This was a pretty good episode of the old coyote stick, largely helped (I think) by the Continental Classic.
Also, since I’m here, I suppose I’ll explain how I’m currently viewing the star ratings. This might change as I keep going, especially as I understand more about how other people are making their decisions; these types of things always have an influence. I’ll also give them a score range out of 100 as that might help clarify more; this isn’t a real point scale, it’s just to help visualize what I think of as the quality ranges.
☆☆☆☆☆ — 0 stars, 0–10 out of 100: dud/terrible
★☆☆☆☆ — 1 star, 10–20 out of 100: awful
★★☆☆☆ — 2 stars, 20–40 out of 100: bad
★★★☆☆ — 3 stars, 40–60 out of 100: decent
★★★★☆ — 4 stars, 60–90 out of 100: good!
★★★★★ — 5 stars., 90–100 out of 100: amazing!
🛇 — Not rated. Usually means I skipped/skimmed it.
In general, my ratings might give out more 4’s than others and possibly even more 5s. I will try not to use fraction ratings much (though I do it here), and if I do, it’s likely to be less “this is the precise place I think it deserves” than it will be “I couldn’t decide between 3 or 4 stars”.
Personal Review
Benjamin vs. Briscoe, Blue League: A bit slower than I would like. Decent work. ★★★☆☆ (3 stars)
Moné/Kamille segment: Thought it was effective despite the rushed angle, Moné’s heel act got a decent reaction and Kamille held up her end. My guess is that they want to add Kamille as an independent force in the division but thought that this would be a good intro for her. I think they did build this wrong, though: Moné should have fired Kamille out of jealousy/apprehension about being outshined, the way they did it makes Kamille look like a goof. Details are important.
Jericho vs. Ishii, ROH World Title: Very slow start here. Did not initially like the slapping start but I think it turned into something. Pretty fun. ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
Hangman/Switchblade/DR segment: Pretty fun stuff. Never really had an opportunity to say it before but I didn’t see “it” in Page back in ROH but I’m perfectly happy to be wrong, he owns the ring. Switchblade great, and the attack was nasty.
Castagnoli vs. Ricochet, Gold League: Ricochet’s entrance robe whips. Ricochet moving pretty slow. Unfortunately I looked at a chat which has kind of colored my opinion. Decent big spots though sloppy. I think I’m gonna have to give my first half score. ★★★🞯☆ (3½ stars)
Fletcher/Callis promo: Was okay. Let’s see where the cocky shithead attitude takes Fletcher but I don’t feel it’s a main event persona.
Adam Cole segment: Pretty boring? The MJF stuff sucked. Not for anything done in it, MJF was pretty good and all that, but obviously no MJF wasn’t watching and just decided to patch in so he could respond to Cole and O’Reilly, so it’s just corny. This is a bad feud though, it means nothing.
Hayter vs. Aminata, Int’l Women’s Cup: Missed a bit of this due to broadcast issues. Seems pretty good, shame a bunch is in PIP. Very good match, will benefit from some refinement. Excited to see Hayter/Aminata II. ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
Mina Shirakawa segment: Rough having her speak for a relatively long period, impactful attack from May. May was good here but you have to get this title off of her and reset the order in the women’s division. This doesn’t need the top title.
Allin vs. King: Brutal stuff (complimentary). Really fun throughout. ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
Commentary on Thursday Dynamite Review
There wasn’t a whole lot to comment on in this episode. A lot of it was ratings talk which I can’t really break down, and otherwise I didn’t disagree too strongly or have a specific note to make.
Joe says Ricochet vs. Claudio was his favorite match
Don’t really agree here (that it was the best match, I mean; I can’t disagree about if he liked it the most) but I thought it was better than others did. Ricochet needed to look a bit better.
Joe talking about the Cole segment
It really is baffling how bad MJF’s instincts are vs. how good he can be. This is a wrestling war, sure, but these are also people and their lives. You may have to sit MJF down and say look, we’re going to be a pro wrestling promotion, not a ha-ha promotion. You need to cut this shit out or, when your contract is up, you can just skate over to the other side. If you cannot get MJF under control, he is of no use to you because as good as he can be, he can also produce some of the worst shit out there. He has already lost like all of his heat before. How many times do you want to let him do this to himself? It’s so crazy that MJF is dead set on continuing this feud but can’t be bothered to get on a plane and show up to the fucking show for it. He’s such a talent but I think it’s clear that his skills are in front of the camera, not behind it. He needs to be directed and he needs to take direction.
Joe talking about AEW dropping the ball with Hayter
Indisputable. I don’t know what Tony’s obsession is with Toni Storm, or is it Mariah May? I’m not sure. The idea that the title should just be tied up this long on someone who is just not producing is ridiculous. Get May into a program and get the title off her, then she can do whatever until Storm gets back. I’m wondering, though, if the issue is not that they want to save the title for Storm or even push May. Maybe they are dead set on the match, either because of TK or TS, and they want it to be a big moment for Toni Storm. For whatever reason, they don’t want to bring Storm back just yet. Maybe, because May has been so bad, there is no confidence that they can keep interest in the match alive unless the title is still on the line. This is a “round up money is a scam” type of theory, I admit, but I would like to believe the reason for continuing this is different than the people booking it are just not getting that it sucks.
