La Zona Muerta

I find myself coming out of Worlds End happy with the wrestling AEW can field, seemingly at the drop of a hat, but depairing at the focus on certain things, certain things I don’t like. I also despair at the state of (some of) AEW fandom, so desperate to tell you if you don’t like it that you don’t have to watch it.

Not liking it leading to not watching it is AEW’s EXACT problem right now.

As I type this, there are still prominent voices in AEW fandom BEGGING others not to ruin “the vibes” of the weekend by pointing out the main event of Worlds End wasn’t very good and the seeming direction of the shows going forward isn’t very promising. That’s not a strawman I made up, that was a person I saw just now, telling you not to listen to “wrestling media” that say the main event was bad.

I am not “wrestling media.” I mean, not really.

The main event was bad.

There’s an up and coming wrestling reporter with an actual journalistic background who I generally read and listen to (and would embrace more fully if it wasn’t for his seeming obsession with dumping on Dave Meltzer every few minutes) who opines that the worst of AEW fandom is equally as bad as the worst of WWE fandom. While I can’t quite co-sign that, ever since this past Friday, I have been muting and blocking people on my Bluesky timeline who, up until now, I have had no problem with. It’s Twitter, all over again. These are the type of people who get angry if you point out AEW is doing anything but well, who get mad when you don’t enjoy things the way THEY do. The ones unironically saying “let it play out” when it comes to the likes of the Toni Storm storyline, or the Death Riders stuff. You know, the stories that have been being “played out” for MONTHS, now. AEW has burnt away most, if not ALL of that “let it play out” type goodwill, but for these hardest of the hardcore, if you ruin things with your “vibes,” if you don’t just lean back and enjoy the stories, YOU’RE the problem. “Take your bitching to Twitter,” I saw one guy rail on Bluesky. “THIS is where we stay positive!” as if positivity über alles were some sort of virtue. Again; these aren’t strawmen. I saw plenty of “don’t watch then” type responses or “it’s not for you” type epithets tossed around when people reasonably pointed out that they were disappointed with the ending.

On Bluesky, after the zillionth “if you don’t embrace everything AEW does, you aren’t a true fan” type response after the show, I had to say “AEW fans stop telling other AEW fans how to feel (challenge: impossible)” and I was surprised at the amount of support my snark garnered. There is clearly an underswell of people fed up with certain aspects of AEW and being told that we are wrong for not enjoying everything on the shows… a push back against toxic positivity. As always, you get my thoughts here, good, bad or indifferent and that will NEVER, EVER change.

Between that and the MELTDOWN FREAKOUT about Suit Williams’ brief opinion piece on Friday, I’m pretty low on online AEW fandom at the moment.

“Of course,” you say, “Convoy, you don’t HAVE to interact with them.” Well, yeah, I don’t HAVE to do anything, but there are a core of people I enjoy “tweeting” with (I will never use the other word) when AEW is on. My sarcastic remarks and drawings and dumb observations seem to bring amusement to some and it’s a fun way to pass the time… but MAN, the eternally positive, even in the face of crap AEW stalwarts are a drag.

Anyway. This column isn’t supposed to be primarily about that. I want to talk about the show… which was largely good, just marred with some of the bad AEW tropes a lot of us have come to dislike. I’m concerned, now that the Continental Classic is over, that those tropes will take the TV back over. It’s a LONG time until the next Pay Per View (early March, I believe, with MAYBE that Australia stadium show in there somewhere as presumably the next big event they build up to but who knows), and I’m worried that means WE GET STORIES, KIDS, ENDLESS STORIES. Really, you could say that the CC stuff on the PPV was the best of AEW and most of the rest was, well… maybe not the WORST of the AEW, but definitely the stuff I’m less invested in, if we are being charitable. I want to get the bad or less good out of the way first, so…

The MJF / Adam Cole match was fine, nothing great, with a fairly limp, uncreative finish. OW, MY BALLS. I had opined elsewhere that Cole (and to a lesser extent, MJF) NEEDED to have a home run match here and this was like, I dunno, a solid double, maybe (don’t ask me; I don’t know what “sports” are), so it was perhaps a bit disappointing in that sense. I was so concerned that they had telegraphed Matt Taven and… uh… the other guy (HO HO, I KID. I know perfectly well his name is Maria Kanelis) were gonna turn, turn, turn on Cole, but instead the end of the match saw MJF cheat to win (OH, WHAT A SHOCK) and the remaining members of Undisputed Era Kingdom (including my beloved Roddy Strong and my less beloved but still liked Kyle O’Reilly) come out to chase the evil rich guy away and embrace. I think those guys are stronger together than apart so it’s FIIIIIIINE, I guess with a heavy sigh, but I think even the most stalwart AEW defender is ready to see this storyline move on to the done folder. I don’t know where an united Undisputed Kingdom fits in right now. I don’t know where MJF fits in right now. They seem off in their own Codyverse universe of stories. When does MJF say “Hey, Deathriders, you are dumb and poor?” When does Adam Cole say “Hey, you have a gang, well, I do too”? Answers on a postcard.

