La Zona Muerta

Despite my dour, cynical leanings and tendencies, I promise… I do try to enjoy things. Now, you have to work HARD to convince me something is worth my time… but once you have me on side, I’ll give you a LOT of leeway.

So it went yesterday, when I saw a LOT of people losing their minds at how dire the AEW Dynamite card looked. Yeah, it was bad on paper, but I was hopeful that the battle royal / gauntlet / match with a lot of people in it would be relevant to my intrests.

Fortunately, that match was incredible, and had a WILD outcome, because man, the rest of that show stunk on toast.

Look, I realize some people don’t like Will Ospreay. Some of it is justified or at least justifiable. I doubt I could have a conversation with him that wasn’t one hundred percent wrestling based; I tend to like people who, you know, read books. That being said, he is someone who has decided to give himself utterly and fully to wrestling and, well… it shows. You can make an argument he’s the best wrestler in the world. Frankly, the argument at this point would more likely have to be “why don’t you think he’s the best wrestler in the world?” People who have made themselves upset about him undoubtedly being “crowned” at All In in Wembley or whatever… really need to step back a bit. He’s a man who captivates the crowd and dazzles with every match, even small ones.

In the time it took me to paint this this morning, Ospreay probably said “bruv” like at least thirteen times; roughly point six five bruvs per minute, bruv

All that being said, I was BLOWN AWAY when he won the number one contender’s Battle Royal Casino House of Fun TK Special match last night. They’ve introduced this match type recently; a battle royal where (up to) 21 men enter and what sets it apart from a Royal Rumble or what have you is the fact that it’s sudden death; whoever wins during the middle of the thing, whoever pins whomever… they win the whole thing. The only thing that kinda sucks is the entrances are random, often timed around commercial breaks (and this match had at least two of them; possibly three but I don’t have a way to go back and double check).

AEW has the literal best roster on the planet and possibly, when everyone is healthy, in history. They are also partnered with CMLL, New Japan Pro Wrestling and, for now, at least, friendly with AAA, DDT and NOAH. That means they can supplement their guys, especially for something like this with another 1D6 (that’s one to six in non geek speak) outsiders who are usually pretty cool in and of themselves. So, when they casually put on a gauntlet that has cats like Lio Rush (!! I never would have guessed he’d ever step foot in AEW again), Mistico and Hechicero show up, mingling with Jay White, Claudio Castagnoli, PAC and more, plus the aforementioned Will Ospreay, you’re going to get something pretty special. It’s hard to be mad when you just kick back at 7:40 PM on a Wednesday night and workers of that caliber casually show up and have an all timer of a battle royal.

I was worried at first when Ospreay won; is this too much, too fast? They aren’t going to have him beat Swerve, are they? I suppose there’s like a ten percent chance of that happening, but I see this as more of a parity move; Swerve Strickland gets to take Ospreay’s first loss and then, yeah, they build Ospreay up for Wembley. This is to help build SWERVE and make Ospreay his “generational” rival.

Of course, Swerve already has one of those. Where the hell is Hangman Adam Page? At any rate, this match was great; seek it out. Watch it. Love it.

Keen observers will note I haven’t written much about the rest of the show. There is a reason for that.

IT FUCKING SUCKED.

I hate Moné’s super WWE-ed out presentation (and the fact that she had an impromptu match with TK’s favorite time sink, Skye Blue surely didn’t help). Whoever that whole thing is for? It’s surely not me. I’ve made VERY clear my thoughts on Moxley, and his throwaway match everyone was sure was going to set the stage for Forbidden Door did nothing to set up Forbidden Door. The Jericho thing…? At some point parody just becomes reality, right? You can say you’re making fun of something but eventually, you’re just… doing it. People watching monitors backstage at wacky angles comes to mind… at first it’s like “Ha ha, they’re making fun of WWE!” but then eventually… it’s just people watching TV at funny angles just like WWE. Yuck. I do like the idea of Samoa Joe taking HOOK under his wing, so hopefully that goes somewhere. The Trent / OC / Don Callis stuff? I dunno. Trent ALREADY turned on OC but we kind of… got it again? I’m all for heel Trent so, I’ll give it a pass, but c’mon, let’s move things forward. The Elite were fun, and Okada… holy Gotch above, Okada is the greatest. He clearly chose to be in AEW because he wanted to dick around with his friends and, you know what? BLESS HIM for that choice. “Shut up… bitches!” “IS IT A DREAM?” Kazu, never learn another word of English. Just stick with what you know now. It’s SO good. I looked over at my wife, as we cackled and said “you know, we should hate this.” She just shrugged. “Yeah, probably.” Christopher Daniels as an EVP is… fine if we have to do dueling authority figures (ugh), but him being backed up by the Acclaimed did my mental well being no favors. I will NEVER stick up for AEW continuing their ongoing feud with that tattooed hypocrite who got FIRED, but I guess I have to admit that I care about Jack Perry now for the first time pretty much ever, so… swings and roundabouts, I guess. Stoke and Stat should be a fun duo. RUSH wants us to know “If you mess with the bull, JOU GET THE HERRRRRRRRRNS,” which was a delight. Unfortunately, he’s going to be eaten alive by MJF. I don’t even want to get into that.

So, yeah, the show sucked, but had a GREAT main event. Is it the end of the world? Will WBD cancel AEW programming tomorrow? IS THIS WWE 2019? IS TONY KHAN DISAPPOINTED?

Nah. Don’t let AEW completely off the hook here; this was a bad show, but it definitely has some interesting implications for the future. I’m not gonna do the doom and gloom thing. Today, anyway.