In this article, I take a look at Danny Divine vs. Dustin Daniels from Millennium Pro Wrestling on March 29th, 2019 and talk about someone who I think will be the future of his territory.
Millennium Pro Wrestling has really changed over the years. It went from being the beloved darling of the internet scene here in SoCal to becoming a promotion that centers its shows around homegrown talent from the Millennium Wrestling Academy. While the school hasn’t reached the same level of notoriety as the Santino Bros. Wrestling Academy or the School of Hard Knocks, the Millennium Wrestling Academy has been building itself up in recent years. So far, the school has produced prospects such as Danny Divine, Brendan Divine, Daniel Moon, Malkor, and B-Minus.
While some of you may have heard of those names, you probably haven’t heard of a recent prospect MPW has produced: Dustin Daniels.
The first time I saw Dustin Daniels was earlier this week in a highlight video for MPW’s March 29th event. When I saw the clips of his match against Danny Divine, I became interested in seeing match. Thankfully, MPW uploaded the match to their YouTube account for people to check out. So I watched the match. After watching it, I came away thinking that this kid might be the future of SoCal wrestling.
The first thing you’ll notice about Dustin Daniels is that he’s really small. That, and he looks young. Quite honestly, he came off like a kid that is still in high school. But inside the ring, he came off like a seasoned performer. He was showing traits that a lot of workers in SoCal with more experience lack. His movement in the match was crisp for the most part, and his selling was really good. On top of that, he and Danny Divine were able to put on a strong match that mixed storytelling with good action at a solid pace.
Danny Divine, who is the more experienced of the two, took the role of the bigger bully. He spent most of the match trying to toy with his lesser experienced opponent. While Divine kept getting the better of him at certain points, Daniels kept fighting back. It wasn’t a very innovative or unique plot for a match, but the way this was executed was really effective. Plus it made Divine look like a strong heel, and Daniels came off as a very sympathetic, spunky underdog-style babyface.
Beyond the storytelling and psychology, the action was really good too. Throughout the match, Dustin Daniels was able to hit his spots really well, and he did a really good job at selling Danny Divine’s offense. You can tell while watching this match, he’s more polished as a performer than the majority of workers with more experience in the territory. Danny Divine also deserves a lot of credit for being a solid base for Daniels. Had he not been capable of being able to work well with Dustin Daniels, Dustin wouldn’t have had such a solid showing.
After watching the match, I reached out to Danny Divine to ask him questions about Dustin Daniels. The first thing I asked him was about Dustin’s age. It turns out that Dustin Daniels actually is 16 years old. I then asked Danny how long Dustin had been training for and how many matches he had. He told me Dustin had been training for about a year and a half. This was also his fifth match.
Considering Dustin Daniels isn’t old enough to buy alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or join the military, you have to be impressed at how good he is at his age. Even with only a handful of matches under his belt, he came off really well for someone of his experience level.
Once Dustin Daniels is older, more experienced, and has a move set in his arsenal with more variety and advanced techniques, this kid is gonna turn a lot of heads. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this kid develops over the next few years.
