La Zona Muerta

Say what you will about AEW (Gotch knows I do every week) but they are a company UNPARALLELED when it comes to Pay Per View. Is every show perfect? Not hardly… but they have to be the company with the biggest ratio of delivering the goods when money is on the line. My beloved WCW mostly sucked on PPV (well, the midcard usually brought it, but the shows were rarely good top to bottom), WWE is wildly variable AT BEST, and it’s difficult to actually constitute what counts as a PPV for New Japan these days (let’s not count those rotten STRONG shows). AEW almost always delivers a strong show, probably at least every four out of five times, and Saturday was certainly no exception.

I guess, before I launch into what I thought about the show, I should discuss the Zombie Princess in the room (or in this case, not in the room). I woke up Saturday morning to the not unpleasant news that Jimmy Jacobs had apparently left the company (reportedly a “resignation,” but who knows. Maybe Tony Khan was scalphunting. If anything, I’d almost prefer that).

Strange days

Look, I like “The Ballad of Jimmy and Lacy” as much as anyone who was buying ROH DVDs in 2005 or whatever… I’ve enjoyed some of his bloodbath matches… I enjoyed “The List of Jericho,” (I’ll admit it)… I was angry on his behalf for getting fired when the Bullet CLub “invaded” RAW and he took a picture with them and Jacobs is certainly not without worth… but it seems very clear to me that the sort of thing he likes is not really the sort of thing I’m looking to see on Dynamite. Maybe Scott D’Amore gets a TV deal and Jacobs can go there and reunite that team and everyone will be happier for it. Am I naive enough to believe that Jacobs leaving automatically “fixes” AEW’s TV presentation? No. Am I optimistic that his departure will make Khan and his remaining minions look at what’s not working with their TV? Yes. Hey, optimism is rare from me. LET ME HAVE THIS.

So, with that out of the way, and before I start looking at the show proper… it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I realize no one holds a gun to your head to make you watch the preshow… but there was a point where the preshows to AEW events were ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD. Sadly, this weekend, that was NOT the case.

The show kicked off with Brian Cage vs. Atlantis Jr. Actually, it kicked off with the absolutely INTOLERABLE “WrestleAunts,” but what can I say about them that won’t get me launched into the sun? Fortunately, they actually cut their segment short and got right into wrestling. Cage beat Atlantis Jr. for the ROH TV title. My wife was immediately set on edge. “They flew that guy out for THAT?” she snarled. “Foreign wrestlers shouldn’t fucking BOTHER with this company!” Sometimes, I don’t know that I disagree. The match was fine, and I assume they can probably get dates on Cage more easily than the son of Del Idolo de los Ninos, so I get it, finish-wise.

Anna Jay took on Harley Cameron, and it was… aggressively fine? MAybe less than that? Nothing really much to say, here. Some people I know REALLY like both ladies and… I dunno. Anna Jay is very young and still very green and can’t really carry another green wrestler. I mean, bless her for actually doing the STARDOM thing for a minute… but I could take or leave both gals.

Here’s where the preshow fell down the well for me. The MxM Collection or whatever their full name is had to finally come to blows with the Acclaimed, a group I used to enjoy but now has complete and utter go away heat with me. On Rampage, MxM laid out the Acclaimed in a somewhat more serious angle than usual and promised a third man in their corner for Saturday. WHO’S THE THIRD MAN? I’LL TELL YOU ON WRESTLEDREAM. The third man ended up being RICO CONSTANTINO, the hottest WWE manager from… I dunno… 2002? 2003? Now, no disrespect to the guy… this is a man who got SUPREMELY shafted by WWE… a man who would kill himself for the company and worked really hard, doing the best with what he got… but MIGHTY GOTCH ABOVE, this is a nostalgia act from the early 2000s. THIS SORT OF REFERENCE TO WWE FROM YEARS PAST IS NOT WHAT AEW NEEDS. What was really gross wasn’t even the idea of the WWE nostalgia grab… it was the stupid gay panic shit. OH NO, THEY’RE TOUCHING TIPS. Bill E. Gunn was appalled at the reveal, pointing out that Rico “tricked him into almost marrying a guy,” and Max Caster rapped about MxM being bad because they “wash each other’s asses.” Refresh my memory… but wasn’t Caster VERY AGGRESIVELY HITTING ON THE ENTIRELY HETROSEXUAL MAXWELL JACOB FREEMAN not too long ago? Billy “apologized” to Anthony Bowens for his “no homo” type comment. Bowens isn’t just a gay athlete… he is a PROUD gay athlete who doesn’t let being gay be his sole character trait… and meanwhile,, his partners are doing lame gay panic schtick that should have died out twenty years ago. The Acclaimed are lost, LOST I say, and I desperately wish every time they are on screen that Bowens would leave the act. Oh, by the way; Billy told Rico to “suck my dick!” before crushing him with the Famouser. Cool cool.

