October 2nd 2024: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—a date long circled on our family calendar. The family was filled with anticipation usually reserved for a holiday or birthday. Not for AEW Dynamite, but because Simone Biles’ Gold Over America Tour was going to be there. Somewhere along the way though, my nephew Rodrick and I found ourselves displaced—bumped from our seats like schmucks at an airport—left to choose between sitting in the car in a parking garage or seeing what Tony Khan had up his sleeves.

9:05am: I finally wake up. I know that’s late for some people. I live a blessed life. I make coffee, I’m going to need a few today.  As I make several trips getting the car packed, kids dart back and forth adding last minute additions to the luggage. Finally I finish loading the car and my sister and the kids climb in to begin the journey.

10:00am: We finally hit the road. One quick gas stop later, and I’ve secured my second coffee.

12:04pm: It has been surprisingly smooth sailing so far. No inclement weather, no traffic jams, no familial arguments. We even spot a few wild Interstate chickens along the way. 

1:42pm: Our first true bump in the road emerges at McDonald’s, where our order stretches into an agonizing 28 minute ordeal. I ask an employee if they know we’ve been waiting for so long. Their simple, curt  “yes” feels hostile, but I’ve grown, though—I simply wait. I grab our food and we move on, my third coffee in hand.

3:30pm: We arrive in Pittsburgh. I’ve never liked this city, but maybe I’m predisposed to be negative. This is the city where I fell in love with a girl at a honky tonk loudly singing pop punk ballads. She would later rip out my heart and show it to me. Devastating me in ways I didn’t know were possible. This is the city where I took many childhood road trips to Heinz field only to watch Big Ben decimate my Brownies. The man is 14-0 against the Browns in Pittsburgh. He killed us in Cleveland too, but the losses hit differently when afterward you spend two long hours in a sad solemn silent car ride home. So maybe it’s a fine city that just happened to treat me wrong in the past, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

3:33pm: Nah this place is in fact a hellhole. It has all the grime and squalor of a shitty small town on the side of a highway with no semblance of the character or charm.

4:00pm: Lunch with family—a chicken bacon ranch dip and a charcuterie board, rated a generous 3.75 stars on the Meltzer culinary scale.

5:30pm: We head downtown, into the belly of the beast. 

6:15pm: My nephew and I drop my sister and the girls off at PPG Paints arena to see Simone Biles and the US Olympic team. They are quite possibly more excited than I’ve ever seen them. I’m not sure what the GOAT tour has in store for them, but I assume they’ll be performing a more impressive version of whatever Ricochet vs. Will Ospreay is going to be. 

6:30pm: Parking costs an arm and a leg, but we oblige, and find ourselves in a line stretching a block and a half, a purgatory of waiting amidst pro wrestling fans.

6:38pm: As we inch closer to the door, we’re handed flyers by two different local indie promotions. It warms my heart to see some street team action. Though it’s not very well organized because four different dudes try to hand me an IWC flier. Enjoy Wrestling’s promotional efforts seem solely reliant on the fact that Danhausen is appearing. That seems dire. 

7:00pm: We’re finally settled into our seats—section L206 seats 5-6. They’re honestly great for how cheap they were, about $30 a piece after Ticketmaster fees. It’s a single row in front of a loge section so they’re roomy and give a nice view of the ring and the entrances.

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They’re taping Ring of Honor beforehand. My nephew is, thankfully, not as into wrestling as I am. His thoughts on Ring of Honor are simple and straightforward: “why would you pay to watch a bunch of two minute matches?”

The highlight of RoH was Anthony Henry and his cousin BEEF taking on Sam Adonis and Wes Barkley. The match was nothing special, just always happy to see Anthoiny Henry and Wes is one of the few bright spots of AIW.

There were a couple of injuries. Lady Frost knocked a girl with a moonsault. I can not pretend I was watching this, but it seemed serious. This sets me up to tell my Lady Frost story. I ran into The Savage Gentleman Victor Benjamins at The Arnold a few years back. Waiting in line to meet Robert Irvine. I go “hey aren’t you Victor Benjamin?” He immediately says “no.” He’s a fairly distinctive looking man, but I apologize nonetheless and turn back around. Then Lady Frost walks up to him and I go “oh hey I’m a fan of yours.” She thanks me and is very nice, talks to my sister(who was there competing,) and I basically the whole time we all wait in line. Victor never says a word the rest of the time.

Also Sammy Guevara got knocked unconscious from a Serpentico cutter. I’m a terrible person, because people on the discord were talking about how you never want to see anyone injured, they hope he’s ok, etc. Another guy that was at the show live referred to it as “scary.” My first thought was at least I don’t have to watch Sammy vs Serpentico any more…

Tony Khan and The acclaimed come out to hype up the crowd for the start of Dynamite proper. I was surprised he didn’t appear on the tv, to brag about the new TV deal. He’s a bigger man than I.