Also, we seem to have successfully shamed Cole out of the spray tan business but boy, Max was all too happy to take his place. The mat was GROTTY with spray tan when that match finished. Yeeeech.

Thunder Rosa / Mariah May was alright, I guess. The build up was weak, the match was what it was; a plunder match that they worked hard in. It seemingly tricked people into thinking Rosa was winning because her dad was there but obviously May will not be losing until this Toni Storm business reaches it’s conclusion. The match was definitely overrated in the heat of the moment because of a couple of nasty bumps but it seems today no one is really talking about it,so…

Mercedes Moné and Kris Statlander. Look, I realize Moné wasn’t losing with the Tokyo Dome a week away but man, THIS was the night for Stat to win and… nothing. Crickets. The crowd was DESPERATE for Stat to win, here. If there is one killer issue that AEW has, it’s that AEW is TERRIBLE at hitting the peak. It was a good match, hard hitting, but I SWEAR to you that it looked like Moné lost Stat on an apron piledriver. I guess it was just REALLY WELL WORKED. *cough* It made me scream out loud.

I dunno; more troubling to me was that people, including a couple I actually value the opinions of, seemed more excited about the length of this match surpassing the twenty minute mark than anything else. I don’t… look. Quantity does not equal quality and I don’t understand the curve most North American women’s (yes, it’s WOMEN’S for Gotch’s sake) wrestling seems to get graded on. This was a good match. It most definitely was not match of the evening as I saw some eager to proclaim before the show had wrapped just because YAY WOMEN’S WRESTLING. I’m not here to yuck your yum, but I wish that matches were all graded for their individual merit, not because of their length or who was in them. There is a LOT of investment in trying to say “See? Moné was worth it!” amongst a certain subset of fans. I would argue that until the last month or two she hasn’t been worth it AT ALL. When BIG DAVE doesn’t give this the full fiveboy, there will be a lot of people angry because… well… I don’t know why, really.

Konosuke Takeshita and Will Hobbs had a decent match. Would have been GREAT on a Dynamite… dunno if it was a elite (ho ho) PPV match but it was fine. Hobbs will only get better working people like Takeshita. Takeshita… He’s an endless source of bafflement and confusion for me… I’m of the belief that he should be made a MUCH bigger deal than he is currently. He should be on that Kyle Fletcher style trajectory. I just find myself wishing he would backdoor into New Japan and become the KING of that place because they desperately need a talent as big as his.

Then, the only other thing to talk about before I gush about the CC matches would be the main event.

No, I’m not mad because Hangman Adam Page or Jay White or Orange Cassidy didn’t win (and I LOVE OC but was anyone TRULY clamoring for him to win? Even he said he didn’t want to!)… I knew Jon Moxley would retain. I think they had largely corrected the silliness of the three men somehow having to be “Team AEW,” for the most part on the shows leading up to this. I mean, you get that same sort of dumb stuff in any average Royal Rumble where maybe two tag team partners or two friends draw early and decide to fight when they should like TEAM UP until the end and THEN fight. I and I’m sure you, are used to dumb dumb babyfaces doing dumb dumb babyface things. It’s just that this match ended fairly abruptly (where were my stopwatch homies then, eh?) and didn’t really have anything in the match itself to write home about, especially when you have workers of such a high caliber. Then, perhaps worst of all, the camera kept cutting to Christian Cage, happy to remind us that he has a dopey cash in “title opportunity.” Now, I wish he’d just hurry up and cash it in so we never have to worry about it again. Oh, by the way, that weird thing where Christopher Daniels singled out Adam Page on Wednesday and told him that Page had a friend if he wanted it… the thing most people were confused by, but AEW defenders and LORE KEEPERS swore meant Hanger was turning because he had been offered redemption? Didn’t come up. Wasn’t a factor at all.

It was a filler match on a filler PPV, designed to get us past this leg of the story and onto the next.

