La Zona Muerta

A pal of mine took to social media during last night’s edition of AEW Dynamite, and, after a particularly divisive segment, he wrote “Are you not sports entertained?” to which I simply replied “No.”

“Imagine being so joyless that you couldn’t enjoy that segment,” some random chirped in.

“Imagine being blocked,” I replied, and did so.

I am sick to my goddamned EYE TEETH of being told what I need to enjoy in the stupid wrestling show I devote far too much time to every week. AEW IS NOT THIS FLAWLESS JEWEL, UNDESERVING OF CRITICISM, and if I don’t like something, I am well within my rights to NOT LIKE IT. YOUR ENJOYMENT OF IT DOES NOT INCREASE OR DECREASE IF I DIDN’T LIKE IT.

If you have followed my work for pretty much any amount of time, if you’ve known me from the various places I let my opinions about wrestling be known, you’ll know that my primary enjoyment in wrestling comes from, well, WRESTLING. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy promos and skits… I do when they are executed well or if I find they have a particular resonance… but they aren’t generally my focus. A segment like the Mercedes Moné belt celebration last night is very much the type of thing I DON’T enjoy; a couple of performers I don’t particularly care for trying hard to course correct a very stupid decision made on Saturday… made extra wacky for whatever reason, placed in the second most prominent position on the show and potentially damaging a performer I DO like. FOR ME (and as always, it’s not directed at you if you did enjoy it, I am talking about MY enjoyment), this PUPPET PAGENTRY was as bad as the infamous Britt Baker / Nyla Rose hamburger segment, some of the REALLY self indulgent Chris Jericho stuff, the REALLY wacky Miro segments where he was dressed like an American tourist before he figured out his main value was calling out MIGHTY YAHWEH, okay, maybe not as bad as the Cody / Anthony Agogo weigh in… NOTHING is as bad as that… but this was a big time LOW. For ME. The puppet, the CONSTANT references to Ultimo Dragon (someone whom I’m guessing 75% of the audience either doesn’t know or only knows from the pic of him holding the J-Crown)… the attempt to course correct the disastrous GEEKING of Kris Standlander… this was a nadir for AEW. At least the wrestling cake bump trope was observed, I guess. NO CAKES WILL GO UNSMASHED.

There is a contingent of AEW fans… I’m sure I’ve whined about it before… that, unless you are complaining about whatever the current cause celebré is (not enough matches announced, not enough segments for the women, PPV is on at the wrong time / day, etc.), they will NOT accept bad things being said about AEW. They will twist and contort. They will retroactively misremember or flat out pretend. THEY WILL FIND YOU AND TELL YOU WHY YOU’RE WRONG… and that is SO fucking unappealing. Presumably, we all enjoy, or at least tolerate AEW. Let’s try to be all at least pointed in the same direction, yeah? When I rant about something, it’s not to CHANGE YOUR MIND, it’s simply to get out my thoughts about a topic, hopefully in an at least mildly entertaining manner. You are free to agree or disagree.

Anyway.

There was some great stuff on this episode of Dynamite. However, if you were hoping WrestleDream was the end to a number of feuds and that this episode of Dyanamite was a fresh page… this show may well have been a head scratcher. Darby Allin / Jon Moxley and the Death Riders? Not over. Hurt Syndicate and the Demand? Not done. Bucks still broke and looking for loose change by fighting A Boy and his Dinosaur? Not cashed out. Mark Briscoe looking for ONE MORE SHOT against Kyle Fletcher? A no for now (which means a ‘yes’ down the line). I’m not UPSET about those things for the most part… but I guess I’m old fashioned enough to believe that feud ending matches are a thing.

In brief… my worries about the freshly minted heel OPPS (I have to make that all caps, otherwise my mind reads it as “oops,” every goddamn time) losing their first match out were unfounded. Of course, the elderly MVP was willing to do “business” with Samoa Joe, so I guess that’s good. Now, unfortunately, we are subject to MVP hitting his 2007 SmackDown taunt in every match. Is Scott Taylor still an agent in AEW? At any rate, the subtle changes Joe makes as a heel… I really can’t say enough about Joe as a performer. Him noping out at certain points of the match, tagging in a compatriot… his heel promo on the San Antonio crowd… this guy gets the assignment. The only thing missing, really, was Hangman Adam Page… (yes, there was a pre tape) which is weird since Page was advertised for Collision, which I believe was taped the same night. We need PYROMANIAC Page here, a man who was wronged and is willing to go to unholy lengths to right them.

