La Zona Muerta

Three hours plus, Art. Hopefully I can write this review in less than three hours.

You know, from a storyline standpoint, I actually was pretty okay with this episode of Dynamite (plus Rampage) for the most part. The follow up to the TK piledriver stuff was fairly logical, and despite some gaps here and there, most everything made sense. THE SOUND WORKED, so that was certainly an improvement from last week (even if AEW default audio isn’t, y’know, great). The place the show let me down was probably in ring, if I’m being honest, and even that feels a tiny bit harsh; it was more just stuff I wasn’t into as opposed to being BAD, if that makes sense. Well; this review isn’t gonna write itself, so here we go.

Tony Khan with THE DREADED, CONTROVERSIAL NECK BRACE started to tell us he was driving the show live, via satelite, but the Young Bucks broke in FROM THE TRUCK to say that, due to their iron clad contracts, not only were they not fired, they were in charge. Totally fine with that; there had been some speculation that the show was going to suddenly have a GM type character, something which AEW has resisted for five years, and the Bucks being bad guys and interfering with the show on multiple levels certainly made sense and worked. I wouldn’t want it every single week, but for this week, it was fun.

Actually, while I’m here, let’s talk about the Bucks a little. They’re a good example of an act that I respect and recognize the value of but I’ve never fully gotten behind. I think this version of them, leaning into internet stupidity about them and their job titles is them at their absolute best. Even the notoriously difficult to please Mrs. Convoy, who hates almost everyone but Hiroshi Tanahashi, enjoys their heel act, particularly when they fine people and hand out $25 gift cards to make up for it. If she likes it, it must be pretty good.

Swerve came out largely to say “who’s my match for the Pay Per View,” and, as some including myself had guessed, the answer was Christian. Solid, if unspectacular choice and, if AEW wants to have Swerve fight someone the crowd will NOT cheer, a true, clear cut heel, he’s a fine choice. That match probably isn’t gonna sell any PPVs, sure, but… it’s fine. AEW is good at something they often take flak for by those who don’t pay attention; Christian highlighted all the reasons Swerve and Christian have to be mad at each other for, and, if you are mad Christian got a shot without the benefit of rankings or whatever… the EVPs did it. Easy. The only real fly in the ointment is that Christian came out with his group of dorks, the Patriarchy (Christian’s gimmick in AEW has evolved into being a father for wayward children). His goons helped beat Swerve and Prince Nana up. I realize Swerve is a good guy now, but Nana isn’t, not really, and still runs the (Mogul) Embassy, at least as far as I know. Where was Brian Cage, who was in the building? How about the Gates of Agony or whatever they’re called? Swerve (presumably) has troops, too, unless he shed them when he switched alignments. Actually, later, Swerve said he’d have back up next week, so we’ll see. Anyway, the dénouement of all of this was Swerve getting a dreadlock RIPPED OUT OF HIS HEAD, which I hope was worked because ACK if not.

The former Edge, Adam Copeland, came out and had a match with Buddy, uh… what does he go by here? Buddy Matthews? Buddy Murphy? Who knows. All I can say is it looked like the well built guy that used to wrestle on 205 Live had the lead character from Dig Dug stick his inflation harpoon in his ass with the dial set to “pump.” He was positively BURSTING at the seams, here. Look, this is an example of the show not delivering for me in ring. I’m sure some of you out here liked it; I can’t stand Copeland, think he’s a terrible fit for the company and he bores me to tears. You might see an awesome match, I see an old guy, pumped up on whatever it takes to make your body look better at fifty than it did at thirty while his face sloughs off of his skull. This match stretched over at least two segments and just kept going and going. Some say it may still be going as I type this. All I could see was Copeland calling spots into the back of his hand. Copeland unsurprisingly won and teased a conchairto on his prone opponent. Malikai Black teleported into the ring to goad Edge into hitting Buddy, Edge was going to oblige and then they disappeared before Edge could deliver the chair shot.

Yuck.

House of Black “give into the dark side” junk may be thematically appropriate with May the 4th approaching, but it simply isn’t what I want out of AEW. Intersect that with Edge and the antipathy he breeds within my bosom and you had a match where I was playing on my tablet.

Next up, my man Samoa Joe absolutely splattered poor Isiah Kassidy. Fun squash, lets us know Joe is still a force to be reckoned with.

