La Zona Muerta

Double or Nothing Weekend started, for me, with watching Pro Wrestling NOAH’s Star Navigation night two. I don’t want to be here all day or I’d probably write more about that show than I would about the AEW Pay Per View. NOAH is interesting to me; like AEW, it’s also a company that struggles with identity. It has a lot of people I like, a baffling conception on who to push and some pretty peculiar booking from time to time.

Sound familiar?

Actually, the two promotions don’t really have a ton in common, but NOAH often leaves me scratching my head. I need to spend column inches talking about something else, but the main event, KENOH vs. Minoru Suzuki, is probably worth going out of your way to see if you have access to the Wrestle Universe service. Suzuki, for years now, let’s face it, has worked to the level required of him; when he’s here in America, people just want to see him strike someone really hard so they can chant “Murder Grandpa” at him, and then he makes a funny face. One of his maestros, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, still makes bookings at the ripe old age of seventy five (and if you throw in twenty or thirty thousand extra yen, he’ll happily run his head into the ring post for you FOR REAL), so Suzuki is not cheating people when he does this; he’s simply extending his career. He’s said it himself; if people keep paying him, he’ll keep doing it. It’s a bummer; Suzuki used to be one of my favorites, and frankly, I hate watching him run through the motions these days and coast on crowd reactions. but you can’t be mad at the guy for it.

KENOH, easily my favorite wrestler in NOAH who isn’t an original, wasn’t going to let him do the bare minimum, and dragged the best match I’ve seen out of Suzuki in AGES, certainly the best since that business on the bullet train with Sanshiro Takagi. They had a hard hitting match and really played off of both men’s personas; KENOH the brash, arrogant jerk who backs up his loud mouth with devastating strikes, Suzuki the predatory veteran who loves pain, both inflicting it and receiving it. The match contained grappling, wild brawling on the outside, a brutal firefight with massive kicks and forearms and all sorts. Good stuff.

Enough stalling, I suppose. Collision didn’t really contain anything memorable save maybe a sign that a certain bounty hunter might fall into a certain vortex and more indecipherable, WWE-esque garbage from Edge (I refuse to use his real name like he’s some kind of different wrestler now that he plays for the team I like better).

As for Double or Nothing itself… and I must hasten to add this wasn’t AEW’s fault in the least… sometimes my TV, my beautiful, fifty five inch SONY masterpiece, has a hard time playing nice with my audio / visual gear. AEW doesn’t broadcast in 4K, but my TV usually upscales 1080p quite nicely and things generally look good. I bought DoN through Comcast and went to the designated channel.

The awful pregame panel of Renee Paquette, RJ City and Jeff Jarrett looked like postage stamp people, tiny and fuzzy; an indistinct mess on the screen while they babbled incoherently over my five channels of stereo sound (the sound wasn’t the issue; the incoherent babble was on EVERYONE’S system. A sample of Renee’s hosting prowess: “We just saw Prince Nana being taken out. Do you think he could play a role tonight?” Renee, do you watch the product? Nana RETURNED ON WEDNESDAY. You probably talked to him in catering. Then, she urged us to “download” the show). Of course, when things could get no worse… the Spanish feed kicked in.

I had no desire to tear down the a/v connections and build them back up again, especially when it was clear I probably purchased the Spanish version of the show in SD. At least, I ASSUME that was the issue. I (hopefully) cancelled the thing and just bought it on whatever they call FITE nowadays. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I breathed a sigh of, if not relief, at least first world weary satisfaction in a problem avoided if not fixed.

So, the preshow matches were inessential, as per usual. There was a time where even AEW preshows could be counted on for a killer match or two… I think that time is long past. Deonaa Purazzo vs. Thunder Rosa had an awful “I grabbed the rope and you didn’t even realize ha ha” finish that really set the standard on bad finishes for the evening. As for the Acclaimed vs. the Gates of Agony or whatever they’re called this week… look. I used to love Max Caster. I was a fan pre-AEW (I used to be a big dork who enjoyed BEYOND Wrestling, and AEW took notice of a LOT of BEYOND regulars before the scene got really depleted) and was thrilled when he was given a fun gimmick in AEW. The organic rise of the Acclaimed was great fun to watch, especially if you were a fanatic who watched AEW DARK with regularity.

