La Zona Muerta

Friend of the blog BIG T (you know who you are and if the clichéd phrase “a brother from another mother” EVER applied, well Good LORD, it applies here) asked me the other day where my pay per view review was. Obviously I generally review every (or near every AEW PPV), especially as my overall wrestling consumption has started to wane of late. No excuses not to watch.

There was no pay per view review. I turned off the pay per view in frustration and disgust after Jon Moxley beat Kyle Fletcher in the semi finals of the Continental Classic. I did not stick around to watch him go on to win the whole thing.

It’s not even Moxley, not really. This time last year, if Mox had won something like the Continental Classic over Fletcher, with how ROTTEN Mox was wrestling at the time? I’d probably be here typing about, I dunno, that awful Billy Ray Cyrus comic I have moldering away in the bin somewhere (I’ll get to it one day, this I vow). You may or may not realize this but if you’re one of the two or three dozen people who actually read this dumb crap I vomit onto the screen every week and particularly you followed me from my old haunt, you’ll know that I have been “reviewing” (or whatever it is I actually do; I’m not certain you can call these stream of consciousness rants “reviews”) Dynamite more or less every week since its inception… and there are times where my faith is rattled badly enough that I would rather just stop. Frankly, there have been more than a couple of times where I watch AEW simply because I have generated myself a job… to talk about it here and elsewhere. And right now… this is one of those times. I don’t feel like writing about AEW. I don’t even particularly want to watch it.

So the Continental Classic quite literally kicked off with Don Callis, probably my favorite thing about AEW right now, and his men Fletcher, Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada declaring their intentions to enter, Fletcher upset about losing the TNT title, Okada trying to drive a wedge between Fletcher and his work husband Takeshita, Takeshita trying to please Don and keep his head held high while dealing with Okada’s bullshit. The story of the Classic was largely about these three men and their path, and how their fates converged. The best wrestler in the world, the best tournament wrestler of all time, and probably the most improved wrestler I’ve ever seen. How would they intersect?

Meanwhile, everyone decided, and to be fair, the in ring largely seemed to support the idea, that Mox’ story in the Classic was about him failing and crashing out, and the Death Riders finally turning on him. Mox was having really good matches (that’s ME saying that; like I said above, I’ve largely come to grips with Moxley now, and the way he is wrestling is diametrically opposed to the slow, methodical and DULL matches he was having at this time last year), and basically barely managed to scrape by to get to the semi finals. That’s fine; Mox fails or whatever and the turn everyone has fantasy booked for the last six months can finally happen, right?

So Okada and Takeshita finally have their match. The match they have been building to for YEARS, now. Who’s the apple of Don Callis’ eye? Who’s better, the old lion, defending his turf or the young lion, fueled by the surety of his youth and power?

We won’t know, at least not this time. Just as the match kicked into second gear, just as things were starting to get REALLY good… Okada produced a screwdriver (the screwdriver being the weapon of choice for Callis and his jerks since he backed Will Ospreay) that was hidden in a turnbuckle and attacked Takeshita with it.

In the Continental Classic.

The tournament where it’s supposed to be for the sickos who like WRESTLING, those of us who need to “put our money where our mouths are.” The tournament where there’s no outside interference allowed, upon pain of DISMISSAL.

On a pay per view.

In the semi finals of the best wrestling tournament of the year (and probably the last couple of years).

A finish like this is something you do on TV when you want to get out of something, not on a highly anticipated match years in the making on pay per view.

To make matters worse, not only was this a terrible finish… they EXECUTED IT BADLY, TOO, fully within referee Paul Turner’s eyeshot.

