La Zona Muerta

Ahhhhh. THAT’S more like it. Dynamite was back in the good gumbo column this week and, frankly, after the lousy week I’ve been having, a couple of hours of decent graps buoyed my spirits. There were nits to pick (it is ME, after all; I never saw something good that I couldn’t whine about) but overall, this was a good Dynamite; light on it’s feet and fast moving.

Kenny Omega / Swerve Strickland II came and went, and, to my surprise, there were really no shenanigans. Some Prince Nana chicanery, some messing around with the ref (Referee Aubrey Edwards got crushed by Swerve last time. Should she have been out there, remaining “lenient?”), but overall, they had a very good match that was different to their last one a month ago. You could set these guys at each other AGAIN and they would still come up with new stuff! Basically, the story of the match was Swerve trying to do Kenny stuff to get Kenny’s goat (Swerve even came to the ring DRESSED as Kenny and I, a dullard, had to have that pointed out to me) and Kenny pinning all of his hopes on his killer move, the One Winged Angel (Estuans interius ira vehementi Sephiroth) to get him through the match. Kenny looked good, real good. There were a couple of points where he and Swerve took too long to set up spots or messed up, but some people like that sorta thing as it makes the match look like a struggle. At one point, he did the “You Can’t Escape” (a signature Big Ken move where he takes his opponent on his shoulders, does a forward roll, lands on his feet, leaps to the second rope and does a moonsault off of it, all in one fluid motion). Since the last couple of Kenny returns, the move has looked a little iffy… here it looked as crisp as 2017 New Japan Omega performing the move. There were some tremendous nearfalls; Swerve countering the OWA with the COP KILLA, for instance, but after eye gouges and dick kicks, Kenny finally landed the OWA for the 1, 2, 3.

The best thing about this is (hopefully) eliminating the idea of the Executive Vice President position having some sort of nebulous “power,” power that Kenny has rarely, if ever used on screen (other than to make Christopher Daniels a surrogate authority figure, I think). At Casa de Convoy, we imagined a playlet where Kenny, sick of shitty e-mails from whiny wrestlers and calls from HR, with a desk full of paperwork, bitterly lays down in ring. “You want my job? TAKE IT.”

This, of course, also had the knock on effect of killing the bad fantasy booking I was seeing constantly for the last couple of weeks: “Swerve will bring back Hangman and break the stip and blah blah blah because he’s EVP.” Obviously we don’t have to worry about that. This does sort of leave me wondering what Swerve’s direction is- he needs wins and a clear cut goal- but I guess they feel they have to sideline him a bit until a babyface champion is installed. If Kenny wins the heavyweight title, they can run this back for a THIRD time and still have more stuff to do.

May as well talk about it now since it involves Ken; Maxwell Jacob Friedman… man. It’s tired. HE’S tired. You can tell me what a good title run this has been until you’re blue in the face, but this act is TIRED. I used to love this guy! I used to genuinely think he was an extraordinary promo and I would bristle would people would write him off as one note. Well, now, he’s distilled his act down to a sharp point. One note? I’m BEGGING for one note, any note that isn’t one he’s already played. He comes out, he’s like “Hello (insert city). Shut your mouths. You are poor. You are fat. You are dumb. Listen to me. Dismissively refer to someone as “bud.” No one is on the level of the Devil.” Wash, rinse, repeat. Even HE cops to it! “I’m gonna get my catchphrases in.” OH, THE WIT.

Max went on to inform us that Hangman Adam Page would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever challenge for the heavyweight title again. Yes, he said “ever” fourteen times, and yes, I counted. SPARE US THIS MOCKERY OF JUSTICE. Mr. “student of the game,” but apparently only ONE game. He blithered and blathered and thank SWEET GOTCH ABOVE, Kenny interrupted the promo with his charming, off beat goofiness. I have said here before that he has a “unique” promo style, but I genuinely think Kenny is a good promo. For too long, I think people equate “good” promos with being a swollen shouty man, or worse, the too cool heel / tweener who gets to bag on everybody and no one gets to say shit to him in return. That isn’t Kenny’s style. At all. And that’s not to say he can’t deliver a serious promo; look at his post Gabe Kidd match promo; serious as a heart attack. But generally Kenny is a bit wacky. He might chuckle to himself, or answer a sneering heel with a silly “oh, yeah?” Essentially, he came out to tell Max that if Max is the “Devil,” maybe it takes a God, THE God of Professional Wrestling (besides ascended, sainted Gotch, of course) to take that belt away. Eventually, Max agreed, and surprisingly he didn’t ask for some dopey caveat. Well, I guess they always have next week to throw in something stupid… but the next pay per view is already three weeks away so, no time to faff about.

