La Zona Muerta

Darby Allin is a polarizing kind of wrestler. Last night, during his match with the Bastard PAC, I was reading comments from people putting over his resilience, his tenacity. I was reading others saying “how is he the babyface?” and “kill the twink.” The most important reaction of all, that of my wife, was one of anger, and not just because she loves the wet Geordie steroid chicken and broccoli enthusiast. “I get that Darby’s the babyface,” she bemoaned, “but WHY is he so fucking resilient? He’s one hundred and fifty pounds. The match should be over. There shouldn’t be a fucking match.” Of course, she was referring to the fact that, after one of Darby’s ludicrously high speed torpedo topes to the outside (and honestly, if ANYTHING in his arsenal is gonna fuck him up, I would suspect THAT as culprit number one), PAC suplexed Darby, SPINE FIRST into the steel steps. It was an amazing spot, just ludicrous.

AND. THE. MATCH. HADN’T. EVEN. STARTED. YET.

Not to Old Man Yells at Cloud at you, not to Alv*r*Z all over you, but GOOD GOTCH WHO SHINES UPON US ALL. He like sells on the ground for a minute or two and then, after the PARALYSIS BOMB or whatever, he goes back to using his SPINE BASED OFFENSE. Maybe don’t do the amazing, career threatening spot LITERALLY BEFORE THE MATCH BEGINS, HUH? Let’s incorporate that into the CLIMAX of the match. After all, that’s why we use terms like “climax” and “pop” and “finish,” in the oversexualized, overwrought world of wrestling, right? The idea that you’re building up slowly to a “finish.”

I like Darby well enough, I think I have more time for him than some folks in my circle, but PAC can’t overcome his ankle injury (VERY well incorporated into this match, by the way, except for a spot where Darby attacked the wrong foot) while Darby can overcome spinal cylinder therapy?

I dunno, man. I didn’t EXPECT PAC to win this match but when it was announced as the first thing on Dynamite, my radar sense went off. Now Darby just has to beat up MARINA SHAFIR and the war is over, I suppose.

WAR. What IS it good for? Defeating one’s enemies, I suppose.

There is a WAR on, you know. No, I’m not referring to our increasing horrible REAL life, I mean the WRESTLING war. World Wrestling Entertainment versus All Elite Wrestling. A “war” full of dullards, dummies, bad faith agents, children who weren’t alive telling you how bad WCW was because they saw some gifs, poor attempts at intrigue, mark wrestlers who had a WrestleMania poster on their wall as kids and more broken fan brains than a Star Wars convention.

Although I seem to be referring to the “war” in a dismissive way, it’s real. REAAALLL, in the parlance of the hopefully extinct Bullet Club. Cody Rhodes breaking that throne, once upon a time, REALLY pissed some people off. Tony Khan daring to start a wrestling company without the wise counsel of the Jim Cornettes, Bully Rays and Eric Bischoffs of the world REALLY pissed some people off. Daring to have shows that feature more (and generally, better) wrestling than the main name brand has irreparably shattered some weak minds, especially those who didn’t live through the Monday Night Wars (TM) as anything other than a poorly produced documentary series or two.

At first, Tony Khan seemed willing (perhaps a bit TOO willing) to play nice with WWE. Oh, they want Chris Jericho on a WWE podcast? Okay. Oh, sure, I’d be willing to have a cross promoted show. Why not?

But of course, WWE did it’s WWE thing (and despite who is in charge at the moment, this is their standard modus operandi). WWE fired a lot (a LOT) of talent, assuming AEW would absorb them all, like a poison pill (and indeed, some of those talent AEW did absorb were, in fact, poisonous). And when losing some of those talent made WWE look bad, they tried to call some of those talent back. Whilst they were under contract to AEW.

Everyone looks the other way on contract tampering in wrestling because obviously you can’t stop someone in wrestling company A from talking to someone in wrestling company B, but despite WWE’s attempts to convince you otherwise, CONTRACTS EXIST FOR A REASON. You can’t just snap your fingers and say come home. It worked in a couple of cases… but it didn’t work on SWERVE STRICKLAND who saw this maneuvering for what it was. And Tony Khan finally woke up. “LET’S FUCKING GO,” he said, coffee in jittery hand, the other hand smacking his desk. Battle lines were drawn. Asistencia, Asesoría y Administración de Espectáculos, once AEW’s partner in Mexico, started openly disrespecting AEW and helped facilitate a talent jump of Dragon Lee to WWE… during a match for the AEW Tag Team Titles. Oh, how the Konnans of the world laughed… until WWE does what it always does and consumed it’s “partner” in the most obvious Scorpion and Frog situation since the original fable. Now, AAA is gone. You literally have WWE AAA in it’s place, and despite promises to keep the promotion from being Anglicized, a not particularly talented son of a Latino from TEXAS is now their top man.

