La Zona Muerta

Greetings, friends! DON’T WORRY; If AEW died the second Hangman Adam Page lost to Samoa Joe, it was resurrected when Kazuchika Okada stepped in the ring with Kyle Fletcher (he who implores us to say his full name but I don’t feel like anyone has a problem doing that in the first place). IS THIS EASTER.

(No.)

Jesus god, the absolutely EXHAUSTING discourse re: Page and Joe. Look, I’m not immune, I ALSO participate in society! I am very intelligent. THERE IS NO DOUBT that AEW, Tony Khan, THE TWENTY EIGHT VOICES IN “THE ROOM,” or WHOMEVER it is that buggers everything up five minutes before the show did a POOR job in building challengers for Page. The Joe feud felt like a placeholder, 100%.

AND YET.

We are getting the two dudes who hated each other and had one of the most violent feuds in wrestling history in a superhero team up. Before All In, a lot of podcast / content creator (he says, typing “content”) types were preemptively mad about the idea that Page needed his “Avengers assemble” moment to rally the babyfaces to ward off the evil Death Riders and… we sort of got that then but not really… Will Ospreay tried to do a thing but was killed off, Bryan Danielson did a thing, Darby Allin also did a thing and then, most importantly, Swerve Strickland came down and gave Hangman a hangin’ chain (he didn’t directly interfere) to conquer the hated Jon Moxley. They didn’t team up, exactly, but they acknowledged a grudging coexistence.

And now, four months later, it really IS a superhero team up. Swerve and Hangman won’t even LOOK at each other but they are united in violence, united by the chain. Two hard men, doing bad things to take out those who wronged them.

AGAIN, IT’S OKAY IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT. BUT I GENUINELY THINK WHAT WE ARE GETTING MIGHT BE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE THAN PAGE MERELY MOVING ON TO THE NEXT ILL BUILT CONTENDER.

I’m not going to argue the metrics and values of Hangman. You can turn to others for that… some voices I like saying they like Hangman but seem to concentrate solely on the flatness of AEW business to assign his worth or the effectiveness of his reign, some shows talking about the positives of his quarter hours, segment placement, buy rates and ticket movement (when AEW is in a venue where there are a number of tickets to be moved) to the point of making it seem they might be superfans of Page when they aren’t. Some people, desperate to be the main characters of online wrestling discourse, want you to believe that Khan lost FAITH in Hangman and the belt move is something almost PUNITIVE in scope.

What is the truth?

Maybe here’s the simple truth… maybe there’s more money in Hangman CHASING than HOLDING. It really doesn’t have to be anything more than that. Except when he’s blowing up people’s houses, Hangman is a fairly straight forward babyface. Maybe he simply works better if you give him an obstacle to overcome.

AND THAT’S NOT A BAD THING.

Which brings me to YOUR World Heavyweight Champion.

So not only do you have the angry Hangman superfans pissed that Samoa Joe was the one to end the reign, NOW you have the griftlord podcast contingent AGAIN intimating that AEW has a youth problem because Joe is being “pushed at the top.”

Is he? Being PUSHED, I mean. Sure, he will beat Eddie Kingston in a couple of weeks (Eddie challenged in a classic, heartfelt, “only Eddie Kingston could deliver this promo” type promo on Collision), he’ll beat a couple people, I presume in route to whomever gets the heavyweight title next… but again… Joe isn’t being PUSHED. He’s an OBSTACLE FOR THE GOOD GUYS TO OVERCOME. This isn’t a case of… let’s name a name and say EDGE politicking his way into ONE LAST RUN, BROTHER, not putting anyone over and being PUSHED OVER OTHER TALENT. Joe will put over whomever they put in front of him and he will do a terrific job doing it because he has a better understanding of himself, his character and the business of pro wrestling than an awful lot of people (up to and including the person typing these very words). This ISN’T AEW going BACKWARDS as much as some people want to paint it as. I’d love, LOVE to see the Venn diagram overlap of the people howling about Joe right now and the people who were blithering about how much they liked him before he dared to butt heads with THE BELOVED HANGMAN.

AEW has a NUMBER of problems… mostly the lack of upward mobility for a LOT of the talent. AEW has a tendency to book the BIG storylines GLACIALLY… sometimes to the benefit of the story, sometimes to the point of having you scream “turn already!” at your TV or “this again?” On the other hand, we are conditioned to have A, B and C stories in wrestling and AEW is generally really good about acknowledging continuity and history. It’s all a matter of perspective.

And then, of course, compounding frustration re: Joe and Page, you have the dreaded HOOK factor. “THEY DIDN’T EXPLAIN WHY HE WAS IN THE OPPS THE WHOLE TIME!” Yes, they did; they even replayed a clip of Bryan Danielson screaming about how easily HOOK tapped out the last time Samoa Joe and HOOK were in a ring together. Is it really too far of a bridge to accept that HOOK was a bad guy all along? I know some people absolutely HATE HOOK, and I’m not going to change anyone’s mind on that… that’s up to AEW and HOOK, HIMSELF to do, but again, I’d love to see that Venn diagram overlap between the people now BACKTRACKING to say it’s not JOE they have a problem with, but HOOK being the catalyst to Hangman’s loss that has angered them and the people who used to blither ON AND ON about SEND HOOK and HOOK’s luscious hair and whatever else. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU MEME SOMETHING INTO EXISTENCE. YOU GET A BIG, FAT HEEL TURN YOU DON’T LIKE.

