La Zona Muerta

Obviously, this is not really a political blog… this is a place for me to whine endlessly about wrestling and comic books and other childish nonsense, but some things are bigger than “politics,” whatever THAT means. I’m devastated at the outcome of the US presidential election and afraid for my brothers and sisters who aren’t lilywhites or straight like me and mine. I’ll be alright (probably; my bank account won’t be, and I assume that’s something we’ll ALL face despite our skin colors, gender, country of origin or sexual orientation) but I’m worried that my wife won’t be able to get life affirming medical care she may need should something go south. I’m worried that I won’t be able to obtain a passport should I need to leave this place. I’m worried about the guy with the worm eaten brain talking about removing fluoride from the water supply. I’m worried about the fact that the country I live in will be so irreparably damaged by the time I’m fifty that I won’t be able to live comfortably in the second and final half of my life. And all of that PALES in comparison to what my trans friends must feel. Or immigrants. Blacks. Latinos. WOMEN.

I promise not to go on and on about it, but look, it’s gonna creep in at the edges. I can’t pretend it won’t. I can say this; this blog, for whatever that’s worth, will never, ever be a place where you have to worry about me saying weird shit about trans people or the reproductive rights of women or anything like that.

So, anyway, wrestling.

And when I needed two hours of mindless nearly naked dudes grappling type distraction the most? The TBS app (how I watch the show live on the West Coast) shit the bed completely, probably due to Daylight Savings Time, but who knows. It blithely informed me that I needed to upgrade my cable package. I pay over two hundred dollars a month for cable I DON’T EVEN WATCH; you’d BEST BELIEVE TBS is included. It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means; time to be screwed for living on the West Coast for the SECOND time this week.

Ha hah. Cough.

After trying a couple of different solutions (pulling the show up on the iPad and casting it, looking for a stream) I decided to give up until eight pm and twiddled my thumbs. These shows being on MAX can’t come soon enough. I probably won’t be able to afford cable by the time January rolls around, anyway.

“Play a video game,” the ever wise Mrs. Convoy growled. I thought this was a capital idea, so I installed the “Ode to Castlevania” DLC for everyone’s favorite pseudo game, Vampire Survivors. BOY, have I wasted a lot of time playing that game (or perhaps more accurately, moving the little man around, watching the game play itself and feeling the endorphin rush of NUMBERS, ENDLESS NUMBERS).

Ah, jeez, it’s been awhile since I’ve played this. I forget what to do. I’ma cheat and use my Red Death (NOT Daniel Garcia) reaper man. He’s fast and has a LOT of health.

Suck my sickle, scum.

Ah hey, I’ve obtained the “Castlevania” map. Oh, you have to go to Dracula’s castle. I’VE PLAYED VIDEO GAMES BEFORE; IT’S GONNA ROTATE.

Yes, I will take Spellstring / Spellstorm / Spell whatever the other one is. Just have to stay alive. Oh god, it’s eating up three slots and will take FOREVER to evolve.

“What if you have to stand by a ledge and wait for a tornado?” the missus points out. WHAT A BAD NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE. REFERENCES.

Hey, it’s the half bull, half bones guy from Rondo of Blood. “Is that a brahma bull?” the missus asks. WRESTLING CONTENT.

I just freed, uh… Lane Belmont? What game is he from? Is that like one of the DS games, maybe? MORE LIKE LAME BELMONT, AMIRITE.

I was right, I WAS RIGHT, THE ONE ROOM ROTATES. Well, sorta. YOU rotate, really.

Next, I saved JULIUS Belmont. Can I get, I dunno, SIMON, please?

Ooh, a purple chest; that means I can pick an arcana. Should I take Mad Groove and break the game? We’re getting pretty close to thirty minutes and my arms are too short to box with God… let’s do it.

YES FULL SPELLSTORM UNLOCKED. You fuckers are gonna BELIEVE IT, now.