Then something happened. Max got suspended for saying something off color in a rap (I forget exactly what it was but the gist of it was something rather crude about a young woman barely nineteen years old and it ruffled some feathers). The Acclaimed’s big push was still to come; he didn’t get in THAT much trouble, but the edginess started to creep in. “Ooh, is Max gonna say something that will get him in trouble?” Then, the act got saddled with BILLY GUNN, one of the biggest walking billboards for steroid abuse I’ve seen since the golden era of the eighties (imagine this; he actually got fired from the other place for being caught bodybuilding while on the gear. Just think of how much of a chemical nightmare you would have to take into yourself to get turfed from WWE) and one of the most selfish; the guy the Acclaimed often have to make the hot tag to or indeed the guy that needs to win the match for them, even today. Ah, but the fans like yelling “SCISSOR ME, DADDY ASS” so it must be working, right? Right?

Anyway, Max Caster is now basically just like his friend and idol who we will be talking extensively about later; he buries everyone, doesn’t want to show ass but, unlike that other “generational talent,” Caster has never progressed in the ring. I can’t stand him any longer and Acclaimed segments, which used to be entertaining to me, are now massive go away heat. I hope Anthony Bowens brains him and splits off before the damage is irreparable.

Good lord, look how much I’ve written and we haven’t even got to the actual show yet.

Okay: thesis statement. AEW PPVs tend to be great largely because AEW lets the talent tell the stories in ring without a lot of bad finishes or wacky booking. For the most part, certainly with some exceptions, the right people generally go over after a climatic battle in ring with a minimum of bullshit.

That was not the case yesterday evening. There were bad finishes, questionable finishes, interference by the truckload (busload?) and a lot of overall goofiness. There was still decent in ring action tonight and depending on your tolerance for wacky spots and garbage brawls, a pretty fun main event, but man… this was not a great show. I’m not even sure if it was a good show. It wasn’t a BAD show necessarily, but it was a pretty good example of the insidious weeds of “sports entertainment” that have crept in around the edges and marred this company, which I used to legitimately enjoy, turning it into something that feels a lot more like WWE than it should. It’s more clear than ever that there are too many voices that Tony Khan listens to, too many voices that only know WWE and don’t understand that the main base of AEW fans prefer in ring action to backstage silliness and over the top soap opera storylines.

I don’t want to give a blow by blow account of the show; you already either know the results or have a favored place where you seek them out. There are two things I do really want to drill into about so I just want to talk about some quick highlights and lowlights:

If heel Trent Baretta is going to be a thing, he should have won the match with Orange Cassidy; he needed the credibility of the win. The drama of “WHO WILL JOIN THE DON CALLIS FAMILY” isn’t… bad, but neither is it all that compelling. Trent storming off didn’t make a lot of sense. I also don’t particularly care what entrance music OC uses; it’s stuff like that that is such strange emphasis on the little things. I don’t entirely know if that sort of attention to detail is good or merely window dressing. Maybe next week OC can come out to “Ants Marching.”

Juice Robinson’s return doesn’t really move me, but it does give me an excuse to post this:

Yeah, another guy I don’t like that everyone else does. So what

Why is Timeless Toni Storm kicking out of move after move, giving maximum effort when her character CONSTANTLY talks about how she’d rather be lying around being serviced py people? Why is she beating Serena Deeb who was the aggrieved party coming back from legitimate health issues? That match’s finishing stretch was RIDICULOUS, Storm kicking out of brutal, high impact offense like she was a fiery, Memphis-style babyface.

LOL at anyone who thought Jon Moxley was going to lose to Konosuke Takeshita because it was a non title match. I know everyone loves Mox and swears he loses too much (!) but guys… the wrestler you see and the wrestler I see are two different people. He’s taken the title in pro wrestling that I care about the most, New Japan’s IWGP title and made it irrelevant in two promotions. “Oh, but the booking,” you say. NO. He is ungenerous in the ring, his character is ill-defined and it’s very clear when he has a bad night; he gets sulky in the ring.

Guess what kind of night he had? He may as well have been sucking his thumb when the match was over.

If they were going to have Willow Nightingale lose to Mercedes Moné and then be attacked by her best friend, Kris Statlander, they should have had Stat cost her the match. The much anticipated and lauded debut of Moné was, I dunno, fine, I guess. The crowd reaction tells me it was a mistake having Mercedes go over, and she didn’t really even act all that heelish so… net negative all around, I’d say. So far, no good.

