This is the second Road Report I’ve done for VP recently. And despite nothing really standing out, it was easily the better show of the two. Entering the arena, we ended up running into Mick Foley in the hallway. He was kind enough to take a picture with us and send us on our way. Now, onto the show.
There was a brief, Pure Rules dark match between Wheeler YUTA and Kiran Grey. If you’ve seen YUTA in one of these matches before, you can probably guess how it went. He weaseled his way into the victory after forcing Grey to use all his rope breaks rather quickly.
Dynamite proper kicked off with an eight-man tag: Cage and Cope, Darby Allin, and Steven Borden against FTR and The Don Callis Family. Borden is already fairly over, and he’s a natural, if a little green. They actually put some effort into double heat segments on Borden and Allin, the former’s hot tag being one of the highlights of the match. Some decent cutoffs from the heels, like Cash Wheeler and Kevin Knight assisting Kyle Fletcher with a powerbomb onto the apron after they caught Allin’s Coffin Drop attempt. I also appreciated Fletcher taking a pot shot at Cope on the floor as he checked on Darby, having not been able to get the better of him when they started the match. The finishing stretch got a little busy for my tastes, but it was a decent one of these.
Jericho is in a weird spot, where he feels like a relic of AEW’s past clinging onto something that’s no longer there, or depending on who you ask, was never there to begin with. Here, he faced Nick Wayne. Wayne tried to heel it up, but there were far too many instances of him shoehorning in his big spots where they didn’t make much sense, like a Destroyer off the steps where Jericho couldn’t rotate properly and just sort of fell backwards, or a Swanton on the apron. Wayne’s trash talk was poor, too, and the finish was truly baffling. Jericho grabbed Wayne’s puka shell necklace and reversed a roll up into a pin of his own. Wayne seemed oddly despondent about this, but I’m not exactly sure why considering the fact that, as far as I know, all he’s said about it is that it has been around the world with him. Putrid stuff, in any case.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly vs. The Conglomeration wasn’t for me in the slightest. These Dynamite trios matches are often structured in a way that overwhelms the senses. Now, I’m not opposed to the style, but they don’t really build to an impressive spot or gradually escalate. It’s just mindless movement and noise for the most part. The only saving grace of this match was Cassidy blocking King’s chops with high-fives, which is, admittedly, a good bit.
Tommaso Ciampa destroyed Myles Hawkins with a running knee strike in under a minute.
Lena Kross fought Jamie Hayter in another bad match. The physicality was present, but far too much of it was awkward and clunky. The spot where they essentially traded Death Valley Drivers was downright bizarre. Flat finish with Megan Bayne distracting Hayter so Kross could hit her with a pipe didn’t help matters.
The main event between The United Empire and The Death Riders was the same deal as the previous trios match. We were seated ringside, right near where The Death Riders made their entrance, so that was pretty cool. They isolated Akira for a bit and then went way too far in the other direction by the time it ended. I found it interesting how much of a spotlight Akira got between the early control segment and post-match attack by The Death Riders.
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