What does Sacred Claw do? *five minutes later* HELL YEAH, SACRED CLAW.

Okay, my time’s up and I just got gang raped by reapers. DON’T YOU RECOGNIZE ONE OF YOUR OWN. Tiramisu won’t be enough to get me outta this one.

I, uh… guess I need to have some wrestling content here in this wrestling column about wrestling so… here’s a picture of Rush *runs away*.

The heeeeeeeerrrrrrrns

After a couple of hours’ worth of pitched battles with Castlevania types (including some dude with a mace, somehow the SINGLE WORST WEAPON I HAVE EVER USED IN VAMPIRE SURVIVORS, which means when you evolve it into it’s final form, it’s probably amazing), the eight o’ clock hour rolled around. I’m normally more than half an hour away from AEW at this point of a typical Wednesday evening and desperately trying to watch non wrestling related things but here we are. THIS BETTER BE GOOD.

Here we go, the Hurt Business Syndicate. WHY DO THEY DO THE OPENING MATCH INTERVIEW EVERY WEEK, NOW. START WITH A HOT MATCH. Hey, MVP used his full (very clearly real) name, MONTEL VONTAVIOUS PORTER. And called Shelton Benjamin the “Gold Standard.” And said that Bobby Lashley, was indeed the ALMIGHTY Bobby Lashley. Fortunately, “P” (remember last week? That’s what the cool kids call him) didn’t somehow say ALL MIGHTY, which is 1) dumb and 2) trademarked so the barrage of WWE branding was excusable, I guess. Listen, I know everyone’s excited but to me it’s like they are banging me over the head saying “we are from WWE. We are from WWE.” Essentially, the point of all this was that if MVP hands you one of his (only printed on one side so therefore cheapo) business cards, it’s your golden ticket, but if you refuse, you get beat up like Swerve Strickland did. This summoned Swerve, Prince Nana and a bag of coffee, all held back by the increasingly small and inept REFEREE CORPS. Swerve looked CRAZED with a length of chain. He simply growled / screamed “Bobby Lashley? FULL GEAR!” and that was pretty much that.

Next up were the now official DEATH RIDERS (hey, why no MOXKAI CLUB) vs. DARK Orange Cassidy and Darby “I’m here for a good time, not a long time” Allin. That kid takes the dumbest fucking risks, but like a buddy of mine said, “Hey, it’s his body.” True enough, I suppose. Match was fine, even good, but Christ, was the finish dumb. OC was maybe fixing to win when Marina Shafir just strolled in and unceremoniously kicked Bryce Remsburg in the face. Er, that’s it. No repercussions, just an attack on a ref. I’m not gonna lie; many are the times where *I* have wanted to kick Bryce Remsburg in the face myself but… c’mon, man. C’MON. JUST BEAT SOMEBODY. They took like five minutes to set up killing OC some more (and having Wheeler “Turncoat” YUTA do it, specifically), but finally, eventually, inevitably the Conglomodorks came out and saved the day, setting up the next match.

The next match (a FIGHT WITHOUT HONOR for those of you not soaked and steeped in Ring of Honor lore) with the (sigh) Learning Tree was largely what you think it would be so I’m gonna go back to something I saw this morning. You want to know one of the reasons I don’t do whatever it is that I did for Observer Live anymore? It’s not the main reason, but it’s definitely one of them… A certain radio show host, let’s call him, um… Zryan, apparently was upset that AEW did not clarify that the former BCC were now the Death Riders.

Let’s see:

1. They mentioned it on the IT DOES EVERYTHING app
2. It was written on the upcoming match graphic
3. It was made clear on the Tony Tron during the entrance with giant, throbbing letters that said DEATH RIDERS
4. It was made clear on commentary by Excalibur that the group was Moxley and his Death Riders (that sounds like an 80s cartoon, up there with Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors or Sabre Rider and the Star Sherrifs) several times

The fact that there was ANY confusion after taking all of this into account (plus the fact that it was revealed Moxley himself trademarked the term last week) is WILLFUL IGNORANCE. It just is. If I had heard ONE SECOND of this on WOL, I would have turned the show off in disgust. Listen, I don’t care if YOU like AEW… I don’t always some weeks… but all I ask is that when you knock it, you be fair. There has been a LOT of unfair criticism coming out of that particular camp for YEARS, now. “Zryan” also apparently didn’t know that Nana has been hawking his overpriced coffee for MONTHS. I mean… what can you even say?

