Midnight Dynamite: 20 year Anniversary!

Originally, Johnny Paradise and I were put together with Dino Winwood as “The Forgotten.” We were three mid-card acts with a bit of buzz, but that noise was fading. Bookings were drying up—at least for me—to the point where I took six months off. I wasn’t a fan of the name “The Forgotten” because it reminded me of that movie where the lady’s kid gets kidnapped or something. I think that had just come out a couple years earlier.

Still, I was thankful we had direction. We had this new life as a tag team. I’m not exactly sure when or why creative changed, but Dino was eventually dropped from the group, and we got a new name: Midnight Dynamite. Paradise came up with it. I pushed for us to make shirts—back then, it was mostly main event talent who had merch. Talents didn’t really monetize like that, so this was a bold move, especially as heels.

Our first real feud was against a tag team called The Manlys. A couple of white guys with long hair, announced as brothers, wore bright colors, did high-flying moves. We wrestled them in Santa Monica at the New Japan Dojo and again in Downtown San Diego at the historic YMCA. Then… they just disappeared. No blowoff to the feud. Just nothing.

In the meantime, paranoia started to set in for me. Were the bookings going to dry up again? People in my life were stressing for me to get a real job—maybe now was the time? Were we about to lose our push and go back to the openers? People always tell me I think worst-case scenario too often. I guess I’ve always been that way. You just never know. You’ve always got to be prepared.

Looking back, it was my first real push, and I wasn’t used to being featured in that way. I was scared of losing whatever that feeling was.

A few long weeks later, Johnny Paradise found us new opponents.

A couple of white guys. Long hair. Announced as brothers. Bright colors. High-flying moves.

I thought that was great—we could pick up where we left off instead of starting completely fresh. That sounds silly now, because your chemistry with a new team is always going to be unique to that relationship. But in my paranoid mind at the time, I thought I had heat with these guys. I believed that since a lot of us were there every week setting up rings and chairs, loading the trucks, training, busting our asses—that we were the ones with more value. That we should be the ones getting pushed.

But in reality, whoever’s over gets pushed.

That’s the game.

The goal is to be remembered. Yeah, tell your story with your moves and your spots—but the whole point is to stand out. To make people remember.

These new guys? They could do cartwheels, backflips, back handsprings—stuff that almost nobody else on the indies could do back then. They were the original “video game wrestlers.” And at that time, there were maybe three or four guys in the whole scene that could even attempt what they were doing.

It was a legit brother tag team: Matt, Nick, and Malachi—their younger brother. (This dude invented some of the craziest moves I’ve ever seen. He was so good. A lot of people might not know that it was three of them at first.)

These guys were over and growing in popularity. They were headlining shows only a few months into the business because people physically couldn’t do what they could do. If I remember right, it was Mongol Santino who gave them the name The Young Bucks. The story I heard was that they were listed that way on a booking sheet for a squash match. Their names weren’t known yet, but the name stuck. And they made it work.

They came out to Hanson’s “MMMBop,” eventually got matching tights, and started feuding with Midnight Dynamite. Josh and I had won the tag team titles from LA lucha legends Los Chivos earlier that year, and we were defending them against the Bucks across different promotions—which wasn’t something people really did back then. We wrestled them all over California.

That feud was voted 2006 Southern California Feud of the Year by the fans.

Looking back now, I feel like the Bucks helped us get over as Midnight Dynamite. They gave our careers a new spark. And I believe we helped them get over too—because not long after that, they were on PWG’s radar. We never really worked together again, but I’m so thankful I got to be part of that era. That time in my life taught me how seeds get planted in pro wrestling—and how far they can grow.

This business works best when we lift each other up. When we help each other get to that next level.

So to every promoter, booker, wrestler, referee, photographer, camera op—anyone who helped produce any of this:

Thank you.

🖤 [20-Year Anniversary Shirt – Link Here]

Stay cool, stay remembered.

🖤 [20-Year Anniversary Tank Top – Link Here]

This shirt commemorates that time period—our feud with The Young Bucks, the rise of Midnight Dynamite, and one of the most exciting times in SoCal tag team wrestling.