To be fair, there has been foreign object interference in the CC in the past, just last year if memory serves, but it was a case of a babyface (Komander) getting revenge against a heel (Claudio Castagnoli, I believe). I recall that being a fairly clever bit of business, Darby Allin being beaten up but leaving brass knuckles under the ring and whispering to Komander to use them. I also recall gnashing of teeth about that at the time… this is supposed to be the no nonsense tournament but I think Komander probably received the “outsmarting the bad guys” babyface pass so people weren’t too pissed. That was also during the tournament proper, not the semi finals of a pay per view, and Komander’s chances to advance were already toast; it was all about the moral victory.

And of course, after this amazingly TERRIBLE screwdriver screwjob finish, the litany of excuses began. What’s really amazing is the number of AEW fans who feel the need to WRESTLESPLAIN to strangers when something stinky airs. IT CAN’T BE BAD IF AEW DID IT SO IT MUST BE ON PURPOSE.

“It’s a political finish.”

“Did you expect a clear cut winner? It would have been two heels fighting.”

“They did this to set up Moxley getting turned on by the Death Riders.”

“It’s to set up another match.”

“Relax and see where it goes.”

All of these and more I was bombarded with when I was crashing out on Bluesky about my most anticipated match of 2025 being buggered up.

Was it a political finish? Perhaps… but WRESTLING IS FAKE. Have Takeshita and Okada have a match AFTER January 4th, then, if your overseas partner can’t stand either to lose.

Was it to set up the turn by the Death Riders? *gestures at the screen* Not only have they not turned, they seem to be on the same page, even though the majority of the team is still cheating to win.

Was it to set up another match? I didn’t go into the pay per view on Saturday thinking the issue between Takeshita and Okada would be settled, but I wanted a hard hitting match with a winner and a loser. Did I expect a clear cut winner? Yes, absolutely. It’s between two heels? So what? That’s actually cool.

Should I “relax?”

No, but you can happily fuck off. That’s not a strawman either, by the way. A stranger 100% told me to “relax lol.”

The absolute CHEEK of some fucking RANDOM coming into my mentions (keep in mind I don’t ever add #AEW or #NAMEOFPPV or, worst of all, #WRESTLESKY to ANYTHING I post. If you want to know what I’m saying, you likely have to FIND me)… and I have people I know and worse, people I don’t trying to tell me how wrestling fucking works in the year of our lord twenty twenty five. No, person probably born after the Attitude Era ended, YOU don’t get to explain to ME how wrestling works. Even some people I’m friends with who should have probably known better were a bit more aggro about this nonsense than they absolutely needed to be. If YOU liked the finish, you’re probably on an island, but Gotch bless you. I’m not telling you what to like. I am telling you that for ME, MY enjoyment of the product now and for times to come, that this finish took me out of the show, and frankly made me want to turn the show off. MY most anticipated match of the year (I have been talking about this rivalry for MONTHS and MONTHS, about how much I enjoyed it, YOU KNOW THIS IF YOU READ HERE REGULARLY), and THIS is what we got. A botched finish with a foreign object. If this had been the finals of the G1 Climax, people would have been HOWLING. Think of all the garbage House of Torture finishes for HEAT that people hate.

And then Jon Moxley, a guy who has already been on top of the company multiple times, a guy who gets NOTHING out of winning the tournament, BEATS Kyle Fletcher, the man who they’ve strapped a rocket to, the man who is no longer the “future” of AEW but the FUCKING PRESENT. And it’s suddenly okay because “UWU HE TRIED TO KILL ME BUT NOW I WANT JON MOXLEY TO WIN LOL,” says concussion-ridden Bryan Danielson. Under NO circumstances should Danielson be pulling for Moxley to win. Again, Moxley TRIED TO SUFFICATE THE AMERICAN DRAGON WITH A PLASTIC BAG.

And before I continue to rant, can we talk about Danielson for a minute?