What else? Oh, at some point there was a match with Adam Cole and Malakai Black. It was dull and had another bad finish. Malakai sat down and said “kick me,” and Adam Cole complied. THE END. It was like Black was (finally) leaving to go (back) to the other place but sadly no. Maybe he just REALLY wants Cole to get that match with Maxwell Jacob Friedman? The work was slow and plodding. Not awful, just there.

Cole was the most putrid color of yellow this week. I joked that I didn’t know whether to use the orange yellow or yellow orange crayon to replicate his skin tone if I were using the official AEW coloring book. Hey, an official AEW coloring book! TK, call me. I have some ideas.

They do this other dumb thing now with Cole matches; the camera will cut to a brooding MJF sitting in Xanadu or whereever, grimly watching Cole’s matches as he edges closer to three wins (and say, why does Max get to make those determinations on who has to do what to wrestle him? Must be nice). So, is HE sending AEW that footage and they patch it in to the show on the fly at the most dramatic opportunity? Why is it filmized when nothing else on the show is? It’s just a weird thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief a little.

Some other stuff happened. Jay White and Hangman Adam Page had a wild backstage brawl that spilled outside to the ring. My favorite bit was when Jay got the mic and said the fans would enjoy seeing White beat up Page. Page looked around at the cheering fans and yelled at them for cheering. My heart then grew three sizes too big. I think eventually Jamie Hayter and Penelope Ford settled their MASSIVE feud, three whole weeks in the making, in a decent enough match. At some point, I GUESS Kamille tried to run over Kris Statlander with a truck? Or sideswiped some barricades she was standing near? I dunno. All very dumb.

Christian told HOOK some hard truths about the career of TAZ. Shots fired at the other show happening tonight? No.

Finally, it was time for the main event. Kyle Fletcher and Konosuke Takeshita are such a fun, evil team. Ricochet (sigh) came out and blithered and blathered but eventually got to the point that his partner was someone the Don Callis family left behind… PUH PUH PUH PUH POWERHOUSE HOBBS. HELL YES. Hobbs looked jacked, swole, cut and BOLO (TM Joel Gertner) and moved well in the ring, doing all of his power stuff. He and Takeshita had a couple of cool showdowns. Takeshita is the best guy in wrestling and Fletcher is trying his best to be right up there with him. Ricochet is, well, Ricochet, and take that however you want to. They didn’t even mention his rather heelish challenge of ZED ESS JAY for the NJPW / AEW crossover show! Weird.

Anyway, Ricochet does this long, convoluted thing for a finish where he makes a finger gun, points it, acts like he’s loading it, points it again and then does like a running lariat dealie. It’s goofy but whatever. The Callis Family came out to get their heat back. Mark Davis in no uncertain terms came out to say that Fletcher was going down the wrong path and they got into it, leading to the return of Will Ospreay who showed NO compunction in attacking Fletcher. I feel so bad for Davis who is gonna get screwed in the coronation of Fletcher; I hope they can do something with the guy. Ospreay, as always, looked like a massive star and this is an excellent feud. A good way to close out the show.

This wasn’t my favorite Dyanamite (the two really dopey finishes brought me down… in fact, the whole lackluster Cole match had me wishing I had just kept playing Vampire Survivors) but, app issues aside, it was a highly digestible two-ish hours that helped set the groundwork for stuff to come. Pretty much just what the doctor ordered.

Another week in the books. Be good to each other. Be safe. Be strong.