Dynamite - 9/8/2021

[The Man Known as Dan]

I’ll be quick, as I was debating doing a long winding post about it, but no reason to go crazy on a show I didn’t really love I guess? Which feels weird about such a loaded show, but it felt like the pacing on the show wasn’t good, like they tried to do one segment too many.

Dustin-Black was really fun, even with the finishing kick not landing. Dustin can always sell a limb super well, and it was the right direction to take this match. The Hobbs match was really good until Hobbs got knocked loopy. The Ruby match felt disjointed and not smooth, and the botch of the “wrestler tries for a reverse rana and the taker powers her back up for a spot” was fucking rough man, that could have gone horrifically. Hayter seems like she has a lot of potential but isn’t there yet pretty clearly. Six Man was fun, though probably could have been moved to a side show to give everything else more time. Mox vs. Suzuki was a pretty damned big let down for me, honestly. Started too late, and featured my biggest flaw in Moxley in that he seems to want to work the “Modern New Japan” style all the time when I honestly don’t think he’s very good at it. The commercial break in the middle of what was only like a 12 minute TV main event and all of Suzuki’s cool arm work (which was then not really sold by Moxley once the full screen came back) being hard to see. It felt like Mox just wanted to do your New Japan sprint when I think what makes Suzuki really good is doing stuff other then that.

 

As for the mic work segments, it was a mixed bag. I liked Punks promo and job as a hype man, though I’m pretty surprised they are moving him to Team Taz. Not against it, just wasn’t my first, or even fifth pick for them to go to immediately. The MJF stuff didn’t hit me other then coming off as kind of desperate, but I also don’t think he’s actually that great or interesting on the mic. I actually like him in ring more, which is probably not a popular opinion. Could have done without the cheap heat attempts. Lambert is a great talker but needs clients that are a better fit, as stated. The Elite segment was fine, but man did that TV debut from Bryan feel underwhelming to me? Just felt like the motivations for both guys were not super interesting. 
 

There was good stuff here but this was lined up to be a home run show, and I think it was more a single or a double. 

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by The Man Known as Dan

[hammerva]

I was kind of hoping that they realized that MJF needed to calm down his heel gimmick just a little.  And did for the most part while still being extremely hated.    Because for people who are angry about this segment hasn't really watched MJF on the indies and MLW because he was way way worse.  But I guess not after yesterday

This has probably been mentioned already on here but can someone explain why Dan Lambert hates AEW and yet still travels all over the country.  This angle  would probably make a lot more sense if the show was only in Jacksonville 

Edited September 9, 2021 by hammerva

[J.T.]

The wrestling was pretty good.  The cutting of Kaze ni Nare was really bad.  If you're going to job Suzuki in fucking Ohio, the least you can do is let his fucking music play.

9 hours ago, Jiji said:

People are raving about Pac/Andrade. 

Other than to see who potatoes who first and makes the other go hardway, I am not sure why people are raving.  This match has the potential to be a trainwreck if Andrade doesn't lean into PAC's strikes like a pro and reels the fucker in when he starts to work too stiff.

8 hours ago, Eoae said:

Hayter getting jobbed out to Soho was disappointing too, though the catering insult was amusing. 

Hayter is Britt's goon.  She's not going over Ruby Soho on Ruby's first televised appearance following the huge battle royale win on AEW's most successful PPV to date.  That just doesn't make good booking sense.

8 hours ago, For Great Justice said:

Dammit, why do the Creed brothers have to be in the wrong promotion? Because Dan Lambert managing THOSE GUYS with their Steiner Bros squash shtick are an infinitely better fit than Sky and Page in this role. 

You've answered your own question.  Lambert is there to get heat for Sky and Page because they are apparently incapable of getting it on their own.  They can't even throw Darby down a fucking flight of stairs and retain hatred from the crowd for more than a week.

Guys who are over don't need anyone to help them stay over.

Edited September 9, 2021 by J.T.

