“In case you haven’t noticed I’m pretty f*ckin’ hard to kill.” – Britt Baker
Dynamite opened and closed with good old-fashioned pro wrestling about respect, championships, and understanding your limits. Why’d there have to be stuff in the middle?
Jericho, the Bucks, and Yankee Doodle Cody are taking up a lot of energy on Wednesday nights now competing to parody themselves while too many other interesting possibilities lay dormant, either figuring their thing out on YouTube or just forgotten.
Where did the weekly Tazpromos go too? Where are they?? Dynamite, get your shit together.
The World
I don’t ask for a lot. Really. It’s shocking how little I’ve asked for over 30 years from this. New Japan’s Yuji Nagata threw down with Jon Moxley in the opening match, and in the main event Scary Handsome Miro strangled Darby Allin into submission to take his TNT championship. That was probably enough. Treat it seriously, have stakes, do something different — the pro wrestling love was strong.
Then came a bunch situations and stipulations because the Double or Nothing card was sorted, and the setups felt lazy or try-hard — sometimes both. A week after Blood & Guts, Chris Jericho is back and the Inner Circle is havin’ a laugh doing Attitude Era callbacks to setup a rematch. I think Christopher Daniels might’ve bled this week more than anyone did at Blood & Guts, and now the Young Bucks are defending their titles against… Moxley and Eddie Kingston.
Really weird seeing Orange Cassidy and PAC in a World Title situation that doesn’t feel awesome too.
Cody Rhodes channeled both pride over fatherhood and his own frustrations over the paradox of patriotism into a rivalry about patriotism and flags and shit. Cody helped train an Olympic medal-winning boxer to be a pro wrestler and introduced him to the world as an evil foreigner. From Lowestoft. Tone deaf, embarrassing, and not even good wrestling.
Hangman Page is also definitely just hanging around doing nothing but at this point, that’s a win for him.
The Wrestling
Yuji Nagata vs. Jon Moxley for the IWGP U.S. Heavyweight Title was too fun fun a scenario to not be good but it was also actually good, 10 minutes of TV with no wasted movement – strikes, floor, signatures. Nagata looked dangerous in defeat and hopefully re-established the legend of Blue Justice for the 18-49 olds — AND THEM ONLY.
SoCal Uncensored and their ability to team vs. The Young Bucks’ and their Tag Team Titles worked some really impressive tag spots into a tight tag package and then OOOOOO blood! So much blood, mostly pouring from Daniels’ head but also on a Young Bucks’ shoe. It created some fun if not slightly rushed near falls.
PAC vs. Orange Cassidy for a shot at Kenny was a brief reminder of how good serious wrestler Orange can be and then OOOOO that powerbomb.
We support Thunder Rosa squashes here at Happy Wrestling Land and wish to see more in the future.
Darby Allin vs. Miro for the TNT Title was phenomenal, a no-bullshit quick pace clash of a relentless David vs. weirdo Goliath. Darby diving hyper-speed and shoulder-first at Miro may be one of the greatest topes of all time.
The Entertainment
The lack of comma in the quote that began this review is a casualty of confidence, the delivery of one Britt Baker who by promos alone appears unbeatable headed owards the Women’s World Title. Big time promo this week.
Otherwise, the wrestling carried the show this week.
Room for Improvement
- Intro Ogogo like a Luger, not a Koloff
- More Team Taz
- I said reel Chris Jericho in!
My Favorite Things
- Finally: Monstrous Miro
- Darby looks to Sting before he stands up one last time against Miro
- Darby’s shoulder-first tope suicida
