La Zona Muerta

I try not to judge the post pay per view Dynamites too terribly hard as those shows usually have to involve a lot of recaps and direction resets and etcetera (plus the fact that EVERYONE is probably a bit beat up from Sunday, surely one of the most hard hitting shows I’ve seen in ages)… and last nite’s Dynamite proved no exception. While I didn’t dislike the show, it definitely… let’s just say the wrestling, the in-ring wrestling did NOT feel like it was much of a focus, and that’s always a bit of a turn off to me.

Saying that, starting the show with a little dash of Kenny Omega certainly buys them some goodwill from me. I said to a pal that when Kenny is on the show, he’s the straw that stirs the drink. It just feels more AEW-y, more correct when he’s there, and I was probably more likely to accept whatever was on the show.

There was some good stuff, some interesting directions teased. I have legitimately NO IDEA where they will go with Maxwell Jacob Friedman and the Hurt Syndicate. That’s the most interested I’ve been in MJF in awhile, probably since they started the disastrous Jeff Jarrett thing (which the record will show that I LIKED on week one). MJF is also continuing the feud with Hangman Adam Page, and that’s certainly a-okay by me, as well. I’m not as high on MVP as some of the people reading this likely are, but I thought he was great, trading barbs with MJF. A friend pointed out that MJF can’t really do his standard “you’re lame, you’re poor, you’re fat, I slept with your mom / sister / wife / significant other” edgelord bullshit with MVP because MVP won’t allow himself to get eaten up on the mic like that, and I thought that was a good observation.

They had Christian cut this tremendous, delusional and completely nonsensical (in the best way) promo about how he didn’t REALLY cash in his Funds in the Credit Union contract. You know what? Christian is another guy where I was REALLY annoyed that they brought him in. I found the “I’m your real father” stuff to be dumb and heavy handed at first… but at some point, his very silly and seemingly effortless promo work sorta won me over, and that’s not something I ever thought I would say! Don’t get me wrong; I don’t know if I love the in ring (it’s okay, I guess. Christian is a very sound wrestler, if unspectacular) but I find I look forward to his zany antics more often than not. Christian was GREAT here, just completely out to lunch about needing his contract back (wasn’t this the guy that turned “one more chance” against Randy Orton into a six month feud?), and young Nick Wayne FINALLY opened up his eyes to realize Christian has been stringing him and his mother along for some time, now. They went NOSE TO NOSE (very literally) and that means that, as I PLEADED for last week, they FINALLY have some sort of direction for Wayne. ‘Bout time.

Megan Bayne killed both Toni Storm (who had a lot to say on the subject of key parties) and the possibly reunited duo of Willow Nightingale and Kris Statlander. Seems like a good way to reintegrate Toni back into the women’s division in general, I guess? I’m pretty lukewarm on Megan Bayne who doesn’t seem to have progressed a great deal since my days of seeing her in BEYOND Wrestling and the other big indies of that time, but putting Toni back in the thick of things is probably the best idea.

They introduced Speedball Mike Bailey into a quickie International Tournament to see who will lose to Kenny at the next PPV. I’m not big on Speedball… I find his matches VERY same-y, especially if you watch him during maybe a WrestleMania week (which I would not recommend; good way to get burnt out on a guy real quick) but I know a lot of fans are pumped up about him being in the big time, so I’m willing to give him a chance here, even if it’s a somewhat guarded one. I suppose my tastes run more in the Josh Alexander direction.

Will Ospreay feels like he’s the single most authentic man in wrestling. He came out and cut this rambling promo about being in trouble with his old lady over his dopey Spanish Fly off of the cage. I have no doubt that this was REAL. He also said he’d give his missus a good “seeing to” later, and I’m guessing that, too was real. Between him and Toni Storm talking about her key party, plus all the nose to nose action which always makes me say “JUST KISS ALREADY,” this was a surprisingly horny show! He pointed at the All Out sign (must we do the thing the other guys do? Don’t answer that) and said he’d enter and win the Owen Hart tournament to secure a world title shot, which seems fair enough. Jay White had a slightly heelish rejoinder later in the back saying Ospreay has been protected by the company and is ducking him. WILL AND JAY? Yes, please.

Konosuke Takeshita HELLMURDERED Platinum Max Caster. What’s funny about Max is that although the Acclaimed were SORT OF a babyface act, he has real, natural heel charisma… you want, you CRAVE seeing him get beat up. The end game to his “Best Wrestler Alive” open challenge schtick is surely Anthony Bowens coming out to answer the challenge, which I’m looking forward to a great deal… it will be tremendous… but for a guy that had go away, change the channel heat with me in the last third of the Acclaimed run… I’m quite enjoying Caster getting beat up every week.

And I guess that wraps up what I dug about the show. They had a fun, if a bit sloppy (Dralistico, I’m looking at you) rando tag match with Powerhouse Hobbs and Hologram vs. Bryan Cage and Dralistico where the luchadores got to do cool lucha stuff, and the big guys got to do big hoss stuff. Those are cool, easy matches to throw on for crowd pleasin’, much like the multi man tags we also seem to get het up for. More of this, please.

A couple of things brought my overall enjoyment down. The main event, Orange Cassidy and my beloved mad scientist of the ring, CMLL’s Hechicero got short changed on time and commercial break placement and so had a nothing match that never really got out of first gear. Shame as I was REALLY looking forward to that one. Jim Ross randomly being there (“Alchemist? Hear that, Taz? He’s an ALCHEMIST!”) didn’t help matters any. My wife opined that they have been using Ross a lot lately to run out his contract and the idea of that made me cackle.

The other big egg they laid on the show was telling us Jon Moxley and Adam Copeland WEREN’T DONE AFTER THAT ROTTEN MATCH ON SUNDAY and would have a street fight next week to settle things ONCE AND FOR ALL. ALLEGEDLY. Mox cut a semi-sensical promo saying he underestimated EDGE. Fair enough, I guess. I forget if EDGE cut a promo or not but he definitely ran into Swerve Strickland backstage and did his typical “I’m big league and your title shot doesn’t matter” promo, which instantly makes my skin crawl, just a complete turn off. YOU HAD YOUR SHOT AT THE MAIN EVENT SCENE. IT FAILED. A rematch isn’t really my issue, here… that’s a fairly standard wrestling trope. My issue is more along the lines of it’s a rematch on top of the fact that WE ALREADY HAD TWO MONTHS OF THIS, IT SUCKED AND IT SHOULD BE OVER BUT IT’S NOT. My karma in a previous life must have been TERRIBLE since I can’t get off of this seemingly never ending treadmill. I saw a number of AEW hardcores yesterday telling people that they were wrong to hate on the Revolution main event or to move along and quit talking about it… and AEW comes along and laughs in their faces. Not only can WE not “move along,” neither can AEW! They have a month or less to build to Swerve and Mox and we are taking a detour already? Detour isn’t even the right word, we’re GOING BACKWARD! I saw some of those same folks today trying to excuse this upcoming test of patience as a make good, but wouldn’t you have to admit the first match was bad, if this is an attempt at a mulligan? To me, I simply see it as throwing good money after bad.

So, overall, not a bad episode of Dyna, but not as good as the last couple of weeks, certainly. There’s actually some forward movement in the world title picture (EXCEPT FOR THAT ONE THING) and the inertia of things like tournaments and returns and debuts and backstage promos will sort of buoy matters, keep them headed forward. Gotta cut ’em a bit of slack to lay out the breadcrumbs for what’s to come, but that doesn’t mean we have to get short changed in ring. BALANCE, DANG IT.