La Zona Muerta

“Psst. C’mere. Yeah, YOU.” I beckon you with a crooked finger.

“Just a moment of your time, please,” I grin, slipping my arm around you in a friendly, perhaps overly friendly manner.

“Ah, you’ve got an eye for quality, don’t you? I can tell right off the bat by the way you dress, the skeptical air you carry,” I grin as we gambol forward.

“You’ve got the kind of face that knows a good deal when it sees one… no fooling you. No sir. That’s a rare trait, my friend, and it’s exactly why I’ve been looking to meet someone just like you.” You stop, a quizzical look plastered on your face. I take a deep breath to continue, sensing extolling your virtues isn’t quite getting the job done. I have to sweeten the pot.

“You see, I’ve got an opportunity… no, not an opportunity, my dear fellow, a fortune… waiting for someone of your discerning taste. Now, I’ve been in this game a long, long time, and let me tell you… nothing works like a sure thing. I’ve got an inside track on an investment, just a little something, that’ll turn pennies into pounds.” Your eyes grow wide and I poke your ribs amiably.

“You know the type of thing I’m talking about, right? A little bit of luck, and before you know it, you’re counting money like you wouldn’t believe. But here’s the kicker, pal… this deal’s so good, it’s too good for most people to even wrap their heads around. You’ve got to have a keen mind to spot a diamond in the rough, and that’s why I like you.” I sense I have my fish on the hook and I take my final drag on the pole, dragging you in for all I’m worth.

“Now, I won’t ask for much up front. Oh, heavens no, nothing like that. Just a little starter sum, a seed investment, to get things rolling. It’s nothing, really, just a mere trifle compared to what you’ll be pocketing when the deal closes. You’ll be laughing all the way to the bank, I assure you. And I’m telling you, no one else knows about this… no one else knows what I know. They’re all out there, scrambling for the scraps, while you… you’ll be sitting pretty.”

You look surprised… but you reach for your billfold. If you were looking closely at my eyes, you’d surely see them glinting in the dim light.

Jeff Jones’ wonderful painting for Witzend issue nine

Grift.

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” – PT Barnum

“Yes, this is the only Bible endorsed by President Trump!” – godblesstheusabible dot com

“I can help save you hundreds of dollars every month, get a better rate, and even get rid of your PMI! Seriously, your payments are going down like Nitro ratings in 2000!” – Eric Bischoff

Grift.

The Oxford dictionary defines grift as “engaging in petty or small term swindling” or “a petty or small term swindle.” That’s not super helpful… let’s see what it has to say about “swindle.” Ah, here we go:

“Using deception to deprive someone of money or possessions” or “to obtain money fraudulently.”

There, now THIS is pod racing. We have something we can work with.

Hopping on the anti-AEW grift train, for the most part, seems like good business. Good way to score clicks,to get views. Lemme make a wacky Tony Khan Photoshop. Hell, I don’t know Photoshop… let me ask AI to do it! Ah, here’s a picture of TK embracing someone awkwardly. Now, let me add a clickbait headline like “TONY KHAN FAILS HIS FANS” and… perfect!

If you make a loud enough noise for long enough, maybe WWE surreptitiously contacts you (through layers of third parties, of course) and shares incomplete ratings info with you or questions the validity of AEW’s business deals. Nothing too incriminating, of course. You share this “insider” info with your following… your followers share it with their own. The info, out of context or incomplete as it might be, spreads. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, if you do it long enough or prove yourself to be just slightly useful… WWE gives you a token of their esteem and send you a custom cheese board with a WWE logo emblazoned upon it (only $23.40 per unit if you buy at least 25 of them according to leading website ‘promotions dot com’). You’ve made it! Welcome to easy street.

That’s what we’re talking about when we talk about “grift” when it comes to AEW. Assholes spreading misinformation or incomplete information in hopes of making money (or cheese board esteem) off of it.

You know what ISN’T grift?

Publishing an article saying you don’t like something happening in AEW right now. Saying that all metrics are down (except for that fabulous TV deal, obviously). CRITICISM IS NOT A GRIFT. SHARING FACTUAL INFORMATION IS NOT A GRIFT.

Someone publishing a three hundred word think piece on a place like Voices of Wrestling (full disclosure, I have contributed there, in the absolute slightest fashion, and am an active member in their discord server) stating a negative opinion about AEW isn’t making money off of it. They aren’t trying to hurt AEW. They aren’t trying to halt their momentum in any meaningful fashion, any more than I do when I come here every week and rave about the stuff I like and whine about the stuff I hate in wrestling. They are sharing their opinion, and for the most part with VoW contributors, it’s an INFORMED opinion, the only kind that’s worth a damn.

Some AEW fans can’t accept even the slightest criticism of AEW and I get it, to a degree. AEW is over scrutinized and unfairly attacked literally every single day. People who have no business talking about ratings and business metrics talk WITH THEIR WHOLE CHEST about them as if they are experts. “Experts” told us AEW was unsustainable and have ended up with egg on their face.

And yet.

Things are not all sweetness and light in the land of the Elite. They have been forced to downsize on the touring front as ticket sales falter. TV ratings have gotten softer (although they are not alone in that). Those things may not matter to YOU, but they matter, and they will matter even more as AEW tries to course correct.

I get it. You don’t want to hear about that every five minutes. I unsubscribed to POST Wrestling (who feature a journalist I genuinely respect) over their unwarranted doom saying. I stopped working on Observer Live in part due to what I perceived as unfair scrutiny of AEW that wasn’t being evenly applied to the other guys. But I’m begging, here… you have to understand that someone saying something you find disagreeable ISN’T NECESSARILY A GRIFT. That’s all.

The older I get, I find that the thing I value the most is critical thinking, and it drives me ABSOLUTELY SPARE when I see people who should be more than capable of using it fail to because AEW is “the good company.”