The job of this edition of Dynamite (especially with fewer people than ever making time for Rampage) was to ensure the hype for Sunday's pay-per-view reached its peak at the right time.
Online discourse on the event has been divisive to say the least, but the confusion and lack of focus that defined the build to Double Or Nothing has ultimately served to overwhelm this first-of-its-kind show too.
WWE's Invasion pay-per-view popped a monster number for the company at the time, and that card featured such encounters as The APA Vs Palumbo & O'Haire, Chris Kanyon, Hugh Morrus & Shawn Stasiak Vs The Big Show, Billy Gunn & Albert and Earl Hebner Vs Nick Patrick. Point being, the draw was the over-arching concept first, match-by-match layout a distant, distant second.
There's a certain nobility in attempting to fold weekly episodic storytelling into the show, but its failed badly in execution. Sunday's event will absolutely deliver quality, but WWE's premium live events do too. AEW and NJPW going to war (or even coming together) was supposed to represent a single destination for the best professional wrestling in the world. A mishandled build has created serious questions about if this is remotely the case...
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast.
He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.
