No time for intros! I am deciding to review this very last minute. Actually, more like very first minute. It’s 8:01pm as I type this. This is going to necessitate… a lot of moving of my already-scheduled articles. Oh well. No Sailor Moon retro review tomorrow!
(That actually reminds me; I have everything scheduled for January, but did not take into account my Best Of 2022 articles, of which I have at least… eight planned? Whoops. Well, I’ll worry about that later)
8:02pm: Look, Carry On Wayward Son is the Winchester Brothers song, Elite. You can’t use this. It’s already pop culture relevant. Unless The Elite are coming out to drive a Charger and defeat a nest of vampires, this isn’t for you.
8:03pm: “Where’s Miro???” sign guy, we all feel you.
8:07pm: Look, are all six of these guys rad as hell? Yes. Are these seven matches going to be fantastic, top-to-bottom? Sure. Do I still not like Best Of Seven series in wrestling? I don’t. But you know what could change that? If this DOESN’T go to a 7th match. Don’t let me feel like the series is irrelevant until the finale. Let’s see Death Triangle win 4-1. Or The Elite win 4-2. I want an actual surprise here so that the next time I see a Best Of Seven, I don’t zone out during the early matches.
8:09pm: Nick Jackson selling an ankle injury that The Elite are playing off as legitimate as much as they can. He is refusing tags, making Kenny and Matt look a bit perplexed. It looks like Nick was just walked back to the locker room, so I’m sure he’ll be making a save in a bit here.
8:11pm: A commercial for The Last Of Us! Now I can find out how it ends. The uh… the game was too hard for me, and I quit early on. I’m sure it’s fun for people who don’t suck at gaming.
8:17pm: Jesus Christ, Penta hits a package piledriver to Matt Jackson on the apron.
8:18pm: OH MY GOD HERE COMES NICK JACKSON WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED THIS I FOR ONE AM SHOCKED AT HIS TENACITY
I want nothing more than for Nick to tag in and immediately get hit and pinned for his hubris.
8:20pm: Okay, it wasn’t immediate, but I pretty much got my wish. I love when wrestling gives me what I want! Death Triangle used their wimpy little “hammer” to clock the ankle, leading to a tap out to Fenix. I like the story they are telling where PAC and Penta are turning Rey to their villainy, but that is seriously the worst foreign object I’ve seen in some time.
Post-match, Kenny challenges Death Triangle to a No DQ match for the fifth encounter of this series.
8:27pm: A promo from MJF takes us into commercial. He is going into the title match tonight without any of the pressure facing Ricky Starks. And will that pressure turn Ricky into a diamond… or dust? It’s every good MJF promo.
8:29pm: Commercial for the TV show Miracle Workers. Has anyone ever watched this? With Daniel Radcliffe and Steve Buscemi? It’s always looked really interesting dating back to S1, but… I just never got around to it. I do absolutely love Radcliffe.
8:31pm: No time for scissoring! The Acclaimed are attacked by Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett‘s flunkies en route to the ring. Caster gets guitared, I’m pretty sure Jarrett openly drops an F-bomb, and that’s pretty much it as the heels celebrate.
8:35pm: Jericho Appreciation Society promo where Jericho tells Garcia that he is now under the tutelage of Sammy Guevara. So… are we going BACK to slow burning Garcia out of the JAS? Fool me once, AEW…
8:38pm: The first several minutes of Jungle Boy vs Brian Cage is being brought to you by the Kevin Dunn Appreciation Society. What is with the frequent cuts here? We can’t seem to stay on a camera angle for more than eight seconds.
8:45pm: Wow, even with interference against him, coming off a devastating attack last week, and the protection of a visual win, Jungle Boy beats Cage. Poor Cage.
Post match, Lee Moriarty and Big Bill (sigh) jump Jungle Boy. Dude, I don’t care what you call him, Big Bill is in stupendous shape. Dude is JACKED these days.
HOOK out for the save! Stokely’s boys take a powder.
8:50pm: The Blackpool Combat Club (minus Bryan Danielson) is here to tell us how great they are. And it’s all true, so who am I to judge? But Moxley makes me feel better about my own surrendering hairline, and I value that.