[Goodear]

Just a poor showing featuring multiple injuries, hard way bleeding and blown spots. I think the only match that was clean was the Dark Order vs. Spears/FTR match and even that didn't feel like FTR was really giving it their all. Everything else felt really off pace and sloppy. Hopefully Soho and Hobbs didn't get dinged too badly. I'm not sure who put the pirate curse on Brian Pillman Jr. but I have no doubt that he's going to get humiliated some more before he gets shoved back to his tag team just like every other time they put him on TV. Best parts of the shows were the Lucha Brothers and The Best, The Best, The Best insert videos.

 

[AxB]

If Dan Lambert was managing 2.0 and Garcia and ranting about Millenials, they could try to claim 2.0 were Gen X'ers and their son Daniel Garcia was a Zoomer. It's a bit of a stretch, though.

[hammerva]

Daniel Garcia with Dan Lambert is way more credible than Ethan Page who did a karate gimmick on the indies.  I don't know what kind of non pro wrestling background Scorpio sky had

 

 

 

[(BP)]

This might’ve already been done somewhere else on the board, but can someone pimp some Suzuki matches for me? I’m in love. 

[AxB]

Suzuki had a great match with Norman Smiley in 1990, when he was still pretty boy MiSu.

[Technico Support]

You know how you come back from time off and you or your boss joke about giving you a raise because, while you were gone, everyone realizes how much stuff you do and how everything was tougher while you were out?  TK needs to give Excalibur 10k more per year because holy fuck was the announce team bad without him directing traffic, calling the match, and keeping everything on track.  We had three AARP members all doing color commentary and it was a chore.

Hey, MJF reverts back to cheap heat and smarky bullshit.  If you have to call out how you're good on the mic, then you probably aren't.  That segment was terrible.  1999 Bubba Ray Dudley called to say "bro, dial that shit back a bit."  Honestly, was there no stunt granny to push over?  This guy sucks.  You can't spell "I'm just really fucking overrated" without MJF.

Am I in a bad place today or was this show not great?

Jamie Hayter jobs and is the most ineffective heater ever.  Let's review: Hayter debuts.  Beats Red Velvet in a bad match where she probably should've eaten her up.  Gets run off by Statlander.  Loses to Statlander in a 2-on-1.  Loses to Ruby.  Damn.  Even Big Bubba got to no-sell some chairshots TV before jobbing to Dusty around the horn.

After seeing the Malakai Black recap video, I remembered that he debuted in men's running shorts and damn, I'm glad he switched that up quick.

Dustin, in his promo last week, really missed an opportunity to revert to Goldust and drop the movie quote, "HE WANTS YOU, MALAKAI!"

As mentioned, damn, they went long and had to rush at the end.  Between Schiavone going into an auctioneer cadence promoting upcoming shows, and then cutting off Suzuki's theme, they needed to work that shit out better.

Still loving the short promo packages throughout the show.  Great way to focus on guys without having them in matches or promos every week.

Loved Team Taz being booked as also-ran punkass bitches.  "Keep our names out of your mouth"  "Uhhhhh, I never mentioned you WTF?"

Looking forward to and Elite/Mt. Rushmore split, hopefully.  You can't have a Horsemen with two Flairs and two tag teams.

I'm sure more stuff will come to mind but I wasn't crazy about this one.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2021 by Technico Support

[Steventon]

Post-PPV Dynamites are usually a cool-down show and a reset, and thats what we got here.

Team Taz are a fine short-term program for Punk. Hopefully Starks puts Cage to bed next week and we get some of him vs Punk for a couple weeks.

I think it is safe to say MJF got his heat back quickly on this show. 

If you hadn't seen Suzuki before, the main event was a good showcase. As someone who has seen him do literally the same match on repeat for the last 10 years or so didn't do much for me though. Their first match in Japan was much better.

Oh and hey the Pinnacle are still a thing.

[EVA]

38 minutes ago, (BP) said:

This might’ve already been done somewhere else on the board, but can someone pimp some Suzuki matches for me? I’m in love. 

Random stuff that comes to mind:

Vs. Tanahashi at WK6

Also Vs. Tanahashi for the IC belt in 2018

Vs. Goto at WK12

Vs. AJ Styles in the G1 (I think) in 2014

An assortment of fun Ishii matches over the years that probably scratch the same itch.

