was brewing between them. Starr was enjoying the tail end of his historic career ‘second wind’, winning multiple World Championships between 2013 and 2015. Before you even discuss the kind of match they had, you simply cannot ignore the production value that went behind this match. The entrances alone are some of the most iconic that I’ve ever seen, and EAW does not go all out like that unless they fully believe in the stars they are promoting. And production value be damned, the ‘Elite Triple Threat’ will go down in history as one of the greatest matches ever. When you put three of the most naturally gifted, technically sound wrestlers to ever live in the ring with another you can expect a great match. But when it is three wrestlers who know each other like the back of their hand, and are forced to creatively improvise upon each others’ strategies, you are bound to see something extraordinary. The 2015 MOTY award winning match is a must-watch for wrestling historians everywhere!
– Rich Russillo, Voltage commentator
5. Rex McAllister (c) vs. Diamond Cage – EAW Championship – Pain for Pride 11
I try to ignore silly, superficial things such as ‘atmosphere’, the ‘drama’, the ‘pageantry’, when it comes to an objective rating of a pro wrestling contest. If a match is deserving of a 5 star rating it should be just as great in a bingo hall as it would be in a stadium. At this point everybody should know the capacity for Rex McAllister and Diamond Cage to have a great match. By June 2018 Cage had already made a living off of pulling momentous performances seemingly out of thin air. His Beethoven-like artistry when it pertains to the squared circle is part of what has held the EAW Universe captive for many seasons, even during points where many other Elitists might not have warranted the same grace. Rex McAllister as many of you may know has proven that he is as diligent a student of the game as they come. His ability to turn every loss into a lesson and every setback into a set up is why his career winning percentage is as high as it is. There are a lot of objective reasons as to why Cage vs Rex at Pain for Pride: Festival was as great as it ended up being, but despite all that I’ve said, there is still something that I can’t quite pin down about what was just so great about that match. It was innovative, breathtaking, gripping, it had everybody in the Las Vegas Motor Speedway at the edge of their seats. And yet there was a ‘magic’ to it that may never be duplicated again. Combine the lights, the music, the intensity in both performers, the delivery of each and every single move, the meticulous timing behind each course of attack, and you get yourself an all time feature presentation. But it still feels like there is something more to it. Perhaps the timing of this match from a cultural and political perspective added to its gravitas in terms of importance. Also consider the fact that the two participants in this match hadn’t quite been names that were ever given the ball to run with from EAW corporate. These were two career underdogs who were granted the spotlight and the platform to show out when EAW needed them the most, and show out they most certainly did. The sense of optimism created following that all time great contest was what helped EAW as a whole transition from turbulent waters into smoother sailing. Cage, Rex, if you hear it from nobody else just know, EAW will forever be indebted to what the two of you accomplished that evening.
– Mike Lanza, Fight Grid contributor
4. Mikado Sekaiichi (c) vs. Mr. DEDEDE – World Heavyweight Championship – Pain for Pride 7
I still get goosebumps when I think about that line from Stew-O, “DEDEDE has had the victory fit for a God! The career of Mr. DEDEDE has reached its zenith!” When you think about the match dubbed “Battle of the Gods” between Mr. DEDEDE and Mikado Sekaiichi (FKA Robbie V), the first thing that comes to mind is Stew’s voice saying that line, with DEDEDE drenched in blood laying next to a charred and bloodied Sekaiichi. This was the still-shot frame that was proposed a full season earlier when Damien Murrow, representing Sekaiichi at the time, challenged Mr. DEDEDE to this match just a week removed from Pain for Pride 6. For context, this was a period of time where most people weren’t sure if there would even be an EAW when they woke up the next day. Scott Diamond had just defeated Dark Demon and had the fate of the company resting in his hands. Yet despite such a volatile period for the wrestling world, Sekaiichi believed in DEDEDE’s ability to see to it that the entire company made it out of the clutches of Diamond and into another Pain for Pride season. Talk about confidence! By showing this