La Zona Muerta

See? BIG DON isn’t the only one with Wu lyrics at his disposal.

Episodes like Wednesday’s Dynamite are my absolute least favorite to talk about… nothing was truly terrible, nothing was particularly great. I’m not especially fired up for WrestleDream, which will certainly be fine, but I don’t anticipate it being better than fine. AEW doldrums; I’ve got ’em and the company is in ’em. I do have some minor complaints… it took nearly fifteen minutes to field the first wrestling match of the night (an underwhelming Gates of Agony / Hurt Syndicate affair where Shelton Benjamin ate the pin and seemed to have some sort of issue he was loudly discussing with the referee. In my mind’s eye, he was bitching about the finish and I wouldn’t blame him as Ricochet snuck in with his dumb Gun thingie. He must have been having Stamford flashbacks) and then they went immediately to a kind of cool, kind of wacky video package. Point being, in the first thirty five minutes of the show, there was ONE wrestling match, which was only like eight or nine minutes long. I dunno… that’s not how I would time stuff out. Start with a HOT match, maybe the famous AEW “party” match or a hot lucha sprint and THEN do the sit down interview, the pre tapes, the whatever.

Shrug.

The kind of cool, kind of wacky pretape (I assume conceived and filmed by one D. Allin, Esq.) featured Darby Allin and Jon Moxley in JAIL for some reason, talking to each other through the partition where members of the public can come talk to prisoners. How they got there? Why they were there? Unexplained. The promo CONTENT was good; Mox pointing out that neither man was likely to quit, so where does that leave them? Darby said that part of him wanted to join the Death Riders (! What?) but he could never given that Mox stabbed Bryan Danielson in the back. Mox pointing out that stabbing Danielson in the back was hard for him, too. Okay.

Then, apparently, Darby is a babyface dumb dumb as the Death Riders, particularly PAC, came into the little holding cell thing and beat the absolute shit out of him.

So, let me get this straight. In the world of KAYFABE (and not even that; it’s more like the world of HEAD CANON), Mox and Darby agreed to a sit down, in this abandoned jail (or whatever) so presumably they couldn’t get at each other. Darby agreed but, I dunno, let his guard down and put himself in a position to get absolutely TRUCKED by the Riders? No back up? No guarantees?

Dumb. I realize DUMB BABYFACES are a lifelong wrestling trope but… I dunno.

Anyway, all of this was to set up a spot / finish at the PPV; Darby swore to choke Moxley out with the AEW flag Darby took to the summit of Mount Everest.

Cool.

Roderick Strong and Claudio Castagnoli had a decent match. They have a better one in them, methinks. Claudio won, which was kind of a snore; Roddy is the one that could desperately use some credibility with wins right now and the Riders were destined to win later in the night, anyway.

Previously I said that there was nothing great on the show and I TOLD A LIE; they aired a Don Callis segment from YouTube where Don’s GREAT family was celebrating his birthday. Konosuke Takeshita sent in a heartfelt video about how much Don has meant to his career and how he was going to win the IWGP Heavyweight title for Don… and Kazuchika Okada, LUDDITE THAT HE IS, “accidentally” turned off the video. Great, only two minutes long and made the point. Beautiful.

Art imitating life; Takeshita getting no appreciation in his stable OR in real life from fickle fans. Don’t get me started.

Next up was a bit of a head scratch; your PARTY MATCH of the evening with Kenny Omega slowly learning to trust the Jurassic Express versus the Don Callis Family (in this case, Josh Alexander, Hechicero and the returned MARK DAVIS, who I hope the gods of wrestling look over and grant protection to). The heat has been re-shifted… instead of avenging HIMSELF on either the absent Kyle Fletcher or the absent Andrade (It’s taking every fiber of my being not to write a thousand words on the state of critical thinking in both online wrestling fandom AND online wrestling reportage. Don’t believe whatever dumb conspiracy theory you’ve heard about Andrade and FUCK YOU for making me stick up for him), now Kenny’s avenging the real life injured Kota Ibushi which is… I dunno. Seemed off. Obviously if someone gets hurt in real life, wrestling heels are going to take advantage of that. Maybe Josh Alexander will don (ho ho) a “I BROKE KOTA’S LEG” shirt… but it felt hinky to me… and there was little, if any mention made of the DCF putting Kenny on the shelf, too. I dunno. Match was fine and was largely about Jack Perry trying to gain Kenny’s trust.

Here’s the REALLY strange thing. If Kenny is wrestling on the pay per view this weekend… WE DON’T KNOW. He doesn’t have a match scheduled. Is he wrestling? Are they just going to announce a match with KENNY FUCKING OMEGA on “social media?” I hope not; that’s dumb. But if he’s not wrestling on the show, why did they do this match? Kenny / Kota were not AVENGED; the guy who ate the pin was Hechicero, of all people. Pretty much everything that’s happened with Kenny this year has seemed backward. Some are blaming it on him or his physical health and I don’t think that’s the culprit. I think Kenny has a limited number of dates (which is totally fine and understandable) and they simply haven’t been utilized well. He’s sort of feuding with the DCF, which I get; he should be feuding with Alexander and Kyle Fletcher IN SPECIFIC, but Fletcher has another dance partner at the show and who knows what Alexander is doing. If Kenny’s time is truly limited… in my opinion, they’re SQUANDERING it.

I’m not sure anything else really made much of an impression upon me. I think (THINK) the show ended with the typical Death Riders nonsense, which was all a vehicle to show Darby tortuously crawl all the way (presumably from jail) to the ring to show that HE WILL NOT QUIT. Dog, I KNOW. You’ll get some combination of the Conglomeration vs. The Riders on the PPV show, I’m sure, maybe even a couple of matches between the two. I think Roddy should have went over earlier in the evening to show the Riders can be beaten.

Dynamite go home shows rarely stick the landing and I think you can add this episode to that un-illustrious pile. It didn’t DETRACT from any of the built programs… I still think Samoa Joe / Hangman Adam Page will be a fun, violent sprint… obviously the I Quit match will be wild… but am I truly looking forward to the show? As of right now, it’s just the wrestling that will be on on Saturday for casa de Convoy.

LET’S HEAR IT FOR INOKI.