La Zona Muerta

No Nostradamus I, but as Nigel McGuinness stood in the middle of the ring, asking for the missing Bryan Danielson to be counted out due to forfeit, I looked over to the venerable Mrs. Convoy and said “Final Countdown hits and Dragon comes out?” Her (once considerable) love for Danielson has long since died (once you go Fed, you’re likely dead to her) so she merely snarled “Nigel better kill him.” Sadly, Nigel did not, in fact, kill him, but man, when Final Countdown hit, I was ready. WHAT A GREAT MATCH.

My problems with the match are nitpicks, and not a fault of the wrestlers. Well, one is maybe not a nitpick and that’s the following:

JIM ROSS SHOULD NO LONGER BE ON COMMENTARY BUT ALL OF THEM SHOULD LAY OUT WHILE FINAL COUNTDOWN PLAYS. OR WHEN WRESTLERS TALK. OR JUST LAY OUT MORE IN GENERAL. SHUT UP.

Apparently licensing the song costs somewhere in the low six figures for a limited number of uses (maybe it’s cheaper now that the Europe library has changed hands), so let’s try BEING QUIET while it plays, huh? It MEANS SOMETHING. Bryan Danielson coming out to Final Countdown in this miserable year of twenty twenty-four fucking MEANS something and these chucklefucks are yappin’ all over it. WE’RE TRYING TO HEAD TO VENUS OVER HERE.

That brings me to something else; the AEW audience isn’t really trained to know Final Countdown means something. That bass throb hits… in 2005 ROH? Every dork is on their feet. In AEW, that throb hits and people look confused.

Then, during the bout, Nigel and Bryan do a TON of callbacks to their classic matches… and NO ONE REACTS. London Dungeon? No one reacts. Rebound lariat? (SO much better than the one KOR does or Dean Ambrose used to do.) No one reacts. Dangerous tease of headbutting the ring post? No one reacts. I can’t even really blame AEW for that; they showed video packages and made the entire Danielson / McGuinness series available on YouTube… so that’s on the fans. As for the match itself… I don’t know that I could have asked for more. Chain wrestling, grappling, stiff, STIFF strokes, ANGRY spots… Nigel did NOT wrestle like a man who had missed thirteen years in ring… and I am VERY curious if this match was enough for him or if he decides to keep his hand in. It’d be a welcome return if he decides to stick around.

The commentary… man… it really took me out of the match. JR lying that he had watched the Danielson / McGuinness series and how it was “must see television,” the commentators wondering if Nigel was fit as he did a headstand on the ring post… trying to be cute here and there with this blood feud they had… look, I love Excalibur. Taz is good when he wants to be… but the two of them together sort of bring out the worst in each other, Tony Schiavone has been largely good, even great here and there (bless him) but he doesn’t have the product knowledge Ex does so he can’t really override anyone and JR is off in the corner slurring whatever free association that comes to mind. Regardless of my feelings about how unprofessional JR is and how he clearly doesn’t care for the product… he shouldn’t be on commentary just health-wise alone.

I dunno. The little stuff irked me.

Anyway, Danielson won; he had to. Nigel carried himself well and can fall back on the excuse of at least being able to take the champion to the limit even after a thirteen year break. Good match. Crowd didn’t get into it, and that sucks. I guess that’s what they get for running an “ROH nostalgia match,” as I saw someone call it.

Sigh.

HOOK and Roderick Strong had a match. Just as I was typing on Bluesky about what a waste of Roddy this was, HOOK won, Roddy shook his hand (!) and HOOK gave the FTW title back to his dad, effectively retiring it.

Huh. To the cynical eye, that sure looked like it could have been the end of HOOK. Guess we’ll see. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, frankly. I don’t think HOOK has advanced very much, and that’s not on AEW; he’s been given TONS of screentime. If that was it for HOOK, he should have lost on his way out.