Look, I get that he’s essentially “office,” and that it’s basically his job to have that Bill Watts / Vince McMahon type role of the booker explaining his storylines to the audience. He’s there to relay and reinforce the ideas we are seeing on screen, at least in theory. In practice, we mostly just get “GOSH!” and him stepping on other announcer’s toes. Earlier in the evening, Tony Schiavone asked Danielson about the strategy of wrestling twice in one night in a tournament setting. Danielson replied something to the effect of “You have to go all out in a semi final because if you don’t win, you can’t advance to the finals!” That’s not verbatim… but it’s close, I promise. IF YOU DON’T WIN… YOU CAN’T ADVANCE.

So of course, NOW, SUDDENLY the story, ACCORDING TO DANIELSON is that Moxley is now one of the good guys again, valiantly trying to win. MOXLEY WAS STILL A DIRTY CHEATER A MONTH AGO. HE LITERALLY TRIED TO KILL DANIELSON. HE HUNG COLT CABANA BECAUSE HE WAS PISSED AT LOSING DURING ALL IN. HE TRIED TO DROWN DARBY ALLIN. But suddenly, because Danielson said so, Mox wasn’t a bad guy losing his grip and desperately winning by the skin of his teeth, trying to hold on… HE WAS REFORGED IN THE FLAMES OF PRO WRES LOVE AND WAS ON THE SIDE OF THE ANGELS AGAIN. His losses and victories in the tournament weren’t the last, desperate thrashes of a condemned man with a metaphorical noose about his neck, they were a VALIANT STRUGGLE BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE, WITH MAN TRIUMPHING.

During their match, Fletcher went for the screwdriver, the one that Okada used earlier. Wasn’t there, obiously, as Okada absconded with it. NXT face. Mox won. And since everyone is so caught up in the idea that the Death Riders are turning on Mox because of his crash out (which is no longer a crash out as far as I can tell but apparently an heroic rebirth), people seemed cool with this.

And I forfeited thirty bucks or however much you would say the remainder show was worth and shut that shit off.

PS, the Death Riders did NOT, in fact, turn on Moxley. Maybe they will, who knows. Moxley even apparently cut what could only possibly be considered a babyface promo about wrestling and howthe best wrestle and whatever when he beat Okada in the finals. BUT THERE WAS HARDLY ANY FOLLOW UP ON DYNAMITE. AT ALL. WITH THIS OR THE DON CALLIS FAMILY, The two stories even intersected again; Moxley FOUGHT Josh Alexander in a hard hitting match on Wednesday but you’d hardly know that these two huge stories, presumably the biggest ones in the company had any Venn Diagram overlap at all. Moxley is off to fight the Hurt Syndicate (or at least Shelton Benjamin), and again, since Shelton is the guy people like, that’s cool or whatever. Meanwhile, whither Okada and Takeshita? Well, off to the Tokyo Dome with the both of them, obviously. But whatever their AEW story is won’t leak over into Wrestle Kingdom… unless something TRULY insane happens and Takeshita retains the IWGP title and Okada challenges for it. I suppose anything is possible but my desire to see ANY rematch is now nil because they took this two year long feud and stabbed it to death with a fucking screwdriver.

Another friend, presumably worried about my mental state, asked me if I would still be watching Dynamite on Wednesday. I told her “yes,” but that “I would be sour.” And I was. Dynamite on Wednesday, in a vacuum, was a good show, even if people are probably overrating the damn thing because Willow Nightingale finally overcame the contemptible Mercedes Moné. Obviously it would be hard to be down on a show like that (and the last couple minutes of that Mercedes / Willow match were especially good)… but to enjoy any of that, not only would I have had to desour, I would have had to sweeten, and it just wasn’t in me.

I really don’t know if I want to keep following AEW. No, I’m not that mad about Maxwell Jacob Friedman winning the belt… I told you he would… and hey, he managed not to say anything bad about Mexicans this week (don’t worry, there’s always next Wednesday), so, you know. Swings and roundabouts (although even THAT is a bad sign; I’m not mad… I just don’t care, and that’s arguably WORSE). They actually are drafting in Kenny Omega into the title picture, and that certainly speaks to me (even though it will suck when Kenny does the honors to Max. Again). It’ll suck when Brody King turns on Bandido and joins Max. All these things will suck and I dunno if I want to stick around for them. I’m sick of wanting to enjoy shows and not getting the best foot forward. I’m sick of cheap heat and WWE-esque character work and cool acts languishing while tired ones still hover at the top.

