La Zona Muerta

I had mentally prepared a rant (and I suspect we’ll get to it) as last evening’s Dynamite progressed but it was somewhat derailed by the events that transpired at the end of the show; Maxwell Jacob Friedman came out, got distracted by Hangman Adam Page’s music, and then got completely HELLMURDERED by Brody King. Brody did the thing where he hits the hanging / draping sleeper hold, the cannonball in the corner (shoutout to Big Kev, I’d imagine Excalibur has to restrain himself from saying), the sitout inverted Rikishi Driver thing he calls the Ganso Bomb (no idea why he calls it that; that’s not the move innovated by DANGEROUS K) and boom, one, two, three.

“All right, sir. Let’s go.”

My first reaction, of course, was “That was AWESOME, Mr. T.” My second, more cynical reaction was “Hey guys, I’m okay today. My Mom bought me deodorant. I’M WILLING TO DO BUSINESS.”

Cynical or not, this ploy has worked, of course; I’ve already seen a half dozen “apologize to MJF” type fawning posts this morning. Look, if this unexpected squash-o totally rehabilitates MJF for you, great. I liked it too (even if it was pretty obvious what was going to happen when they changed the eliminator rules last week. Brody King was going to win this, one way or another. Now, I don’t think anyone expected the SEVERITY of the win, here, of course). I was blown away by how bold of an ending it was, so I’m not trying to yuck your yum or anything and it salvaged the show for me. Will it spice up the match next week in OZ when they run it back? Sure, I suppose, but I don’t think there’s any chance of MJF losing, there. In fact, I’d have to assume it will lead to a really BORING four way dance with Andrade, Hangman Adam Page and King against MJF and GEE, BY GOLLY, MJF will skate by because that’s the kind of booking MJF likes. In actual fact that ISN’T the kind of booking he likes; he’d prefer being put over each one of those guys, but I digress (TM Taz). MJF defending against Kenny Omega (assuming Kenny were to win) is of FAR more interest to me than a limp four way (ooh er, missus), I’m afraid.

Might as well get to that. They put Andrade over Swerve Strickland last week. I didn’t LIKE it, but I GOT it; they wanted to finally pay off on the Andrade attack on Kenny from months ago. But then, after what I thought was a fairly so so match, they do a VERY cheap screwdriver / interference / low blow finish against Kenny. It’s just so boring and lazy. Yes, sure, at least we appear to be getting Kenny versus Swerve out of it… that sounds GREAT, and makes sense, but it’s also just a holding pattern for both dudes. It just came to light today that BIG KEN might not be available for the pay per view (sigh) so maybe there’s a method to their madness here, but every word out of both Kenny’s mouth and Swerve’s since the year began is about how they are back to get the world title. Anything where they AREN’T striving for that feels like a step back, in my opinion. Meanwhile, everyone is fake (?) horny for Andrade, and even THAT has already jumped the shark with the plants in the audience. Way to take something amusing and RUN IT RIGHT INTO THE GROUND, in true wrestling cliche fashion. Why is this guy jumping in from WWE and SHOOTING UP TO THE TOP OF THE CARD? THIS IS NOT TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION; THIS IS ALL ELITE WRESTLING. Andrade is too muscle bound and gets gassed real fast but “OOH, HE TOOK HIS PANTS OFF, WE STAN.” Critical thinking is DYING ON THE VINE. Andrade is not in AEW because he wants to be, it’s because he HAS to be. He didn’t LEAVE the other place, he was FIRED. Don’t get me STARTED on Tomasso “Blue lives matter” Ciampa (oh, is that TOO REAL for you?) and “SILVIE.” BECAUSE “GOLDIE” IN NXT! BECAUSE REMEMBER IT? They may as well shot his little interview in the back of the production truck. Oh, but he took his daughter to work! HE DID A KISSY TO MARK BRISCOE!!!!!1one! Please. It’s amazing how much some AEW fans just CRAVE WWE leftovers.