Look at that big, beautiful melon.

We returned to the drama with Freshly Squeezed Orange Cassidy and freshly evil Trent Baretta. OC solemnly told us that Chuck Taylor COULD NEVER WRESTLE AGAIN, which would make me think for sure Chuck is turning if he hadn’t had the parking lot brawl with Trent last week. They are laying it on with a trowel, there, so we’ll see. I can only imagine Jim Ross’ PURE DELIGHT at the thought of Chuck Taylor never wrestling again. OC and Trent had a pull apart which will allegedly be blown off next week on Dynamite, and, as you’d think that would be a PPV match, obviously something has to happen to further matters. REALLY hoping for heel Chuck and a heel Best Friends in a rejuvenated tag team division with the likes of the Grizzled Young Vets and Motor City Machine Guns tossed in the mix. Oh, I nearly forgot, for some reason, Don Callis came out and whispered something to OC, calming him down and taking him to the back. That’s pretty unexpected…

The Young Bucks messed with Renee and gave Jungle Boy some time to talk. If nothing else, he’s more confident on the mic, now. I don’t think you’re ever gonna get me to say that airing the SMOKING GUN footage was a good idea but it does seem to be benefitting Perry.

Another two segment wonder next as Chris “The Learning Tree” Jericho battled Katsuyori “The Wrestler” Shibata in a “For the World” match. Perhaps it should have been a brain on a pole match. Look, if you like wacky hijinks, this was probably fine and maybe even good, but it just felt long and over labored to me. Taz was obviously pretty heated throughout this, which was amusing. “LOOK, DO YOU WANT ME TO SWEAR, SCHIAVONE?” The match took place in Winnipeg, so hockey pucks were inevitably deployed, and Jericho took a LATHERING from Shibata. I said to the old lady that hopefully Shibata would do something to get Jericho’s brain to be removed. Less fun, even if the shots weren’t particularly severe, was the fact that Shibata definitely did take a couple of shots to the head, even if it was probably all safe. Not to be the no fun Safety Police, but I’d probably shy away from that. Anyway, Big Bill, Jericho’s latest big gleep of a heater, came out and kicked Shibata in the face. Wooo. Ever the wit, Mrs. Convoy quipped that, since Shibata had already had his brain removed, being kicked in the face was no big thing. I think my eyes glazed over at this point. I don’t think the kick was the finish… maybe a table was involved? I dunno.

The next segment was the Bucks messing with Willow and her friends backstage, setting the stage for the main event of Rampage. The Bucks banned Kris Stat and Stokely Hathaway from coming to the ring. I cared less about that and more about the plight of the greatest man in the world, Big Stoke. “Besides my actions, what did I do to deserve this?” A finer man I could not imagine.

Claudio Castagnoli and Brian Cage had a muscle throwdown or something. Another technically good match but I really don’t care for Cage. I mused that, despite Cage’s ridiculous, overinflated physique, I can all but guarantee Claudio is stronger in pretty much any real life situation.

Rocky Romero was mad at Trent for breaking up the Best Friends but didn’t want to pick a side. What a fence sitter! He called out Kyle O’Reilly for Rampage. Okay.

Serena Deeb used WRESTLING on Mariah “everyone likes her but me” May to set up a match with Deeb and Timeless Toni. I like Deeb a LOT but I realize her style is not for everyone. I’ve yet to be impressed with May; she seems like someone everyone is so high on and I just don’t see it. She’s not awful or anything, certainly, but MAN she gets a lot of TV time.

Normally, the main event interview irritates me, but this was BIG KEN OMEGA, THE MAN WITH THE ILLUSTRIOUS SEVEN STAR MATCH, so by all means, let’s promo. Kenny MORE than delivered here; this was one of the best promos of his career, obviously spurred by his real life struggle with diverticulitis, which genuinely threatened his life. BOO DIVERTICULITIS! said the crowd. BOO COLOSTOMY BAGS! He teased retirement but then told us the he was AN ADDICT for being in ring and that he’d do anything, take any chance, NO MATTER HOW SMALL to come back to the ring to wrestle. Speaking of colostomy bags, he had to address “two other bags of shit,” the Young Bucks.

AND THEN KAZUCHIKA OKADA CAME OUT.

