Dynamite Kid

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Timbo Slice]

If you weigh influence, I'll buy his inclusion. If you weigh work, I can't. Hasn't aged well at all. Won't make my list.

[ohtani's jacket]

Dynamite was easily the best teenage worker I've seen on World of Sport. I didn't like his work with Rocco when he returned from Calgary, but his 1983 match with Marty Jones is by far the best Dynamite Kid match I've seen so I wish he'd stayed in England. The match-ups I can imagine him having are endless.

[W2BTD]

Ty Cobb, Jim Brown, OJ Simpson. A horrible human, an era transcending talent & all time great. Sucks when that happens.

 

The last time I did this I had him at #11, I believe. I love his stuff. He's one of those guys who I just can not take my eyes off of when he's doing his thing. Pre-WWE Rey, Sabu, Dynamite, they all had that quality where I felt like I was watching something very different than great, something unique, something innovative, trend setting, progressive.

 

He's also one of the rare performers whose stuff never looks dated. You could plop 1983 Dynamite on a state of the art PWG card tomorrow and he'd fit right in and get over immediately. Stick him in modern New Japan with the best roster in the world, and he'd look just fine slapping around juniors and stepping up to Shibata.

[Lee Casebolt]

One of the things that really shines through with DK is how he carries himself in the ring. Even watching him mostly broken down in 1989 in All Japan tagging against the likes of Jumbo, he looks absolutely convinced he is the baddest motherfucker on two feet. That, more than his offense, is his defining trait to me. You see guys like Benoit and Davey Richards trying to ape that to varying degrees of success, but they're not as natural or convincing as Dynamite.

[BillThompson]

Dynamite is influential for sure, and he was capable of occasional greatness. But, on the whole I find him to be not up to snuff. His Tiger Mask series doesn't hold up at all, and I find that in a lot of the Bulldog matches I watch it's Davey Boy who does the lion's share of the work while all Kid does is hit big spots.

[Matt D]

I hate his late WWF run. The guy had the worst napoleon complex I've ever seen in wrestling. So much of the "heel-in-peril" stuff from that era comes from him taking way too much of a match and just eating up his opponents to the detriment of the match.

 

I need to see his heel stuff in Portland because that seems like a more natural fit to me.

[Shining Wiz]

Dynamite is influential for sure, and he was capable of occasional greatness. But, on the whole I find him to be not up to snuff. His Tiger Mask series doesn't hold up at all, and I find that in a lot of the Bulldog matches I watch it's Davey Boy who does the lion's share of the work while all Kid does is hit big spots.

I always wonder if those matches don't hold up well because they became the building block for a generation or two of really athletic wrestlers to base their style on.

[Matt D]

I think it'd be one thing if the people who said those matches don't hold up then go back and like a lot of the matches that those matches inspired. I think that's not the case. If anything it's the opposite.

[fxnj]

I actually thought 8/5/82 held up as being pretty great when I rewatched their series recently. Yes, some of Tiger Mask's moves don't have quite the same effect today as they did back then but the freakish athleticism and fearlessness behind it still shines through just fine. Also, what hasn't been aped quite as much is the sheer physicality that they wrestle the style with, which is really only enhanced by the knowledge of how injured both guys ended up from wrestling like that. I've seen people bring up the mat work to claim that they had no idea how to work but I didn't get that feeling at all and I actually thought they did a really good job in working the matwork into the match's overall story and in applying it in such a way to continue the sense of brutality. Tiger Masks final comeback was also perfect for the dynamic they had. Granted, their other matches don't quite reach those heights but the series definitely adds a lot to his case both in terms of the overall quality and for the context of Dynamite Kid's willingness to work as he did to create a real life super hero out of his opponent.

[Loss]

I have to raise this about Dynamite. Is it possible people were so down on Tiger Mask that we threw the baby out with the bathwater? I liked Dynamite just fine in that 1980 juniors tag that kicked off the New Japan set, and I liked the Fujinami match too. I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's worth asking.

[soup23]

I think most people that criticized the TM series were generally receptive of the Fujinami match. I know for one Dylan really likes that Fujinami match.

 

Joe talked about Dynamite and lumped him in with Sabu and that I think is what works against Dynamite for me. I wasn't around this time watching him breakthrough so I don't have an opinion of being transfixed by seeing this type of groundbreaking wrestling for the first time. All I have is 80's sets where Hamada is doing faster bumps and more athletic stuff in 1980 than DK and TM were doing in 83. Therefore, DK is a tough sell for me even though I wouldn't call him a dog shit worker. He just isn't transcendent and that is not a parameter I wish to vote on in this list in the first place.

[shoe]

I always considered Dynamite like Kurt Angle. A guy with intensity and cool moves who needed someone to reign him in. I always thought Dynamite's storytelling was lacking in the ring but got a pass because of all the cool shit he could do. I think he'll be hard pressed to get a vote from me.

[Dylan Waco]

I have to raise this about Dynamite. Is it possible people were so down on Tiger Mask that we threw the baby out with the bathwater? I liked Dynamite just fine in that 1980 juniors tag that kicked off the New Japan set, and I liked the Fujinami match too. I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's worth asking.