Reprise
If I had a survey firm or something, I would love to poll wrestling fans to see what they would like to see out of wrestling. I’ve always been more of a fan of people who approach wrestling like a sport, but also, I don’t watch legit sports. I like them but I don’t follow them. I think there are a lot of wrestling fans who are like me or even further out, by which I mean they are very into the ways that wrestling is not like legit sports. The “theater kid” type, as Joe Lanza would say. When I listen to the Flagship, or even common opinion among hardcore fans, it seems like the prevailing opinion is that it’s “the writers” who are most at fault for the bad “sports entertainment” ideas on TV. Okay then, explain MJF, an undoubted lifelong fan. Explain Mercedes Moné. Explain Tommy End who came up through the indies working a pretty straight-forward tough guy metalhead only to fully morph into a spooky guy as Aleister/Malakai Black and never give it up. I think the draw of wrestling as a place for theater- and general nerd-types to explore storytelling is underrated.
This is one of the reasons why I think the most successful form of wrestling has to find a place for all of this stuff. I would love to see a heavily realistic style of wrestling, sure. But if you can’t have a guy like the Undertaker, Bray Wyatt, EVIL, if those guys can’t operate in your promotion, there is a significant chunk of the wrestling audience that will not embrace your product. Now, that said, I think people who go straight ahead into this sports entertainment shit are also making a mistake. As ratings suggest, matches get more interest than talking segments, and spooky segments have not done great in recent years. They get reactions, don’t get me wrong, but the reactions are not overwhelming. They have their fans.
This is why I think wrestling really should lean into rule of cool. And yeah, rule of cool in wrestling is an idea you’re going to hear about a lot until I feel I’ve explored it enough. When you do this, I think you will naturally start to strip out a lot of the cornier parts of the “theater kid” aspect.
Take the Cole/MJF segment, and let’s imagine we “rule of cool” it. Like Lanza says, number one, everyone in the Undisputed Kingdom would have declared. Instead of this weepy “am I good enough are you good enough” type shit, what would have happened is that the UK would have come out and done an nWo/DX style promo where they all talk shit on Max, then Kyle O’Reilly comes out and cusses them all out. He says he’s gonna get the next match, Cole says he’s gonna get it, they both want to be the ones to kill Max, they start arguing. MJF then comes out (because according to rule of cool he actually cares enough to show up to work) and says nah fuck that, I only care about the Dynamite Dozen thing. Then the Kingdom all declares, then O’Reilly declares, but he also says that he’s going to be coming for the heads of the Kingdom, so don’t think they’re all buddies now. Boom! (sorry) You could have had this same segment with the same basic flow and the same outcome, but instead of thinking “how can this be like a stage play” you think “how could this happen in the way that makes everybody look cool?” It would be closer to what I said and not what actually happened.
“Rule of cool” makes it seem like it’s all about doing the raddest shit you could possibly think of, but there’s something else to consider here: it’s got to make sense in context. Stuff can cross over from cool into corny when it really breaks that context. I do think a lot of the Death Riders stuff does ride that line, and any time you get car assaults involved, all of that. It works the other way, too.
That’s why I think all of this melodrama stuff, though it appeals to your cinephile-type wrestlers, rarely works: this is not a dramatic piece, this is pro wrestling. The genre is wrong. No matter how much WWE and its disciples try to convince people that wrestling is just actors who then get physical, people who go to wrestling do not want to watch actors, they want to watch wrestlers.
Do you want to do a segment where there’s tension between two wrestlers? You can do that. You don’t do that by having the two guys go into the ring and do a one-act play. Just have them be tense with each other in different interactions. They have to be on a team in a six-man tag and they’re antsy with each other. They take shots in promos. That’s how tension would be shown in a sporting context and that’s what works best in pro wrestling. So while shit like car attacks often go too far in rule of cool, the stuff that Max and Cole prefer to do falls way underneath. And it doesn’t need to be that way.
I think MJF and Cole are both charismatic enough that this should be a hot program. They both just have terrible instincts for this stuff. Both of them shine when, ironically, they’re just in pro wrestling programs and they’re not calling their own shots. I’m not even saying they would be bad actors (though I’m also not being convinced by their performances), but if you want to do serious acting, do serious acting in the place where you’re supposed to do that. Be in a play, be in a movie, whatever. Stop trying to Act in pro wrestling. It’s a waste of people’s talent.
It’s like getting Mark Rothko to do a comic book. Great, legendary artist. This is not the type of place for his usual work. Maybe it turns out he’d have been great at comic books, but he would have had to draw comic book characters and not paint geometry.