What else? Moxley fought Kyle O’Reilly and took a shortcut by getting himself DQed after a really hard hitting little hidden gem of a match. There was a time where a finish like this would have probably upset me but here, it’s a part of Moxley’s slow decay. My biggest qualm would probably be that KOR has been depicted as SUCH a dork that giving him a win over Moxley, even in this fashion, feels like a waste. Roderick Strong would have been a better beneficiary, perhaps. This all rolled into a battle with the Conglomeration and the Death Riders, which was a lot of fun, and set up PAC versus Tomohiro Ishii for Collision, kept Darby in the foiling the DRs mix, etc. There has been an AWFUL lot of buzz online about the Death Riders kicking out Mox due to his failure at the PPV… and frankly, we didn’t really get any hints towards that direction, here. Is this a thing? hard to say, but Mox right now is on fire. I’d love to see PAC elevated in this manner, believe me… but I don’t know if a split is on the cards. Whatever happens, Marina Shafir better stick by Mox’ side. The two of them in tandem are too good to split up.

Jaime Hayter absolutely ANNIHILATED Penelope Ford with the Hayterade (essentially a short arm clothesline / Rainmaker). Actually, I should amend that; Queen Aminata first HEADBUTTED Ford into the Shadow Realm, setting up Hayter to hit the Hayterade and THEN Hayter, well… HIT HARD. That was a beautiful tag team tandem. They should be a fun team in the Women’s Tag Tournament! However, the fun was immediately dampened as we found out later that Mercedes will be in the tournament (along with Athena… more WACKY TAG PARTNERS THAT CAN’T GET ALONG), as well. What the hell are they doing? This tourney should be a refuge from the Monéverse, not an adjunct. Disappointing.

And that brings us to the main event, the sweet, beautiful main event… Bandido versus Kazuchika Okada. Let me set up a strawman to knock down… I have seen sentiment online of late that because Tony Khan beats Bandido all the time, that he doesn’t VALUE him.

HORSESHIT.

Bandido DOES lose a lot (so does Hechicero, I might point out)… but if you think that Khan doesn’t value this guy, putting him in the MAIN EVENT OF THE SHOW and letting him look like a world beater against one of the greatest champions of all time? I don’t know what to tell you. This was a fantastic match and they are telling you that even if it’s not Bandido’s time right now… there may well come a time where it is. Okada clearly likes working the guy, too; harkening back to Okada’s own lucharesu roots. They have good chemistry together; Bandido gets to play David to Okada’s Goliath, except for the fact that Bandido might be stronger than his opponent. The ending of this… Bandido ducked a Rainmaker and hit one of his own with his good arm. The crowd was ON THEIR FEET, totally buying into this. Bandido hurked Okada up for the X Knee, hit it, and went for the 21 Plex… and got CRUSHED by a Rainmaker. PERFECTION. It’s what you want as a booker… the crowd to totally buy that the babyface could win. Maybe he will down the road! Then, even better… the assembled Don Callis Family came out to celebrate… with ONE NOTABLE EXCEPTION. I looked at the missus. “Is tonight the night?” I said with bated breath. KNOSUKE TAKESHITA took center stage, and it indeed was looking like tonight would be the night of THE GREAT FACE TURN, but Callis and Takeshita’s work husband, Kyle Fletcher, talked him down as Okada grinned on. RRRAAAGHHHH THIS IS WHAT I WANT IN MY WRESTLING. A great match giving notes towards the future, setting up something else even greater. A beautiful end to the show, nearly negating any issues I may have had. The match itself had me slapping the floor, a sure sign of quality and the post match was pitch perfect.

I’m sorry that the PUPPET FUN wasn’t my deal (nor was Mercedes, covered in cake, wandering the back for twenty minutes, asking where the makeup girl was. Try the shower first, maybe?) even if Kris Statlander desperately needed to score one on Mercedes… I just don’t think that was the move. I was SO HIGH on Stat when she punked out the Death Riders… and now… I don’t know what this is, but it ain’t for me. I DON’T GO INTO DYNAMITE LOOKING TO NOT ENJOY IT; I want to love the show! I spend two plus hours watching it and another two hours plus writing about the damn thing every week! But again, it’s OKAY if I think something is monumentally stupid and damaging.

It’s not like I’m the only one.