La Zona Muerta

Even a SNOWICANE or whatever couldn’t slow the momentum AEW seems to be be building over the past couple of months. It does seem like, after long last, even if everything isn’t perfect, the ship has at least been righted. There are pitfalls along the way… the existence of EDGE… WWE trying to sabotage Forbidden Door by having a mini European tour in August… WWE putting Tony Khan in a tough position by making it known through the creeps at F*ghtf*l that they want Sting to induct Lex Luger into their crummy Hall of Fame (and a REAL cynic might suggest that, since WWE has spent over twenty years burying Luger due to his culpability in the actual death of Elizabeth Hulette, Luger’s sudden induction is SOLELY to cause a PR trap for Khan)… the logjam of young talent who have not flourished under TK’s… ah… RATHER DELIBERATE booking style… but overall, I feel like things are on the up. I’m interested to see how Dynasty shapes up (obviously they don’t have much time to build to it) and if they are willing to pull the trigger on Swerve again. I have been reliably informed that Swerve / Mox was not really on the cards in the original plan, so hopefully that augurs well.

Last week I was a bit down on Dynamite for not being a wrestling forward show. Even if I didn’t love all of the action or finishes on THIS show… that is NOT a gripe I can realistically make about Wednesday’s Dyna.

A shoot injury to my right pointer finger (slight kitchen mishap; nothing to worry about) and my usual lower back strains meansI don’t feel like typing all day so let’s see if I can just get away with a quick list of the pluses and minuses from last night:

The big takeaways this week:

1. Great Gotch above, do I LOVE Mark Davis. Again, I was WRONG about Aussie Open. WRONG. I WAS WRONG. For the people in the back, I WAS WRONG. Davis works in the sort of big man tradition… maybe not Vader as I’ve seen some suggest, but definitely the big guy bully style of a Stan Hansen, a Doctor Death Steve Williams, your big rough and tumble dudes like that. He’s fast enough, agile enough to keep up with the modern style of speedy, small flippydoo men and large enough to look GREAT hurking them around. Mmmmmayyyybe he would benefit from a slight gear upgrade, a singlet perhaps, but other than that? No notes. I can’t WAIT to see the first time Aussie Open reunite as heels to wreak havoc (forty years of reading X-Men comics made it VERY difficult not to spell havoc with a ‘k’). I’m not super in love with the idea of the match with Kenny Omega at Dynasty suddenly being a threeway (ooh er, missus) with Ricochet and Speedball Mike Bailey due to shithead heel chicanery as I don’t quite understand who they are trying to protect in such a scenario. Kenny has to go over to retain, so either Bailey or Ricochet eat a pin, here and would have done regardless. Weird. I knew it was the least likely thing but a Kenny / Davis match would likely have been the most interesting possibility.
2. I have to ease up a bit on Mercedes Moné. Not because I’ve suddenly become a fan of her work (her match with Billie Starkz was pretty good, just laid out in a bit of a peculiar fashion if it was meant to draw out Athena, Starkz’ mistress) but because the grapevine says she got an anti-AEW griftlord turfed from commentary on an indie gig she worked. If that’s true, that’s fantastic. Talk shit, get hit.
3. People will fall over backwards to tell you EDGE and Jon Moxley redeemed themselves from their wretched pay per view match during their street fight but in reality, there were only TWO memorable things from the match. Everyone has already forgotten EVERYTHING in the match except for one sick, gnarly spot where EDGE suplexed Moxley onto Janice* Spike, the inanimate object full of nails EDGE is DESPERATE to get over (is this what he means by “giving back?” Gotch knows he’s done more to ‘make’ the stick than he has any of his opponents). The nails penetrated Moxley deeply enough that my little shag man, wee little emo Wheeler YUTA COULD NOT EXTRICATE THE NAILS from MOX’ back and GAVE UP, leaving referee Paul Turner to try, instead. Eventually (and it took more than a few seconds… they fiddled with this thing for what felt like an eternity), he FINALLY pulled the stick out with a tremendous close up of the nails STRETCHING MOXLEY’S SKIN. THAT was pretty gross, and certainly memorable… and of course all the worst discourse merchants in the world are freaking out about it… I guess completely forgetting that while gross, puncture wounds in wrestling aren’t nearly as dangerous as neck drops, spinal injuries, etc. The rest of the match saw the Jeff Jarrett-ian overbooking I expected at the pay per view, featuring the return of the Death Riders, Willow Nightengale and … ugh… FTR… all running through the match basically leading to the exact same finish that we already saw at Grand Slam Australia. That was worth at least .85 MegaJarretts on the official overbooking scale. The only other memorable moment was post match, when EDGE, having tapped out to the Bulldog choke then stood there WAITING FOR SYMPATHY LIKE TRIPLE H USED TO DO WHEN HE WOULD LOSE, and received nothing but CRICKETS from the Omaha crowd who were hot pretty much all night. CRICKETS as he attempted to milk the crowd for tasty, delicious sympathy. At one point during the match, there was a light AY EE DUB chant but given how this match looked like it was ripped from the depths of a 1999 Fed walk and brawl, I posit the chant should have been DUB DUB EFF. THE EDGE EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN A FAILURE. HE NEEDS TO BE AS FAR AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE FROM THE WORLD TITLE SCENE FROM HERE ON IN.

Anyway, it’s hard to bitch about a show that probably had some logistical difficulties due to snow and featured mostly good action throughout, so I won’t. Hopefully we get a reset in the main event scene and we start picking up the pace in the noticeably neglected tag division, too. I don’t know that AEW is poised to be on FIRE like they were a couple of years back, but things are starting to look pretty good all around again.

*Abyss from TNA’s dumb, inanimate stick full of nails, named after TNA promoter Dixie Carter’s mother for reasons Vince Russo or maybe Dutch Mantel could tell you