much faith in DEDEDE’s abilities to keep EAW alive, Sekaiichi also showed why this match was so important to him in the first place. Nothing meant more to him than becoming immortal, and to become a God he knew he needed to defeat a Gawd. But by the time 12 months came and went Sekaiichi devolved into a disturbed, sadistic version of himself. We saw an unraveling into a solipsistic Mad King who could see nothing other than the glow of his World Heavyweight Title. Mr. DEDEDE’s character development also showed a swelling of his bitterness, leading to a more skullduggerous version of himself for the latter half of Season 7 than what we saw in the first half. It ended up becoming exactly what he needed to survive the kind of fight that Sekaiichi had for him. This match felt like it was happening at the literal top of the world. It was, as Andy Dominguez once called it, “blood soaked brilliance”. This was one of the few matches I’ve seen that felt like a life and death scenario for both people competing in it. Not just from the ultraviolence, but also from the implications of winning and losing. God-like status was only available for the winner, while the loser was doomed to years of picking up their own shattered pieces. Had DEDEDE not found the inner strength to succeed on that night, his career would have definitely been over. His contract as an Elitist was subject to termination if he did not become the World Heavyweight Champion, resulting in one of the most high stakes scenarios of any match for any Elitist that we’ve ever seen. DEDEDE’s career is made up of coming through when the stakes are the highest, but if he hadn’t been able to on that night, there is a strong possibility that Mikado Sekaiichi would have had EAW in the palm of his hands to this very day.
– Sabina, Hall of Famer, former Vixens Champion
3. Theron Nikolas (c) vs. Mr. DEDEDE vs. Jamie O’Hara vs. Darkane – Answers World Championship – Pain for Pride 12
The thing about a perfect storm is that you only ever get to see it happen once. If you see it twice, the first time wasn’t actually perfect. The Answers World Championship match to end the 12th annual Pain for Pride was, is, and forever will be – in my view – the perfect storm of a wrestling match. There is no other match in EAW’s long, storied tenure that rivals what this meeting of the minds ended up being. Four stories from four drastically different men came to intertwine at the right intersection of their careers and evidently yielded a masterpiece. You had Darkane, the roughneck dark horse who sought pleasure out of the pain that he could cause those who repeatedly screwed him throughout the season. There was DEDEDE, a proverbial dragon in a suit on the precipace of yet another reign of terror. You had Jamie O’Hara, the paladin in shining armor who outlasted 29 other men to win the Grand Rampage only 4 years removed from winning CITV. An O’Hara who was driven by vengeance and equally by aspirations of redefining his own record-breaking glory. And then there was ‘God-Emperor’ Theron, the corrupted crown prince, gifted beyond his own gourd. Too talented, too intelligent, and too successful for his own good in retrospect. The longest reigning Answers World Champion at the time had no ceiling, and by the time Pain for Pride at The Mecca of Culture rolled around, many had grown exhausted by the gluttonous gorging of our God Emperor off of the riches of our land. The likely savior had to have been Jamie, it was only appropriate! He did everything right, after all! Battled back from injury, won the Grand Rampage, and went into the headline of Pain for Pride having by all accounts the perfect match. This was Jamie’s night to succeed and everybody in the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta knew it in their hearts. And yet when Gawdzilla rose from the rubble of his own most lethal weapon, and gored through the hearts of everybody in that building, reality was all that there was left when the smoke cleared. Still, for the duration of that other worldly match the fog of war was virtually blinding. It’s difficult to even process how utterly insane this match is upon the first watch. There was not a dull moment nor a wasted movement throughout the entire ordeal. DDD and O’Hara were firmly established as being capable in competing at such a mastery, however Theron and Darkane threw many for a loop with their excellence as well. What made this match brilliant was that every competitor in it was 100% themselves, it was four of the world’s best at their most authentic selves. In my opinion it is the greatest in-ring contest in the history EAW, and is an easy inclusion into the Top 15 Pain for Pride matches of all time.