This all had a knock on effect that WWE probably didn’t foresee… the previously somewhat intractable Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, New Japan Pro Wrestling’s long time promotional partner and the oldest Lucha Libre promotion in the world, decided to finally link arms with AEW and are now probably AEW’s staunchest ally. Hechicero, Mascara Dorada and Persephone are all signed to dual contracts in both CMLL and AEW and those won’t be the last luchadores to do same. WWE had to search elsewhere to gain more allies; after all, AEW can field 1D6 NJPW wrestlers or CMLL luchadores pretty much whenever they want. WWE can’t ever be behind on a wrestling trend… if the competition can play with others, WWE needs to be able to emulate same. So the call went out. Who else would be desperate enough to take that helping hand from WWE, that helping hand that conceals a joy buzzer?

Why, our good friends at Total Nonstop Action, of course.

They, too, during the pandemic had partnered with AEW, and a lot of people saw that partnership as AEW “big leaguing” TNA, even though Kenny Omega was sent there to increase their pay per view buy rates and draw eyeballs to their hard to find product. That partnership came to a seemingly amicable end and TNA, a company who actively promotes pay per views based upon what fired WWE talent they are going to pick up, started being friendly towards WWE. Oh look, TNA’s women’s champion, Mickie James, is in the Royal Rumble for a nothing spot no one cares about… BUT AT LEAST THEY MENTIONED SHE WORKS IN TNA DURING THE FOUR MINUTES SHE LASTED. Yes, Mickie James, the woman who was dismissed from WWE and had her personal items sent to her in a garbage bag, like she was fired from an office and escorted out by security. Yes, big splendor, much good, what partnership. James was also used on an NXT pay per view (my timeline is hazy; I don’t recall if it was before or after the Rumble) and again, it was largely to WWE’s benefit to get a body, but didn’t do much for TNA. They did it again with TNA female powerlifter (who DID have some buzz at the time, to be fair) Jordynne Grace the next year at the Rumble… and everyone saw that for what it was… a trial balloon for Grace to jump ship while still under contract to TNA. Which ended up being exactly what happened. Now, WWE and TNA formalized their partnership “agreement” and suddenly you had cross promotional angles… not so much between TNA and WWE but between TNA and WWE’s developmental branch, NXT. If AEW can feature New Japan talent or CMLL talent, well, by cracky, NXT can feature TNA people. And you want to talk BIG LEAGUE? Look at the track record TNA has against NXT opponents. But hey, it’s okay because JOE HENDRY HAD A WRESTLEMANIA MOMENT (TM). Heck, he even got a plaque! I believe in etched brass plating.

Anyway, it became very obvious what WWE was doing with TNA; looking for whatever people it could feasibly syphon from the company while under the guise of “helping a promotional partner,” while not so subtly looking to help TNA get a TV deal in the crowded media landscape to stall out the rapidly expanding AEW. And, after a LOT of stops and starts, they finally succeeded. This week, TNA starts a multi year run on American Movie Classics (?), home to prestige television shows like the Walking Dead and Breaking Bad.

Except.

AMC hasn’t been the home of “prestige television” in years, bearing a station average of something under 300,000 viewers in a rapidly diminishing cable landscape, available in something around only 50 million homes.

Except.

Many sources reported the AMC / TNA deal as being for three years, with a monetary value of 10 million dollars a year, not a huge amount, but much better than what TNA was making before. The only place that didn’t go with this reporting?

TNA, who have been much more guarded about both the length of the contract and the monetary value.

TNA, who has been desperately signing wrestlers, not to new deals (mostly, there may be an exception or two) but to contract EXTENSIONS, sometimes in the amount of a few months or less.

The much hyped TNA / AMC deal, as far as I can tell, isn’t REAL. It’s smoke and mirrors, a trial from AMC, who doesn’t have any killer programming any longer, trying something entirely outside of their wheelhouse, for a very limited run. TNA isn’t making any money off of it; they are trying to tie up their talent for another couple of months in yet another increasingly desperate Hail Mary play to do two or three months on AMC IN HOPE of securing a longer deal. They aren’t confident enough to sew up their young talent to multi year deals; they need to bring in Perez Hilton (?) and Bully Ray (?) to hopefully get eyeballs on their premiere episode. AJ STYLES, Mr. TNA three years running will be there, not to have a match but to… uh… be there. And oops… they didn’t secure a new contract or extension for Jake Something, despite advertising him. Or Killer Kelly, despite advertising her. Or Leon Slater, presumably because WWE had other plans for him, despite advertising him. Or Myron Reed, despite apparently never having him under contract but feeling like they could safely advertise him.

CARD SUBJECT TO CHANGE, AMIRITE.