Unsurprisingly, Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher tore the house down against the Young Bucks. I know there’s been talk about the Bucks being washed or done or whatever, but they looked great the last two weeks, and that’s not because Ospreay was carrying them or anything. Too much great stuff to list, but there was a sequence in the middle of the match where all four men killed each other with various spectacular moves, and it was GLORIOUS. Of course the Bucks retained, largely due to a communication breakdown between Fletcher and Ospreay driven by the dastardly Don Callis. I was COCKSURE Fletcher was gonna turn on Ospreay with a returning Mark Davis but alas and alack, that did not come to pass. THIS week, anyway.

Prince Nana came out to tell us Swerve Strickland is not yet cleared to wrestle. Understandable; dude landed on his fucking back on a cinder block! DON’T wrestle for awhile, dude. A certain, gravelly voice interrupted Nana… belonging, of course to *sigh* MVP.

Okay. Rant time. People CONSTANTLY bag on Tony Khan for signing every free agent when he doesn’t do that AT ALL. He has been, if anything, remarkably conservative in signing WWE castoffs, especially after having been burnt by some of them. Bobby Lashley… look. WWE split up the Hurt Business against the wishes of MVP and Lashley and even though crowds love GIANT ASS KICKERS, they never let Lashley just go out there and KICK ASS without some sort of dumb add on (Lashley’s wacky comedy sisters, CJ Perry as cuckold queen,etc.). Just let the dude go beat up people! That being said… the guy is fifty. I know TK scored well with Sting, Christian, Edge (at least HE thinks so) but I want AEW to be the place where the Kyle Fletchers, the Konosuke Takeshitas, the Lee Moriartys, the Daniel Garcias of the world run rampant, not the place where 50 year old WWE guys come to wrap up their career and cash one more big check. I’m not accusing Lashley of coasting; we don’t know yet. Maybe he has a big chip on his shoulder and he wants to do some cool stuff before he hangs it up. I hope so! I apparently have to watch the guy in AEW now, so I want him to be into it! I just hope TK doesn’t make this kind of signing a habit. Of course ,I just saw a picture of the Bucks with Shane McMahon this morning, so my hopes are not high.

Back to the show; MVP said Nana sucks and to give Swerve his BUSINESS (ooooooooohhhhhhhh, said the crowd) card. Like, why didn’t Nana rip it up and throw it in MVP’s face? Whatever. If Lashley does come in, obviously he can’t lose his first match, but neither should Swerve immediately eat a loss when he comes back! I dunno. No good will come of this.

Yuka Sakazaki lost to Mariah May. Poor Yuka, half Mariah’s size, but twice (or more than twice) the worker. This wasn’t very good and was largely just a vehicle to have Mina Shirakawa return.

WHAT. A. WASTE.

That led us to the final match, Jon Moxley versus Darby Allin… and, predictably, Moxley annihilated Darby forever. Boy, Darby takes dumb, dumb bumps. Entertaining for YOU, the viewer, sure, but dude doesn’t intend on being around very long… clearly. NuBCC interfered, Private Party retaliated (and got geeked AGAIN… you’d think they’d have to win at some point but that’s deeply unrealistic the more they get killed) and finally, post match (post Darby death, which leaves him pretty directionless), Bryan Danielson ATTACKED MOXLEY WITH (what I assume was Justin Roberts’) TIE. I HOWLED. However, Danielson said that he’s challenging Mox for the PPV, and that’s two weeks way. I assume Danielson LOSES there, which is interesting given that Wrestle Kingdom and the mystery AEW crossover show is the next day. Does dude need to pull out that badly? Hard to say.

Anyway, a fairly successful show. They ended up with at least 8000 people (maybe closer to nine) which had to be a relief as the show looked like it had cratered even as recently as two weeks ago. They need to tighten up their promotion. Also, we are five years in as of next week and THE FUCKING AUDIO STILL SUCKS.

There’s a chipper note to wrap up on. Well, let’s give you one more thing:

Ah, memories.