La Zona Muerta

Fuck Cody Rhodes.

Well, maybe not LITERALLY. That’s someone else’s job.

But seriously, I have NO SYMPATHY for those who are given everything but still manage to cry poor. Boo hoo, he was disrespected. Boo hoo, there was bad blood by the end. Mr. Revisionist History seems to forget that the AEW audience had largely turned on him by the end, as he played his “No, me saying I’m not a heel is the ACTUAL heel turn” bullshit meta game, as he cut rambling promos that would have fit in with the cocaine-induced screeds of the men he grew up idolizing. He never quite understood that doing things like having a GENDER REVEAL PARTY for his kid, declaring WAR against out hated enemies *checks notes* THE BRITISH and declaring that RACISM WAS OVER IN OUR TIME to a captive crowd of confused AEW fans at Daly’s Place had cost him.

By the time he SET HIMSELF ON FIRE to prove that we should still love him, the bloom was well and truly off the rose. Of course, he repeated the same trick in WWE, still wrestling VALIANTLY even though he had torn a boob, and of course there, it worked. HE LOVES US. CODY DIED FOR OUR SINS.

Cody sounds more and more like a jilted lover by the day. When he was first asked about AEW after leaving, it was merely “it was time to go.” Then it was, “well, there were things left unsaid.” Now it’s “OF COURSE I WAS DISRESPECTED. THERE IS BAD BLOOD.”

GO AWAY. STAY IN YOUR LAND OF MEDIOCRITY. GO ESKIMO KISS TRIPLE HAITCH.

So, we come to the end of the AEW Chicago residency thing. I’m good with that. AEW fans, the hardcore, online types (the ones likely to read a dopey blog like this; sorry, fellow sickos) seem to REALLY get upset if you criticize things like the smaller venues, the residency. I don’t have any real problem with the residency itself; much like the one they did last year at the E-Sports ‘stadium’ in Texas, the biggest drawback to US the viewing audience, is probably the weird, tight camera stuff the camera operators have to do since there is limited room to move around in. I was getting sick of the venue, though… look. It doesn’t TRULY matter where they are every week as long as the crowd looks decent and sounds decent, but I DO think it seems a little low rent if you see the same place for several weeks in a row. I dunno; it’s not a hill I particularly want to die on, but AEW hardcores will go to WAR over it. I don’t really get the thin skinned stuff. It’s time to move to another venue, is all. Hey, maybe next week in Virginia or wherever will SUCK and we will want Aragon back! WHO CARES. If some people are kind of sick of the venue, it’s fine. I’m ready for the show to emanate from somewhere else.

The other thing I want to complain about (it’s not me if I don’t complain) is the new reliance on everyone’s FAVORITE thing… video packages. They showed a video package on Dynamite that was nearly FIVE MINUTES LONG about the Jon Moxley / Hangman Adam Page feud. Then, on Collision, there was another two minute package recapping the match I’m about to write about.

QUIT PUNISHING ME. I ACTUALLY WATCH THE PRODUCT. I DON’T SPEED THRU ENTRANCES AND PACKAGES. I don’t mind a recap but recapping the thing from the night before is a LITTLE WWE-y. I think that package from Dynamite might STILL be going.

As for what happened these last two nights…? Obviously the most important thing was the Hangman / Mox match. I KNOW a LOT of people LOVED the match and I certainly didn’t dislike it. It seemed, TO ME, a bit one note… but Mox did work VERY HARD to make sure it was OBVIOUS that Page is THE GUY, so that’s cool. The one note-ness seemed like a thing where one of them had been watching some late 90s All Japan and the match seemed to just be piledriver after piledriver after head drop after head drop. The BUILD (not the build to the match, the STRUCTURE of the match) seemed to be poor. The other thing if I was being a REAL nitpicker was Mox CONSTANTLY SHOUTING SPOTS like he was John Cena. UGH. Those things aside… again, Mox MADE SURE WITH NO DOUBT that Hangman has his number. It was the right thing to do. I was most worried that it wasn’t THE END of their feud, but the next night on Collision, it was VERY CLEAR Mox is moving on to Darby Allin, which suits me fine, and also led to an amazing pretape where DARBY NEARLY MURDERED MOXLEY IN FRONT OF THE ELEVATED TRAIN. Beautiful. Hey, there’s an argument for the weird, little venues… the EL was literally like ten feet away from the back entrance to the Aragon Ballroom. I WISH THEY HAD FOUGHT ON THE TRACKS. They probably WANTED to.