AEW is a great place, I’m glad it exists and some of my favorite wrestlers work there. It’s what they DO with said wrestlers that gives me the ick. Storylines tend to move glacially or stories suddenly are reinterpreted to mean something other than what is shown on screen or are forced to pivot and go into holding patterns. I saw an interview earlier in the week with Tony Khan where he said that hardcore wrestling fans didn’t really get the story of the Death Riders when it first started. WELL, WHO THE FUCK IS TO BLAME FOR THAT? DON’T YOU DARE BLAME US FOR NOT GETTING YOUR VISION, TONY. The Death Riders’ reason for being was muddled, jumbled and unclear up until roughly this time last year AND EVEN THEN. While I have largely been a fan of what they have been doing post All In, I will not, CAN NOT retcon the first shitty half of a bad storyline because they managed to pull up the plane out of it’s nose dive. And I find myself less willing to extend AEW patience and grace I would have in the past. THEY are the ones forcing me to hold them at arm’s length with puzzling booking, a lack of upward mobility for the younger talent and a general sense of “this again?”. I largely thought the old man media going around about Samoa Joe being too old to hold the belt and that AEW had a “youth problem” to be clickbait garbage and now… while you can’t say Kyle Fletcher was HELD DOWN or anything quite that dramatic… it does make one wonder. Moxley is now the top babyface in the company again. Why? Why isn’t Konosuke Takeshita the top babyface? Hell, you could have turned Kyle just as easily… what if Okada beat him and then Takeshita came out to console him and the DCF turned on them both? That could have been GANGBUSTERS if they had wanted to do something dynamic… but no. Everyone stays where they are, firmly cemented in place.

So yeah, I dunno. I could just as easily write about something else every week if it comes down to it. I should, really; LZM is supposed to be a clearing house for the stuff I enjoy or enjoy bagging on and was never meant to be a Dynamite review blog. It gives me NO pleasure to treat AEW in that fashion, but I find myself at a bit of a crossroads. It might be best if I take some time away from the product… I don’t know. I tried doing that with New Japan Pro Wrestling, hoping they would win me back and… look at that Road to Whatever-ass card Wrestle Kingdom is fielding, a two match card if there ever was one (and I can’t wait for that doughy Judo guy with the charisma of a peeled grape to shit the bed so I don’t have to listen to Western podcasters tell me how important the dude is anymore). No Hiroshi Tanahashi going forward and where does that leave you? Waiting for Shinsuke Nakamura’s contract to expire? Fuck off. They don’t want me back. I don’t know WHAT they want.

Wrestling is supposed to be my escape and there’s just not a lot happening in the sphere right now that I care about. The old lady and I watched a couple matches from the rather peculiar end of 1999 WCW Germany-only PPV Millennium Final the other day and she declared a nothing house show match between Hacksaw Jim Duggan (the man who can make any foreigner chant “USA” and the Wall (of “It’s the Wall, brother!” fame) to be “the best match of 2025” and the funny part was that it was barely ironic. I don’t especially want to do a Nitro watch through or anything… don’t expect this whatever it is to become “More Dangerous than Nitroglycerin” or “More Dangerous than the Kings’ Road” (hmmm, there’s an idea, but old AJPW TV is barely TV and more of a clip show) next week, but if AEW doesn’t start wowing me again, and soon, I’m gonna have to reevaluate.

Anyway. Love to you all, and let’s hope 2026 doesn’t treat us quite as badly as 2025 did. I promise that, in real life, I’m not QUITE as despair ridden as the above might indicate. Just, y’know, mostly.