 

I actually think that series reflects poorly on both of them, and that both guys were better than what they did in the series. I don't think either guy is an all timer, and wouldn't consider either for this poll, but if you are looking strictly at NJPW, DK had the Fujinami match and some tag matches I prefer and I thought the TM series with Kobayashi was good, plus Iiked several of his other one off matches (most notably the Steven Wright match). Outside NJPW, I enjoy Sayama the shooter well enough, and DK was solid in his role in Portland.

[El McKell]

One little thing I wanna say as a positive for Dynamite in the Tiger Mask series is that I love at the beginning of their first match when Tiger Mask starts breaking out all his wacky kicks, Dynamite's body language is amazing he's clearly both confused and scared and doesn't know what he should do and I think doing this was a great way of making Tiger look like something different and special just a few seconds into his debut

[Matt D]

There was interesting talk on Austin this week where he praised heavily how much of the match Dynamite often took which is generally my biggest problem with him. That goes back to the shades of grey associated with the whole project.

 

Dynamite was obviously a good enough wrestler to know what he was doing and what he was doing was good for him and his overness and credibility but it often made the matches he was in worse even if he was ultimately better off for it than if he had better matches.

 

On one level he would have been wrong to do anything but what he did.

[Sidebottom]

I need to see his heel stuff in Portland because that seems like a more natural fit to me.

 

I loved pretty much everything he did with Buddy Rose in Portland (Buddy initially was a mouth piece of sorts for Dyno who obviously very much needed one). Dynamite was in PRIME condition during his stints here, and of course you have the Curt Hennig tags (I don't think they ever worked a singles - if they did I certainly haven't seen it) however I'm pretty sure he mentions in his book he didn't enjoy his time there and he felt the work was sub par.

 

On the whole I rate Dynamite very highly. Of course it's easy to go the Tiger Mask matches straight away (which I certainly don't feel have aged badly as others have stated here), but I find when you go through his lesser known matches in New Japan via various comps is where you find his true talents and consistency. Easily one of my top 10.

[Dylan Waco]

What lesser known NJPW matches?

[Sidebottom]

Matches with George Takano for example.

[Dylan Waco]

I was looking for a bit more specificity

[Sidebottom]

Well the one that comes to mind straight away is the 84 WWF Jr heavyweight title match where Dynamite won the vacant belt. Although the matches they had have a pretty strong resemblance to the Tiger mask / Dynamite ones and for the most part follow a similar formula (hey, if it ain't broke...), Cobra was nowhere near as smooth as Tiger Mask and it actually added a grittier element to the matches. Sometimes I think wrestling is better off when it's slightly rough around the edges.

[ohtani's jacket]

Dynamite Kid was brilliant in England, as evidenced by them letting him take the British Lightweight title off Breaks at such a young age. I'm convinced that if he had stayed in England and bought a pub or something and never done steroids he would have been as good as Breaks, Grey and Jones in the 80s and possibly the best of the lot. His match against Jones in '83 is the best match of his I've seen and much better than his Portland work.

[MJH]

I do agree with OJ somewhat (he's clearly a super talent in the Breaks match in particular; his athleticism as a young kid - the cross-arm headflips, etc - was pretty much peerless). For all the easy flaws in his work, his strengths are still right up there: how many guys can match his bumping? and whilst we can go "oh, well Hamada was doing it a few years earlier" the reality is it was he (and Sayama) who everyone idolised and took from; when it comes to "being revolutionary", it's not about who did it first, it's who did it on the bigger stage/to more eyeballs/got the credit/etc. That doesn't make him a Top 25 guy, but it's hard for me, all things considered, to not have him on my list, admittedly in a lower spot than people might've put him fifteen years ago.

[NintendoLogic]

Dynamite is a guy I find myself liking more the more I see of him. It's funny, he's largely thought of as this great technician, but if you watch his matches, he mainly just beat the crap out of his opponents. But there are few things I love more than a guy who can beat the crap out of others in an entertaining manner. In fact, I'll go so far as to call Dynamite one of the greatest offensive wrestlers of all time. He's pretty much a lock for my top 100, and I wouldn't be shocked if he ended up in my top 50.

[W2BTD]

One little thing I wanna say as a positive for Dynamite in the Tiger Mask series is that I love at the beginning of their first match when Tiger Mask starts breaking out all his wacky kicks, Dynamite's body language is amazing he's clearly both confused and scared and doesn't know what he should do and I think doing this was a great way of making Tiger look like something different and special just a few seconds into his debut

 

Not only that, but I love how Dynamite throws angry temper tantrums every time TM beats him. His post match whining/cheap shots fit his persona to a tee, and it's those little things that enhance character work.

 

Dynamite comes across just like that little shit in high school who came from a bad background and had an eternal chip on his shoulder, but who everybody knew not to fuck with because he was crazy and could really handle himself. Probably because that really was Dynamite. He came across like he was genuinely befuddled and frustrated that he couldn't best this weirdo in the mask. That kind of intense character work will always get over with me.