[Jiji]

Okada 2017 G1 Climax. They had a match at Suzuki's 30th Anniversary Show held a month before that, which was outdoors in the pouring rain and was an interesting watch too. 

Edit: I liked Black's Muay Thai shorts look, probably more than the trunks he wore last night.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Jiji

[Krone]

I just realized Jake Hager hasn't had a one on one match since his June 6th MMA bout with Wardlow. He did wrestle on July 7th at Road Rager against the Pinnacle and I saw him after Jericho beat MJF at All Out - but there's another guy who I haven't seen in a hot minute. Does he still have that fight with Fedor coming up? If so, I could see him out training for that, but was just wondering.

Also, upon looking up Hager I saw that Sammy Guevara has wrestled a total of 10 matches in 2021 for AEW. Look, I'm all for people having breaks and not wrestling 3-4 times a week, but damn does that seem like a small number. He's averaging a match a month.

[Craig H]

I knew what to expect from this show, but I think it was stuffed a little too full. That tends to be what happens when you have as much huge shit happen on a PPV that All Out contained. Even then, I would have looked at moving some shit to next week. At first I thought that you'd want to move that MJF and Pillman Jr. segment to next week, but they're in Cinci and you want to get Pillman Jr. out there because it's obvious he's in their future plans. You can't move the Punk promo. Maybe you move Martin vs Hobbs to Rampage and make that a quicker squash? Maybe you have the segment with Ruby backstage to setup Ruby vs Hayter for next week instead of doing the match last night?

Definitely was some sloppiness to the matches. I know some of you liked the Ruby vs Hayter match, but I thought parts of that thing looked rough. Ruby went for that poison rana and Hayter just wasn't going for it. Ruby at least saved the move, but it looked like Hayter landed hard. There was then another move that it looked like they just weren't cooperating on. And then there was Ruby getting her neck and head all fucked up. Scary stuff here.

For Punk's promo, I immediately knew they were going in that direction to have Punk take on Team Taz when Taz was questioning JR about what Punk has done since returning. It was like, ok, so we're going there next. I'm hoping that this feud at least lets Punk get a little more away from happy, smiling, cheap pop Punk and get him back to talking mad amounts of shit. Him vs Ricky Starks is the obvious endgame and those two dueling on the mic should put Starks on the map. And dare I say, but I think Starks should win this feud...?

Darby and Pillman being the next dudes for the Pinnacle to focus their ire on sounds good to me. Pillman and Sting teaming up was one of my favorite things from WCW and this is the new version of that.

Man, yeah, give Excalibur all of the money. When he's not there you can easily feel he's the best announcer in wrestling. Booth was a shit show.

Rampage is going to have to become a 2 hour show. Maybe when they move to TBS? I'd run it from 9 to 11 EST because 10 to 12 EST would be crazy. I'm not counting Dark and Elevation in this, but 3 hours of TV isn't enough. Maybe some of that is being programmed from Raw and SD always at least being two hours, but you could still have Rampage be different and still have it run two hours.

[Craig H]

Oh, one other thing...I get your ire for Kaze ni Nare being cut. Me personally, it didn't bother me because we just got that delivered to us on Sunday. That's just me though. Hopefully they do MiSu, Mox, and Archer vs Men of the Year and someone else.

[Steventon]

Ricky Starks has had 4 matches on TV, spare a thought for him.

 

Also, doing the bloody mouth sell for the Black Mass that clearly hit Dustin in the upper arm/shoulder was very stinky. I remember Black not being able to hit the move properly on big guys in WWE too, maybe he needs to set it up differently or have them go down to one knee or whatever because it's super embarrassing when your badass kickboxer guy's kicks visibly miss by miles.

[Curt McGirt]

So Bucks are doing fake jewelry now, like a middle school girl whos parents won't let her get her ears pierced. Guess next they move to temporary tattoos. 

[Curt McGirt]

Dustin hit the turnbuckle before the shoulder kick so that can explain the bloody mouth. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 hour ago, AxB said:

Suzuki had a great match with Norman Smiley in 1990, when he was still pretty boy MiSu.