And here’s where things REALLY took a turn for the worse. FTR came out as part of the post match shenanigans… and for a moment, that awful promo where they AGREED with what the Death Riders were doing flashed before everyone’s eyes. Was it maybe not a bad promo after all an they’re here to join the De…?

No, they were just here to herald the return of Edge.

Yay.

So Hangman Page, essentially the MAIN CHARACTER OF AEW SINCE DAY ONE, Orange Cassidy, one of the two men who the Death Riders story has focussed on FOR THE LAST TWO AND A HALF MONTHS and Jay White, the former IWGP champion begging, CHAMPING AT THE BIT TO BE LET INTO THE MAIN EVENT SCENE… none of those dudes are good enough to be the man to dethrone Mox, but a wizened EDGE is?

I know Tony Khan doesn’t see him this way, and the AEW fans who have taken Copeland to their bosom and who fondly call him “Cope” (boy, there’s something potentially Freudian there) don’t see it this way, but I can’t help but see it as the guy who was in WWE for nearly 25 years coming in to save the day because the best and brightest of AEW CAN’T GET THE JOB DONE AGAINST A JON MOXLEY WHO IS A BADASS MONSTER ONE MINUTE AND A CHICKENSHIT HEEL THE NEXT. Who knows? Maybe FTR turn on “Cope” during THE MOTHER OF ALL SIMULCASTS on Wednesday and we need to LET IT PLAY OUT, but the Death Riders thing, which could have been cool… it’s just DOA. At some point, who do you blame? AEW? TK for vetting it? Or Moxley who apparently held his breath until he turned blue to do this angle?

How many licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? THE WORLD MAY NEVER KNOW.

Okay, that’s the last of my venom. PROBABLY. Instead, let me tell you something.

Despite a couple of missteps, the Continental Classic this year was EASILY better than this year’s N1 Victory, this year’s G1 Climax (not that hard; G1 this year STUNK)… it was better than any wrestling tournament. Is it comparable to the G1 insofar as a new tournament joining the ranks as they keep insisting on commentary? Man, that’s a tough one for me to answer. I guess the answer is that it’s COMPARABLE but the prestige is going to be a long time in coming. That being said, if we keep getting matches like these, the prestige will be there soon enough. I think there had been some weird dissatisfaction floating around about the tournament for whatever reason, but it had a LOT of good matches, a couple of GREAT matches (maybe several) and some literal MOTY candidates in the semis and final. There was a little bit too much STORYTELLING woven in through out the tournament, but the booking actually made those weird flourishes make sense and everyone involved in planning the tournament, the matches and the wrestlers themselves should all be very pleased with how everything came out. Yes, there was stuff that bothered me (the BEAST Mortos getting skunked, the cheating to win in a no nonsense tournament, etc.) but it would be impossible to argue that Kyle Fletcher didn’t come out of this better, Mark Briscoe of all people didn’t come out of this better, Kazuchika Okada didn’t have some of his luster restored, Ricochet’s new geek heel character didn’t finally connect with fans, etc. KENNY FUCKING OMEGA CAME BACK and grudgingly surrendered the Continental Title to Okada (for PERFECTION, he should have had to belt it around his waist). I want the AEW where the most important thing is Okada killing Will Ospreay in the prestigious tournament final and then Kenny Omega comes out to point out that he’s still the final boss. THAT’S THE SHIT THAT GIVES ME GOOSEBUMPS, not Edge and Christian farting around while Jon Moxley plays tough guy. It’s things like this that drive fans like me to despair; this is what AEW could be, ALL THE TIME IF THEY WANTED. The literal best wrestlers in the world endlessly clashing in a battle for supremacy. IT STILL GIVES ME GOOSEBUMPS JUST TYPING ABOUT IT.

*ahem* Sorry. Got worked up there for a second.

Anyway, Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher absolutely KILLED EACH OTHER in a match that was SPECIAL. I can’t believe there was a time where I didn’t like Fletcher.

I.

WAS.

A.

FOOL.

Ospreay gigged EARLY and by the end had bled so much that they HAD TO CHANGE OUT THE CANVAS. I don’t like blood in every match but in the right match it adds SO MUCH. This was the best kind of loss, too… while I had hoped Fletcher was going all the way, Ospreay won here and hopefully that sets up the rubber match, maybe at that Australia show. Ospreay proved YET AGAIN that he should be the guy AEW is built around, going forward. Everything he does looks crisp, dangerous. He’s one of the best wrestlers I’ve ever seen and he’s come so far from the guy who did flips and yelped all the time eight or nine years ago. He’s such a complete package, just the dumbest, dopiest babyface but your heart reaches out to him, connects with him. He’s the best.

