La Zona Muerta

Sometimes I feel bad when I don’t enjoy Dynamite as much as everyone else seemed to. Staring here at the blank screen, I’m not even really what I want to say or even if I have ANYTHING in particular to say about last night’s episode. I get it; people WANTED to enjoy the show, to keep the streak of hot TV going, especially in light of how DIRT ROTTEN the discourse around AEW has been the last couple of days… but I dunno. There was only one REALLY good match on the show last night, with a couple of okay ones. There were also a couple of AMAZING, perhaps all time promo segments, so it’s not like it was a bad episode; far from it… I just don’t think it was quite the home run others must have thought it was. The crowd was definitely game for everything, which always helps, of course.

I had an “argument” with a person online recently, someone chastising me for being too negative about a show, especially in light of everyone else saying how much they liked it (the show in question being New Japan Pro Wrestling’s New Beginning in Osaka. By the way, I WASN’T negative on the show and was writing my live reactions to it on Bluesky, but I was lamenting the what I perceive as dire state of the foreign talent because I refuse to be gaslit about the likes of Drilla Maloney or Gabe Kidd, who have some of the most odious ring personalities I’ve ever seen, now suddenly being good guys with no earned turn whatsoever). Kind friends stuck up for me, but I felt obliged to point out and I’ll restate it here… I will never, ever like something because everyone else does or because I’m told to. I like or dislike things based solely upon my feelings about them. That’s it, no agenda, no more, no less.

So, in the spirit of not adding to NEGATIVITY, I guess I’ll concentrate on what really worked for me on this Dynamite:

1. Maxwell Jacob Friedman getting his groove back and Hangman Adam Page performing at the highest level he has performed in AEW to date
2. Prince Nana showing EVERYONE why it was WRONG to have slept on his talent for the last thirty years and Ricochet, despite my dislike of him as a worker, doing career best character work, too
3. Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong KILLING each other for our delight

So, first things first.

The reason so many get mad at MJF, and not necessarily in the good heat drawing way, is because WE KNOW HE’S BETTER (if you’ll excuse the term) than just calling the audience fat and poor and then making a cringe-y shoot comment. When he’s on, MJF is EXCELLENT and brother, he was ON in this segment. See, when AEW does stuff like this, when they refer to match outcomes from early on, you can believe that they have been subtly weaving a tale this whole time. MJF resents Hangman for costing him a shot at the title on day one of AEW existing. Easy peasy. He also resents Hangman’s connection to the fans. Hangman, on the other hand, is a disturbed man, not sure if he is worthy of his fan connection, trying to muddle through and do his best even when he does the wrong thing for the right reasons. The current incarnation of Adam Page is the absolute best he’s ever been, just this disturbed, incredibly volatile and surly bad guy trying to do right.

“I look better than you, talk better than you, dress better than you! Tell me ONE THING YOU DO BETTER THAN ME!” frothed MJF, nose to nose with his enemy. Hangman took the mic and snarled, “I’m REAL.”

This was excellent television; riveting stuff.

Also amongst excellent excellent AEW promo segments was Prince Nana trying to calmly reclaim Jimmy Rave’s robe from the despicable Ricochet. AEW hasn’t hit us over the head like they probably could with the importance of the robe… they could easily put together a video package with Prince Nana leading the Embassy and particularly Jimmy Rave to victory and really strike home that giving Swerve Strickland Rave’s robe was the ultimate sign of respect. I mean, *I* get it, but I own like four dozen ROH DVDs; I’m a dork. They need to make sure the folks in the cheap seats get this. Anyway, that nitpick aside, Nana calmly asked Ricochet for the robe back since Ricochet hasn’t earned the HONOR of wearing it. God DAMN, do I wish ROH meant more in this promotion even though they leverage it a lot. Ricochet, for his part, has done an excellent job in leaning into this heel character. He came in subtly big leaguing everyone (intentionally or not) and everyone FREAKED OUT when he was made to be a geek repeatedly by the Hurt Syndicate and Swerve… but I feel like he NEEDED that, he needed to be “humbled,” so to speak, in order to unlock this complete creep of a character. As much love as I have for Nana and Swerve, even I, and non Ricochet fan have to admit he’s doing FABULOUS work. He came here to Seattle in the DEFY promotion a week ago and said “You can keep booing me, I have all night!” which of course, in Seattle, is like waving a red flag to a bull as we are known for our obnoxious vociferousness. He ran around, holding his hands over his ears and did all of the wonderful heel schtick you would expect. This has been GREAT for him and he’s really crushed the opportunity. At any rate, he intimidated Prince Nana and told Nana if he wanted the robe so bad to try TAKING it. Nana looked crestfallen and Ricochet WON THE SEGMENT, that sunuvabitch.

Of course, the other great segment on the show was an actual wrestling match, with kind of the return of the original, silly Orange Cassidy (or at least not the “dark” version that I had christened BLOOD ORANGE CASSIDY) against the under heralded Roddy Strong. Why this guy isn’t more consistently talked about as one of the best wrestlers in the world perplexes me (and shows how cooked wrestling discourse is and humanity as a species is, to boot). OC even got in some comedy spots, hugging a puzzled Kyle O’Reilly and then avoiding Adam Cole’s gaze because they have SHOOT HALO HEAT. Strong took great satisfaction in CRUSHING OC with chops, backbreakers and even his finish, End of Heartache (and I guess when he hit that was how you knew OC was winning). Obviously Strong, the athletic jock bully, meshed perfectly with Cassidy, the sympathetic ultimate underdog and watching them work together is a joy. Post match, there was a Callis Family beatdown of poor Orange since he earned the right to face Konosuke Takeshita next week (which should be excellent), and BIG KENNY OMEGA, looking absolutely fucking YOKED, came out to make the save. How Kenny’s program isn’t the stuff on top of the company right now is a question WELL above my pay grade.

I think there are two Dynamites and two Collisions left until Revolution, so there will be a LOT of repetition in the main programs even though they are seemingly reaching their peak right about now (Moxley / Edge, Kenny / Takeshita, Ospreay / Fletcher in a cage, MJF / Hanger, Swerve / Ricochet and Mercedes Mone / Momo Watanabe from STARDOM) and particularly in the case of Moxley and Edge, they likely WELL overshoot their target, but Revolution looks to be an EXCELLENT show and well worth looking forward to.

SEE, HARDLY ANY NEGATIVITY.

Ugh, I feel dirty. Gimme an Edge promo, stat!