Obviously Jake Something landed at AEW and is now free to be JAKE DOYLE, one half of a BIG BOY tag team with the underappreciated Mark Davis. I don’t know what is happening with Killer Kelly, but she obviously decided the grass was greener elsewhere. The absence of Leon Slater is likely explained by WWE chicanery unless there was some secret AEW intervention we don’t know about. But in addition to Myron Reed apparently not being given a deal (but being advertised for TV), deals apparently weren’t secured for his teammates in his group the Rascalz, including Trey Miguel, Zachary Wentz and Dezmond Xavier. Reports vary; maybe some of those guys were offered deals by TNA but not everyone, leading all four men to walk out, maybe not… but for all the world it appears as though, right before the new era of TNA (the latest new era, that is) beings, AEW ripped a huge hole in their flank and removed a lot of young, vital talent. Big, bad AEW, using daddy’s money to kill their competition. In a wrestling war. Where WWE set up TNA as a proxy pawn.

All four of the Rascalz are now All Elite (TM). Welcome to the big time.

Who’s at fault here? AEW for letting these men make a living? Or TNA for not being able to provide one? In war, if you make a move against the enemy… can you be held to blame?

I don’t think any of these guys are going to “win” the wrestling “war,” but I’m never going to scoff at a bunch of young men, all just over thirty or just under it, getting a chance to strut their stuff on the big stage. And if it messes with arrogant TNA, who actively has it’s wrestlers taking shots at AEW, talking about how they could have a chance to be perceived as the “new number two,” something only the dumbest clods imaginable are obsessed with, then GOOD. TNA has been a joke of a promotion for TOO LONG. If TNA has embraced WWE, they should be looked at the same way discerning minds look at WWE, a place embarrassed to be in the wrestling business, but with no other commodities than wrestlers and wrestling. They should be shunned, excised. Don’t give me crap about how TNA provides another place for wrestlers to work; TNA runs once in awhile and can’t be bothered to sign anyone to meaningful, livelihood altering work except for washed up nostalgia acts. Their “momentum” they crow about is largely manufactured. The only reason WWE hasn’t purchased them outright is because they want to be able to look like they have clean hands in case of legal action.

And sometimes, the wrestling “war” goes the other direction; apparently Powerhouse Will Hobbs is done with AEW and is taking a pay cut (!) to grasp at the imaginary brass ring WWE holds out to all of its talent. Far be it from me, a doughy white dude, to tell a jacked black man what to do, but it’s hard for my little brain to wrap itself around the idea of going somewhere that seems actively EMBARRASSED of pushing people of color. Hey. I like Hobbs. I hope he finds what he’s looking for. Maybe he can be in the Saudi Rumble next week with Chris Jericho! I just won’t be there to see it. I’ll be watching Jake Doyle and the Rascalz, instead.

I guess I got off on a kind of tangent with all of that “war” stuff. Sorry.

I suppose I should talk about the main event of Dynamite, at least. Bandido and Maxwell Jacob Friedman had a very good match (even if some of my friends and mutuals were a bit too willing to talk themselves into a Bandido win). Bandido is not my wrestler of the year (that would be Konosuke Takeshita or maybe Kyle Fletcher), but when I started compiling my best of list for 2025 (more on that soon), I was not surprised to find him in three of the matches I had earmarked; even if he does a couple things I don’t care for (the overly convoluted 21 Plex for starters), he is a singular talent with surprising strength. Bandido was not able to secure the win, and post match, MJF even (started to) put over Bandido as a young up and comer who would someday be a champion (oops, he is a champion, dumb dumb, but MJF corrected himself to say an AEW champion). And then, just when I was starting to wonder why the dastardly heel was putting over the good guy so strongly, MJF attacked Bandido and threatened to steal his mask. Brody King came out and everyone held their breath… waiting for the BIG TURN… but we didn’t get it.

This time.

There was also some tremendous stuff with Swerve, Hangman Adam Page and a seemingly, hopefully renewed Kenny Omega. In this world of wrestlers calling their retirement shots, I’m always worried whenever Omega gets near a mic, that he’s gonna tell us this is his final year in wrestling, but, for now, it looks as though he’s going to become a larger part of the shows going forward in his quest to unseat MJF… news Hangman accepted with grace, but news Swerve accepted with a tough guy mean mug. VERY interesting, and of course, you still have the big, bald spectre of Don Callis looming over proceedings. Whenever Kenny is there, as I have opined may times in the past, AEW certainly FEELS more ELITE as Omega is the best to over do it and raises all ships with his presence.

So, a good Dynamite for the most part. The news about Hobbs leaving is a bummer, but Doyle and the Rascalz (not to mention Dorada and Persephone) getting the call up is very welcome. The wrestling “war” may be a drain, but it still manages to occasionally excite.