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WINTER IS COMING III - DYNAMITE - 12/14/2022


DEAN

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Loved this show, and I agree with everyone here using the word 'chaotic' - in the best possible way, of course.

Really dig the Andretti signing - this isn't the right word, but he's going to make a wonderful 'replacement' for Dante Martin in the men's singles division now that Darius has returned (and hopefully for a good, long time this go 'round). And how unselfish of Jericho, man. Love it. Lots of people mentioning Scott Hall here in the context of Razor/Kid on Raw, but to me, it felt like a real full-circle moment from when Hall changed the finish to a Nitro match with Jericho in '97, and put him over without permission from Bischoff. 

I loved this entire show, other than the presence of Jeff Jarrett. I feel awful saying it because he's in great shape, can still talk, can still go, etc... but seeing him out there is a painful reminder of WCW's death, and TNA's... TNAness. For those of you who are familiar with TV Tropes: whenever I see Jarrett on TV, I feel like Ted McGinley just walked on to the set of my favorite sitcom.

MJF vs Danielson should be a good one, and I predict Danielson will lead him to his best match yet. I have a feeling both men are going to be highly motivated to put on a banger here, MJF as the new champ in his second defense, and Danielson wanting to outdo his peers in Punk, Cody, Mox etc. who have all had great ones with Friedman.

Didn't love the ending with Starks losing to a nut shot and skulduggery -- did they give Jarrett the pencil? --  but I think if he follows it up next week with a big win, and a "Max, I didn't forget... Sleep with one eye open' promo, he'll be ok (even if they don't get back to him vs MJF until, idk, let's say summer). 

 

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Thursday Reflections: Watching the International Feed and a few things stick out.  WHAT WAS UP WITH THE HEAT?!?   It was like they had a free buffet and gave everyone ten bucks to come into the building.  That was amazing.  I lived in Texas from age three to age five.  My sister was born there.  One of my first memories is being scared of Dusty Rhodes yelling through the TV screen and hiding behind the seat cushions.  So yeah, there is a tradition of wrestling in Texas.  The heat in the Jericho match was fucking PREPOSTEROUS during the picture in picture of the Jericho/Andretti match.  I'm guessing Jericho experienced that during Wrestlemania or something, but he had to be delighted.  I love that he knew he had to actually put him over clean to get him over since Bandido, Dalton Castle and Tomohiro Ishii were already known commodities so he could give them enough to take them to the next level and still go over, but he had to go 100 percent with Andretti.  I'm thinking Ruby Soho/ Tay Melo is my match of the week so far, I'll have to rewatch Gia Scott/ Masha Slamovich.  They showed ONE moment of daylight in that match- when Soho was doing the running kicks in the corner.  Other than that, that was fucking BattlARTS level of STIFF.  Tay Melo was SO FUCKNG GREAT during picture in picture, yelling at Ruby and the crowd and being as much of a HEAT MACHINE as Sammy.  When Tay rips up the fan's Ruby sign, Tony Schiavonne is fucking hilarious being outraged that Tay destroyed something A FAN MADE WITH LOVE!  and Taz is even funnier not being impressed.  "Just make more of an effort."  I am excited to see who Ruby gets to tag with against Tay and Anna JAS.  That was a fucking great episode of professional wrestling.

EDIT:  I was thinking that Tay should just yell in Portuguese to make it feel more natural- like when Asuka yells in Japanese.

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14 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

For those of you who are familiar with TV Tropes: whenever I see Jarrett on TV, I feel like Ted McGinley just walked on to the set of my favorite sitcom.

Ted McGinley was AWESOME on Married With Children.  "Having sex with your pregnant wife is like putting gas in your car after you've already wrecked it."

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7 minutes ago, DEAN said:

Ted McGinley was AWESOME on Married With Children.  "Having sex with your pregnant wife is like putting gas in your car after you've already wrecked it."

Ted McGinley > Steve on Married With Children

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5 minutes ago, DEAN said:

Ted McGinley was AWESOME on Married With Children.  "Having sex with your pregnant wife is like putting gas in your car after you've already wrecked it."

There's always one exception to the rule!! Perhaps this JJ run will be the first time since '99 I don't roll my eyes at his mere presence. Early indicators not looking good, but to paraphrase and bastardize, 'Anything can happen in the All Elite Wrestling...'

