Talk is Jericho Recap w/ Dave Meltzer – The Life & Times of Dynamite Kid, Ushering In A New Style, Health Struggles, More!

Jericho welcomes Dave Meltzer to the show to discuss the life and death of The Dynamite Kid.
Meltzer points out that Dynamite was a key figure in ushering in a new form of professional wrestling. When he was coming up in the wrestling business it was very tough to have success if you were shorter than 6’2” or under 200 lbs. He paved the way for guys the Rey Mysterio and even Jericho, who was smaller than most performers when he broke into the business in the mid 1990s.
Jericho points out that although Dynamite was smaller, he worked like a larger performer. This allowed him to believably compete with much larger men in the ring. Jericho thinks Dynamite was really the first performer to usher in that as well, and that was continued with guys like Chris Benoit, who was always taken seriously even when he was in the ring with much larger men like The Undertaker.

Meltzer doesn’t want to talk too bad about Dynamite, noting that there’s a good side to most people, but there are certainly a lot of infamous stories surrounding Dynamite. There are plenty of stories about his bullying and ribbing, but Meltzer notes that he was very loyal to his inner circle of friends.
Jericho points out that the entire Calgary territory was known for that style of behaviour back in the day. When Jericho arrived in Calgary to train at the Hart Family Dungeon he heard many stories about Dynamite. One even involved him playing a joke on a mentally or physically disabled person in a gym, resulting in the person flying into the wall and putting a hole in the wall.

Meltzer notes that Dynamite quickly got a chip on his shoulder after arriving in WWE as a smaller performer, and he was ridiculed by his peers because of his size. He would then go out to the ring and out-work those larger guys on a nightly basis, and that didn’t garner him any love from the locker room.
Meltzer thinks Dynamite would be an even bigger star today than he was in his prime, and the same can be said for Chris Benoit. The negatives surrounding their size would be gone because the average size of performers has decreased, and the positives surrounding their work-rate would be emphasized in this more athletic in-ring era.

Meltzer informs that Dynamite’s North American career got off to a rocky start. Stu Hart saw photos of Dynamite and was not impressed since he still held the old school mentality that wrestlers needed to be big. He offered Dynamite $400 a week to travel to Calgary which was less that Dynamite wanted but ultimately he agreed.
Meltzer says that Dynamite elevated everyone he worked with in Calgary including a young Bret Hart, who began having terrific matches with Dynamite and this propped him up into the main event scene basically right from his rookie year.
Meltzer points out that Dynamite had an incredible physique, almost unbelievable at points. However, he was carrying too much weight for his frame and suffered from multiple lingering injuries that resulted in him working in a lot of pain. It was only a matter of time before that caught up with him.

Stu Hart sold the Calgary territory to McMahon in 1984, and Dynamite began working for WWE as part of the deal. Eventually he got sick of it there and quit which was too bad, because Meltzer believes the British Bulldogs were the best team in WWE at that point.
During their WWE Tag Team Title run, Dynamite injured his back and could barely get out of bed. WWE urged him to fly in to drop the Titles at a television taping, and Dynamite agreed to it as long as they were able to drop the Titles to The Hart Foundation. McMahon agreed and they made it work, however Dynamite was only paid $25 for that match and he was furious about it.

Meltzer thinks the door was always open for Dynamite to return to WWE because McMahon liked him and Davey Boy Smith. However, Dynamite shut McMahon’s offer down. Meltzer thinks Davey Boy Smith regretted following Dynamite out of WWE because Smith liked it there, but he had a loyalty to Dynamite.
Jericho finds it strange that Dynamite was stuck in a wheelchair for the last several years, especially with today’s medicine and given the fact that Dynamite never suffered any paralysis incidents in the ring. Jericho has actually heard that there was a procedure that could have helped Dynamite, but when Bret Hart offered to pay for it Dynamite passionately refused Hart’s money.
Meltzer mentions that Dynamite had been in poor health for some time now, and his breathing had become laboured recently. Meltzer still doesn’t know the exact cause of death.
That sums up today’s episode of Talk is Jericho. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!