La Zona Muerta

Hey, yo, AEW Dynasty was last night. And man o’ manischewitz (shalom to my friends celebrating Passover), was it a good show.

I don’t think I need to give you a complete blow by blow accounting of the show, but suffice it to say that, at a time where my faith in the promotion has been pretty tested by factors both internal and external, they needed a home run on Pay Per View and they MORE than delivered.

The biggest, most important thing was that Swerve Strickland was FINALLY coronated as AEW Heavyweight champion… and AEW is a young enough company that he’s only the eighth champ, and the first Black champ. This stuff is still important, and it’s not a mere token thing; Swerve grinds behind the scenes doing media for the company and outreach, and is going to be a good champion for the company. If business shifts under his watch, perhaps he’ll end up being a GREAT champion.

There had been a LOT of discourse about whether or not he should win at this show or if they should hold off and blah, blah, blah… if you watched this show and saw how rabid nearly seven thousand fans were for Swerve’s entrance alone, YOU knew it was time. Also, huge shout out to the delightful in every way Prince Nana for the tribute to the late Jimmy Rave. One of the best things about AEW is that the canon of wrestling history counts there; Prince Nana managed Jimmy Rave for years in Ring of Honor and even occasionally on the indies as part of Nana’s dastardly group “the Embassy,” so draping his robe over Swerve’s shoulders during the entrance meant something. Swerve’s Black Panther costume was really cool, as well. This felt big.

Was the match with Joe amazing? It was fine… serviceable if you want to be uncharitable, but I didn’t have a problem with it. The truth about Samoa Joe, as much as I love him, he’s my age and isn’t what he once was. Persona-wise, he’s the best he’s ever been, but he’s a forty five year old man carrying three hundred plus pounds, he has a LOT of wear and tear and no company ever used him to his full potential during his physical prime.

I can relate.

At any rate, there was no bullshit in the match, Swerve is a babyface and let’s see what he can do as champ. I KNOW there are people who are mad Hangman Adam Page didn’t come out and interfere or who are mad because they see Will Ospreay (more on him in a bit) being crowned at Wembley Stadium in August as a dead cert and… Tranquillo, homies. Relax. All In is over four months away and we don’t know what will happen. People are really so anti-Ospreay coming in and being the ace of the company… and it’s like look. It’s too late; he’s already the ace of AEW. We’ll see what that means in four months. Perhaps in four months’ time, Swerve will have built himself into something unassailable.

Here’s hoping.

Nothing on the show was truly BAD (depending on your Jericho tolerance these days and mine’s low); I largely doodled (see the entry below this one) during the matches I had no real stake in. However, I did want to shout out Okada / PAC as just a tremendous piece of business, a really, REALLY good match between two men who have never wrestled before 9to my knowledge). Okada has fully embraced being a dick and even denied the audience the Rainmaker pose (he throws his hands to his sides, his hands twisted into clutches and the camera zooms out, signalling that he’s ready to hit his final move, the Rainmaker.) and instead flipped everyone off. A finer man he could not be and PAC… everyone forgets that this guys is one of the literal best in the world, particularly in making his moves look impactful. Something new they’ve added in the past couple of days… PAC now scowls at your through the tunnel when he makes his entrance. Fantastic. Anyway, a super hot opener and any worries that Okada doesn’t still have it had to be put to rest.

The other huge thing on this show was the dream match (a term used FAR too liberally, but a reasonable one to use, here) between Bryan Danielson and Will Ospreay. I am not a star ratings guy… I find it difficult to enumerate the things I enjoy, but I would simply tell you PLEASE seek out this match. Some people, including people I know and respect thought this match had no stakes and needed a story or a personal issue. Let Professor Convoy tell you something:

WRESTLING TO SEE WHO IS THE BEST IS A PERSONAL ISSUE. IN FACT, IT MAY NOT GET MORE PERSONAL THAT TRYING TO PROVE YOUR DOMINANCE OVER SOMEONE ELSE.

There, I said it. I assume, as I type this, there are people right now complaining that this match was too dangerous (especially as it ended with an injury angle and a very legitimately dangerous in real life move, the Tiger Driver ’91, in which you pick up an opponent against their will and spike them on their head. DOn’t listen to them; this was a match put on by two masters of their craft. Danielson has been saying this is his last full time year in wrestling (we’ll see) and that, if that was the case, he’d go out on his shield, having the most epic year ever. He’s been delivering and this was no different. Ospreay, for all of the online whining and hatred built up around him, is simply the best wrestler in the world and the ace of All Elite Wrestling.

The match last night contained some of the following (working off of memory here, I didn’t take notes):

An avalanche dragon suplex from the top rope

A hurricanrana where the opponent landed on his feet instead of on his head or in a pinning predicament

A Tiger Driver

A Tiger Driver ’91

A Hidden Blade off of the apron and over a referee into a man’s face

An Oscutter into the Busaiku Knee

A La Mistica into the Lebell Lock

None of that is to say that a “five star match,” whatever THAT means, has to have MOVEZ or whatever; it’s to say that this dramatic match had these things used as elements to heighten the enjoyment, and built logically from the foundation of the match. Ospreay couldn’t put Danielson down so he had to use arguably his most dangerous weapon, the real life scary Tiger Driver ’91 for the win. Now, if you want to say doing a doctor rushing the ring afterwards thing and the announcers using their “Owen Hart is dead” voices while Ospreay stood around looking worried thing detracted from the feeling of the match for you, I get it… I hate doctor angles as well… but I looked at it as a way to write Danielson off for a bit and he’s been running pretty hard over the past few months, so I’m happy for him to have the respite.

Anyway, this match has my highest possible recommendation. The show in general does too, and there’s still loads I didn’t mention (Bullet Club Gold unified the stupid trios belts, Willow Nightingale won the TBS title, but of course only got like thirty seconds to celebrate before Mercedes showed up to be annoying, The Young Bucks are the first three time tag champs with the help of THE SCAPEGOAT Jack Perry, and probably a bunch of other stuff I forget since I have the brain of a goldfish). I found it a Sunday evening well spent after having some serious reservations about the AEW product over the past month or two. I know prominent names in the wrestling media space would tell you that WWE’s product in-ring is catching up to AEW’s but despite some of my issues of late, that’s just simply not true and this PPV should put paid to that line of thinking. Viva Dynasty!