La Zona Muerta

I mean, yeah, sure, we’ll talk about the four hour show AEW produced last night (well, really, it’s an episode of Dynamite and then an episode of Collision) but I have something I need to get off of my chest.

If I’m talking about YOU, I’m sorry, but so be it.

Seriously, if you feel the need to defend EVERY SINGLE THING AEW does, you gotta look at yourself in the mirror. You’re acting like fans of the other place.

I get that tensions are running high. You have prominent wrestling critic Bryan Alvarez (and a buncha small fry nobodies) bitching and moaning about the length of a pay per view that was nearly universally lauded. It’s a dumb take, and a laughable one. He doesn’t apply the same criteria to AEW that he does to the other wrestling he watches and he doesn’t see it. I get it. BELIEVE ME, I get it; that’s why (well, at least one reason why) I don’t associate myself with that sphere of wrestling criticism any more. That being said…

IF SOMEONE ISN’T PSYCHED ABOUT A FOUR HOUR BLOCK OF AEW ON A WEEKNIGHT, RELAX. IT’S NOT THE SAME THING.

“But you don’t have to watch it all at once!” Well, no, sure I don’t. But maybe I’m busy Thursday nights. Maybe I have to keep up with the online discourse (I wish I didn’t). Maybe, sorry, but I don’t want to have wrestling take up all of my time and I apportion a certain amount at certain times per week. MAYBE I HAVE COLUMN INCHES TO FILL. Again, if this isn’t about you, by all means, please skip by, but if it is…

IT ISN’T UP TO YOU TO CONVINCE ME WHY I’M WRONG ABOUT NOT WANTING FOUR HOURS OF AEW ON A NON PPV NIGHT.

An otherwise good egg was trying to convince me yesterday that it wasn’t a big deal and it was not like they were gonna do this again any time soon… OOPS. ANOTHER FOUR HOUR BLOCK NEXT WEEK LOL.

Listen. I talk about my wife a LOT here. Maybe I’ll even get her to write something sometime. I’m desperately trying to get her to write her answer to Voices of Wrestling’s “30 Under 30” piece called “40 over 40” since she hates THE YOUTH (as do all good hearted people), but here’s the most honest thing I can tell you. SHE DOESN’T LOVE AEW AND I DON’T LIKE OCCUPYING HER FREE TIME WITH IT. That’s not HER edict, it’s MINE. She doesn’t complain, she never does, she never would… but I don’t like monopolizing the TV with something she is only half heartedly interested in. There, happy? So yeah, FOR ME, a four hour block on a random Wednesday is a bit of an ask. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CORRECT ME, CONVINCE ME OR ANY OTHER FORM OF SOLUTIONSPLAIN TO ME BECAUSE ALVAREZ AND A BUNCH OF BRITISH DORKS WHO LIVE OFF OF THE SHITTY THUMBNAILS THEY GENERATE ARE WHINING ABOUT IT.

It’s all a little much. I’d prefer AEW in a couple of two hour chunks, split over the week. Quit whining about the whining.

The end.

Okay, onto what we got last night. If we’re looking at this as one solid “pay per view quality” chunk of entertainment, it was fine. If we’re divvying this up into Dynamite and Collision, once again I found myself preferring the more wrestling heavy Collision back end of the show. THe show opened with, if I’m being honest, what felt like a fairly rambling Will Ospreay promo where he reiterated (repeatedly) what he said last week and then they showed us the backstage confrontation he had with Swerve Strickland from last week’s Collision. God knows people would be upset if they didn’t get their precious VIDEO PACKAGE but quit punishing me! I ACTUALLY WATCH THE PRODUCT. My assumption was that they were setting up Swerve / Ospreay for All In, but they are apparently pulling the trigger on it NEXT WEEK. Hmmmm. Maybe that means we get Ospreay and Swerve vs. the Young Bucks? Not sure. Anyway, as I said, the promo meandered a bit. At one point, and please, PLEASE tell babyfaces to never say this kind of shit… Ospreay said that the reason AEW sucks right now is because of Jon Moxley. I UNDERSTAND what he was trying to say but JESUS FUCK. I lived through five years of talent talking about how much WCW sucked… ON ACTUAL WCW TV… DON’T DO THAT SHIT HERE. CHRIST. Quit telling people AEW is bad. No more “restore the feeling.” ENOUGH. The highly unrecognizable music of CRU came on (why oh WHY aren’t they THE Cru). Lio Rush casually challenged Will. Ospreay won me back by pointing out that since he was sprayed up with fake tan (!) that he’d put on his crimefighting pants (!!) and see Lio Rush later tonight, for which I was happy.

