Adam Cole looks back on his 2012 showdown with one of his best friends, Kyle O’Reilly.
The AEW star took on his Undisputed Era brother at Ring of Honor’s Best In The World event from the legendary Hammerstone Ballroom in New York city. Cole spoke about the match with O’Reilly during a recent interview with Superstar Crossover. He says it is his all-time favorite memory of New York City since that is where it took place.
My favorite memory [in New York City] is my favorite match that I was involved in that took place in New York because I get asked this question a lot. So New York City is incredibly important to me because in 2012, me versus Kyle O’Reilly took place at a Ring of Honor pay-per-view, ROH Best in the World 2012. It was in the Hammerstein Ballroom, which was super exciting. Me and Kyle were in this feud with each other, and we had to have this match called a Hybrid Fighting Rules Match, which was a very confusing and convoluted match type that a lot of the fans weren’t thrilled about. At this point, me and Kyle, we’re still very, very early in our wrestling careers. I feel like we had the respect of the fans where they would pay attention to what we were doing, but we weren’t over yet, by any means. People weren’t lining up to buy the shirts. People weren’t screaming when our music hit. We were still kind of earning their respect. I’ll put it to you that way.
Cole says that fans were initially not into the match, but that they became rabid after he got busted open and started bleeding everywhere.
When this match was happening, the crowd was not into it at all in the beginning. They were trying to be respectful, but they were bored. This is one of those matches where you had to be careful with how many punches you threw, rope breaks; it was super convoluted. Long story short, at one point, Kyle punched me in the mouth, and it split my lip where it was completely split in half, so much blood, I looked like a zombie. That changed the entire dynamic of the match. All of a sudden, those New York City fans, those rabid New York fans, were completely invested in this match.
He says that by the end everyone was standing on their feet.
Everyone was standing on their feet. They’re banging on the barricades. They’re chanting ‘This is awesome.’ They’re chanting ‘Adam Cole.’ At one point, I’m on my knees, and I flipped my hair up, and I yelled to fire up to Kyle, and blood is squirting out on his chest, and Kyle is standing there,” Cole continues. “So the cool thing about it is, again, we’re pretty young in our careers. We really changed a lot of what we were going to do and the dynamic of that match based on this little speed bump that we had, which actually made the match so much better. So from that point forward, me and Kyle O’Reilly’s Ring of Honor careers really started to skyrocket. The next week, I won the ROH Television Title. I just had a different connection with the fans. So did Kyle. So that match is the most important match, to me, in my career. One of the important reasons is, again, those rabid New York City fans that just were having the time of their life.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cole spoke about Jay Lethal and why he thinks he is one of the most underrated performers in all of wrestling. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)