La Zona Muerta

In the Convoy household, we have a kind of saying. Many moons ago, many versions of NXT ago, there was a thing where a number of good guys lined up in ring against a number of bad guys to have a big brawl, and that was clipped and dropped into the opening of the NXT program. In the opening, when the two sides got into their hockey style fight, whatever crummy NuMetal band that bought favor with Triple Haitch that week blared the words “WE ARE NOT YOUR KIND” into the ether. Henceforth, any kind of wrestling hockey-type fight line up thing would be called a “WE ARE NOT YOUR KIND” by our diseased brains.

So, the old lady walked in the door about one second after last night’s big line up hockey brawl deal between the Death Riders and the United Empire, and I said (by way of greeting) “they ‘we are not your kind’-ed all over the place!” She looked at me blankly and I said it again and she was like “oh, okay,” and took off her jacket.

Maybe it was just MY diseased brain.*

Bless the good hearted friends and well wishers in the wrestling sphere that think this United Empire thing will lead to increased storytelling between AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling. The big “United Empire turns on Will Ospreay” thing won’t be carried out here… it will be carried out in Japan. It’s really a New Japan storyline and frankly, I’m surprised it’s even getting a tiny bit of lip service in AEW. Maybe you’ll get a touch of reciprocity, maybe a couple of Death Riders will show up in Japan or something, but this launching some kind of amazing, interpromotional thingiemabob? I dunno. Yeah, yeah, I know Gabe Kidd showed up in SHIN NIHON with an AEW tee shirt. OH MAN FORBIDDEN DO- *falls asleep*.

I’ll spare you my thoughts in regards to Callum Newman (needless to say, they are not a mile away from my thoughts on Gabe Kidd or any number of other foreigners in New Japan). Francesco Akira, I like. I was pretty indifferent to him until he had an incredible match with El Desperado that wrung sympathy out of even my cold, dark heart. I don’t miss his shitty tag team partner who retreated to the loving arms of NuAAA. HENARE (it IS all caps Henare, right? He’s had at least three names during his NJPW run, if not more)… he’s a decent hoss but it kinda takes another hoss to get anything out of him. Like, Shingo Takagi can get something out of him, you know? I’m sure Claudio Castagnoli can do it. I’m glad Will Ospreay can (suddenly) summon 1D6 UE members as necessary, but where was my guy, noted pancake aficionado and random lady on the street saver, the Great O-Khan? It’s probably for the best that they left Smart Bastard Jake Lee at home.

Anyway, I may be making a bit light of it, but Will Ospreay looking to his former chums for help against the dastardly Death Riders was well executed and largely fun. It DID kind of perpetuate the thing AEW has been into lately… the not having a main event until the show is already underway thing, which I have issues with, but that aside, I liked the segment.

I don’t really have any parallel agenda this week, so let’s briefly look at the rest of the show:

Don Callis had to tell us the bad news about Kyle Fletcher (but don’t worry, we will ALL be “KYLE FLETCHER STRONG,” awaiting his return). An aside… I hate saying this but maybe it’s for the best Kyle is out for a bit. He gets to avoid the weird-o booking happening at the moment, the mid card-ness of the TNT title itself (he probably shouldn’t have gone back to the ranks of the grapplers vying for it), and we get the knock on effect of hopefully heating Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada back up as they fight over who the best work husband truly is. The important thing here is that Callis compared Take and Okada to Scottie Pippen and Michael Jordan. Ask any Seattleite who lived here in 1996 what they think about Jordan’s cheating ass.

That rolled into Take, Mark Davis and the VERY chemically enhanced Andrade El Idolo against Bandido (subbing for Brody King), Jack Perry and soon to be number one contender Darby Allin. Andrade apparently didn’t want to have wrestle time (tbf, they did tease that Andrade didn’t really want anything to do with this match whenever it was announced), so he immediately left, but Darby demonstrated his mastery of the English language and summoned him to come back by calling Andrade “Don Callis’ little bitch.” Twice. I’ve complained about the b-word being the default insult everyone in AEW falls back on in the past so I will spare you here (L’il Kazu and Thekla get a pass, of course). As pretty much always, this six man had a lot of great stuff and was very fun in a vacuum. I guess Andrade and Darby are fighting over the number one contendership at the show on Sunday. That will be fine… but it’s going to be Darby getting killed for 75% of the match and then lucking into a win, as per usual.

Obviously, this blog is never a MOVEZ LIST type of thing, but there were a couple of amazing spots involving Darby; Takeshita did this insane rolling German suplex thing to Darby DOWN THE ENTRANCE RAMP, which was bonkers, and then, just a couple of minutes later, Davis and Takeshita took both ends of Darby and flung him like a sack of potatoes into the little pit where the doctor and time keeper sit. THAT was a wild visual.

Then, after the match, things went into OVERDRIVE; Darby wanted to fight Andrade, the Young Bucks came out to save their friend Jack Perry, Takeshita and Mark Davis combined to fight them, then Okada came out and Take had a kick-off with Okada as they tried to one up each other, beating down the Jackson brothers before coming to blows themselves, and then the Rascalz came out, to set up Myron Reed and Okada on Saturday. Whew! I said last week that Wednesday would have to do a lot of heavy lifting, going into the PPV, and it did… this was connecting a lot of dots, furthering several feuds AND delivered in ring, so this was another successful segment.

Queen Aminata was back, and looked good; I recall her promising to “squash” a pre-championship, pre-charisma boost Thekla… she’ll need to, like, start WINNING matches to make good on that promise, but I like her.