I’m all for this match, but if they are playing the KENNY card and not intending to have him win… I don’t know. I think it’s another case of alienating fans if you give Kenny this title match and he comes up short. Are those Vancouver fans gonna come back with cash in hand next time AEW rolls into town if Kenny slips on a banana peel? This is why I don’t run a wrestling promotion; I’m too afraid of heat and I would be hesitant to beat my stars… but I think teasing Kenny being on top and not delivering is a BAD idea.

We even got a rare blessing; Kenny came back a THIRD time later in the show to accept the official match and the (sigh) official contract signing next week. Speaking of tired tropes, the contract signing has to be right up there. When was the last time one of these was good or cool or interesting? Be original! Do something new! Oh, well.

The Death Riders took on Top Flight (“Top Job,” my buddy dismissively said, and that hurt, right in my BONES, but it hurt mostly because he’s RIGHT) in a match that ended up being really fun. I have to shout out Zayda Steel, who I haven’t been especially impressed with up until now and given plenty of side eye to since she was formally BRANDED with the evil WWE ID MARK (to be absolutely fair; she choose to *leave* that supposedly helpful developmental program for the greener climbs of AEW)… she was great in this match and they let her and Marina Shafir have a TINY bit of interaction with the men. I am NOT a proponent of intergender matches (for the most part; there are exceptions) but I am absolutely a proponent of letting men and women at least HIT EACH OTHER in mixed tag situations, so it was nice to get a bit of that here. They teased Jon Moxley hitting a DOOMSDAY DEVICE on Steel, which would have been sick as hell, but I guess they weren’t willing to go quite that far. Oh, speaking of Moxley… him being a “face” while the rest of the Riders remain heels? PUT ANY THOUGHT OF THAT OUT OF YOUR HEAD. IT NEVER HAPPENED. Will Ospreay cut a PASSIONATE promo about Moxley breaking his neck in front of his family (that’s what you get for bringing your family to the show, dawg) and how he would “alter Jon Moxley’s life” in return. Mox found that to be chuckleworthy. They also set up Ospreay versus PAC for next week, which is great. Ospreay denigrated PAC for being a Geordie, which is funny since he’s a chav from Essex but whatever. I recall a promo the last time they met where Ospreay BAGGED ON PAC FOR HIS ACCENT which was an act so incredible that I almost died of irony poisoning. Bruv.

Oh, I need to rant about something, and I suspect it’s (the highly gotten to) RJ CITY’s fault. There had been an angle (of sorts) where someone had been delivering flowers to Mina Shirakawa in the midst of Toni Storm’s bizarre flirtations with Orange Cassidy (which for better or worse never really went anywhere). They went another direction and Marina Shafir flat out said she was the one behind the flowers, which was the end of the angle, NOT THAT THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD BE PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS SORT OF THING NOTICED. There was still rampant speculation about WHO WAS SENDING THE FLOWERS because a mystery angle does SOMETHING to a certain segment of AEW’s fanbase, again, even if these amatuer slueths ALL MISSED THE FACT THAT THE MYSTERY WAS SOLVED. Well, Toni Storm is out of the picture for now (and no, I won’t speculate as to why; get a life, but at least it appears to have had the effect of knocking Ronda Rousey out of the company for awhile, so thank you for your service, Toni) and the dreaded FLOWERS returned, placed at the scene of the crime; Toni laid out with a variety of clues and red herrings all around. This week, flowers were waiting, once again, for Mina, as if Shafir had never confessed.

Typically, this would mean that the twist will be that the one who laid out Toni was Mina herself. In the twisted brain of City and whatever bad, old movie he just watched last month, I have no idea. I just wanted to point out that the mystery had been solved and some folks didn’t let THAT stop them from being annoying about it.

There were a LOT of video packages this week, some interwoven with promos. I am a faithful “sicko” who actually watches the product. I am NOT one of the BARRY ALVAROZES of the world who watch Dynamite on 1.5x. WHY AM I BEING PUNISHED? Just a nitpick.