They showed Mercedes Moné in the back, blowing off Queen Aminata, not even knowing her name. I feel like that’s a shoot for some reason.

Tony Khan came out and tried to tell the crowd that this event was made to be a celebration of Antonio Inoki. He then failed to get the crowd to join him in a chant of “Ichi, Ni, San, Da!” Khan being a wrestling dork is great; I, too am a wrestling dork. We both celebrate wrestling and have respect for other eras. His problem sort of stems from assuming EVERYONE is a dork in as deep in the weeds as he is. Why is this show a tribute to Inoki? What does Inoki mean to Tony, to American fans? It just seems half assed and bizarre, an olive branch to someone who isn’t asking for one.

“That’s why I kicked the leg out of your leg!”

The “tribute” to Inoki continued with the final pre show match, a completely harmless but, at the same time, also pointless match with the Outrunners (sigh), the Conglomeration, the Dark Order and the Premier Athletes. I miss the days when the Dark Order (and specifically the Beaver Boys, Alex Reynolds and John Silver) were a semi-credible tag team threat; they are VERY talented and I love their tandem offense. Premier Athletes are perfectly acceptable pin eater types and have a great, cheap heat generating second tier manager in Smart Mark Sterling. This match was fine, I guess, but just felt like a random “get dudes on the show” type thing. Very much a match that would have been at home on Rampage, I suppose.

After the match, we found Kazuchika Okada in the back… a man without a match. WHY IS HE BOOKED, THEN. A tired Kyle O’Reilly paid him respect and asked for a match, since they both had nothing to do. Okada declined… bitch, and the match was on… except that it wasn’t. Interim whatever he is supposed to be Christopher Daniels banished both men from the building and, presumably, TO THE SHADOW REALM. This did not pay off in any way on the show to follow. WHY WAS THIS ON THE PRE SHOW, THEN? WHY WOULD YOU BUY THE SHOW BECAUSE OF THIS? Doing angles on PPV to presumably get you to watch Dynamite or whatever is very, VERY TNA, and we had TWO of them with this and the thing with Mercedes, who also did not have a match on this show.

I was a little bit on edge after all this… but fortunately, the show proper started with Hangman Adam Page, still in full “YOU HAVE WRONGED ME” mode against Switchblade Jay White.

WHAT AN OPENER THIS WAS.

Still crazy after all these… months

White and Page clearly had no problem absolutely SMASHING each other, and just subjecting each other to all sorts of nasty stuff. Page KILLED Jay with the ring apron a couple of times, as well as the steps, making HASH out of Jay’s spine. Jay retaliated by DESTROYING Page’s knee, including giving the knee essentially a DDT tye motion onto the entrance ramp to try to score a countout victory. Jay may not be a bad guy (for the moment), but he sure ain’t a good guy, either. Just a fantastic opener that had the terrific Tacoma (JUST DOWN THE ROAD FROM SEATTLE, they reminded us several times) crowd PUMPED. The crowd shit all over Page, and Page had to stop a couple times to acknowledge the crowd and flip them off for being mean. The finish was PERFECT. Page, on a damaged leg, attempted the Buckshot Lariat but got caught by Jay and slammed face first into the Blade Runner. Jay won CLEAN IN THE MIDDLE and you know what? I hope they actually go all the way with him. I don’t think Page is hurt by this loss, but he does need to win a big one soon.