I was ready to run through a goddamned wall at this point. Kenny said that he’d like to SETTLE THINGS WITH OKADA IF OKADA WOULD GIVE HIM A COUPLE OF MONTHS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Of course, this is where SAA SCAPU GOATO Jack Perry blindsided Big Ken, but Kenny was into it and started BEATING THE SHIT out of Perry. All of this ruled so much. Of course, BIG KEN now has a weak point: HIS TUM TUM. Perry hit him with a chair to the gut. We were praying for Okada to hit a RAINMAKER TO THE BELLY and for Kenny to pop a blood capsule from the mouth for INTERNAL INJURIES. Of course, Kenny was overwhelmed. The Young Bucks came out, ostensibly to stop further damage to Kenny, but hit him with the EVP Trigger, instead. RARRRRRRRRRRRRR. Just when this was the greatest segment of all time, it was utterly RUINED by FTR, who have SWEET FUCK ALL TO DO WITH KENNY, making the save. Uuuuuugh. This was where Dynamite ended and we switched over to Rampage, but the angle continued; Kenny did a stretcher job but was FURTHER attacked by the Elite. Upon further reflection, while this was obviously a way to write out Kenny, this was probably also a way to potentially write out FTR if court proceedings go bad for FTR Hair, but them interfering on Kenny’s behalf did not track. If there was ever a time to say it, it would be here… WHERE’S HANGMAN?

If it’s love is electric / It’ll be flowing on the streets

Okay, NOW Rampage proper could finally start. Jay White and Dante Martin had a perfectly cromulent match… and while Jay White won definitively and I love Dante… Jay White had an AWFULLY hard time putting this young cat away. They continue to baffle me with White’s booking; he gets a fair amount of TV time and wins a lot (although he rarely wins anything IMPORTANT)… but they should be building him up for the main event scene and not barely skating by the Dante Martins of the world. Dante could be GREAT one day… but Jay White is GREAT RIGHT NOW and they are SQUANDERING HIM. I don’t really get it.

I think there was supposed to be a Konosuke Takeshita squash but they presumably had to drop it for time. Speaking of guys that are great and need to be in the main event scene that it feels like they are squandering…

Kyle O’Reilly and Rocky Romero had what was probably a good match but it was kind of like “man, I’m so fired up about the Elite killing Kenny and we’re two and a half hours in and I want to go watch this week’s X-Men ’97.” They replicated all of the spots from Rocky’s MMA bout in JUNGLE FIGHT. Well, no, that’s not true but boy, that would have been a heckuva pull, wouldn’t it? I feel bad; I love KOR in particular but haven’t really felt strongly about much anything during his return. His match with Roddy at the PPV was great but just kind of felt like “yeah, that was good.”

I’m pretty sure that at some point there was a promo with Saraya talking about her tits but my brain probably shut down as a defensive measure. I think Roddy Strong came in to yell about neck health, as well. Fortunately, I watch TNT on the app, so I can see the East Coast feed; I would have been dead asleep by the time this was on on the West Coast.

So, the main event came, which was obviously a pretty quick affair; Willow Nightingale and Skye Blue in whatever a MANITOBA MASSACRE MATCH is. Listen, I’ve been pretty mean about Skye Blue and the UTTERLY RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF TV TIME SHE SEEMS TO GET, but she has improved some, to be fair. I doubt I’m ever gonna be a fan, but it is what it is. THey clobbered each other, and man, TK sure likes to let us know that ladies can do hardcore brawling, too. I think that aspect of the AEW women gets slept on, to be honest. The match ended in a terrifying but definitive manner; Willow hurked up Skye for a gutwrench powerbomb off of the apron onto a table on the floor that also had a barbed wire board sitting on top. GOOD GOTCH ABOVE. I was more terrified that the drastic move wouldn’t be the end of the match, but fortunately, that was enough to put Blue away.

I know some folks are cool with the three hour block; for me, personally it’s bit of a big ask, especially when my partner doesn’t love AEW. I don’t need it to be three hours and I like my little dopey hour of Rampage on Friday nights. Oh well, we’ll see what this all means. As far as the show itself, I think the Bucks stuff was all really good with the exception of FTR saving the day. Now, will it get tired if they keep doing this, week after week? Sure, but I assume everyone involved is more creative than that. All right, I way overshot my target on this one, but in my defense, it was well over three hours of content.