La Zona Muerta

Gotta be honest with you, gang… and if I weren’t, there’d be no point to me writing this OR you reading it: this was another week where I don’t feel like I have much to say. Not symptoms of burnout or anything, at least I don’t think so; I just wasn’t particularly moved. There was a satisfying conclusion to the Women’s Tag Title Tournament (certainly the best match of the tourney, altho’ that’s not an especially high bar to clear), two strong Continental Classic matches… some fun with Hangman Adam Page, Swerve Strickland and the OPPs and finally, a decent title defense with Samoa Joe and Eddie Kingston. All well and good… I just wasn’t particularly GRIPPED by any of it. Not really their fault, I suppose… maybe I wasn’t in the right mood or my mind was drifting… I dunno.

Part of it, probably, was the fact that the two CC matches (Kazuchika Okada versus Jack Perry and Kyle Fletcher versus Speedball Mike Bailey) weren’t especially strong looking or essential on paper to me. Both ended up fine, Speedball and Fletcher obviously BETTER than merely “fine” (I probably wasn’t as high on it as some were but people were LOSING THEIR MINDS OVER IT last night) but it’s a TOURNAMENT; not everything is going to leap out at you.

May as well get into it quickly instead of shambling around… the BABES OF WRATH (sigh) are your inaugural women’s tag team champs. I hope AEW knows what they are doing, here… Willow Nightingale is probably the most baseline “over” woman on the roster and Harley Cameron, despite my PERSONAL antipathy for her act, isn’t far behind. When I say “I hope they know what they are doing,” what I mean is that AEW as it stands doesn’t really utilize the MEN’S tag team scene all that well, certainly not like they did in the earlier years of the promotion… and now we are supposed to hope that the women will have a vibrant tag team scene of their own? I know a lot of people think the women’s side of the roster is stacked with talent… I personally believe it’s thinner than you might think. You have maybe seven or eight women currently who work at a (forgive the term) elite level, then a bunch BELOW that, some who can certainly hold their own in a match with one of the top women, some who can potentially drag things down. I think this tournament exposed that a bit, to be honest; this thing was NOT a creative success and it seemed like such an easy lay up when it was announced (see also the Ring of Honor Women’s Pure Title tournament). I don’t know that there are enough good workers to sustain a tag team scene whilst providing decent competition for both the Women’s World title AND the TBS title and again… a solid tag scene seems to be a nut they have a hard time cracking in general! Color me skeptical that they have any good follow up plans. I want to be proven wrong… I have to watch this after all, but I envision a world where Willow and Harley have a bunch of middling defenses against thrown together ad hoc tag teams and then these belts just become more of many, an afterthought. Putting aside the idea of wanting to see top tier work, I think I would have maybe belted up Marina Shafir and Megan Bayne, and given Willow and Harley someone to chase. Build up the bad gals, build up Harley and Willow… maybe do an inconclusive PPV match and then a final gimmick match at the next big show.

Jack Perry, tournament replacement for Darby Allin, came out to do battle with Okada, the GREATEST TOURNAMENT WRESTLER ETC. Match was fine, even good… the thing most people are talking about is that Jack Perry found an… innovative way out of the Tombstone Piledriver… by taking a bite out of Okada’s li’l Rainmaker. Well, Perry DID promise to start doing more for TUMBLR type fans. I’ll be the dickhead, here… I would have rather seen what Darby and Okada could have done together. I think the fact that most of the discourse around the match is about the CHOMP CHOMP would probably prove that this match didn’t really do anything bad, but failed to do anything special. Not an indictment, just an observation. Don Callis offered membership in an EXCLUSIVE club… the Don Callis Family to Perry afterward, and despite the odds, Perry declined by attacking the DCF, and predictably, got stomped. Luchasaurus lumbered out to make the save and took FOREVER just standing there… some friend. Of course, this was to hide the fact that the Young Bucks were sneaking up from behind (ooh er, missus) with chairs. They beat up Okada (who sold comically) and Luchasaurus FINALLY dared to get in the ring and proceeded to get heat with me by applying the ol’ double chokeslam to Hechicero and EL CLON. Why the fuck would luchadores want to be in this company. And look, I love Don Callis, YOU KNOW THIS, but the recruiting segments are starting to get a little NWO-esque… and that’s NOT a compliment. At the end, KONOSUKE TAKESHITA, KING OF MEN, pushed Don out of the way to take a double superkick from the Bucks. THE GREAT TURN OF ’25 is probably coming any day now, maybe even next week (there isn’t much ’25 left, after all), and my beautiful, best boy is out there STILL protecting Don. That kind of loyalty? IT WOULD BRING A TEAR TO A GLASS EYE. Next week, Callis gets three guys and the Bucks get a partner to do battle in Manchester (what if it were MADCHESTER and the Happy Mondays were involved. The one guy, just doing his little Skank dance for thirty minutes straight). We’d find out later that the third man would not, in fact be Hulk Hogan, but rather BIG KENNY OMEGA (and his bosom).

