La Zona Muerta

“WHY DO THEY EVEN BOTHER HAVING A CHICK IN THE RING WITH A MAN IF THEY AREN’T GONNA GO ALL THE WAY?!” the bloodthirsty, woman-hating woman to my left thundered at the television. “This stupid intergender stuff is NEVER DONE RIGHT. THEY. ARE. ALL. WRESTLERS!”

Right as she said “WRESTLERS,” Hangman Adam Page leapt over the ropes and got into position. I yelled “BUCKSHOT, BUCKSHOT RRRAAAAAAGGGHHHH YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” as Hangman SMASHED Marina Shafir upside the head with a Buckshot Lariat. ‘TWAS GLORIOUS.

They did the intergender stuff right; even Mrs. Convoy agreed. And if it satisfied HER, it MUST have been good.

Honestly, and this is coming from a fellow who does not really like Jon Moxley all that much… the whole beginning segment to the landmark Dynamite 300 was great; it really feels like they are going to stick the landing on the build for the big programs for All In. I mean, yeah, one Dynamite and two Collisions to go… (assuming there is a Collision next week? I forget); they could blow it, but my confidence is pretty darn high. Adam Page ANGRY MARCHED to the ring and basically said he was out of promo material… he wants Moxley, and he wants him in a TEXAS DEATHMATCH. The end. Mox and Shafir came out (perhaps the best part of all of this never ending Death Rider stuff has been Shafir more or less being Mox’ heater; a cool and unique use for someone who is still a bit limited in-ring wise even if I like her stuff better than some) and Mox cut a great promo, talking about how Hangman doesn’t really want it and how he’s still the wishy washy anxious millennial cowboy.

That may be the best part of all of this; Mox can’t see that Hangman hasn’t been THAT VERSION of Hangman in literal YEARS. The guy who blew up a man’s house in an act of eye for an eye retribution is not the guy worried about if he and Kenny Omega had a name for their tag team yet. That is what will lead to Moxley’s downfall (and YES, they are TELEGRAPHING it, and YES, that is fine, even good). Various combinations and permutations of the DRs came out to attack Hangman (including the CLEARLY FED BOUND CLEARLY AEW STAYING Claudio Castagnoli) but after some back up from Samoa Joe and the Opps, Hangman was able to regain the upper hand and eventually convinced Moxley to the “TEXAS DEATH” stip at All In (the way Hanger SCREAMED this… this dude is the GUY) by killing Marina with the lariat. Great stuff. OH, THE LORD LOVES A HANGIN’ AND SO DO WE, BY HECK. If you don’t think Mox is getting HUNG in that match…

(Oh, and for the LORE types… of which I am VERY MUCH NOT, even I have to cop to the fact that Hangman Adam Page picked this week, of all weeks, to wear the shirt he wore when he punked out a certain hypocritical wrestler three years ago. Bless you, sir.)

I don’t have much to say about Mercedes Moné and Mina Shirakawa. ‘Twas fine and I saw a LOT of people saying they thought it was this fantastic match… I dunno, man. If you dug on it, awesome. I was mostly annoyed that one of the oldest wrestling tropes of ALL TIME, a random SHEET CAKE appearing at ringside did NOT end up going into ANYONE’S FACE. This, to me and GENERATIONS OF TV WRESTLING WATCHERS is BOOKING MALPRACTICE.

The Young Bucks remain EXQUISITE douchebags, allegedly purchasing a limo with custom livery of their faces (and also full to bursting with shoes) on their COMPANY CREDIT CARD. I can’t even have a client send me anything lest it be worth too much money… and meanwhile they apparently get access to the black AmEx. Anyway, they went to their old neighborhood… and BURIED it. Very fun stuff, and it led to them later popping out of the limo in FULL GEAR (they are ALWAYS Full Gear ready) to team with my MAN, Konosuke Takeshita versus Roderick Strong, Kyle O’Reilly and Bandido.

This match RULED. Some people don’t love the party match, the “PWG match,” as they call it (and sure, it IS that, at least partially). I see it as the MONDAY NIGHT NITRO match, the fun type of match the luchadores, the cruiserweights, the dudes like Jericho and Eddy and he who will not be named would put on, that kind of arresting car crash of a match that showed you this isn’t that slow, old wrestling you’re used to (that’s going to be in the main event, at least on Nitro). Bandido is a stud. Takeshita (obviously) is a stud. This match was partially laid out to advance their upcoming match at ROH Supercard of Honor, which will also rule, and I enjoyed this quite a bit.

I’ve got my order of things mixed up a little but at some point, Swerve Strickland and Will Ospreay came out to chase off the Bucks and ask why the Bucks had yet to accept the challenge from last week. Matt Jackson pointed out that there was no reason for them to… and as *I* pointed out last week, the good guys had put up no stakes. Shout out to Nick Jackson for being the greatest professional weasel, constantly running his mouth and not even into a mic; he just REACTS to the other guys. Will Ospreay took the mic and said if they wanted stakes, that if he and Swerve can’t beat the Bucks, neither Swerev nor Ospreay could challenge for the Heavyweight title for a year. Hey, Cody! You don’t have to say “never challenge for the title again,” you dipshit! Swerve had this incredible “why the fuck are you talking for me?” face and argued with Ospreay but eventually they and the Bucks agreed… EVP titles vs. year long absence in the title picture. I have NO IDEA where this is going but you could FINALLY do the crowning Ospreay at Wembley thing next year, especially if Swerve and / or Ospreay have to backdoor their way in through the Owen Hart tournament. This is actually pretty intriguing, I feel, and what started out a touch silly with the stip now REALLY works.

