La Zona Muerta

Not a bad Dynamite last night but a bit disjointed, perhaps, so this, too shall be equally disjointed, just some thoughts, no big picture whatsoever because what is the big picture, anyway?

Sorry… huffing and puffing due to that run on sentence. I’m winded.

I hate when AEW does angles / promos / gives you information online without letting the people who ACTUALLY WATCH THEIR TELEVISED PRODUCT in on the scam. So when I found out that the former Jake Something, now Jake Doyle* had joined the AEW roster in a fun, little backstage thingamabob, I was a bit annoyed… until they played said thingamabob in it’s entirety first thing on Dynamite. Whew! In VERY brief, Don Callis has once again leveraged his former Total Nonstop Action CONNECTIONS to slowly syphon the best dudes out of that smouldering heap and now Jake Doyle is here, apparently in a BURLYMAN team with fellow burlyman Mark Davis, who has frankly floundered a bit without Kyle Fletcher around. Now they can be big, burly dudes in muscle shirts, getting all burly on the competition. The real funny thing about this is the constant shambles TNA seems to operate under; they seemed to think Jake Something would be sticking around without, y’know, actually CONTRACTING HIS SERVICES. Their big debut on checks notes American Movie Classics (?) is next week, and we all know TNA has been conscripted into this war between AEW and the World Wrestling Entertainment (uuuuuugh), which is the whole reason TNA has gladly received the helping hands of AMC in the first place. And yet, they supposedly have all this new money (I don’t believe they do; I think they have been quiet about the money for a reason; there isn’t any, just like there won’t be any viewers)… and a bunch of talent apparently not under contract. While I doubt this was Tony Khan aggressively moving AGAINST TNA, I do think the appearance of pilfering one of their few remaining talent that people seem to care about was a nifty little side effect. TNA gets shorn of a talent they clearly wanted but failed to utilize, AEW gets a new guy, and a new tag team to add to the ranks, and if it happens to be a week before TNA relaunches Impact for the umpteenth time… well, all’s fair in love and war. I have followed Jake Doyle’s indy work for years, and I think the only thing that was ever holding him back was the ‘Something’ name. I’m thrilled he’s going to be able to strut his stuff on a grander stage.

Jim Ross… my (unchanged since the 90s) feelings about his announcing aside… the reality is that he’s under fire from D’von Dudley over apparently treating D’von in a racist manner back in their mutual World Wrestling Federation days. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but when you realize the top people in WWF at the time this was alleged to happen were men like Vince McMahon, Jim Ross and Michael Hayes… I think it says a lot about a person when you throw accusations of racism at them and it seems plausible, you know? Maybe AEW should just let JR fade away like they have Ric Flair. Keep him under contract, fine. But he’s clearly never cared for the product, has made weird, gross comments, particularly about the women and at times, up to and including last night, has actively detracted from the product. They made VERY sure to let us all see that MVP had no issue with JR, which felt to me, a cynical jerk, like a message in and of itself. Ride off into the sunset already and leave the rest of us alone, Ross.

I don’t comment a lot on the women’s segments / women’s wrestling in general. If you’ve read my stuff for any amount of time, you’ve probably noticed I don’t talk a lot about that… and I have my reasons, some practical, some just interest related, a lot mostly because who needs another forty something white dude weighing in on such matters. But I can’t help but say something about whatever this burgeoning Orange Cassidy / Toni Storm / Mina Shirakawa deal is.

Thanks, I hate it.

I have been told in the past that Toni’s innuendo-laden gimmick is NOT for the male gaze, a position that I simply can’t agree with and don’t particularly feel like expanding upon. Reasonable minds can disagree. But you end the segment last night with the dude saving the women and then holding them close and it’s like… what the fuck are we doing here? It’s 100% for dudes to howl at the moon about. AEW, WHERE THE POLYAMOROUS WRESTLE**. REMEMBER WHEN TOMMY DREAMER HAD TWO WOMEN BECAUSE HE WAS HARDCORE. BECAUSE REMEMBER IT? I thought that was stupid in 1996, and I think it’s stupid in 2026. THE SEXUAL LIVES OF THE WRESTLERS ARE NOT IMPORTANT TO ME IN THE LEAST. Toni Storm is, presumably, their most popular female wrestler (who knows; I haven’t ran an exit poll) and THIS is the storyline they have for her? WILL HER GIRLFRIEND ACCEPT THAT SHE HAS A NEW MAN IN HER LIFE? THAT is what this boils down to.