Next up was Willow Nightingale vs. Mariah May… probably May’s best performance in AEW thus far. Willow is so likable… but man, they beat her like a drum. It may well be that the money is in the chase with her… I don’t know, but she rarely wins the big one. They had a perfect, peak opportunity here… Willow teased killing May with a powerbomb out of the corner… but alas, that was not the finish. May ranaed out and hit Storm Zero for the win. Obviously, anything May does is a holding pattern until TOni Storm returns but Willow deserves more than being a placeholder.

Katsuori Shibata vs. Jack Perry was… aggressively fine, nothing better. The DRAMA started when the match ended. Perry won in a DUMB way… Shibata, legit MMA veteran and long time wrestler (that is his gimmick, remember? THE WRESTLER) didn’t realize his own shoulders were down while he was choking Perry out, so he lost because the ref counted three. Oops. SO DUMB. Shibata didn’t understand THE CORE, FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF WRESTLING and Perry laid him out post match, which summoned Daniel Garcia. Garcia coming out triggered the return of MJF (sigh). MJF bragged about making movies (dunno if I’d brag about being in an Adam Sandler vehicle), got some cheap sports heat (the absolute easiest trigger to pull in the Pacific Northwest) and whatever, doing his same, old, tired schtick. This, however, further triggered the return of ADAM COLE, BAY BAY. Cole is an interesting one… a lot of people in the wrestling discussion spaces I hang out at HATE HIM, either for being too small or too self indulgent in matches. I really don’t get the hate. While I agree that some of his stuff in NXT was interminable, particularly by the end, I think he’s had good matches in AEW and I hope he can finally stay healthy for awhile. I’m happy to see him back, and he vowed to settle accounts with MJF. As long as we don’t have to relive too much in the ways of “DOUBLE CLOTHESLINE” and the like, I’m down with that.

Next was a match I was annoyed by at first, mostly because of the circuitous route we took to get to it… Ricochet vs. Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita. While AEW has set up Takeshita’s long simmering problem with Ospreay well enough… he got into this match by, y’know, interfering in a different one. He was, essentially REWARDED for doing something BAD. Ricochet, meanwhile, has had a number of, let’s be frank, okay AT BEST matches, setting up his match with Ospreay.

Despite how we got here, this ended up being an EXCELLENT match from all three participants and yet another star making performance from Takeshita, who may be the best single wrestler on the roster, even above Ospreay. The crowd was MOLTEN for everything Takeshita did, and he did a lot of spectacular shit. Trying to tell you all of the spots here would be pointless; suffice to say that all three guys were going all out and Ricochet finally looked like Ricochet pre WWE. My favorite thing may well have been at the beginning… Ospreay and Ricochet did their flip / parry sequence thing again where they land in the superhero pose (also known as THE THING) but Takeshita would have NONE of it and simply smashed both dorks, to a huge pop. Don Callis was sitting in on commentary and finally was compelled to use the screwdriver himself, since none of the dummies in his “family” can figure out how to do it properly. Ospreay caught him and hooked Callis up for the TIGER DRIVER but got laid out by a hooded assailant who was very, VERY obviously Kyle Fletcher. HE FINALLY TURNED! Some people might have found this to be overbooked horseshit, but this was the GOOD kind of dumb crap like this; this turn has been a long time in coming and they finally pulled the trigger. The guy I feel for is Mark Davis; I figured the Fletcher turn would coincide with Davis’ return but man, he may be left in the dust at this point. Anyway, Fletcher FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO A STABBITY STAB WITH THE SCREWDRIVER, and Takeshita BLASTED Ospreay with the Jumping Knee for the WIN. HELL YES. AEW booking has been all over the place lately, but this sets up a LOT of potential stuff and gives Ospreay lots to do. GREAT, GREAT STUFF. The only thing that irked me, ironically, came from Takeshita. There was a spot where he made an NXT shock / dull surprise type face and then a thinking face as he looked out to a table on the floor. The director then slowly panned to the table and then back to Takeshita, who made an “a ha!” type facial expression. OH FOR GOTCH’S SAKE, JESUS END IT ALREADY; I GET IT. Still, an excellent match, a great outcome and SO MUCH they can do with this.