8:56pm: The House Of Black is here to MurderDeathKill The Factory.
9:01pm: Sky Blue challenges Britt Baker to a match at Rampage. Poor Britt. This is all they have for you now.
9:02pm: Chris Jericho is here to fight Action Andretti, who I instantly love because A) he is fighting Jericho, and B) he is wearing Seahawks colors. I was hoping when he lost the ROH title that Jericho would stop being on TV every week, but I guess I’ll just start hoping in one hand…
9:04pm: This match feels very Razor Ramon vs The Kid, right? Or am I deluding myself?
9:06pm: Okay, this match made it to commercial break, with Seahawk Sal kicking out of the Codebreaker. Interesting!
9:08pm: Lenny Kravitz is advertising a cologne, and the tagline just needs to be “use this cologne to have the hottest daughter on earth”. Actually, you know what? That’s a creepy tagline. Forget I said that.
9:13pm: OH HEY! I was right about something! Marvelous Mario won, and not even with a stupid roll-up. He hit a running Shooting Star Press for the three-count. Good job, guy!
9:16pm: Promo from Ricky Starks to answer MJF. It’s not as good as Friedan’s, and not a shade on his impassioned work last week.
9:21pm: Excalibur describes Jericho as “apoplectic”, and that has always been one of my favorite words. A complete joy to say. Excellent pull, ‘Calibur.
9:22pm: Tay Melo is here to take on Ruby Soho.
9:31pm: Tay Melo has the best “I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE KICKED OUT” face. Her eyes are gi-normous!
9:32pm: This was a surprisingly fun fight. Ruby came out appropriately on fire given how mad she should be. They had a chop battle that looked decently rough. Better than I thought. Anna Jay jumps Ruby afterwards.
9:36pm: A powerful promo from Adam Page talking about having forgotten his kid’s name after the incident against Jon Moxley. Hey, don’t feel bad, Page! I don’t know your kid’s name, either.
9:40pm: Main event time! Ricky Starks vs MJF. For both the AEW Title and the Dynamite Diamond Ring. I wish Ricky had two separate matches, one for each prize. That way he could actually win the ring. It’s not like MJF still needs it. What’s it doing for him these days?
9:49pm: Look, I dig that AEW does Picture In Picture for their commercial breaks–I do!–but it’s barely an improvement. It’s hard to care that much about Starks getting whipped hard into the turnbuckles when this guy is selling me his untuckable shirts.
9:51pm: An abdominal stretch! TAP, RICKY! It’s the best terrible ending I will accept!
9:58pm: HA! MJF keeps transitioning a submission hold to get three of Ricky’s limbs tied up so he could not get to the ropes, but Starks finagles his last leg to break the hold. That was creative. I also am a big fan of MJF biting the hands while applying the hold. How dastardly!
9:59pm: MJF wins with a small package after a kick to the balls. I mean, okay? That’s an ending, yeah. On the one hand, I’m glad MJF didn’t win clean, but on the other… I kind of feel like I need him to have minions. His M.O. has typically been when he gets cocky enough to go full one-on-one with guys (like Wardlow), he loses. I want him to get people to cheat for him again. That’s when he works best.
Post-match, Bryan Danielson chases MJF into the crowd then raises Ricky’s hand for a job well done.
All in all: a decent, if unspectacular Dynamite. They kind of tricked me by naming this episode Winter Is Coming, and I expected a bit more than what we got. Which is weird! Like… if this exact same episode was just “Dynamite: 12/14/2022”? Great episode of the show! Give me more of this!
But as “Dynamite: WINTER IS COMING”? Eh, kind of underwhelming, honestly. It opened and closed well, but the majority of the in-between was filler to get to those two points. It did make me want to watch Miracle Workers, though! So maybe I’ll do that thing.
But what did YOU think? How did you enjoy Winter Is Coming? Let me know in the comments.
And don’t forget to check out SWO Productions, where we have new articles every single weekday (even if I have to do massive rescheduling for the next few weeks because I am short-sighted), as well as the Stew World Order podcast (where we review random comic book movies).
Until next time… take care!
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