Chris Jericho (apparently now just Jericho? Ugh, remember when TNA turned Christopher Daniels into just Daniels?) came out and cut a babyface promo SO saccharine that I thought he was gonna turn heel. Basically, he teased signing his new contract (as if he wasn’t already signed. I HATE this particular trope). Lots of references to the length of his career; no references to this being his last contract or his retirement run, so make of that what you will. Apparently, a face Jericho doing the Canada loop had been discussed internally in AEW as far back as late last year. Ricochet came out in the classic “heelus interruptus” role and cut a very cliched “Canada is bad and so are you” type promo. None of this was BAD, exactly, and there’s nothing wrong with a classic face / heel dynamic… this was just REALLY cookie cutter. They will have a decent match and Ricochet can create lotsa movement… I was just thoroughly unmoved by any of it. Surprisingly, Chris “Mr. Innovation” Jericho, at the end of all this, told Ricochet that “HE JUST MADE THE LIST!” which… yeah. Remember WWE? Mrs. Convoy immediately called a flag on the play; “Does WWE own that?” Good question. It WAS like probably ten years ago that he was doing that… Gotch knows if there’s a trademark for such a thing, he’s probably captured it. YAY NOSTALGIA or whatever.

Tommaso “Our Hearts Bleed Blue” Ciampa won a match against Mascara Dorada to secure the number one spot in the Casino Battle Royale for Kyle Fletcher’s TNT title. Once again, I have no idea why you’d want to be a luchadore in AEW; you’re there strictly for enhancement. My eyes glazed over for the most part. Casino Gauntlet at the PPV should be fine (hopefully; feels like they’ve lost the plot on these a bit).

The DOGS said something or other, standing over the prone bodies of Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong. Orange being beat up… that’s one thing. That’s his underdog deal. RODDY being laid out… that’s anathema.

Thekla threatened to break each of Lexy Nair’s fingers in front of an audience at a strip club. Thekla positively LEAPS off of the screen. She is UNREAL.

Edge and Christian came out to yammer. Geee, think there will be some WWE callbacks in their match on Sunday? FTR came out and once again, BIG STOKELY HATHAWAY SAVED THE DAY by hitting a SPEAR (!!!) on CHristian. Bless Christian’s heart; you KNOW Edge would never take that, would never allow himself to look weak.

Darby cut a really heartfelt promo, reminiscent slightly of the Mick Foley promo where he pointed out that he didn’t actually like pain, he was just good at taking it. I’ll get back to this.

The match set up at the beginning of the show, United Empire vs. the Death Riders, was excellent; got the UE guys over, furthered the Jon Moxley / Will Ospreay feud, gave NJPW more places to plant seeds for THEIR story with Ospreay and Newman. GREAT stuff and a highlight of the evening. There was a spot where Claudio went to MURDER poor, wee Francesco Akira, big HENARE saved him and then Claudio carried HENARE (!!!) in a vertical position around the ring before delivering a deadly suplex. Claudio HAS to be the strongest guy in wrestling, muscles built for use, not built for show. This was really a great closer, the United Empire coming out on top. The match over, OSpreay went for maybe a Stormbreaker, maybe the Tiger Driver ’91 on Moxley but LOYAL CLAUDIO swooped in and scooped up Mox’ prone body, saving him from a fate worse than blah blah blah.

Then, it was time for the MAIN EVENT INTERVIEW. Not my favorite wrestling trope, but I get it; it’s Kenny Omega, dammit. First, they just played a Kenny Omega package and I quipped “THIS is hearing from Kenny Omega? He’s gonna get Bob Wuhled off of the show,”*** but Kenny actually came out; the show had roughly a 27 minute (!!!!) overrun for this showdown.

His promo was MUCH better than last week’s; Kenny pointed out that he hadn’t been in Edmonton for over twenty five years, but that he knew they loved wrestling like he did, and how AEW was supposed to be this cool place where you got to see wild match ups and so on. He clarified the dumb diverticulitis stuff, even pointing out that the announcers talk about his diverticulitis EVERY WEEK, pointed out that being Kota Ibushi’s boyfriend was “nothing to be ashamed off,” (you know who should be ashamed? Those who thought Maxwell Jacob Friedman brought up Ibushi last week in a POSITIVE light. No, it was a weird, homophobic thing, exactly as I said) and that he was sorry he lost his cool. To wrap up this overlong segment, MJF came out, disputed what Kenny said, Kenny goaded Max into a handshake, Max refused and tried to attack, and ATE A V TRIGGER RIGHT IN THE GOLDURN FACE.

I’m torn; Kenny has promised to win, over and over. Traditional wrestling would say that means Kenny wins. Of course, Kenny “won” the go home segment, and traditional wrestling says that means Max wins. Last month, the babyface promised to win, and came up short. Are they gonna do that again? In Canada? With Kenny Omega?

I think they are INSANE if they do that. It’s only going to alienate more fans. I mentioned Darby earlier; what’s more interesting; Darby and Max? Or Darby and Kenny? What’s more interesting, Max managing to hold on to the title until August? Or Kenny having never before seen matches in a build up to him and Ospreay in Wembley?

I’m as surprised as anyone; it’s rare an AEW go home actually builds up the pay per view enough to get me over the critical “will I buy it” line. There was a bit of a rough stretch on this show… Jericho into Ciampa into FTR / Edge… not my favorite, to be sure… but there was enough good stuff, enough heavy lifting that I have mind hope going in. Reserve this space, of course, when Kenny loses.

*Don’t worry; I did actually pay attention to the poor woman (later), engaged her in NON wrestling discourse and even gave her a gift (!)**… I am at least three quarters of a man

**a gift that got a tepid ‘thank you’ but a gift, nonetheless

***Bob Wuhl was a guy who was a moderately successful actor who would be an example of someone who might be left off of a late night talk show if it ran long. There; the joke is explained and ROBBED OF ITS POWER