Hangman Page and Swerve merged to form DEVASTATOR and wrought destruction upon the OPPs team of Powerhouse Will Hobbs and Katsuyori Shibata. Another time where while it was fine, I guess nothing was really that memorable as most people were more into the idea that Hangman and Swerve oughta kiss as opposed to any stand out action. May as well. The action was good; they kept the “CAN THEY GET ALONG” stuff mostly to a minimum… save an intense staredown that, to be fair, DID look kiss adjacent. Hanger hit Shibata with the Buckshot… Swerve kicked Shibata right in his once removed brain, and that was all she wrote. Something I’d like to see come out of this feud… I want Hobbs to be kind of a perennial thorn in Hangman’s side, a goal to overcome, as it were. Swerve… I can’t believe the upgrade in his presentation. He was already someone I thought was cool and exerts that elusive top guy aura… but now… it RADIATES from him in waves. His new theme song is killer… he seems to have not lost a step despite putting on a LOT of muscle weight (maybe too much)… I need this guy to rule this promotion as a tweener king.

Kyle Fletcher and Speedball Bailey beat the absolute piss out of each other in their CC match up. I don’t know if I’ve really gotten into it here, so I may as well again… I respect his work and so forth… I just think if you’ve seen one Speedball match, you’ve pretty much seen them all and despite having a great match with Fletcher… I haven’t really changed that opinion. A LOT of people thought this was an amazing match and I’m fully willing to admit that it was probably better than I thought. I was a little turned off by the kickout finisher spam at the end and frankly, by the fact that Speedball ultimately won, but I GET IT, it’s a tournament, dudes have to have upsets. The story was that Speedball desperately needed the points to stay in contention and went all out… possibly to the point of going too far given the amount of VERY VISIBLE damage he accrued. Fletcher countered him at every turn… kicked out of everything and the kitchen sink and then they started doing the pin reversal thing and Bailey caught Fletcher with less than a minute to go. I saw a friend say this was the best match of the tournament and I’d strongly disagree; this was not as good as Fletcher / Okada and the upset was not as fun as Darby / Kevin Knight, but the crowd loved it, the online cognoscenti loved it and even if I DIDN’T… obviously it was a good, well worked match and it’s hard to complain about that.

Then the show wrapped with a solid Samoa Joe title defense against Eddie Kingston. Both men gave good promos during the show; Joe pointing out that he’s ALWAYS been the guy who saved the independents, who carried ROH on his back, Eddie saying he would die for the match, and needed to win because it was the fiftieth anniversary of Terry Funk winning the NWA title. By the end of the match, Eddie looked beat and and Joe’s chest was MINCED BURGER MEAT; just nasty. Pretty much the slugfest I hoped for and there was a crazy bit towards the end where Eddie (barely, but he did it) hit a DISGUSTING Exploder suplex that rattled Joe’s brain. Joe choked Eddie out, which was fine… but one nitpicking tweak… Eddie should have PASSED out as opposed to tapping out. Eddie’s whole deal is “never say die,” you know? I was surprised / proud / happy to see that despite a LOT of people talking themselves into believing this was gonna be a for sure title change to mollify the vocal, angry fanbase that is still mad that Joe is champion… people didn’t seem to crash out too badly over Joe retaining. The reality is, had Eddie won… everyone would have been FURIOUS, and not in the good, money drawing way, when Eddie had to immediately drop the title to a returning Maxwell Jacob Friedman, who’s gonna be back any day now, I’d reckon.

So yeah, a good Dynamite even if my personal socks weren’t knocked off. GREAT Georgia crowd, super into the show. I’m sure the UK crowd for the next couple of weeks will be WILD and it sounds like there’s some good stuff lined up for those fans. MAybe I’ll be in a better, more receptive mood next week.