I watched this live last night. Normally I don't get to watch Dynamite live because it starts too early on the west coast and when I go back home for the off-season it starts too late and also I'm not really arsed about watching Dynamite live anyway. But last night I could and so I had it on while I was doing other stuff and then I decided - declared, even - that I was watching the main event live. My point is, I don't really MAKE a point of watching wrestling live, but I like Darby and the last Darby/Takeshita match ruled so I was ALL IN on this, as us AEW diehards would say. And really, this was fantastic for most of the reasons their first match was tremendous, and none of those reasons were particularly complex. It doesn't need to be hard. He's not someone I check out often so I don't know if Takeshita has purposely started working bigger over the last couple years, but he worked BIG here and it was perfect. In their 2024 match he reminded me a little of a slender, slightly less destructive Takayama. Darby getting heaved around the place helped, but it's the first time I ever thought that about Takeshita. Here he was even better, an even bigger wrecking ball, and Darby leaned even further into his lunatic side. Takeshita knew exactly how Darby wanted to start this, so he caught him and chucked him. Later, Darby jumped off the top rope with either a cross body or a shoulder block, and Takeshita stood firm enough that Darby just bounced off him. Darby uses his body as a projectile better than anybody, but Takeshita has the size AND the skill to weather the storm or channel it. That culminated with the blue thunder bomb off the apron, with Darby trying a Coffin Drop, Takeshita catching it and planting him. It was a completely insane bump, made even better because it played all the way into the story. The German suplex off the top rope wasn't quite as brutal, but in some ways it was even more impressive because I genuinely don't think I've seen someone hit that and actually hold onto the waistlock/bridge. Takeshita's strikes were all lethal as well and those forearms must've knocked Darby's teeth out. There were times where Darby was flailing around bloody-mouthed and wide-eyed, grasping at anything to pull himself upright. His openings would be few and far between so he had to make them count, and fair play to Takeshita for taking a page out of Darby's playbook with the Scorpion Deathdrop on the steps. I figured we were going to get some MJF involvement rather than have Takeshita lose clean, so the fact they only did the brief "will he/won't he?" inner conflict bit and actually did pull the trigger on Darby was a nice surprise. Darby throwing himself into Takeshita repeatedly like a demented freak was of course tremendous and Takeshita really does take the Coffin Drop like a trooper. A really great match; one that I liked even more than their 2024 outing. This Darby title run has been phenomenal.
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