The overbooked cage match with Brood Edge (let’s face it; that’s what he was and why AEW is CELEBRATING AND CHERISHING a WWE gimmick I couldn’t tell you) was… a cage match with a lot of overbooking. This could have easily emanated from Saudi Arabia two days ago and no one would have batted an eye. Why they had a blood and gimmick laden match on a show with Anarchy in the Arena, a bloody and gimmick laden match is beyond my pay grade. Why did Edge come out to a Slayer song? Is that what SEXTON HARDCASTLE used on the indies? I felt like Paul Fontaine not knowing who AFI were (now THERE is a joke for only a handful of people). Edge also did something incredibly dumb; he leapt off of the top of the cage for no real good reason to do a double stomp. Dude, you are an old, rich guy pumping enough chemicals into your system to fuel at least ten junior chemistry sets. Someone needs to take these guys and gals aside to tell them to cool it sometimes with the unnecessary risks; he may have got legitimately hurt. At least my fangin’ and bangin’ homie GANGREL got a payday.

That’s not a knock, either. GET PAID

Anarchy in the Arena was fun; actually it was more fun than I typically have with that style of match. There were some tremendous shenanigans with music during the match (AitA typically has someone’s music play over the whole thing a la New Jack’s entrance, so we had a battle of dueling themes; the Young Bucks’ new, Succession inspired theme vs. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN, Europe’s cheesy magnum opus until one of the Bucks pointed out that Europe wants TOO MUCH MONEY for use of the Final Countdown, a true fact in this fake world of pro graps), attempted vehicular homicide (!) some REAL fun with the greatest man to ever draw breath, one Kazuchika Okada, a super safe fire spot that probably will lead to DIRT ROTTEN discourse today, an impromptu recreation of the Young Bucks’ Reebok commercial (!!) and, by far the most impressive feat of all…

MY WIFE WHO HATES EVERYBODY BUT A HANDFUL OF JAPANESE WRESTLERS NOW LIKES THE YOUNG BUCKS. Or this version of them, anyway. If they ever revert to their roots, she’ll go back to hating them but somehow, this hoary, cliched authority figure garbage has won her laughter and enjoyment and, most bafflingly, HER ATTENTION. She actually pays a modicum of attention when they come out. She wanted them to don their tack-laden shoes and (possibly literally; she’s pretty bloodthirsty) kill Darby Allin. If she liked the fucking thing, it must have been at least okay and we laughed a lot even if it went on forever.

Okay; that’s the show. Lots of interference, a lot of returns (we’ll get there, I promise) some bad calls on victors and characters doing things against their character type. AEW in a nutshell. Happy five years.

Point of discussion the first: The Will Ospreay / Roderick Strong match.

I want to hasten to add, before I get angry here, that no one did anything wrong, per sé. Roderick Strong is a tremendous wrestler, in fact, he’s someone who doesn’t get NEARLY enough love and he did a great job in taking care of Will and getting the match on track after something went wrong. Accidents happen.

That being said, WHY THE ABSOLUTE FUCK ARE WE RISKING THE TOP STAR IN THE COMPANY’S LIFE ON SOME STUPID HEAT SPOT THAT NO ONE BOUGHT OR CARED ABOUT AND THEN WHY, LATER IN THE MATCH WHERE SOMEONE REALLY GOT HURT OR NEARLY DID ARE WE DOING DUMB, OVERBOOKED FAKE DOCTOR SPOTS?

Ahem.

Will Ospreay is the literal best wrestler in the world. People who are mad about his trajectory in AEW are either people who dislike him on a personal level or they are being blind to the reactions he is getting. From the second he came into the company, he has been a star, and he is only going to become a bigger star. Him being a big star HELPS AEW. He is not selfish, not there to elevate (ho ho) solely himself unlike some folks we can talk about in a bit.

That being said, he shouldn’t be being nearly killed by the likes of a Matt Taven. Or anyone, really, but they need to be at least SLIGHTLY more careful with the guy. Taven (who is a consummate professional; I shouldn’t take this out on him) did a dive to the outside on Ospreay that turned into a DDT. The issue was that it became a SHOOT DDT and Ospreay very clearly had his bell rung. Of course, he’s a dumb, meathead wrestler and of course he’s gonna wave it off and continue on. The spot was probably of his design! That’s the first problem; stop the fucking match when something goes wrong to that extent. This is not Mixed Martial Arts or a real contest; it’s a performance. As I said above, Roddy took care of him, put him in restholds and got the match back on track… but then the match was predicated around a doctor stoppage and wacky overbooking.

