La Zona Muerta

The groundswell of Japanese people going about their lives, the push of bodies against them. The chance meeting on the crowded street afforded one more opportunity to say what hadn’t yet been said. Darby Allin and Bryan Danielson embraced amongst the tulmolt, one last defiant gesture before real life came crashing back down over them both. Darby knew whatever Bryan said next would change his life. Go? Stay? Bryan took Darby in his arms and whispered two words into his waiting, trembling ear.

“Be good.”

Hmmm? Oh, sorry. This ISN’T my secret Darby / Bryan slash fic “Lost in Pankration”? Ooops.

So, um, yeah. Anyway. If you missed “September to Remember,” it’s a regret you’ll never forget. Or words to that effect. Well, it’s not the stupidest ECW homage we’ll get this week, that’s for sure. A buddy THREW MY OWN WORDS BACK IN MY FACE as I immediately registered disgust over last night’s Canadian crowd and a few malcontents trying to get “WHAT?” and “CM PUNK” chants started. I, of course, wanted AEW out of that rotten ECW Arena, but look what you get, instead. Actually, the crowd was pretty good for most of the night… but I dunno. Really hate those trolls. The show was… fine? It’s getting harder for me to judge. Some friends and I were talking about AEW and the nature of it’s booking earlier in the day… sometimes things are booked so carefully, so intricately and you’re expected to retain a LOT of information to UNDERSTAND that booking, and then sometimes stuff is booked with the fast forward button. If you’re an attention payer, you’re PROBABLY okay… and if you’re, I dunno, taking notes while watching, live Tweeting / Skywriting (Skywriting TM Mrs. Convoy), drawing (oops), well, you might miss some things. Then, of course the eternal VIDEO PACKAGE debate begins… how much is too much? So on and so forth, multiplied by six years.

I think a lot of the more online punditry crowd would probably tell you the booking, while mostly logical, has felt less detail oriented over the past few weeks, and then we even had some bait and switch-y stuff with Kenny Omega, to name a name. While it’s logical that Hangman Adam Page and Kyle Fletcher are having a match, it seems too soon, too rushed. Kazuchika Okada and Konosuke Takeshita have been having more subtle stare downs and such for months now but we’re just flat out having them have a match (which is also a three way for… reasons?)… although there might be external pressures to explain that, especially where that was a match that was benefitting from the typical AEW slow burn. FTR versus Edge and Christian Cage… FTR vs. Edge has been set up for months, so that makes sense, but the jamming together of Edge and Christian has still been too fast (and only saved by Christian’s superior instincts. Edge clearly wants to do hats, glasses and kazoos while Christian wants to maintain the integrity of the character he’s developed over the last three years). Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Mark Briscoe… I wouldn’t say it’s been well built, but it has been built… but it is really only going to work if Briscoe goes over (presumably that’s why it’s partially a tables match so Max doesn’t eat a pinfall loss but still, I have little faith. And don’t get me started on invoking BROTHER DEATH for the millionth time). Etcetera. The elements are THERE, it’s just that we didn’t get ‘there’ in a particularly satisfactory way.

I know All Out will deliver in ring. Am I looking forward to it? I mean… in that it will have great wrestling, sure. It’s got an awful lot of gimmick matches and that four way tag team ladder thing would be FAR better served by being two standard tag team matches. I’m pretty sure I could go the rest of my life without seeing another ladder match and be perfectly happy. The “United Title” three way… I guess it’s probably serving as prelude… but imagine if Okada and Takeshita had remained apart until the finals of the Continental Classic? Or perhaps an even bigger stage? Obviously, it will be good and Okada is probably loving the idea of getting back to his Toryumon roots by facing high flying luchadore Mascara Dorada. Darby and Jon Moxley in a coffin match… there the stip makes sense and those guys are gonna absolutely KILL each other. The madly homoerotic fan fic I alluded to above aside… they did open the door for some DANIELSON-FERENCE with a sit down interview between Darby and Bryan, where Darby all but BEGGED Dragon not to interfere, and the Danielson whispered something into Darby’s shell like ear. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? We’ll see, but I hope we don’t have to wait many years to find out.

I forget if I got to talk about Danny Garcia joining the Death Riders last week… if I did, sorry and if I didn’t, all I’d like to say is that it makes sense and suddenly Garcia is compelling again, with lots of different directions to go. He can be an evil guy, now, or maybe secretly working for Danielson (! There’s an idea) or all sorts of things. Moxley… I think I praised him, a rarity for me, last week, but I’ll say it again… he has looked so good since dropping the heavyweight title. Now, some people are out there still trying to victory lap “JON MOXLEY IS ALWAYS GOOD, EVERYONE WAS TOO MEAN ABOUT THE DEATH RIDERS” into existence and… Jesus, some memories are SHORT. HIS TITLE RUN WAS BAD, WITH SOME OF THE WORST AEW MAIN EVENTS EVER. But since shedding the title, he’s been OUTSTANDING. The DRs are FUN again. Last week when Moxley burst into catering and sent the lower card guys scattering like cockroaches? TREMENDOUS. A brutal, hard hitting match with perennially underrated Roderick Strong last night? SUPERB. I’m all about telling you Moxley is on fire RIGHT NOW, but that doesn’t excuse last September until, what… like April? May?

And again, that means we come to Hangman and Fletcher. Terrific, tremendous thing to do ON PAPER. It will be a hard hitting match. Fletcher’s HUNGER comes off of the TV in palpable waves. The Don Callis Family is the best act in the company. But it just feels too soon to beat the guy.

You see, the thing about Kyle is that he’s the PROTOTYPE of a STAR (Chibi Don Callis by the more talented than she thinks she is Mrs. Convoy)

I hope they have something better for Hanger next month / next PPV cycle. I’m worried that he’s already becoming an afterthought (yes, I know that sounds silly when the whole closing angle of the show was built around injuring him, etc.). I guess what would make sense is Hanger dismantling the Family working his way up to… Okada, I suppose? But when you’re starting with Fletcher, it feels like you’ve already jumped over the potential hurdles, there? I dunno, I don’t want to be someone mad that they aren’t using my crappy fantasy booking.

Think I’ll be glad to see the back of All Out just to reset the tables fresh. I hope Tony Khan is locked in and has some cool ideas for the fall.