– Albert Hitchman, advocate and associate to Interwire Champion, Andre Walker
2. Mr. DEDEDE vs. Impact – Pain for Pride 6
The world was a much different place back in June 2013, and EAW is no exception. We were hardly into the 2nd term of President Obama, the infamous 2014 World Cup was a year away, the Miami Heat were preparing for a potential three-peat, and we were still named Extreme Answers Wrestling. In fact, by the time this article is released, there will have been just as many years that EAW was “Elite” as it was “Extreme”. Gosh I feel so old just thinking about that. Still, the extreme era of EAW makes up a sizable portion of our company’s history, but someday that’ll no longer be the case. The “extreme” EAW will go from being a staple in our history to merely a saga, and if there were any singular match that captured the excellence of what our roots were, it is the iconic “Match of the Universe” between the 1 & 2 greatest Elitists in EAW history. Despite all that has changed over the last 9 years, that last sentence is the one remaining constant. Impact and Mr. DEDEDE were believed to be the greatest wrestlers that ever lived by the end of Season 6, and as we enter Season 16 nearly a decade later, they have only further solidified their all-time stature. This match however is the ‘reference match’ in the modern era of wrestling. Certainly there are other contests on this Top 15 list such as Kassidy and O’Hara, or the ELITE Triple Threat, that have the potential of creating new fans and standing the test of time. However if you are looking for a match where everything went right at every second between ‘bell’ and ‘bell’, you are looking at it. Every singular mark behind what makes an amazing match was a perfect score. The entrances, the audience, the physique of both Elitists, the delivery to every move, the story told throughout the match, were all impeccable. Most other sports can only ever dream about having the two recognizable and objectively great names go head to head at their best, and EAW is one of the lucky few that can say they had their ‘Ali vs. Tyson’. The atmosphere of Pain for Pride 6 was apocalyptic, there was a dark energy hovering over the event particularly with the way it came to an end. EAW was a single match decision away from death, and had it really been the end of an empire, Match of the Universe was the ideal swan song before the fall. Instead history took course in the way that it did, and Impact vs. DEDEDE at Pain for Pride 6 will go down in history as, arguably, the definitive match of our time.Â
– Stew-O, Dynasty commentator
1. The Visual Prophet (c) vs. Drake King – World Heavyweight Championship – Pain for Pride 13
The COVID-19 global pandemic created an unprecedented time and opened up just as many unprecedented opportunities. The fear & greed index across all industries was at a unilateral sentiment of extreme fear, most companies shuttered their shops and walled themselves in fear of a little known virus. Well unlike most companies, EAW saw the opportunity to use all of its resources and create something unlike anything it’s ever done before. There’s a laundry list of people who deserve the credit for the overnight sensation that was ‘Prophetic Visions’; this includes everybody from our space and time bending production staff, to our interdimensional camera crew, and of course our friends at Power 105.1’s “The Breakfast Club”. The two people at the end of the day who made Prophetic Visions possible were The Visual Prophet and Drake King. When you talk about raw talent, you will only find a mind like Viz’s once in a decade. Don’t be mistaken, talent alone doesn’t get the job done on its own, which is why we are especially fortunate to have somebody so skilled and dedicated to his craft. In the case of Drake King his story is shaping up to be one that will be considered definitive on the likes of a Ronn, Impact, and obviously myself. There’s potential for both of these guys to end up on the Mt. Rushmore of EAW by the time it’s all said and done, and never was that more clear following Prophetic Visions. It was an action packed psychological thriller that took you on an emotional roller coaster and tested the limits of both of their wits. One can only imagine how many sleepless nights went into making this match possible, but the shockwaves that it created throughout all of entertainment is directly responsible for the direction EAW is heading into. Prophetic Visions changed this company forever in ways I can’t describe, not simply out of a loss for words, but also due to contractual liability. Wrestling promotions don’t generally have a very long life span, there is almost always an hourglass associated with the name of any promotion. In our profession empires are built to inevitably fall, allowing an empire of new to rise from the rubble of old. All that being said there’s a solid chance that Prophetic Visions may have been the catalyst that seals EAW’s fate to the status of a permanent cultural staple, one that will be here when the rest of us are gone and forgotten.
– Ryan Adams, Hall of Famer, EAW Chairman
