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[Thread] PWG DDT4, Jan. 12 2013. Kevin and El Generico face the PWG tag champions the Young Bucks, trying to unseat them before Generico moves on to his next life. This is the third match/act in a story that spans the night; Act 2 is linked below.
https://twitter.com/MithGifs/status/1327054121971585024?s=20
![[Thread] PWG DDT4, Jan. 12 2013. Kevin and El Generico face the PWG tag champions the Young Bucks, trying to unseat them before Generico moves on to his next life. This is the third match/act in a story that spans the night; Act 2 is linked below. https://twitter.com/MithGifs/status/1327054121971585024?s=20](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EnOpd_hVgAALHsb.jpg "[Thread] PWG DDT4, Jan. 12 2013. Kevin and El Generico face the PWG tag champions the Young Bucks, trying to unseat them before Generico moves on to his next life. This is the third match/act in a story that spans the night; Act 2 is linked below. https://twitter.com/MithGifs/status/1327054121971585024?s=20")
https://twitter.com/MithGifs/status/1327054121971585024?s=20
After two intense matches, Kevin and Generico are working together as a team at last! They start off the match brawling with the Bucks. Here Kevin hurls Nick into the void while Generico assaults Matt with the manliest of weapons.
Very few people in wrestling crumple as eloquently as El Generico.
When Wikipedia used to list wrestler's moves, they described moves like the Rock's People's Elbow as "elbow drop (with theatrics)."
Here is Nick Jackson's back rake (with theatrics).
Here is Nick Jackson's back rake (with theatrics).
There's a long sequence where the Bucks keep a battered and long-suffering El Generico from making the hot tag to Kevin. He gets so close!
SO CLOSE!!!!
so close...
Finally, the hot tag is made at last! Matt knows he's in trouble as Kevin enters the ring like a vengeful force of nature.
It's hard for a gif to capture how *urgent* all of this feels. Every move is executed with desperate intensity. This is wrestling, it's live, pal--there are no second takes. This is the only chance they get to finish this story. So everyone has to be in precisely the right place.
Everyone has to be exactly in position to achieve this moment--in which Kevin, on his hands and knees, begs the man he rejected and tried to break to help him. Begs him!
And El Generico, without hesitation, comes to his aid.
And El Generico, without hesitation, comes to his aid.
A few moments later, Generico kicks out of the Bucks' finisher, More Bang for Your Buck! No one can believe it, least of all the Bucks.
The Bucks superkick the referee in a fury, but Kevin and Generico don't even seem to notice.
Kevin is crawling toward Generico, dragging himself over to his former best friend, his former bitter enemy, on his hands and knees.
Kevin is crawling toward Generico, dragging himself over to his former best friend, his former bitter enemy, on his hands and knees.
There in the ring, as the Bucks fume and the audience yells, they have an actual conversation, too low for the mics to catch. Kevin rests his hand on Generico's heart, clasps his arm. It might be a shoot conversation. But I feel like it's not.
Because as Kevin rises unsteadily to his feet, the Bucks laughingly suggest he join them in beating down Generico, and Kevin stands between them and Generico and responds:
A few moments later, Generico pulls off his finisher, the top-turnbuckle brainbuster, for the very last time, and staggers to try and make the pin as Kevin watches and Reseda leaps up in joy and anticipation.
But the ref is still out because of the Bucks' superkick! Rick Knox arrives to make the count, gets pulled out by Matt, and superkicks him! But it's taken too long, and Nick finds the strength to kick out.
Kevin LEVITATES WITH FURIOUS DISBELIEF. He cuffs Generico. Three or four different voices in the audience scream "No!" in a panic that he might turn on Generico again. Instead, he has a suggestion for future action:
But alas! In the middle of their finishing move, triumph falters into tragedy as Matt manages to pin Generico to retain the titles. Kevin, wiping his eyes, notices too late. Reseda is stunned. Knox is miserable.
Awkwardly, hesitantly, almost apologetically, Generico offers Kevin his hand. He's held out his hand three times tonight and been rebuffed every time, but he tries again.
Kevin stares at it.
The Reseda crowd makes a wild garbled noise that becomes "SHAKE, STEEN, SHAKE!"
Kevin stares at it.
The Reseda crowd makes a wild garbled noise that becomes "SHAKE, STEEN, SHAKE!"
He almost does, but can't quite bring himself to do it. He leaves the ring as the audience wilts and boos, and Knox tries to comfort Generico.
And then Kevin turns around.
And then Kevin turns around.
He knocks Generico back with the force of his hug, and it's suddenly clear that much of tonight was designed to let Kevin say farewell to Generico from his whole heart, to allow the fictional character and real person to exist in the same space in this moment.
This is Kevin's farewell speech to El Generico, his very last words to his former tag partner and enemy and friend as he leaves to go to a place Kevin wasn't sure he'll ever get to himself. I'm including them as a video and not a gif so you can hear his voice:
DDT4 2013 is available at http://Highspots.com ! This is the very last time Kevin and El Generico were in the ring together, the end of their decade-long story, which is kinda sorta part of an even bigger story. https://www.highspotswrestlingnetwork.com/media/pwg%3A-ddt-2013/37096/feature
(Generico had a very wonderful all-PWG farewell right after this match ended, and I will probably gif that next week to finish up the series!)