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I’m a former steel worker with not so great hearing, so maybe it was me, but the audio seemed terrible all night long. What I made out of the opening BCC and Moxley promo seemed awesome.

AEW International Title Match 

Will Ospreay vs. Ricochet

This is exactly what I thought it would be. Exactly, like down to its bones, what I was expecting. If you thought you’d like this, you did. If you dreaded it like me, it had all the faults it was bound to have. There could be an interesting match here. If RIcochet was able to at all accept the fact that maybe he isn;t what he used to be, or maybe never was. He’s slow. Not compared to me, but in the ring with Ospreay he’s slow and he’s more than a couple steps behind.  

That could be an interesting story, but it’s not the story they wanted to tell. I actually have no problem with the finish(es?) Doing the fuck finish of a double pin and then bring the crowd up with the restart, only to end in a disqualification is a perfectly fine tv finish and was the only point I was even slightly emotionally affected by what was happening in the ring. 

The crowd was loud and popped for certain spots, but it was hollow reactions. The second they slowed down or did anything other the flips the crowd died.

TV Time with The Learning Tree

This was shorter than I expected, so it has that going for it. Outside of that it impressively got me to not care about Mark Briscoe, a wrestler I adore. JAy is not my brother. Jay may very well have been not only ok with, but enthused at the idea of MArk using his name in a feud with JEricho. I hate it and find it incredibly depressing.

My nephew played Bit Life on his phone and asked me to tell him when the next match started.

Adam Page vs Juice Robinson

Without a shadow of a doubt the best match of the night. That is damning with faint praise. Juice Robinson never hits with me like I think he should. If I see clips or if someone describes what he does, it sounds right up my alley, but it never gets to the top level I wish it did. This was a good time though. Hangman brings enough intensity for both of them. I’ll take a crowd brawl over whatever the first match of Dynamite was supposed to be everytime. 

I have my doubts about Jay White, but the crowd was hot for his return.

Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs Serena Deeb

I can be a Britt Baker apologist. I’m a stupid AIW acolyte and she was trained there and was a big success story. I always try to look at her with rose colored glasses, but this was sad.  Yes she was very over coming out wearing a turrible towel…then the bell rang. Silence befell the arena. At this point, I admittedly left to go to the men’s room where there was a super no vacancy sell out. The line for the concession stand was even longer, but I persevered and procured my fourth coffee of the day.

Private Party (Isiah Kassidy & Marq Quen) vs Iron Savages (Beefcake Boulder & Bulk Bronson) with Jacked Jameson

This is probably less annoying if you didn’t set through 5 squashes earlier in the night or if you had any faith in Private Party getting a sustained push.

MVP Promo

I just feel the need to point out the pop for Shelton Benjamin was INSANE. Loudest reaction of the night by a mile. I’m not sure what that says about the crowd or wrestling fans in general, but I  know it’s not good.

AEW World Title and AEW Continental Title Match 

Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada

I got to see my favorite wrestler of all time, the goat, live again before he stops being a full time wrestler. That is what really solidified my decision in coming to this show. Bryan is the most important wrestler in the history of my fandom. I’m glad I saw it.

God, this was so slow. Okada wrestles like he’s sleep walking through sand or whatever idiom you want to insert here. There is zero urgency or emotional; impact to anything throughout this match. This wasn’t as bad as the JAck Perry match, but it wasn’t good. I just did a whole spiel;l about how I worship the ground Dragon walks on and I was bored out of my mind during this match.

My favorite part of this whole trilogy of matches is that it shows the gulf between Danielson and Okada as wrestlers and that’s a little fun.

They do a very inconsiderate thing of setting up a tag match for next week, that I’d rather watch than anything that was on this show.

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There was zero chance I was staying for Rampage anyway, but them running two womens matches and a EVPs Young Bucks/ The Scapegoat Jack Perry six man tag really helped me sprint out of the arena toward the parking garage. Didn’t even stay for Danielson’s promo. I was sprinting. I’ve got no time for traffic.

We pick up the girls. They’ve all bought new matching leotards and are legitimately crying happy tears. We clearly went to the wrong event in Pittsburgh on Wednesday October, 2nd.

We stop for gas, before leaving this joke of a city, I buy my fifth and final cup of coffee, and lie to the car about stopping at a hotel in an hour or two.

3:38am: I pull into the driveway carrying luggage and sleeping children. I open up google docs and type “It has all the grime and squalor of a shitty small town on the side of a highway with with no semblance of the character or charm” and then pass out on the couch.