La Zona Muerta

I mean…

Look.

I like Darby Allin well enough. I’ve seen him have crazy matches, or crazy spots, anyway. So have you. If you’re the kind of wrestling fan who believes in “you deserve it,” there’s no question that the man deserves it; he’s put his body through Hell for wrestling, long before he came to AEW. “I had a brain bleed back in 2017. That was pretty bad,” he said with a smile Wednesday morning on KIRO radio. I saw Ethan Page do horrible things to Darby in EVOLVE circa 2016. There’s no question, from that aspect of things, that he deserves it.

But a two minute squash?

I dunno, man. I didn’t find it particularly satisfying.

There are a LOT of feelings out in the wrestling sphere about all of this. Even Darby had some feelings; in the long opening segment of Dynamite, he was trembling with emotion, near tears (and boy, if there ever was a sign that someone was winning the belt, that was it). People were emotional when he won. And people were emotional after the fact, that’s for sure. The wrestlesplaining (in both directions, for and against) was thick Wednesday night.

My possibly more measured take was that, if this was supposed to be some sort of catharsis for the audience, getting out from under the tyrannical reign of MJF… it wasn’t very successful. Oh, I suppose you could squint and pretend that Maxwell Jacob Friedman was SO WEAKENED by Kenny Omega on Sunday that Darby hit him with a handful of Coffin Drops (legit almost typed “Coffin Flop”) but it just felt like, if I am being my typical, cynical self, that AEW wanted a feel good moment in order to disrupt the Mania week news cycle a bit. The “weakened by Kenny, so” thing, is, to my way of thinking, an EXTREMELY generous interpretation of the situation, very much a fan canon thing where we try to make sense of the nonsensical thing we have been presented with.

Then, around 8pm, it came out that MJF was taking time off for a movie (something I had heard about / speculated about months ago; something that led me to assume they knew what they were doing with that really dumb Hangman stipulation, the thing they have still yet to follow up on or justify).

So.

Max was willing to lay down as he was taking time off. Okay. Makes sense.

Kenny had to lose to him. Hangman had to lose to him. But Darby gets to win. In an unsatisfying squash.

Everyone who was so COCKSURE on Sunday, wrestlesplaining to the masses why Kenny losing made sense because Max was retaining until All In, because of HEAT, sure look fucking stupid now.

So the bad vibes of Hangman losing, of Kenny losing were designed for Darby to have this feel good moment?

I just don’t know. I don’t know if those bad vibes were worth this moment of triumph. Darby is compelling, in that you want to see what crazy thing he’ll do next, but isn’t really suited to be a long term champion. He’s a chaser, not the guy that should be chased. He wins nearly every match (except this one) via fluke.

I did see a LOT of crashing out, fans attacking each other (AEW fans LOVE feasting upon each other. Like things the way I do or go to Hell), weird shit about weight classes (which AEW doesn’t have, so why is it a topic) and crazy conspiracy crap not worth recounting. Forget all of that. I’m not even going to bag on the person who won, even if I don’t think he’s quite in the same league as Hanger or Omega. The criticism should be that the champion fell to the challenger in a literal squash match because the challenger apparently had four finishers saved up on his SmackDown Meter. Max the Dragon was slain, which is good. He wasn’t slain by the person who SHOULD have done the deed, in my opinion. I think a Kenny title win, on PPV, in front of nearly ten thousand people on an incredible PPV would have been a MUCH bigger deal than a Darby win on TV in front of three thousand people in Everett (not Seattle), Washington on a show no one will remember.

I feel bad about going in on this; I like Darby to some extent. This strange spate of booking isn’t his fault

The crowd certainly liked it. If you’re someone who is more into vibes and so on, if you love those feel good moments, I bet you probably liked it. It was absolutely a feel good moment. If you’re someone that looks at the bigger picture and maybe has a big if / then cork board on your wall with pictures of wrestlers and strings and so on, or if you’re someone who likes rating matches, noting results in a notebook for later review, if you’re someone who values in ring action more than moments, I’m guessing this wasn’t your cuppa.

It wasn’t my cuppa. I just laughed. I liked that the headlock takeover paid off, I guess.

There was some good wrestling on Dynamite; a terrific Kevin Knight TNT title defense against Claudio Castagnoli, in particular, but obviously everything was overshadowed by the Darby title win. There was an excruciatingly long segment where Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay commiserated about being losers at Dynasty which was… I dunno. Obviously they will RALLY and do the babyface THANG, but… what is all of this heavy shit for?

And where, dear reader, is fucking Swerve Strickland in all of this? Where is Swerve, period? Why should I care if the guys I like keep being beaten like drums? Or just vanish from TV? And I’m someone who cuts AEW way more slack about that than most.

Normally on weeks where Dynamite and Collision air back to back, I hold off writing about both shows until after the latter has aired. I don’t particularly feel compelled this week; AEW is not exactly blowing up my skirt at the moment. If there are any fun Mania adjacent shows or matches this week, I might throw up a column but so far, I have been underwhelmed by those, as well. So far, if we are talking about vibes, my vibe this week is a very solid meh.