La Zona Muerta

The old lady and I took in a LOT of graps this weekend. Three hours of AEW (man, I can’t wait for the shows to go back to normal; I’m a weirdo who actually LIKES Rampage on a Friday night, for the most part), NJPW Best of the Super Juniors night one, a bit of that MLW show with all the CMLL guys (it’s VEE RUUS, not “Virus,” dorks), a couple of old episodes of TNA Xplosion (wha?) and, perhaps most intriguingly, the first episode and allegedly the second of Main Event Championship Wrestling; a 1999 / 2000 joint run by perennial favorite of Mrs. Convoy Reno Riggins and Steve Doll, of all people. Well, I say most intriguing; it was a bog standard 1999 indy, but it had Dutch Mantell and Les Thatcher on commentary for the first episode, the ECW Pitbulls and a surely merely months, perhaps weeks away from death Yokozuna pushing maximum density. Listen, I’ve seen worse.

We eschewed the NJPW Strong PPV; they have a LOT of nerve charging twenty bucks for a card like that, but I digress (TM Taz). It’s funny; probably the most noteworthy thing to happen this weekend took place there; the Young Bucks and Jack Perry came out to kick Eddie Kingston whilst he was literally and figuratively down. That Bucks gimmick is a lot of fun, and I’m still really getting a kick out of it (so to speak). THe idea of the crossovers is fun and not yet off putting, and even gives a tiny bit of fuel to the fire of an AEW storyline. Nice work.

I suppose I should have a drawing here since that’s sort of becoming my brand, so, uh… let’s look thru the archive. Ah, here’s a drawing of Eddie.

Love that man.

It’s rare that I say this, as I usually think Collision is a fairly ho hum affair, but I think it absolutely crushed Dynamite this week. The crowd was huge and raucous, there was REALLY good wrestling on it, and they even managed to advance a storyline or two, or at least clarify some things. I don’t want to laboriously recap the whole show but I do want to talk about a couple of things:

1. Will Ospreay is the ace of AEW

Some people don’t wanna hear that; they think that’s perhaps a title that shouldn’t be conferred on a newcomer or outsider, or maybe they think Ospreay’s coronation will hurt a fellow like Swerve. I guess I’d push back against the idea that he’s either a newcomer or outsider, but let’s not split hairs. He’s the literal best wrestler in the world, he wants to elevate (okay, that was mildly intentional) AEW and he has the in ring acumen to do it. Hell, for someone I never thought much of on the mic, he’s even starting to become really good there, as well. I doubt I’d have a lot in common with him if I were ever to have a conversation with him… but he’s affable and likeable. I don’t mind the rocket being strapped to him; if anything I want them to increase the power and speed of said rocket. YEs, I think the company needs to be mindful of Swerve and not cut off his balls will Ospreay gets the rub, but I thought Swerve did great this week in killing his former cronies in the Embassy. I have no problems with the Swerve stuff, at least so far.

It doesn’t hurt that I absolutely love Lee Moriarty and I was thrilled to see him have the highest profile match of his young career. He delivered, too.

2. Bryan Danielson is about 100 times more authentic than Edge

When Danielson gives a rah rah speech about how he loves AEW, I somehow believe him, unlike certain other people. The subtle touch of Claudio rolling out of the ring while Danielson was explaining why he was picking up the billet of “Team AEW” was nice as well, especially from the company that allegedly doesn’t tell stories. They even followed up on this on Rampage; in AEW lore, Anarchy in the Arena is the most dangerous match, and Claudio doesn’t want his friend to go through with it! Lovely stuff.

3. Christopher Daniels is, was and remains a king of men

I defy you to watch that backstage segment where the Bucks roll up on Daniels and not be moved. Daniels is, in real life, a vice president of talent relations in AEW, and was a part of all the troubles with that one guy. You know, the muffin dude. He subtly alluded to that, with his arm braced up against Matt Jackson; “I was your friend when that was the hardest thing in the world to be!” Obviously Daniels is a lot closer to the end of his career than the beginning; there’ll be no upset, no valiant triumph over the odds, but in the fire of his words, if you can just let yourself pretend for a moment that there IS a chance…

… that’s where the magic of pro wrestling happens.