Anyway, of course, you had this dumb, wacky interference finish to get out of Kenny / Andrade because they want to “protect” Kenny… and then there was this dumb, wacky interference finish to get out of Jack Perry versus Ricochet, two matches later, presumably because they wanted to “protect” babyface Jack. I’m not saying you CAN’T HAVE a dumb, wacky interference finish… but maybe let’s keep it to ONE PER SHOW TO INCREASE THE EFFICACY OF SAID FINISH.

PS: if the intention was to “protect” Jack Perry here… he looked terrible. Ricochet is absolutely the type of heel who should cheat to win, that’s not my gripe… Perry had his lunch pretty much eaten this whole match and then was essentially outsmarted by Ricochet. Like, what a geek.

I guess this sounds like I’m shitting on the main event scene and I’m not trying to, honest. It’s just not as interesting to me as it was at the beginning of the year. I imagine there have been some adjustments made; Samoa Joe is out for a bit due to a real life injury, Kenny might not be available to work the PPV, etc. but there are some things I’m giving side eye to, mainly the insertion of Andrade. Putting Swerve and Kenny into a holding pattern is not what AEW needs right now, as far as I’m concerned, even if for the most part, things largely seem on the up.

At least they ran a package for Will Ospreay teasing an eventual return. I assume that’s happening sooner rather than later.

The other thing that smacked a bit of the dumb wrestling cliche playbook was the WAR DOGS (or whatever) showing up to bushwhack and kidnap one Darby Allin. Pivoting to get Darby away from fighting the Death Riders is FINE. Feuding with Gabe “WATCH OUT I’M CRAZY, I’M CRAZY, DIDJA KNOW I’M CRAZY” Kidd, Clark “Chippendales” Connors and TIRE-KUN (the appearance of the stupid fucking tire had more reaction from my mutuals than any of the actual angle did) is… whatever. Not really gonna get MY motor running, but fine, I guess. The War Dogs kidnapped Darby, stuck him in the trunk of a car and drug him through the desert. I kind of just shrugged… that seems like something Darby would do for fun, anyway, Like, that’s SUNDAY for ol’ Darbs. Hey, maybe he can find Ric Flair in the desert and a lonely truck driver can drive them back in time for the wrestling show! I’m sure there were high-fives in the back over this but it largely just made me roll my eyes. Yes, yes, Darby is RESILIENT. WE GET IT. Man, I wish they would tell us if he CONQUERED EVEREST OR NOT. Snore.

Up until the stupid finish to Kenny / Andrade, I was enjoying the show… there was a very fun opener with the Death Riders versus the Don Callis Family (really primarily a vehicle to get us to Jon Moxley versus Konosuke Takeshita). Good stuff throughout that saw Takeshita (unsurprisingly) take the win over young Danny Garcia… but I worry that Takeshita will not be slaying the Mox dragon twice. To ME, the Takeshita / Kazuchika Okada business was the single hottest program in AEW and they blew it all up at the last PPV and have done VERY little in the way of follow up. A Takeshita loss here just seems needlessly damaging. Mox (in this incarnation) is generous, but beat him twice generous? I dunno; we’ll see. I know there’s a lot (A LOT) of teeth gnashing about sending Kyle Fletcher back into the ranks of TNT title contention, but I have FAITH that the story there IS a story, that Kyle doesn’t want that and it will be part of his babyface turn with Takeshita (the BIG TURN OF ’25 ’26 is presumably still imminent). Who knows; don’t want to go too far down the fantasy booking rabbit hole.

The fun of the MJF squash left me feeling (largely) good, and I think the Australia shows should be fun. DEAR GOTCH ABOVE, I hope they got a normal size ring this time, since the lame ass discourse about it lasted roughly six months. Baffling.

Special LZM shout out to my man MARK DAVIS who is so fucking snake bitten, but whenever they give him a chance to be a big, burly dude beating up people, he’s great. Aussie Open meant almost NOTHING to me, but I’m so happy he and Fletcher got the call up. Even though this guy keeps running into obstacle after obstacle, he’s great and deserves some flowers.

Looking forward to the Australia run. Hopefully they can make the main event stuff work a little better for my liking.

POST SCRIPT ADDENDUM: When I uploaded the column, the recommended tags included “WWE” and “CM Punk.” I DIDN’T EVEN MENTION FRAUDULENT PHIL FOR FUCK’S SAKE