PERHAPS, IF SOMEONE REALLY GETS HURT IN THE MATCH, do a quick, bullshit finish and, if everyone is okay, just REDO IT ON WEDNESDAY. NO ONE IS GOING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OSPREAY / STRONG II ON FREE TV. DON’T DO DUMB DOCTOR BASED SHIT. Actually, don’t do doctor stuff ANY TIME, as far as I’m concerned. Despite Will nearly getting injured (at least I hope he didn’t get injured; I recall Ricky Starks eating a clothesline from Hangman Page, breaking his neck and still finishing the match saying he was “okay,” until it turned out he had a fracture), the professionalism of Roddy Strong helped pull the match into something still decent and even good to watch. That being said, let’s ease up on the overbooking (ESPECIALLY on PPV) and the use of the real doctor in the fake matches. Let’s maximize in ring action and not do risky out of the ring shenanigans. Roddy and Will have a MUCH better match in them and I hope we get to see it sometime.

Point of discussion the second: Maxwell Jacob Friedman didn’t learn a goddamned thing from his disastrous title reign.

I remember seeing MJF for the first time in a CZW Cage of Death show. I want to say it was the show where Atushi Onita was supposed to have a one on one match with Matt Tremont, but then, Onita being Onita, he changed the match to a tag team match or something that day (possibly that minute). You bring in Onita, you get what you get. Anyway, I think that was the show but I could be way off; my memory doesn’t work so well any more. Point is, I saw this guy with a rich kid gimmick who was not going to wrestle in a bullshit deathmatch and had to be dragged screaming into doing it anyway. He was great and he instantly made a fan out of me. I LAUGHED at idiots who said he was just a Miz wannabe when he was revealed at that first AEW press conference. People had NO IDEA how great this guy was, how effortlessly he owned a room, how good he actually was in ring (far, FAR better than fifteen year at the time veteran Mike Mizanin). I knew he was a terrific, left field but no brainer if you watched choice for an upstart company.

Cut to four years later as he was floundering at the top and telling the company that, to fix things, he should beat the top three stars of AEW BY HIMSELF in a cage match. THAT IS A REAL THING THAT HAPPENED, NOT A JOKE OR AN EXAGGERATION. Cut to four years later as he took out all four members of Bullet Club Gold on his own in a backstage segment like he was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Cut to four years later as he starred in a series of still controversial vignettes and skits that devalued him, Adam Cole, the AEW heavyweight title and possibly the company itself. Cut to four years later as he cried (actually CRIED) on a press conference talking about how no one worked harder than him as fans rejected him being on top, and kept going on about the “many flavors of ice cream” that pro wrestling represents. Cut to four years later as he opined in an article for the Players’ Tribune that perhaps, if you didn’t like his title reign, you might have motivations other than pure wrestling enjoyment, motivations that involved anti-Semitic sentiment. Hey, he was JUST ASKING QUESTIONS, GUYS. Ladies, gentleman and non-binary pals, I give you the Poochie of professional wrestling; the returning Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

And of course, instead of putting over AEW (you think that barely visible calf tattoo was a tribute? You think someone can’t ink that murky blob over with a different set of three letters?), instead of swearing revenge against those who had wronged him, he came out dressed like Triple H, kicked Adam Cole in the dick, told us that Cole had skinny arms and that all of your favorites SUCK. He bet on himself and that’s all that matters (that was the part I had the least trouble believing; his selfishness is apparent). He also threw in a lot of swear words. Edgy. LET’S GET A DONKEY DICK CHANT GOING AMIRITE. The promo kept coming to an end but he kept going, anyway.

I want Max to be the guy I think he can be. I want him to be someone the company can be built around, the consummate heel the babyfaces chase, someone not destructive and reductive, but rather someone who helps elevate the company he works for. Instead, the guy doesn’t appear to have learned anything while he was gone. Time will tell, but his instincts over the last five years proved worse and worse, and there’s no evidence that he’s reversed on that course.

If he becomes TK’s proxy in the battle against the Elite, I well might be done with AEW, at least for now.

On that happy note, no, I would not recommend AEW DON 2024, it’s many flavors of ice cream aside. It wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t good, and, instead of celebrating five years of AEW, it paid homage to the last twelve shitty months, underlining what’s wrong with the company.