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12 minutes ago, DEAN said:

Thursday Reflections: Watching the International Feed and a few things stick out.  WHAT WAS UP WITH THE HEAT?!? 

I’m very curious if it has anything to do with the sound mixing and if that has anything to do with hiring Michael Mansury.

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15 hours ago, Pedro said:

Smart booking having Andretti win, it gave the feeling that anything could happen and maybe, just maybe Ricky could also pull off the upset.  


If you missed my other post in the Dec Wrestling thread, I highly recommend checking out Andretti's run in the MCW Shamrock Cup.  His first round match with Jake Crist is really good and made me seek out more of his work.  I also wonder now that we know the outcome, were those "jobber' chants piped in?  Taz mentioned them on commentary which also made me think they were piped.  

Either way I hope the kid is signed. 

Some people from a FB wrestling fans group I’m in was there and the chant was 100% legit and he also says his group kind of got it started. They were in the fourth row on hard camera, one had the “Ruby So-ho-ho” sign. Think they’re just a bunch of garage punk folks who love pro wrestling.

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16 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

There's always one exception to the rule!! Perhaps this JJ run will be the first time since '99 I don't roll my eyes at his mere presence. Early indicators not looking good, but to paraphrase and bastardize, 'Anything can happen in the All Elite Wrestling...'

Midcard Jarrett is usually pretty good. It's main-event, center-of-the-company Jarrett that sucks.

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Just watched Dynamite today because I'm home with my sick kid. I missed last night because it was the Survivor finale and Survivor is my favorite, even above pro wrestling. 

Anyways, some thoughts:

1) The Death Triangle vs. The Elite stuff is fine. I wasn't paying as much attention because I had to go make my kid toast but it's fun in terms of "sick moves, bro" stuff and I liked the ending of Nick Jackson trying to make his comeback but not being able to because of the hammer. I like that it set up the gimmick of the next match in the series. I'm mixed on TK revealing the final two gimmicks because while everyone is assuming it goes seven, I still want some illusion of disbelief.

2) The Jericho/Andretti match was a perfect match. Like, absolutely perfect professional wrestling. It felt like a match where Roger Federer loses in five-sets in the first round at Arthur Ashe to some teenager who plays the match of his life. Absolute MOTYC. It's kind of like the awesome Mox/Yuta bloodbath in that it told a perfect story. 

3) I really loved Ruby vs. Conti, too. I think this was a fantastic carry job by Ruby in terms of how to actually tell a story in a wrestling ring.

I've said it many times before but I think Ruby is an incredible worker. She knows her limitations and how to turn them into strengths. She never played sports as a kid and has no athletic background. But she was a drama kid and into punk, which is so performative. She had to try and find her athleticism when she started wrestling and that's so fucking insane to contemplate. But she sticks to what she knows she can do and makes everything look snug, she plays to the crowd like no other, and she is an all-time great at reacting (as Mr. Regal calls it on his podcast) to whatever her opponent is doing to her. 

Conti's more athletic and her stuff looks hurty (and probably is since she's sloppy.) Conti has good timing at doing the vicious stuff and cheap shots that any good heel does. She needs a lot of help with her expressions and acting -- she did the whole "OH MY GOD HOW DID SHE KICK OUT!!!" face a few times in the match. If she only used that face once for Ruby's final kick-out before the ending, it would have had a lot more impact and would have really made it to a new level for me.

Ruby made the match by generating as much sympathy as showing babyface fire. It felt a little bit like one of the OC bangers in that the match was laid out really well and Ruby's incredible character work made it shine. 

4) Great Hangman promo. As someone who is in his 40s and still e-feds (I'm doing a "Sunset Boulevard" gimmick with a faded old Sheri Martel-type manager returning and corrupting a young jobber to do her bidding) -- I can attest that promo was the single most e-fed thing I have seen in AEW, and there are so many e-fed things in AEW (like the existence of Darby Allin.) Hangman talking about forgetting his kid while his masked friend emotes in the background is absolute e-fed. I feel like I wrote that.