Randomly, Jerry Lynn was in the back giving Orange Cassidy a pep talk. Um, Jerry? Cassidy WON his match earlier. What the hell was this?

Prince Nana came out to introduce Swerve Strickland, KING OF TACOMA. I did take umbrage with Swerve not having a match on this show, but we got local heroes Darby Allin and of course, Bryan Danielson, so it was okay. While this was very much a segment that should have probably been on Dynamite, rather than PPV, it was still well done. Swerve told us that things hadn’t been going well, his spine still tingles (no fucking shit!) and pain radiates into his hip (I can relate) but he’s cleared to wrestle. MVP came out to interrupt the proceedings, with (sigh) Shelton Benjamin in tow. hey, did he and Rico reminisce about OVW backstage? They’re from the same fucking class, after all. Swerve teased going with MVP, pointing out that Nana was a flakey scumbag who still sells weed to high school kids (a shoot? YOU BE THE JUDGE)… but at the end of the day… Nana is a scumbag… but he’s SWERVE’S scumbag. He told MVP to get bent. Big Bobby Lashley did NOT make an appearance… guess they are saving that for Dynamite, and I suppose they probably should. They didn’t really even tease him, honestly, but obviously he’s coming in.

Khan added Hologram vs. THE BEAST, MORTOS (grammatically correct only here at La Zona Muerta dot net) at pretty much the last minute. The match was… fine, but not great. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this was disappointing, but it sort of was as these guys can do more. They have a WAY better one in them. BOY, do I love Mortos. All BASE, no treble. I like Hologram well enough, but I wish they had pushed Rey Fenix this way or that Bandido was healthy enough to receive this push.

Then it was time for Darby Allin to die in the ring fighting Brody King. “I don’t care about this match but I want to see what Darby does,” Mrs. Convoy solemnly intoned (which means she DOES care, but I digress). To accentuate his seeming death wish, AEW aired a video implying that Darby SKITCHED ON THE BACK OF A SOUND TRANSIT BUS ALL THE WAY FROM SEATTLE TO TACOMA, which is probably at least a good two hour ride, bus time. Talk about living dangerously; Sound Transit buses do not have rear windows! Naturally, Darby and Brody killed each other with ring barricades, steps and all sorts. Darby won after goading Broday into getting on the ropes and pushing him off onto the flat side of the steps on the outside of the ring. A Coffin Drop and it was all over. Just brutality and they even followed the CODE OF HONOR after the match.

There was still a LOT of show to go at this point; it was near eight PM already. Obviously, those five match WWE PPVs are rip offs; five matches stretched into three or four hours. Too little actual WRESTLING content. AEW PPVs on the other hand, feel a bit overstuffed. I can’t complain about getting good matches, but I did stifle a yawn at this point; I had been locked in since 3:30. The crowd was getting a bit tired too, understandably since they had really been cranked for most of the matches.

NExt up was Private Party vs. the Young Bucks. They aired a video featuring PP’s trainer, THE AMAZING RED. HELL YEAH. new gear, new theme song (boo), new focus, a video from their trainer, the bad guys SUPER burying them on the mic… they all but flashed a sign saying PP were going to win, presumably as a “reward” for being severely geeked out by NuBCC.

They didn’t.

Oops.

Unfortunately, I think Party needed a STAND OUT performance here, and it… they just didn’t have it. The Bucks have picked their game back up lately and Zay Kassidy looked MOSTLY pretty good, but Marc Qwen still looked a bit slow and tentative. It really felt like a LOT of standing around waiting for the next spot to happen. There’s another problem; when Matt Jackson buried PP by saying they could never get past being midcarders… I’m not sure that he’s wrong. I was really hoping PP would rise above, have a star making performance and win, here but it wasn’t in the cards. Zay…? MAYBE they have something with Zay.