We also got the four way match to determine who will be coming out second in the Casino Gauntlet thingamabob at All In. I knew Maxwell Jacob Friedman was going to win (to be fair, they have been laying those seeds with him and Hanger for months now, so that’s not a knock) but I see cats like AR Fox and Anthony Bowens and Brody King come out… all dudes who could maybe do with moving up the card a touch and I was kinda bummed for them (especially Bowens who has really been left on an island to die). That being said, they had a fun match. AR Fox continues to do amazing things. He did an imploding (reverse, in other words) senton to the outside like it was no big thing. Brody did that cool thing where he hangs a dude over the ropes to choke them out and Max sold it well. Bowens… ah, poor Bowens. I love the guy but since his singles debut / return / whatever, he hasn’t really done much to stand out and he didn’t stand out in this match either. The stand outs were CLEARLY Brody and Fox.

The match was good, and predictably, after a lot of bribes, hiding at ringside, hiding at commentary and other goofball silliness, Max picked up the win. Okay, fine. But then Mark Briscoe came out and talked ENDLESSLY about MJF’s “pickle,” a continuation of something dumb from last week. And then he challenged Max to a promo battle next week, so more dumbness will follow. Keep this SPOILER in mind… MISTICO WAS IN THE BUILDING so, yeah, no apuestas at All In, gang. *chuckle*

And then the agony continued as Jet Speed came out and were like “hey, Hurt Syndicate, we are not geeks even though you geek us out every fucking week,” and then they got geeked out but THEY WERE STILL STANDING (not really but okay, go with it). Kevin Knight challenged Shelton Benjamin to a singles match at Collision and given how badly EVERY SINGLE RING INTERACTION THEY HAVE HAD UP UNTIL NOW has gone, ny hopes are NOT high for that particular battle. EVERYTHING AFTER THE FOUR WAY MATCH WAS DEATH, PURE DEATH. Awful, brought the show to a crashing halt. And not to spoil anything but… when the Hurt Syndicate lose the tag belts at All In… it’s not going to be because they LOST, if you catch my drift. WE DON’T JOB / WE BIG LEAGUE

Before we get to the main event, there were a couple of interstitials with some of the AEW folks palling around with the cast of the new Superman movie, which was like… fine, corporate synergy and etc. One of them featured the presumably hurt and still LOCAL MEDICAL FACILITY BOUND Kenneth Jerome Omega.

Sigh.

Look, it’s not a BIG deal, but it is one of those dumb, not paying attention to the details things that make me cringe a little. I saw PLENTY of people laughing about that last night, but once a certain somebody I used to be affiliated with brought it up it on their shitty podcast and shitty message board it was all “HOW DARE AEW NOT BE FUN” and the predictable defend AEW at all costs type stuff.

Gang, listen to me. This was a dumb own goal on AEW’s part. They should have had someone else in that position. Is it a big deal? Nah. Everyone will have forgotten it in a week or two… but it’s just one of those dumb, little things where someone should have held up their hand and said “Kenny is going to be the surprise at the end of Dynamite 300, let’s make sure he’s not seen until then.” That’s all.

So, the main event. Can Kota Ibushi still go? Does Kazuchika Okada care?

I went pretty hard on that beautiful himbo Ibushi last week, and honestly, with his new choice of doing all of his moves very slowly, very deliberately, I did not feel the first half of this match. But then Kota landed a THUNDEROUS lariat, and SHIT WAS ON. He did the rapid fire attacks (kind of like what I would consider the ‘KENTA’ series to be, the same thing AJ Styles does with the rapid fire blows), he landed on his fucking neck like a crazy person, he took a dropkick IN THE GOLDURN MOUTH, all sorts, before Okada finally KILLED HIM TO DEATH with a Rainmaker. I’m not saying Kota is 100% back. He’s not, he’s just not. But he WAS good here, particularly in the second half of the match. Post match you had the Callis Family style shenanigans, necessitating the return of KENNY OMEGA, who after saving his GOLDEN LOVER, gave him the most chaste, brotherly BACK PAT I’ve ever seen. I didn’t expect them to like, MAKE OUT or anything… but give us something more than a BACK PAT, please, like you’d give a friend in school for doing a good job during Field Day. How about a tearful embrace with heads buried in crooks of necks?

Oh, well. What do you want? I’m a romantic.

Overall, this was an excellent Dynamite save a nitpick or two and that really crummy Hurt segment. Sure, next week you have the possibility of over selling the main matches a bit or alternately, you risk the show coming off like filler. Might be hard to PERFECTLY stick the landing but overall I am bullish on AEW’s momentum, their prospects post All In, all of it. This company is back, gang.