4. Would it have killed them to let Kyle O’Reilly beat Edge?

Think of the credibility KOR would have received from actually defeating Edge. Maybe he could blame it on being distracted by the House of Black or whatever. I think the belt would mean a lot more for KOR right now than it does for Edge but I realize I’m in a very small minority oh his place in AEW.

5. Young Thomas Billington was better at being Dynamite Kid than Dax Harwood was at being Bret Hart

I saw some gnashing of teeth about this match and I can’t imagine why; Dax had a good match with the real life nephew of the Dynamite Kid, Tom Billington. The kid was impressive and took a helluva beating. There were some complaints about Billington getting the spot since AEW has a zillion people under contract, but… it was a showcase for a legacy indy talent. AEW does stuff like this. It’s good. I had zero issue with it, other than Dax being a dork, that is. I’ve heard Billington’s name but have seen little of his work. I came away impressed.

At any rate, Vancouver was a terrific crowd, up for everything, even through Rampage. Bless their hearts. I, uh… I don’t expect the same out of Everett this week. We’ll see. Overall, I felt a little stronger about AEW going out of the weekend than coming into it, and that’s all you can really ask for, right?

The MLW show… listen. I don’t care for MLW. Another promotion I’ve given a zillion chances to, and I constantly ask myself why. I occasionally tune in these days for guys I enjoy like Filthy Tom (I’m BEGGING a major company to finally DO SOMETHING with the guy), Satoshi Kojima (they better be giving that beautiful man HEAPS of delicious bread) and some of the CMLL crossover stuff, but Court Bauer just recycles the same ideas over and over again. “Oh no, it’s CONTRA. Oh no, it’s Promociones Dorado. Oh no, it’s the (sigh) World Titan Federation,” etc. The wrestling matches are FIGHTS for some reason, as if it were real and they’re embarrassed to say the “w” word. This particular show was sold on being lucha libre heavy and when I tune in, I have to see Matt fucking Riddle’s stupid sex pest face. Nope.

We did go back and speed around to cherry pick the lucha content. Nothing super jumped out at us, but I will say that Atlantis Jr. has come a long way, further than I was willing to give him credit for. I love seeing Ultimo Guerrero raising the roof in a non Arena Mexico setting, and Mistico is still the man. Actually, while I’m thinking about it, let’s talk about Mistico for a second. This is a guy who was crushing it in 2005, went to the Fed a couple of years later, sucked (both their fault and his; he’s not blameless), went around AAA and the indies without really getting his fire back, returned to CMLL, was okay and then suddenly he is given back the name Mistico and he’s the goddamned man again, twenty years hence. This is a dude that was so over, they had copies of him in WWE, CMLL, AAA and even TNA for a second ALL AT ONCE. I don’t think enough is made of that. It’s such a pleasure to watch him again having finally shaken off the blows to his confidence that his WWE stint must have inflicted upon him.

I have to reiterate: the MLW announcers went out of their way to call Atlantis AT LAN TEASE and Mistico MEE STEE CO, but Virus had to be Virus. IT’S VEE RUUS, DAMMIT. The lucha experience in MLW no es muy authentica.

Anyway.

Super Juniors night one was pleasant enough; nothing blow away. New Japan is, for me, hanging in a really precarious state right now… so stale, but they still have great talent I want to see succeed. It’s not the fault of AEW or the yen being down or anything else; they desperately need a shake up. If I could tell you what that shake up was, that guaranteed bullet they need to inject life into the show, I’d be out playing the lottery.

As for the episodes of TNA Xplosion, what can I say? The missus wanted something where she was guaranteed to see the likes of Mikey Batts and “Mr. 630” Jarelle Clark… and she was not disappointed.

We’ve reached the point of nostalgia for the Impact Zone of twenty years ago and that’s as good of a place to wrap this column as any. No real strong programming notes for the week to come; I’m sure Dynamite will generate some thoughts and I might finally get around to taking some toy photos. Let’s take it as it comes.