Author: dtm666

Amazingly, Rob Van Dam did not make his supposed AEW debut, because what better time to make waves in the new promotion than on the 4/20 edition of Dynamite.

So now that we got the obvious deadhorse joke out of the way, the major announcement hyped up by Tony Khan turned out to be the official announcement of Forbidden Door, a joint AEW/New Japan PPV event from Chicago taking place in late-June… so another PPV event for me to sample, yippee. The way they handled this was fine; as TK came out and introduced the president of New Japan, only for Adam Cole to pop up on screen and make the announcement himself, which was the right move because Adam Cole is a good promo and TK often comes across as awkward. And then of course, this brings out Jay White of Bullet Club fame, who is… not the least bit amazing. By the way, him saying that he sold out MSG is cute and what a heel in taking credit for other people’s hard work.

I may have to go back and watch that MSG show, actually. One of these days.

Meanwhile, there was some good wrestling on here. CM Punk vs. Dustin Rhodes opened the show and that was a good match. Wardlow and the Butcher had a good ol’ fashioned hoss fight and after Wardlow won, MJF cut a promo to pay off Jake The Snake to cut one of his classic Jake The Snake promos before ol’ Murderhawk himself Lance Archer goes “Fuck all that. EVERY BODY FUCKING DIES!” Excellent. Trios between the Blackpool Combat Club and three geeks is always fun for a lark. Kyle O’Reilly beating Jungle Boy to advance in the Owen Hart tournament was NOT a surprise as it should’ve been, because we needz some genuine CANADIANS in this tournament showcasing this CANADIAN rassler. And the coffin match between Andrade and Darby was an entertaining spectacle if nothing else.

Points must be docked for one of the Private Party guys ripping a Sting sign from a guy in a Sting mask, who pulls the mask off to reveal himself to be… Sting. I could’ve sworn I’ve seen this bit in TNA ages ago. I must stress; I don’t mind it. It’s funny.

Oh, and Sting does another dive… and I was worried about Steve Austin having another match.

All in all, a perfectly fine edition of Dynamite. Summon the bots to hate this show.

Note to future wrestling promoters; if you’re going to have an overrun on your weekly television show, make it worth your audience’s while. Don’t blow it on something that nobody is going to care about.

Case in point; last night’s episode of Dynamite, which was another fine episode in a series of fine episodes and I’ve little to say in general. Jurassic Express beating O’Reilly & Fish to retain the tag titles was a nice surprise to an otherwise fine piece of tag wrestling, Captain Shawn Dean scoring another big win over MJF (albeit via countout after MJF was scared off by Wardlow because… whatever, don’t kill the Cap’n’s big moment, pal!), a fun six-man with Jericho’s crew beating up Eddie’s crew, and finally Team Taz’s best stars whose name is not HOOK get a big win over the NXT rejects of Swerve and Keith Lee. The women’s match was kinda trash, though. That’s what we get for saying Britt/Rosa didn’t live up to expectations, I suppose.

Samoa Joe vs. Minoru Suzuki was a good main event… didn’t quite live up to the physicality of Joe Vs. Kobashi (not that I would’ve expected it) and the match felt more like a tease of something bigger and more brutal, but it was fine and seeing Joe win the ROH TV Title from Suzuki was a nice little surprise. What wasn’t so nice was the follow-up, which saw Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt beat up Joe for a bit before the lights went out – another gimmick we need to kill off if the end result is another diminishing return – and when they turn back on, we get this big tall dude whose name I’m not even going to try and spell out because I might butcher it… I’ll look it up later, I promise.

I’d imagine this is a TBS deal or something… probably to try and get a big Indian name over… I wish nothing but the best for this guy, but my hopes are not high, as past experience has proven. It also doesn’t help that first impressions for this guy is that of a big, lumbering oaf that killed a previously hot crowd, who were probably expecting a name with some weight to it. Perhaps a certain Swiss superhuman or some guy named Johnny, not some failed basketball player who’s reminding me of another failed basketball player who was marketed as a giant among men and nobody bought into because he was just tall and lanky. Poor bastard has a long way to go to wipe the stencth of this first impression of the minds of the audience.

One thing is certain; this was definitely NOT WORTH the extra few minutes of overrun that had been hyped and was a downer ending on an otherwise fine edition of Dynamite. But I’m sure any negative reaction that this garners will be blamed on bots… because that’s Tony’s schtick these days.

And no, that’s not going away any time soon…