5) Man, that main event was fucking perfection. A+. Straight up Starcarde 1997 shit with MJF doing all kinds of old-school heel stuff but without it feeling like a cover band. Ricky Starks was a great Sting at the first Clash of Champions. Dragon coming out looking for revenge was Dusty Rhodes. Another MOTYC. There were so many great things in this match. For all of his warts as a character, MJF is a fantastic throwback heel. He's watched every Flair/Tully/DiBiase classic but makes it his own. It's a great differentiator because everyone else of the past two decades of wrestling has completely different influences. 

But that was a fantastic performance by Ricky Starks, too. Wonderful babyface.

As far as the booking of the match: I think that was absolutely perfect. MJF won in the most cheap bullshit way possible He now moves on to Dragon. Sting didn't win at his first big shot at the title. He didn't lose since it was a time limit draw with split judges. But Starks should be the person who dethrones MJF next year. He needs a great second feud. Would love him versus Jericho or Sami but looks like they're going another direction. 

Amazing show. 

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Opener had some good early action, for just a minute I was buying a legit Jackson injury and was secretly hoping for Cutler to get involved. As someone else said laying out the escalating stips for matches 5-7 basically guarantees it’s going to happen (not that we had any doubt it was going 7). Really wish we could just have a fun Rey Fenix singles run.

Mox and BCC promos were good, I know some people don’t like them as a.group and I just don’t get that take. Anyway, I get the sense they’re going to be more of an affiliation than a tight faction moving forward.

MJF talks, starts ok but in MJF fashion just keeps going and going and I lean on that sweet FFWD for the last 2 minutes of yapping.

Jeff Jarrett, in classic Jeff Jarrett fashion, finds a way to leach from/leech onto the hottest act. How the fuck did we end up trading William fucking Regal for Jeff fucking Jarrett?

Jungle Boy-Brian Cage was a perfectly good David v Goliath match between someone I’m meh for and someone I don’t care a whit for.

HoB yawn. Free Brody King.

Ruby-Tay was a lot of fun, good violent brawl with a good amount of hate. The judo throw was a very nice touch, as was the Gotch-style piledriver. 

Skye Blue interrupting Britt and talking shit to get her to wrestle on Friday was great. I’m kind of hoping it’s a set-up but I don’t know what for.

Jericho-Andretti was a shocker, I knew it wouldn’t be a total squash and then I thought that Jericho was just being extra giving to make his opponent look good and then HOLY SHIT. I thought it was a good match, I think Andretti is fine but Jericho put in a ton of work to help get him over. Now we need AR Fox to actually get a TV win.

MJF has started caring again, he’s notably leaner and more chiseled than earlier this year. I really liked the match, MJF working an old school American Heavyweight title match style was oddly refreshing and also very in character. I don’t know that he really did much to elevate Ricky though, other than cheat to win.

My prediction is Bryan beats MJF to a point where he gets DQ’ed because he is more wanting to destroy MJF for what he did to Regal than winning a belt. Then MJF takes 4 months off because he’s wrestled his 3 matches for the half-year.

Edited by JLowe
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A lot of credit for Andretti should really go to QT Marshall.  The match they had on Dark was QT giving the brightest amount of shine to a relative unknown who previously lost a few matches.  The fact it was in DC at the time (close to where he regularly is at MCW) helped give the crowd more incentive to give a damn about him.  But it really not only made me think "Hmm...maybe one day..." with Action but also cemented my take that QT is the MVP of Dark/Elevation.  It wouldn't surprise me if Jericho was looking for an opponent and QT got in his ear.  And while the finish was a total "Wait, what?!" moment it also was beautifully done as it built off the organic build in interest from the crown.  Andretti's not always going to have two aces helping him so I hope he can consistently bring the goods.  But if he can then he's got a helluva future.  Speaking of MCW he's going to be on their show on the 30th that has no outside talent appearing.  So he's going to make some serious bank off the merch table.

Also, there's a thought creeping in my head that thinks back to when Jungle Boy went against Jericho.  It might have been too soon then.  But if JB had this type of win instead of the close-but-not-quite result I can imagine how much sooner his stock would have risen.

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32 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

I've said it many times before but I think Ruby is an incredible worker.

One thing about Ruby is that I love how she works the headscissors slam into the turnbuckles into her matches. It's a very obtuse spot that takes complex set up since it involves her opponent being in a specific position and maybe doing something that they wouldn't normally do. In some ways it's very much a "powerbomb Kidman" type of spot, but she thoughtfully sets it up in interesting and believable ways with a lot of variety.

