Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kevin Knight/Swerve Strickland | Isaiah Scott, “Speedball” Mike Bailey/Kevin Knight
Characters: Kevin Knight (Professional Wrestling), Swerve Strickland | Isaiah Scott, “Speedball” Mike Bailey
Additional Tags: Hand Jobs, Kayfabe Compliant, kevin is fine and in an okay mental space, jetspeed is fine, hand jobs to forget your ex, Post-Break Up, Character Study
Summary:
Kevin is in his feelings after Speedball confronted him, so he goes to a man he knows will understand.
Takes place after Double or Nothing and Dynamite 5/27/2026.
Kevin Knight says Speedball Mike Bailey is to Pro Wrestling what Albert Einstein is to Science:
“What I say about Speedball Mike Bailey, he’s what pro wrestling is to what Albert Einstein is to science. He’s what Deion Sanders is to swag. He knows pro wrestling inside and out. Like you ask him about any match, about any style, he knows exactly who curated that style, exactly who came up with it, he knows all the moves, everything. So with that being said, Speedball knows exactly how to put everybody in the best place possible to get the best reaction out of everything.
Let me keep trusting him, you know what I mean? So Speedball is that savant, that great wrestling mind that I’ve been so blessed to work with these past few weeks, last few months, this whole past year.”
they're both so playfully touchy and flirty. kevin calls them 'baby' no less than 4 times in this 45 second backstager. they can't keep their eyes off each other. these things that would maybe be a wedge between them are instead just things they share. everyone telling me they're breaking up soon when this is the text you are all so pessimistic #jetspeedisfine they love eachother so much i think if one of them turns, the other will just be like "guess we're doing evil now" and follow
Soooo if you could write an AEW World Champ Kev storyline, how would it go? Who would he beat? Who are some of his challengers?
ohhh i am so glad you've asked :D i think i ended up getting a little carried away so i'm going to put this under a read more :)
now this is going to be incredibly self indulgent but. i would give kevin a good long reign. maybe not quite a forever champ, but he's going to be around a while. at this point, jetspeed is still a team, speedball stays by kevin's side with no plans of going anywhere.
i would give kevin a couple of defenses that aren't full feuds to start off with, and i think to showcase how varied his in-ring style is, the defenses would showcase that. im thinking of having him against mascara dorada, takeshita, and kyle o'reilly to start with.
then, i want his first feud to circle back to the story-line we got pieces of with swerve. swerve seeing kevin as a young champ who has definitely earned his place, but he still hasn't beat swerve, so does it really count? i want swerve to take kevin to extremes that really only clark has taken him to in the past. kevin has to dig deep and get dirty to eventually beat swerve. i'm thinking a no holds barred, no dq match. kevin wins, and earns swerve's approval finally. but it costs him, giving him a bit of a chip on his shoulder. making him less trusting.
the next arc wouldn't be a full feud/story but i would give some build up to lead into kevin vs kushida at forbidden door :) after this, we're going to run back the jetspeed vs the opps feud, culminating in kevin vs shibata. this too would be a no holds barred match.
the next major feud would be against nick wayne. to be honest, i still don't know too much about nick wayne to imagine how this would go, but i think as opposed to some of the previous feuds, this one is more lighthearted in tone. also the roles in this feud would be somewhat reversed in the sense that while nick's father may have trained kevin, kevin takes on an older brother/teasing tone with nick. this should climax in a ladder match because it would be fun :)
the last major challenge of kevin's reign would finally be against speedball. now, im a #jetspeedisfine truther. i don't think they're going to have a messy divorce (that said, if they did, i would not complain), so i do envision this being speedball telling kevin that he still hasn't beaten them yet in singles competition, and seeing how much kevin has grown in his time at aew, they want a rematch. kevin will defeat them, but it is a match where clearly they still have so much respect for one another, and jetspeed is fine :)
now. i don't know who kevin will drop his title to. i don't want to think about that. and i don't see clark as world champ material tbh, but i could see maybe if a death rider (yuta? claudio?) challenged kevin, clark could interfere in the match to cost kevin his belt.
overall, the main thesis of this reign would be kevin proving himself and showing that he is no longer in the shadow of others. he's his own shining star, and while the lessons he got along the way helped him get to where he is, he's become something else entirely <3