I was not especially enamoured of the Jon Moxley / Mark Briscoe match (it was largely fine, but there was something weird at the end where Jon was loudly talking to Briscoe and then the match ended abruptly with the Bulldog choke. We were yelling at the screen “why the long conversation if they were going right into the finish?” Weird.

Next up was Mercedes Moné and THE BALLAD OF THE SHOOT STEAK. I’d hate to see a WORKED steak. I’m sorry; this stuff does nothing for me (I did chuckle when Toni Storm came over after the match and took a filthy caveman bite out of said shoot steak, I must admit).

They took another stab at an Ospreay interview, but it was interrupted by Maxwell Jacob Friedman. Max tried to spin a line about how Swerve and Hangman were animals and Ospreay needed help… Ospreay shut him down fast, but Max being Max (both the character and performer himself) went too far and mentioned Ospreay’s kid. As Ospreay gripped him up for this transgression, MJF’s chums in the Hurt Syndicate arrived to even (?) the odds. Instead of creating DRAMA, all I could think was “PLEASE LORD GOTCH ABOVE, PLEASE SAVE WILL OSPREAY AND HIS HAT HAIR FROM THE CANCER QUADRANGLE.” I have ZERO interest in a match with Ospreay and BIG BOB LASHLEY. Would Ospreay make it good? Sure. But he’d also lay down for Lashley just to be a team player, a company guy and we all know Lashley wouldn’t object to getting THAT particular scalp.

The Hurt Syndicate’s BUSINESS (SEE WHAT I DID THERE, THAT WAS THEIR NAME IN THE OTHER PLACE) wasn’t done as, speaking of meandering promos, the Syndicate came out to lament the lack of challengers for their titles. You see, the HEAT is MVP comes out and says that supposedly the best wrestle in AEW but no one wants to wrestle them. Cough. MJF started doing one of his in famous almost racist but not quite promos about CMLL’S TALISMAN (?), the great Mistico. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for the intercompany politics on that one. If it was anyone else, the finish, the obvious finish is that you lay down and tap out for La Mistica, Mistico’s rad spinning armbar dealie, but this is MJF. He probably put forth a plan where he singlehandedly defeats every denizen of Arena Mexico, goes to the Freedom Grill and takes all of the CMLL ring girls with him. The AEW Frontline (they’re back!) of Kevin Knight, Speedball Mike Bailey and the terrific Komander came out to defend, I dunno, various countries, I guess, from MJF’s heel schtick. Fortunately Los Ingobernables de AEW came out in their new, color coordinated gear (rendering the Beast Mortos a bit silly looking, but I dig coordinated gear so I’ll give it a pass) and had a fun little sprint with AEW HONTAI or whatever. Los Ingo really need to pick up more TV wins if they are to be a more effective heel unit and I HATE that my guy Mortos is always the designated pin eater. Shout out to Dralistico who I traditionally don’t really care for… he’s definitely had his working boots on the last few times I’ve seen him.

Christian made his return with the fresh off of the Best of the Super Juniors Nick Wayne. Christian of course refused to put Wayne over saying that yes, he did participate in BOSJ… but he didn’t WIN it. His “punishment” was to put Wayne in a four way for the ROH TV title later tonight and I was positive Nick was losing that belt. We’ll get to it.