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15 minutes ago, Matt D said:

One thing about Ruby is that I love how she works the headscissors slam into the turnbuckles into her matches. It's a very obtuse spot that takes complex set up since it involves her opponent being in a specific position and maybe doing something that they wouldn't normally do. In some ways it's very much a "powerbomb Kidman" type of spot, but she thoughtfully sets it up in interesting and believable ways with a lot of variety.

Right! I love that spot. Not that I have any athletic ability, but a head-scissors seems like someone who had to learn how to use their body in an athletic endeavor late in the game can master. But the added flourish of it headed into the corner and figuring out with her opponent how to make it work within the confines of a wrestling match makes it something really special.

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58 minutes ago, Go2Sleep said:

Midcard Jarrett is usually pretty good. It's main-event, center-of-the-company Jarrett that sucks.

Agreed, hence 'First time since '99' 🙂 it's funny too, given all the other parallels between the two, because no one exemplifies that 'guy who works with the guy' knock on HHH to me more than JJ. It's like he was genetically engineered by Jerry to excel no further than the level required to wear the US/IC/dear God not the TNT titles.

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1 hour ago, JLowe said:

HoB yawn. Free Brody King.

Agree 100%. I’m a big fan of all three guys, but, Brody doesn’t need Malakai or Buddy or the spooky shit to be over. He’s the star of the group IMO and was just starting to heat up when their first run fizzled out. 

Edited by MKERyan
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Just rewatched the Andretti-Jericho match, this is the type of shit that makes me love pro wrestling.

They teased the upset masterfully a couple of times near the end but you could tell everyone was waiting for the eventual Judas Effect out of nowhere that ends so many Jericho matches.

I love when you’re watching a guy having arguably the best moment of his life on camera, such a feel good moment.

 

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Also forgot to mention Jericho casually making Garcia Sammy's young boy, presumably as a catalyst for a Garcia face turn. I think they pretty much wasted Garcia in the JAS. There was a lot of potential with Jericho and 2.0 "re-educating" Garcia in the ways of sports entertainment, but they never bothered exploring that angle with a prototypical indy wrestler in that stable. If this is where it's gonna end up, they should've just had Garcia get a big pop shaking Bryan's hand months ago.

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So happy to see Ruby back. Nice stuff with her and Tay and good to see that it looks like it's going to continue with Anna Jay and an inevitable partner for Ruby thrown in the mix. I remember liking the Ruby/Toni team right before ThunderStorm were a thing. So a return to that would certainly be cool. 
 

I'm so ready for Hayter/Shida. 

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10 hours ago, Matt D said:

 

  • I really like the way that MJF shifted his act slightly now that he's champ. I'd like there to be a bit more illusion of force to the hand on the ropes for the abdominal stretch, for instance, but I really liked the idea of it. There was so much of "playing the hits" from Flair or Dibiase or whoever else here, but no one else in AEW is really doing anything even close to it. I especially loved the bit where he ran into the crowd and really seemed to be messing with people. That got him chants, but it was still good, and it'll be great when it leads to a babyface running after him. It wasn't the smoothest match in the world, but for the most part, that felt like struggle. 
  •  
  • Good stuff upcoming. Taped for elevation was a Bunny/Emi tag, an Ortiz/Eddie tag (vs Shinno), Athena vs Vertvixen, Trustbusters vs Takeshita/Top Flight/Matt Hardy/Ethan Page (which sounds super entertaining on paper), and Claudio/Yuta vs Workhorsemen. I'm excited for the Best Friends to team with Dustin. Sammy vs Mox was ok last time and should be fun and violent. Skye has a chance to step up against Britt. Obviously we've got Shida vs Hayter and FTR coming off of a couple of losses and ready to destroy the Gunn Club. 

MJF in ring is so refreshing after years of Indy flippy guys and are you telling me I get to see my man Drake mix it up against Claudio?

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13 minutes ago, zendragon said:

Ted was on the show longer and Steve was barely a character. He gets a bad rap

But Ted never held a job.  

EDIT: I'm sorry, I meant Jefferson Darcy never held a job.

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