There is a picture of Suzuki with (Masakatsu) Funaki from that time period where they look like the Japanese version of Al Neri and Rocco Lampone. Some poor sap probably woke up next to the bloody head of his prized racehorse that day.

[Krone]

12 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Man, yeah, give Excalibur all of the money. When he's not there you can easily feel he's the best announcer in wrestling. Booth was a shit show.

I agree with this. Schiavone and JR work great for the booth, but I'll be damned if Excalibur isn't the straw that stirs that drink.

 

Edit - to add to this, he's also probably the most in tune with current pro wrestling. I doubt JR or Schiavone know who Lee Moriarty is, but I guarantee Excalibur does. Also, anything to do with the Elites history or stuff from the indys (or PWG) he's got the inside track on.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Krone Meltzer

[Curt McGirt]

8 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

There is a picture of Suzuki with (Masakatsu) Funaki from that time period where they look like the Japanese version of Al Neri and Rocco Lampone. Some poor sap probably woke up next to the bloody head of his prized racehorse that day.

Its probably this 

Spoiler

but I like this one better

Spoiler

Boss Fujiwara with his kobun.

[The Natural]

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

This might’ve already been done somewhere else on the board, but can someone pimp some Suzuki matches for me? I’m in love. 

 

39 minutes ago, EVA said:

Random stuff that comes to mind:

Vs. Tanahashi at WK6

Also Vs. Tanahashi for the IC belt in 2018

Vs. Goto at WK12

Vs. AJ Styles in the G1 (I think) in 2014

An assortment of fun Ishii matches over the years that probably scratch the same itch.

 

26 minutes ago, Jiji said:

Okada 2017 G1 Climax. They had a match at Suzuki's 30th Anniversary Show held a month before that, which was outdoors in the pouring rain and was an interesting watch too. 

Edit: I liked Black's Muay Thai shorts look, probably more than the trunks he wore last night.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi at NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling 2012. A ***** match. Suzuki's best match ever and the best Tanahashi/Suzuki match.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Jon Moxley from NJPW The New Beginning 2020.

Kenta Kobashi vs. Minoru Suzuki for the GHC Heavyweight Championship in NOAH, January 2005.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Shingo Takagi had a series of matches for the NEVER Openweight Championship last year.

@EVA's right, Minoru Suzuki vs. AJ Styles from the 2014 G1 Climax.

@Jiji, I agree. I thought the attire Black wire in his debut, the Muay Thai shorts were better in the squash vs. Cody Rhodes than the trunks he worked in last night.

[EVA]

28 minutes ago, killsteve said:

Ricky Starks has had 4 matches on TV, spare a thought for him.

Starks has been injured most of the year. In retrospect, he clearly just gutted out the FTW match in Texas but is still recovering from his neck injury vs. Hangman in April. Hopefully he’s close to being 100% again, though.

[Log]

32 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Darby and Pillman being the next dudes for the Pinnacle to focus their ire on sounds good to me. Pillman and Sting teaming up was one of my favorite things from WCW and this is the new version of that.

They can do a kind of cool jocks and freaks have to team up to beat the bullies story with Darby and the Varsity Blondes vs. The Pinnacle.

[Jrag]

29 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

So Bucks are doing fake jewelry now, like a middle school girl whos parents won't let her get her ears pierced. Guess next they move to temporary tattoos. 

Love it.

The Elite/Danielson segment and the Dark Order match were the only things I really liked on this show. Cole bullying Tony was great.

Was very hyped for the Black/Dustin match, but it didn’t deliver. Hope they get another crack at it somewhere down the line. 

The Hayter/Soho match was sloppy sloppy. Think y’all are jumping the gun on the Hayter praise a bit. Same goes for Hobbs/Martin although I’ll chock that one up to injury.

MJF promo was fine if the face is storming the ring, but doesn’t work at all in a back and forth promo situation. Maybe a different face could have pulled it off, but Pillman doesn’t have the chops for that sort of thing.