Telling a long-term story in pro wrestling is not easy, especially at the independent level. Injuries, politics or flaky talent can disrupt even a rather simple plan.
Kudos to Kraken Pro Wrestling. then, for pulling it off.
Kraken’s one-year anniversary from May of 2025, the Kraken Classic, also represented the culmination of a one-year storyline. At the first Kraken Classic, Jay 2 Strong won the tournament to become the first-ever Kraken Champion, then bequeathed the championship to his manager, Justin Kayse, the leader of The Business. Kayse held the title for a year and never defended it. Instead, he used members of The Business as proxies against any aspiring challenger. Win against one of The Business — first Jay, then Dominic Stuckey – and earn a three-minute match against Kayse for the title. Except actually reaching Kayse was a hurdle that no one could clear. Kayse went a full year and never had to actually defend the title, mostly due to trickery and shenanigans by him and the members of The Business.
In this review, we tackle the culmination of that storyline, which came with an incredibly satisfying payoff.
It took a long time for me to fully digest this review to the point where it coalesced as a written piece for me. Part of that is that I’ve been busy writing about other things, both here and elsewhere. I’ve also been busy on the family front. And the work front. I also wanted to make sure I did justice to all the work that went into building what I consider the “season 1 finale” of Kraken. Not just the traditional concept of work as it pertains to wrestling and what happens in the ring. Work in interviews and backstage segments and commentary to develop characters and drive the story. Hopefully, this end result reflects and honors the amount of work that went into this climactic chapter.
With all that said, let’s dive right into the review.
The final match of the Kraken Classic puts Charlie Kills against Lamar Diggs after each won a four-way match earlier in the taping. Charlie has shaken up his usual look, and I’m getting Spoiler vibes — in a good way — from the red mask. Charlie has leaned increasingly into his “friendly neighborhood maybe-a-serial-killer” persona in Kraken. I greatly enjoyed the little touches here: the fish hooking, the joint manipulation, pulling on Diggs’ nose, and even an ankle stomp.
Diggs is also a favorite of mine on the Kraken roster. He’s the most physically imposing wrestler on the entire roster and he sells well. Diggs busts out some great facial expressions in this one. Meanwhile, he goes deep into the ol’ moveset. He uses some open-handed palm strikes to break a submission hold by Charlie, and later, I certainly didn’t expect a cross face out of the heavy hitter of The Business. Diggs wins out of nowhere with a flash pin, flipping forward out of a double leg bridge (the big guy is nimble!) and perfectly planting his feet on the bottom rope for the extra leverage. I cracked up after the match when Diggs is holding up the Kraken Classic trophy with one hand and a screaming child with the other. This was a very good match that was well worth seeing, and having Diggs win the tournament — and the guaranteed shot at the Kraken Title — scoops some extra drama onto the Aeom-Stuckey match, and the prospect of The Business having total control of the championship scene if Aeon falls short.
This is a very good match that is worth seeing, and also an important plot point if you’ve been following Kraken from week to week like I have. There is untapped potential for both Diggs and Charlie coming out of this tournament. I still look forward to the potential day when Diggs and Kayse split, and Diggs is able to get his hands on the manager.
A few other notes… The camera work here in this match shows how full the crowd is, and it’s a pretty packed house. The commentary could have been better. Diamond Duke goes back to complaining about the speed of the referee’s count, because it’s anytime. Meanwhile, the “Make a name for yourself!” line by Donnie Harris before a near-fall pin by Charlie. Note to self, guys and girls… not every wrestler is Jeff Hardy in a ladder match with The Undertaker from 2001.
This might be my favorite episode yet of Kraken TV. in the entire run. Kevin Kantrell is one of the MVPs of the promotion and he takes center stage in this episode. He has a good interview with Kay Casiano. We then get a “hidden camera” segment backstage involving ERC and Brandon Whatley, where, maybe for the first time in televised wrestling, the hidden camera actually makes logical sense.
Those were the appetizers. Let’s dig into the main course, the one-on-one match between Kantrell and Joe Black. I’ve known Joe for more than a decade and seen him evolve, grow, and change as a wrestler but more importantly as a character and a presence. He’s a guy I always felt warranted an opportunity on a larger stage. Maybe one day …
There’s a big fight feel for this match. It’s Joe’s debut in Kraken but previous episodes have done a good job establishing him and he already feels like a rather well-known quantity even before the bell rings. Some people reading this are going to roll their eyes at the comparison I’m about to make, but the way Joe carries himself during this match reminded me of Samoa Joe during his run as ROH Champion, which I mean as quite a high compliment. Joe is here for a match and a payoff; he’s also here to test the mettle of Kantrell and see how good he truly is. The actual wrestling here is quite good, and though these holds and exchanges are things a longtime wrestling fan like me has seen a thousand times, they crackle with intensity. Meanwhile, audible trash talk by Joe during the match is the fuel that propels the narrative. The announcers diminish their presence so these words can be heard clearly on the footage.
After an initial hold-for-hold exchange, Joe dismisses Kantrell as “light work.” Later, when they transition from mat wrestling to striking, Joe taunts Kantrell as a “big fish in a small pond”, goading Kantrell to administer a forearm but instead poking Kantrell in the eye — a bait and switch that I enjoyed immensely — before the blow can be delivered. When Joe follows up with some wicked-sounding chops in the corner, Kantrell piefaces Joe in response in a tremendous distillation of his defiance and resolve.