We had the four way for Kenny Omega’s International title. I didn’t really understand why these men fought in a mini tournament simply to have a four way with Kenny (ooh er, missus) like this… them all fighting each other to see who would face Kenny THEMSELVES would have made more sense and Kenny’s interest seemed to really be mostly focussed on wanting to work Mascara Dorada, so, on the whole… I would have rather seen that match up, instead. That being said… this was good, but I felt like the guys (Brody King, Dorada, Kenny and Claudio Castagnoli) lost the plot once or twice. Commentary HIT HARD (like Hayter) that Dorada was likely to be the next guy to be the standard bearer for CMMLL and therefore TRADITIONAL MEXICAN LUCHA LIBRE when Mistico packs it up. HOPE TKO DOESN’T HEAR THAT. Kenny’s pecs were GINORMOUS tonight, apropos of nothing… just an observation. CHESTICLE BOOBULAR FUN. Kenny won, unsurprisingly… and the SEAMLESS FOUR HOUR BLOCK, PPV QUALITY RESTAURANT PICTURE IN PICTURE backfired slightly when those of us watching on HBO MAX MAX HBO MAX had to log out of Dyna and click on the Collision stream. CLick throughs aside… Kazuchika Okada appeared, RESPLENDENT IN HIS FINERY, and did the stare down with Kenny… and it devolved into a brawl. Look, it’s cool and the match will be good, even great… but I can’t help but feel like I’ve seen it, and a better version already. It’s dumb to bet against Kenny (or Okada for that matter), and obviously I’ll be marking out just like everyone else when the match gets in ring but frankly, there’s stuff I’d rather see more out of BOTH men if we’re working with the idea that Kenny’s lifeclock is running down. A SHARP BLOW TO THE TUM TUM from Okada brought the brawl to an end so of course the new match will have that as an element, a new one.

Ricochet (I’ve already done my mea culpas) came out to watch the four way for the ROH TV title. He’s been teasing putting together a crew and seemed pretty interested in both young Nick Wayne (putting over how anything good from him was really Christian’s doing) and Shotty Lee Johnson, a cat who’s not on TV a ton but is still grinding away behind the Ring of Honor paywall. If Ricochet, Shotty Lee and his boy, Blake Christian become a unit… that would not be a bad thing at all. The crowd WENT CRAZY for the offense of AR Fox and me, even ME, THIS COLD CYNICAL BASTARD TYPING THESE WORDS AT THIS VERY SECOND thought for a split second that AR FOX COULD WIN. Nah, no chance… but I felt the foreign sensation of HOPE for a brief moment of time. I also wanted to take a second to say here… look, I know some folks hate Sammy Guevara. Maybe it’s because he “has a punchable face,” as my wife is quick to point out. Maybe it’s because you couldn’t stand him being on TV constantly with Jericho in both the Inner Circle and the Jericho Appreciation Society. Maybe you’re mad that he married Tay Melo (a brief aside… she returned to save her old friend Anna Jay which was a fun moment but she had to be held back by three burly security dudes which made me HOWL with laughter) instead of the woman he proposed to in ring early on in Dynamites beginnings. Maybe any number of things… but the dude is good. I hope his sojourn into ROH exile has made him get whatever he needs to get together… well… together and I hope people will give him a chance instead of just instantly crapping on him.

This rolled into Lio Rush and Will Ospreay and… GOOD GOTCH ABOVE. Imagine being able to just roll out and casually have a match like this. Hey, that’s not just the greatness of Ospreay… Lio Rush is incredible. He’s BEEN incredible. He seems to be more mature, less of a flake. You have to remember, before he got called up by the Fed… when he was having those speedy indy spotfests, no selling piledrivers and the like… he was like twenty one or twenty two. He was a KID. Yes, he had his problems there. Yes, he had his issues when he came to AEW the first time. He ate shit for quite awhile when he was invited back… but now he’s a reliable dude you can count on to have solid (better than solid) TV matches. He seems to be really comfortable in this role and he’s such a perfect opponent for a cat like Ospreay. This was the match of the night, in my eyes. The match wrapped and Lio’s partner, Action Andretti came in to disrupt Ospreay’s victory… but Hangman Adam Page appeared to even the odds. That gross, Russofied part of my brain keeps whispering “man, if Ospreay turned on Hangman, think of the reaction,” but then I shoot headbutt the door jamb a few times and I’m fine.