That brought us to the main event, which was a bit of a head scratcher; for some reason RUSH was fighting Darby Allin in a “no countout” match, which seems silly as countouts are rarely enforced in AEW, and the announcers were moaning all night about referee “leniency.” I like Darby and I LOVE RUSH, so this wasn’t a problem for me, but the match and the denouement… if you have seen one Darby Allin match, you have seen them all. His opponent takes 85% of the match, Darby gets a hope spot or two and somehow sneaks by with the win. One of the announcers, at one point said that Darby didn’t want to get into a striking battle with RUSH and it’s like, yeah, NO SHIT. RUSH is twice Darby’s size, jacked up on god knows what, 230 pounds of TORO BLANCO and Darby has sticks for arms. There was a point where Darby was flailing punches at RUSH’s head and I laughed because that big block of a head was in ZERO DANGER from those punches. At this point, the only reason to watch Darby matches is to see what risky bullshit he will do to himself. Look, I remember that Observer interview with him on one of those godawful Jericho Cruises and BIG DAVE asked him about the risk of the crazy stunts he does (and this was several years ago where his stunts weren’t nearly as crazy as the ones he does today). Darby chuckled and basically replied that he was here for a good time and not a long time. Well, good LORD, dude. At least scale back SOME of that stuff so you can HAVE A LONGER CAREER AND KEEP MAKING MONEY. Dynamite Kid’s wheelchair awaits.

Anyway, Darby somehow rolled up RUSH and got the fuck outta Dodge after scoring the pinfall; but then he got bushwhacked by the Don Callis Family. Tony Schiavone, bless him, got confused between Andrade and RUSH (well, they WERE teammates, once upon a time) and saying there was a bounty on Darby’s head, placed by MJF. RUSH VANISHED and the DCF beat up Darby as we’reouttatimegottago.

Something I have yet to point out; the show emanated from Minneapolis, St. Paul, and obviously the good folk there were waiting to have the pressure relief valve of chanting “Fuck ICE” (and boy if anyone should get that opportunity, it’s the good folk of Minnesota), but they never got any Brody King (and oh, how you ALL bagged on Meltzer for jumping to the conclusion that someone at WBD didn’t want him on the shows just in case people started chanting that. “Oh, but he’s been on shows since!” Okay) so they chanted “Fuck ICE” during RUSH and Darby. makes sense, I suppose, chant “Fuck ICE” at a prominent Latin star, but that sort of had the effect of getting Rush cheered. Ooops. Anyway, Brody King DID make an appearance; he led some babyfaces to come save Darby.

Which we didn’t see on TV.

Which makes it look like Brody is being held off of TV.

And he will be on TV next week… in CANADA.

I’ve already done my rap about expecting AEW to be the good guy, left wing company. All I can say is that there were a BUNCH of angry people on my Bluesky timeline who expected to see Brody King and to get “Fuck ICE” chants. He wasn’t there until after the show went off the air and some of those people feel betrayed. If you put your political beliefs on a company, hoping that they will carry them for you, the company is only gonna let you down. I get it; this is no longer a world of handshake political tolerance and “beliefs,” there’s now genuine, palpable danger from those in charge of us, but placing your hope in a wrestling company… I dunno. It does ABSOLUTELY look weird that they withheld Brody yet again. It didn’t help in that the crowd chanted anyway. I don’t think those chants are gonna blow over. I don’t know what the “solution” is other than to let people chant whatever they want, and it’s not like AEW is actively censoring anybody.

Yet.

Anyway, the next pay per view is already taking shape, pretty damn quick. Kenny seems actively engaged again, which is good. MJF is coasting, which sucks. I hope AEW doesn’t do anything wacky in that match. Ospreay / Moxley should be good. No idea what they are doing with swerve, THekla doesn’t seem to have any credible challengers yet. I refuse to even MENTION Cope Edge and Christian (and I still think that will end up being a threeway so Edge doesn’t have to lose), but at least FTR and Stokely Hathaway are there to carry some of that weight.

Special shout outs (beside the one for Zayda) go to Kyle Fletcher for having EXCELLENT taste in ties and for being a good work husband, and one ROCKY ROMERO, a guy who is office, probably does a million things we don’t know about… and has no problem going and getting killed on TV by a midcard guy. Wrestling could use more people like that.