This feels like more of a back and forth match than the traditional structure with heat and shine. At one point, and I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, Joe busts out a bridging variation of the Mutalock — the same old Kantrell used to tap Will Huckaby (Joe’s longtime friend turned nemesis) at the end of 2024. A spinning forearm is delivered with a healthy amount of strong style. Kantrell unleashes an Avalanche Samoan Drop. Later, Kantrell strings together an Alabama Slam into a Styles Clash, leading to a convincing near-fall where both men’s shoulders are down — a detail I wish was made more of on commentary. The payoff comes when Kantrell delivers a brain buster, then rolls into his cross face hold to force Joe to tap. In the aftermath, Joe offers a handshake to Kantrell — the same gesture Kantrell offered and Joe refused in a backstage interview from earlier in this taping.
Tremendous.
This episode, the finale from the Kraken Classic event, is all about Justin Kayse and his ill-begotten Kraken Title reign. With Diggs winning the tournament earlier, it’s positioned — and rightfully so — as a last-chance, all-or-nothing scenario if there is to be any integrity at all in the championship scene. The episode begins with the contract signing between Aeon and Stuckey from earlier that day, which I mention only to note the moment where Donnie — who doubles as GM and lead commentator — mentions he wouldn’t mind seeing Dom as champion one day and Stuckey flashes a brief but very purposeful glance at his manager and the title slung over one shoulder.
Kay Casiano brings it up a notch on her introductions for this one, and once again a big-fight feel is established right off the bat. Once again, the rules here are that, if Aeon beats Stuckey, he gets a three-minute title match with Justin Kayse. The Aeon-Stuckey match is also no disqualification. The two combatants lean right into the stipulation, starting out hot with back-and-forth blows and then spilling to the floor. Kraken doesn’t do brawls outside the ring very often (Huckaby and Diggs had a memorable one way back) so it stands out when it does happen. Aeon pursuing Stuckey around the ring on all fours is a nice, novel touch.
I don’t think it’s possible for me to pick just one favorite wrestler on the Kraken roster, but both these guys are in the conversation. Stuckey really shines in this match with his facial expressions and trash talk. The no-DQ stipulation flows in both ways. Aeon takes Kayse’s loaded briefcase across the back, then spills to the floor to really get the heat of the match boiling. Then, when Stuckey puts Aeon in a modified cross face looking for the submission, Aeon pulls Kayse into Dom to break up the hold. Justin Kayse oversells this fairly modest impact like he’s been hit with a tranquilizer dart, to my profound amusement.
Dom follows up with a package piledriver (I added a couple of exclamation points to this in my live notes), but Aeon kicks out strong. Dom doesn’t like it, confronts Referee Clark, and decks him. Aeon hits his finisher, and here comes Referee Pee Wee, only to have Kayse wallop him with the briefcase. We’re out of referees… and that means the chaos begins.
This taping had The Business referring to a “Plan B” for this match throughout, and Jay 2 Strong looks to be the cornerstone of that plan, running in and blasting Aeon with a superkick. What proceeds is a long-running series of run-ins involving every wrestler on the card. Sometimes they come out one at a time, sometimes two at a time. On each occasion, the new entrant to the chaos drops whomever came in right before, a quick-hitting, lengthy series of interference spots that I won’t dare to attempt to recap in full here. The sequence does get a little wonky at times and reflects the overall population imbalance between fan favorites and rulebreakers on the roster, as there are a few instances of babyface-on-babyface-violence during the series of run-ins. The crowd, however, loves every bit of it.
The run-in parade eventually circles all the way back around to Jay, who goes to superkick Aeon and hits his stablemate Dom by mistake. This single moment escalates everything. The crowd goes wild. Babyface wrestlers surround the ring and are banging on the apron as Jak Myles dispatches Jay with a Russian legsweep (because he’s the Sweeper, you see), and then, Superman-style, sheds his coveralls to reveal referee gear underneath, calling back to the very first Kraken tapings where a down on his luck Sweeper had to referee matches as well for extra money. Aeon hits his finisher again on Stuckey and Sweeper counts the pin, to an absolutely insane crowd reaction. For a minute there, I thought I was watching mid-1980s Jim Crockett Promotions. (Tip of the hat to Diggs, who timed it so he was oh so close to breaking up the pin).
The focus immediately shifts to Justin Kayse, who goes running out of the building. He’s pursued, and there’s a fantastic visual where several of the fan favorite wrestlers carry a protesting Kayse back into the arena and dump him into the ring. Now the ring is entirely circled, with wrestlers and fans pounding on the apron. In another nice touch, Diggs and Jay are being held back on the floor so they cannot interfere. Kayse offers Aeon a literal fist full of dollars to try and avoid what’s coming. Diamond Duke, who roots endlessly for The Business on commentary, is apoplectic throughout all of this.
Aeon answers Kayse’s bribery offer with controlled violence. He destroys Kayse with two moves and is quite safe with him in the process, especially considering Kayse is a non-wrestler. Sweeper counts the pin, and there’s another eruption from crowd and commentary alike as the Justin Kayse reign (of terror?) comes to a definitive end.
Final Thoughts
I can’t count the number of times I see or hear someone explain that a wrestling outcome is “predictable.” Some of the best stories ever told, in various mediums, have a predictable conclusion. Even if you see the final destination coming from miles away, the joy comes in the journey, and the precise route taken to reach the end point.
These three episodes represent Kraken at its greatest heights to date. The final two episodes, featuring Kantrell vs. Black and the Aeon-Stuckey-Kayse drama, stand head and shoulders above anything the promotion has done. Which one is better? I would say that the Kantrell-Black episode has more of a standalone element of quality; you can enjoy it thoroughly without having any significant context or prior knowledge or viewing of Kraken. The final episode from this taping, however, feels like the last chapter of a long, compelling book you’ve spent quite some time reading through. If you’ve been following along this whole time like I have, there’s a satisfaction in the conclusion that can’t be reached without knowing all the players, twists, and turns that led to that moment.
Check out all three episodes, embedded below:
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