TO THE BACK, for a Don Callis Family promo, and everyone’s ears in CASA DE CONVOY perked up. best act in wrestling right now… BY FAR. They welcomed THE WRESTLING ALCHEMIST, HECHICERO to their ranks (presumably just for that night… dunno if that will be a permanent addition. Think Templario in United Empire), but Don had BIG HECH cut a promo in Spanish, BIG TAKE (Konsuke Takeshita) cut a promo in Japanese and then, the Protostar, the heat magnet with his cut up pink shirt… BIG KYLE FLETCHER… well… he was just wacky. I was PRAYING for Don to have him say something in AUSTRALIAN. “Throw another shrimp on the kangaroo, you Vegemite galah! Beauty!” or somesuch. Alas, ’twas not to be but this segment restored my faith in HUMANITY. Well, mostly.

FTR versus Templario and Atlantis Jr. was next on the docket. FTR always felt to me like they were cosplaying 80s wrestlers but now that they have fully embraced the heelness of it all… the more 80s schtick they do, the better it is. “THese people need to SHUT UP if they want to listen to what I have to say! No? NOW YOU DON’T GET TO HEAR WHAT I HAVE TO SAY AT ALL!” LOVE IT. The match with Templario and Atlantis Jr. was fine, even good, but I haven’t seen much out of my beloved Templario in AEW that would make me go SEE? THAT’S WHY I LOVE THAT GUY!

There was a quick match with the DCF against Bandido and (sigh) the Outrunners. Talk about cosplaying as 80s wrestlers. Bandido is RAD but the Outrunners… look, I know a lot of people dig them. I think they are a lamme comedy act who come off more as parody than homage. I DO enjoy Don Callis’ seeming hatred of them, because then he becomes my avatar. “Los Outrunners? Know what I call ’em? LOS IDIOTS!” HAHAHAHA GOT ‘EM. Don Callis is the best and if you cast a vote for anyone other than him in the Observer year end awards (or any of the big ones) for best non wrestler… I’m not certain we can be friends any longer. Don also pointed out that Hechicero was EN LA CASA, showing off his multilingual mastery.

The Toxic Spider Thekla debuted, much to Mrs. Convoy’s chagrin… not because she has a problem with Thekla… it’s because she has an irrational fear of spiders, and the Thekla video package (What! ANOTHER ONE??!!) was full of ’em. I was VERY worried she was gonna do a Tara from TNA spider in a cage gimmick and that Mrs. Convoy would beat me senseless every time this woman is on TV. She squashed Lady Frost (a worker I like; she deserves better) in short order and set up a feud with Queen Aminata. Queen, never challenge a freshly debuted wrestler… you’ll never win! DON’T YOU WATCH WRESTLING?!

They finally announced Kenny vs. Okada for All In. Unfortunately, next week, there’s a contract signing for it. Man… I dunno.

My buddy Lee (hey, homie) said it best in regards to the main event: “PARAGON & Daniel Garcia vs the Don Callis Family was a good main event, but came at the end of a very long show.” Yup, he was right. I was definitely spacing out, playing with my tablet and fooling around in general. The match was good… there’s just not much to say about it. The babyfaces won and Garcia desperately needs the fresh coat of paint a heel turn would provide.

So overall, a good show? Sure. Are people too weird about DEFENDING the choice to run for four hours? YES. Let the podcasters and YouTube clickbait jerks go on about that stuff. If you’re into it,cool! Don’t feel like you need to convince others who aren’t on the same wavelength as you.

Not super looking forward to another of these next week, but there are worse things out there. I’m mostly just afraid that AEW is gonna stretch out some of this stuff too much in the quest to reach All In.