And Kyle Fletcher? Suffice to say that HE WILL SURPASS OSPREAY.

Then we come to the matter of Kazuchika Okada. The discourse about him has been endless; he’s washed, he’s checked out, he’s on the Shinsuke Nakamura retirement plan, etc, etc. etc. All of this ignores the great matches he’s had this year on PPV. You telling me that match with PAC was bad? Gedoudda here. The “trouble,” if there is any, is that Okada is not great at being a ten minute TV wrestler. I think he knows that and instead has concentrated on being a wacky TV character. You can tell people this until you are blue in the face, but the idea to be wacky COMES FROM OKADA, WHO IS, IN REAL LIFE, A BIT OF A WACKY DUDE. Is it what I wanted? Nah, but he is good at being silly, I suppose a bit like Kurt Angle who I always preferred as a badass, but who was REALLY good at being a yutz. The other thing about Okada, and you can say this about his in ring in New Japan, is that it takes him a while to get going. It’s when he hits that second gear where he begins to shine. I think we saw that Saturday night… he had a good, a VERY good match with Geekochet Ricochet and the a legit MOTY candidate with Ospreay in the final. Another cool thing? The Rainmaker has been reset into a finishing move. He hit ONE to put Ricochet down. In NJPW towards the end, he would have to hit upwards of a dozen, sometimes. PS: I know some online pundits are still BAFFLED by making Ricochet a dork, but NOT ONE HUMAN BEING ON PLANET EARTH was happier than me when Prince Nana handed out toilet paper to the crowd and Swerve Strickland led the crowd in literally burying Ricochet. Mrs. Convoy was so moved she made this:

IFYKYK

The new dork version of Ricochet is PERFECT; he still does your flips and tricks but now, instead of being a bit of an asshole, big leaguing AEW regulars, he’s now a FULL BLOWN asshole, openly talking about how he’s better and then gets punked. I have been one of the most vocal about disliking him in AEW but this new role was calculated, executed well and has been a tremendous way to finally incorporate Rico, something he desperately needed. Don’t let your podcast or pundit of choice tell you different.

So let’s get to the good stuff, the GREAT stuff, the BEST STUFF. Will Ospreay versus Kazuchika Okada.

Will, bless his empty head, cut a tremendous babyface promo in the back, woozy from blood loss (probably legitimately), looking like he had been in three different car accidents in a row and doped up on BABYFACE POWER, begging the crowd to carry him through the match. BLESS HIS HEART. Okada came out, cool and collected, the greatest tournament wrestler of all time, as commentary stamped into us.

So Okada only went and proved that he, in fact, is the best tournament wrestler of all time.

Look, I hate NXT Face (TM) as much as the next person, but this is undeniably the face that launched 1,000 gifs

Ospreay came out, bandaged and bloody. Like, they don’t have a shower at this facility?

“Don’t mention the war. I got away with it once…”

I was confused for a second; Will resembled Basil Fawlty with a huge head bandage that you knew would either be soaked through or missing within a few minutes as he wobbled his way to the ring. The bandage didn’t last long, as you might have guessed. The two men clashed, precision dropkicks struck arms, back breakers were applied. There was a point where Okada literally dropkicked Ospreay out of the air! Phenomenal counter wrestling. Phenomenal wrestling, period. They traded lariats, Ospreay went for POSSIBLY the Tiger Driver and instead hurked Okada up for Stormbreaker… but Okada managed to finally hit one REALLY CLEAN Rainmaker and won the damn thing, ’cause he could. This, my friends, was beautiful pro wrestling and an example of why I get bummed or pissed when AEW doesn’t deliver shit like this every time out of the gate BECAUSE THEY COULD BE DOING IT LITERALLY ALL THE TIME. They have the single best roster EVER ASSEMBLED IN WRESTLING HISTORY and they could be THIS. If they wanted.

So ultimately was this a good show? Yeah, sure, it had at least two and, depending on your preferences, four matches most would say go out of your way to see. On the other hand, it had a MARKED example of the division between the two faces of AEW; the one where the best wrestlers in the world battle in a never ending game of King of the Mountain, and the one where we need to find out who was driving the Hummer who will be next to STEP UP to battle Jon Moxley and the Death Riders in a never ending battle for strange, ill explained motivations and constantly shifting alignments. I really, truly hope that the shift to MAX means we get some of this nonsense straightened out and Dynamite in particular goes back to being the best wrestling show literally ever, since it’s the only thing we’ve got as far as big time alternatives go.