Not a good Dynamite on the whole (had some good moments though...most notably Mox's promo), but one of the biggest issues with the show besides it's formatting was how they put together these squash matches save for Punk/Spears (which was exactly what it should have been). Now, the formatting is an issue that, given how they usually do things, they can only do so much about (given that Rampage is live this week, though, they didn't really need to frontload the show the way they did). However, the squashes are another matter. Archer/Kazarian was long as fukk for no reason at all and did nothing for nobody, Deeb/Blue felt way longer than it should've been despite going 3 minutes and felt kind of flavorless to boot, and the Black Throne/Varsity Blondes match was kind of a mess despite being the most effective non-Punk/Spears squash. They all just felt like they were lacking in purpose, focus, and intensity, for the most part.
Compare those squashes to this one:
That's Jon Moxley vs Shota Umino from a 2019 NJPW PPV, an excellent squash match. It's a longish squash at 4 minutes, but it has a set number of goals (give Moxley a strong, decisive victory after he won the US Title on the previous show, give the Japanese audience a sense of Moxley's character and wrestling style, put Shota's resilience and fire over, and have Moxley ride the heel line without actually turning heel so him helping Shota after the match feels genuine) it accomplishes in an efficient, engaging manner. They keep the audience interested throughout, there are character moments that are used to accentuate the action...it just feels so much more purposeful and interesting than any of the squashes (and, really, any match period) on this Dynamite because it had a clear sense of what it was trying to do and exactly how much it needed to do (and no more) to achieve its goals.
Not a lot of that on this Dynamite, to be honest.