Thank MIGHTY GOTCH ABOVE, WHO GAZES DOWN UPON ALL OF US WITH A KEEN EYE AND MIGHTY MOUSTACHE for the Continental Classic, a tournament so good, so TIME CONSUMING on AEW TV that PEOPLE SPENT ALL THEIR TIME COMPLAINING ABOUT THE DISSOLUTION OF THE AEW UNITED CHAMPIONSHIP there’s not much time for the dreaded DISCOURSE or complaining. Instead, you get at the very, very least, solid TV wrestling, and at best, you get AMAZING stuff that should probably be on pay per view. I’m not much of a star rater, you know I’m not into enumerating my experiences or things I enjoy in that in that manner but if I were, every CC match thus far was probably starting at the floor of four stars and going up from there based on participants and outcomes. Okada dropped a fall, clean as a sheet in the goddamned middle of the ring to Kyle Fletcher and it was BEAUTIFUL. Just a perfect match, two guys, evenly matched, and one of them eventually being caught out after fuckingaround a little too much. Obviously the story of the tournament has to be the story of Okada and Konosuke Takeshita, but Fletcher ties in to both of those guys and Fletcher getting a clean bean pin over the guy they actively market as THE GREATEST TOURNAMENT WRESTLER OF ALL TIME is a powerful statement about how they see him (Fletcher, 26 and you’re telling me that AEW has a YOUTH PROBLEM). If that weren’t enough, you only have Darby Allin go and give Kevin Knight (POOR, YOUTH DEPRIVED AEW) the MATCH OF HIS FUCKING LIFE and a clean win. Obviously Knight isn’t going to win the tournament but it’s possible that in one night… Darby might well have MADE that guy and that’s incredible. As always, AEW’s main weakness is striking while the iron is hot (a subset of that primary weakness being the almighty follow up)… we can’t say yet and Kevin getting killed in his next four matches might well deluster that shine but for a moment there, when he hit that coast to coast dropkick FAR MORE SMOOTHLY than the befuddled and likely smelly Rob Van Dam, or the purple and self important Shane McMahon (“oh but DJ, he’s the ‘GOOD MCMAHON’”), right into Darby’s face SHOOTWAY, I screamed out loud like a kid at Christmas. SO GOOD. The really fun thing on Wednesday night would have been Orange Cassidy (facing Claudio Castagnoli in a bout of CHIKARA x CHIKARA violence. Oh, while I’m on the subject, commentary claimed that Orange was so upset re: Claudio and the Death Riders in general that he BURST into Tony Khan’s office demanding that their match be on Dynamite, not Collision. Too bad no one told the man who portrays the Orange Cassidy character that) go over in his match as well to have a night of WHOOPS, ALL UPSETS. Oh, well.

The only real problem (and it wasn’t a problem, it was just an ill judged way to go off of TV, was at the end of the show… since interference is banned, everyone was itching all night to DO A RUN IN and Dynamite went off the air with the most tepid schmoz you’ve ever seen. Totally lame, totally unimportant and forgettablebut obviously they could not erase the memories of the great action.

I’d stop here, but the THANKSGIVING DAY TRADITION returned (no not Starrcade or the Survivor Series) as they aired Collison Thursday night. No less an authority than Tony Schiavone told us OVER AND OVER that Thanksgiving used to be the biggest night in professional wrestling (it won’t be this week, sorry to say). Again, all the CC matches delivered and OLD KARL GOTCH HIMSELF, THE GOD OF PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING SMILED UPON HIS MISBEGOTTEN SON and gave me for a main event, a reward for struggling against the effects of FOOD BLOAT and L-tryptophan… KONOSUKE TAKESHITA VERSUS RODERICK STRONG.

GOTCH BLESS US, EACH AND EVERY ONE. Friends cackled, quick to tell me “did you see that match! I thought immediately of you!” and the like and I luxuriated in the blanket of the Blue Thunder Bomb versus the Backbreaker, the Jumping Knee versus the Sick Kick, the Raging Fire versus the End of Heartache.

(Honestly, the match was good, even really good, but the best match of the tournament has been easily Okada and Fletcher.)

Collision also featured the aforementioned classic Eddie Kingston promo (he has felt completely weird and adrift since his return, so a match with Katsuyori Shibata seemed like the tune up he needed and the promo was an all timer) and a great piece of business between Danny Garcia and Daddy Magic, Matt Menard. Actually, before I sign off, let me speak about that one… Danny cut another low key pretty decent promo about how he appreciated Menard but now Menard is an anchor around his neck… how Menard had shed BLOOD for him… but now he needed Menard to shed blood ONE MORE TIME. Great stuff. Menard came out and immediately starting screaming, every taunt easily heard without the assistance of amplification. Can I talk about old Daddy Magic for a second? I know everyone loves the Outrunners and their overblown Eighties “territory” gimmick, but Daddy Magic is the actual brothered out dude who could have easily been a territory guy. I love his obviously in shape but drinks too many Molsons physique, his shouty-man personality, the whole thing. That’s a cat who lives and breathes wrestling (and REALLY likes the Kansas City Chiefs for some reason, but that’s neither here nor there). Anyway, Menard did INDEED bleed for Garcia and this all worked really well as Jon Moxley ranted and raved about Menard being an “amateur” on commentary. Mark Briscoe immediately came out in the aftermath to challenge Danny (himself a former TNT title holder) so that’s a case of everything being tied into a nice, little bow (the good kind of AEW continuity) and should be at the very least a good match, if not a whole program; we shall see.

Continental Classic time is, I suppose, my favorite time of year in AEW; an emphasis on in ring storytelling (while still weaving in past encounters, anger, stories of all stripes). I think the world title picture is, well… if nothing else, at least it’s INTERESTING. As always, it’s everything else surrounding it (endless drama, in this case self-generated by fans, content creators and insiders alike) that threatens to take the wind out of my sails.