Next was the “boy, they finally pulled the trigger on a heel saying something bad about Jay Briscoe” match with Chris Jericho and Mark Briscoe. Match was certainly solid and Jericho worked VERY hard to put over Mark. I suspect he likes Mark a lot and if he’s done with the company (I believe it’s contract season for Jericho), he wanted to go out with a REAL put over job and not the shitty one he did for Takeshita. I wouldn’t be sad to see Jericho go away for awhile (or more than awhile) but whatever. Jim Ross (sigh) at one point defiantly told Excalibur that the late Mark Briscoe was beloved. Excalibur gently corrected Ross and it served to shut him up for forty five seconds or so, so that was something, I guess.

So… then we have the last match. I have been debating whether or not to write a couple thousand words about Danielson, his career and what he has meant to me. I think I will save that for another time; I’ve already written a lot about this show. Also, frankly, I’ve been kind of annoyed by the last six months of his booking and career, so I would rather revisit this subject when I feel less close to it. Suffice to say that the match was pretty much what you would have figured… cord strangulation, SHAFIRENCE (TM La Zona Muerta), knees, chokes, piledrivers, head drops and the NEW JACKING of the Final Countdown. GET YOUR MONEY’S WORTH, BIG TONE.

The finish saw Moxley go for another piledriver… changing his mind and instead making it the arm hooked GOTCH STYLE instead and then immediately transitioning into the Bulldog choke. Referee Bryce Remsburg called the match so technically, Bryan DID NOT QUIT. That ending felt a touch anticlimactic to me, but that was MORE than made up for by the follow-up.

NuBCC came out and attacked Danielson, even though he lost. Wheeler YUTA came out along with Darby Allin and the AEW FRONTLINE (also TM La Zona Muerta), which consisted of guys like OC and Private Party for the save but then YUTA FINALLY LISTENED TO HIS DISAPPOINTED WRESTLE DADS CLAUDIO AND PAC AND MOXLEY and TURNED on Danielson. Then, WROUGHT WITH GRIEF, he was FORCED TO SUFFOCATE HIM WITH A PLASTIC BAG. We were ROARING at home. “TURN, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” TREMENDOUS. The destruction of Danielson didn’t stop there… Darby was handcuffed to the ropes and Claudio Castagnoli PILMANIZED Bryan’s neck with a chair. Remember when Claudio was MAD at Danielson for doing the Continental Classic Tournament and pushing himself too far? THIS ALL ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE. This was an absolutely SAVAGE angle and the crowd was SILENT, DEADLY SILENT. This was all a tremendous bit of business. IT’S OKAY IF YOU WERE UPSET BY THIS ENDING; YOU WERE MEANT TO BE. Danielson will not be gone forever and has a clear path if / when he returns. Darby is set up to fight the BCC (or whatever they will be called) to get to Mox, which is the EXACT purpose of a stable; a bunch of obstacles set in front if a babyface to protect the heel champ. MJF is back. Adam Cole is back. They are heating up Jay White. Kenny Omega is likely returning after January fifth. AEW has a LOT of places they can go right now. Sure, a bad show on Wednesday will send everyone (including me, I don’t discount myself in this) into the doom doldrums but right now, it looks like they have a hundred things they could logically do and they could all work. I really hope it heats the company back up; they did a FANTASTIC job here and got a lot of people hand wringing. It wasn’t perfect; there was some heavy handed stuff… perhaps TOO heavy handed… they had Excalibur crying (!) on commentary which I thought was a little much… but Danielson will go away for awhile, and when we least expect it, he’ll return for revenge. We’ll have forgotten that his title matches weren’t always landing. We’ll want to see him kill YUTA, kill Claudio and especially kill Mox. Darby has been set up VERY well to be Mox’s rival in the interim. Gotch knows I’m not the most optimistic person but right now, AEW feels like they can really rebuild the heat and momentum the disastrous MJF era derailed.

So, all in all, a great PPV. Ignore the preshow, maybe skip a couple of the lackluster matches if you are on a time crunch and enjoy what a show that HOPEFULLY heralds AEW swinging back to a more serious, more engaging product.

Onto New Japan and King of Pro Wrestling next.