The title match itself was put on at the beginning of the second hour of Dynamite. This ruffled some feathers, and again, certain people REALLY freaked out at some of the (undoubtedly bad faith) confusion / pushback at the match placement. As always, me, master of the lukewarm take, can kind of see both sides of the issue. The top of hour two is ACTUALLY valuable real estate, ratings-wise… but I thought placing the world title match in the middle of the show threw off the flow of the rest of the program really badly. Oh, but Convoy, you might say,they had to do that to have a post show angle with Mark Briscoe and MJF and…

No they didn’t. They could have rejuggled ANY of that stuff. Not a huge deal to me ultimately, but it was definitely something people were picking up arms for. I dunno.

So, the Death Riders are moving on to Darby. Hangman APPEARS to be moving on to Maxwell Jacob Friedman… but they have given Mark Briscoe the more serious edge he has DESPERATELY needed to set him up as MJF’s roadblock. MJF also APPEARS to have broken off from the Hurt Syndicate (but you can’t discount the possibility that it’s all some dopey storyline and they’re still in his corner), so that’s another potential feud. You also have whatever MJF is up to in CMLL (snore). The top of the card looks fairly secure.

The main event of Collision was the Dustin Rhodes / Kyle Fletcher Chicago Streetfight. Of course they didn’t do what I wanted… Fletcher KILLING Dustin in under two minutes… but realistically, despite my antipathy for that veteran hospital denier, the AEW audience LIKES Dustin Rhodes. They COULDN’T have Fletcher hellmurder him, no matter how bad *I* craved it. At least Rhodes set up the match last week by calling Fletcher a “bitch,” his calling card LONG before it was Kazuchika Okada’s. I got a smug little reaction out of that, if nothing else.

The match itself… I dunno, man. I didn’t HATE it or anything… I knew Fletcher was going over, but these guys kicked out of everything and the kitchen sink. Fletcher took a top rope Canadian Destroyer through a table. Tacks were deployed. Tacks to the groin were deployed. Nut shots. There was an Iron Claw applied with a glove that had tacks glued to it. A screwdriver plunged into a knee (allegedly). A gourdbuster onto a chair. A brainbuster into tacks. And probably a dozen other things I forgot.

It was a bit much. I’m not offended or anything but it was a bit much, especially since Fletcher is the guy they can realistically put on top of the company a couple of years down the road and Dustin Rhodes’ remaining runtime is limited. I think if you dig that kind of escalating match, you probably dug this. At least Fletcher won, right?

Two other important storyline things before I peace out here… they announced Kazuchika Okada and Swerve Strickland officially for Forbidden Door. Good; that show is anchorless right now and that gives you a strong foundation. They also officially had Athena ‘execute her contract’ (sigh) to fight Toni Storm at FD, which is good because that’s one less cash in to worry about. MAKE MAX USE THE CONTRACT, TOO. There also seemed to be a strong indication that this year, Blood and Guts will feature the women’s division, which will definitely make a lot of people happy (and if I’m being VERY honest, women’s plunder matches in AEW usually deliver). I don’t like Blood and Guts being a yearly thing they HAVE to do but at least this may be a novel way to do it. It’s usually on TV but hell, FD looks pretty empty… maybe there? We’ll see.

I guess AEW will be on the road for a bit before we get locked into a million episodes taped at the former ECW arena. REALLY not looking forward to that, since ECW nostalgia rates right behind NWO nostalgia for me as things I never want to see in wrestling again… but we have roughly a month before I have to doom about that.