Why is it that Toni’s storylines almost purely revolve around her relationships (Mariah May, Mina, now Orange throwing a wrench into things)? She can be a crazed, movie focused strumpet or whatever the gimmick is supposed to be. It’s not my cup of tea, but it doesn’t have to be. She can be sexual (I guess) and proud of it. She can be super queer and proud of it. But could Toni’s character pass the Bechdel Test? Her storylines all revolve around who happens to be sharing her bed, and it’s TIRESOME. I DON’T REALLY LIKE SEX AND WRESTLING CROSSING THE STREAMS, and that’s largely ALL Toni’s character is about… and I’m tired of tiptoeing around that fact.

Wrestling has a strong undercurrent of queerness (and not much queer representation) which is why I think a lot of people go out of their way to defend some of these creative decisions… but what does Toni Storm annoying her significant other by showing interest in someone else bring to the ACTUAL WRESTLING SHOW? Are Mina and Orange going to have a match over Toni’s affections? That might be a good storyline for a dramatic TV show (maybe not the match part, but a woman in a relationship struggling with bisexuality or even just being torn between two partners or what have you). I’m not certain it’s a good one for wrestling. It’s not the queerness I have an issue with; it’s the overt sexuality and clumsy hamhandedness pretending to be clever when I just want to watch wrestling. I’m not interested in shipping culture. I feel like I’m watching Three’s Company, but it’s not funny.

I hope I conveyed what I’m trying to say there at least somewhat reasonably. If Toni had two boyfriends, if ANTHONY BOWENS had two boyfriends, it would be the same thing to me. The GENDER isn’t my issue. Wrestling isn’t subtle or gentle enough to carry the particular weight of over the top overt sexuality AND messy relationship drama and I’m not interested in it trying to. I don’t think wrestling is the right vehicle for whatever they are trying to do, here.

Now that I’ve alienated everyone… let’s talk Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page. Speaking of shipping culture (he said nervously)… Actually, I largely liked their lights out match with HOOK and Powerhouse Hobbs, even if it felt a bit like “let’s hurry up and get to the next spot. And the next. And the next.” But I am concerned… not in a safety police sense (although there were at least two times where I screamed out loud during that match). I’m concerned in a “where the hell are they going with all this” sense. Hangman and Swerve are two of the dudes at the top of this company, but they are doing holding pattern stuff. Maybe Page and Swerve become wacky tag team partners. Cool. Then what? There’s little tag team scene for them to preside over (not their fault, obviously). They both hate Maxwell Jacob Friedman (as do most good hearted people) but his main focus appears to be Kenny Omega based. What does that leave for them? Back to feuding with each other? I hope not. I LIKE that they had a malfunction at the junction spot and, instead of just attacking each other, they realized, “oh, hey, that little shit HOOK is to blame” and just went back to business. By the way, I’d like to point out how GENEROUS Page and Swerve both were to HOOK in this match… they gave him a LOT (Prince Nana, too, who took a world class ass beating from young HOOK). I know a lot of people are / were mad that HOOK was any part of this whole Samoa Joe / OPPS / world title nonsense, but I hope the match at least served as at least a mild form of catharsis (HOOK eventually winding up HANGED by the HANGMAN). At any rate, their direction is not super apparent to me. Obviously, there’s over two months to the next pay per view, lots of time to build a boat and float it downstream… I’d just like to know what’s down the river, is all.

My only real other gripe… Jesus God, the production gaffes and little dumb bits all over this episode. The director making sure he caught Shelton Benjamin and Jon Moxley calling spots AT LEAST THREE times during their battle. The fact that they did a lights out gimmick for Andrade’s re-introduction and that apparently led to lighting rig issues for the rest of the episode. The fact that you have a referee INTERFERING in a no disqualification lights out match. FOUR PEOPLE at the announcer’s table in match number one. An announcer shitting on the hardcore nature of the Lights Out match even though he has been a part of countless similar battles. This is all own goal stuff, stuff AEW needs to tighten up and never does. I wish that were MY job, the “here’s a bunch of dumb gaffes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” guy. Is there a position like that available?

This all sounds like I hated the episode. I didn’t… and despite the (somewhat understandable, but you can do taped promos and have Callis speak) lack of follow up to the Kazuchika Okada / Konosuke Takeshita situation, no word from Kyle Fletcher DCF deal… the zero breadcrumbs in whatever is going on with the Death Riders (who are still cheating even if their leader isn’t), and the weird Toni Storm stuff (which I guess is probably leading to… I dunno, maybe Roderick Strong turning on the Conglomeration? Who knows), the wrestling was largely good. I just don’t have a good grip on the major storylines right now, which are probably waiting for an episode like next week’s to come more sharply into focus.

*I have seen people bagging on this name change and it’s like… Jake Something was a TERRIBLE name, and Doyle is his REAL, HONEST TO GOTCH SHOOT LAST NAME. FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYTHING THAT’S GOOD AND PURE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT EVERYTHING. That’s MY job

**NOT a knock if that so happens to be part of your lifestyle, BTW. But it is 100% a knock on whatever horned up teenager in the back is booking this stuff