La Zona Muerta

Please forgive the crudity of my thesis statement. And the crudity to come.

I don’t like WWE. There are a number of reasons, and they apply to ME; I don’t apply that same judgement to YOU if you still enjoy the Stamford circus… as long as you don’t try to convince me why I should be watching, that is. It PAINS me to watch Japanese wrestling, indy wrestling, NON WWE WRESTLING and see WWE nibbling away at the corners. We live in a world where a washed WWE lifer stunk up the joint in New Japan and is currently TNA champion. We live in a world where Pro Wrestling NOAH, which assuredly already has its own problems, is all but begging for the next WWE superstar to make an appearance. Whatever Marigold is, people only seem to be excited when Io Sky (nee Shirai) shows up… and let’s face facts, we KNOW what Marigold is (a trafficking operation, if you will). I was forced to listen to English New Japan commentary the other day and the new guy was talking about the THREE I’S (intensity, intelligence and whatever the other one is) in a match that had SWEET FUCK ALL to do with Kurt Angle (and I’m not even certain dude was BORN YET when the “three I’s” were a going concern in real time). I watched Bloodsport on Sunday and no less than FOUR WWE competitors showed up and of course, everyone loved them, even when they sucked (Creed brother number two, I’m looking at you especially) but then when an ex WWE guy showed up and he made a slight dig at his former handlers in Stamford, everyone was like YEAH, FUCK THE FED.

Fuck it, maybe I will be a bit judgemental. Hypocritical swine.

The point is, I have a LOT of alternatives to watching WWE to get my fix so it’s aggravating when I can’t escape them.

So of course, this morning I wake up to see a photo of Tony Khan talking to Shane McMahon.

Sigh.

AEW has had a MASSIVE identity problem for probably roughly the last year and a half or so. They have had ex WWE agents and writers and wrestlers and office staff come in, all to varying degrees of success. I won’t say that bringing in someone from WWE is AUTOMATICALLY bad, but often times these people are locked into their ways (see Mansury, Mike; Buck, Pat and Punk, CM) and it tends to make for bad TV. People have been howling about the quality drop in AEW, me among them, for a long time, now.

So why the absolute FUCK would Khan even take a PHONE CALL from Shane? What POSSIBLE things could he have to say to Khan that would be of interest? Let’s look at Shane’s track record real quick:

As an in ring presence? Shane is terrible, a guy famous for falling off of shit.

As a businessman? Dude left WWE to conquer China with Pay Per View, failed, and came crawling back to daddy’s bosom.

As a wrestling mind? He single handedly capsized the 2022 Royal Rumble, making such outlandish demands and changes that his father had to make an example of him the next day. Imagine that! His dad, the serial rapist and sex trafficker had to LET SHANE GO BECAUSE HE WAS TOO MUCH.

I hate it when people call Tony Khan a money mark; he clearly built something successful with his own two hands and it’s something good, sustainable. However, TK does appear to be a mark in the sense that he marks out to rub elbows with a fucking clown who we made fun of even during the Attitude Era or whenever the last time Shane was deemed relevant. Hey, here’s an idea for free, maybe Shane can come on AEW TV and finally explain what the lockbox from his 2012 return was all about!

Stuff like this is seriously rattling my faith in AEW. I don’t want to watch WWE-lite. If I wanted that, I would watch TNA. I want to watch a fucking ALTERNATIVE.

Right now, I’m about on the cusp of giving up on AEW.