La Zona Muerta

If nothing else, you’re going to gasp out loud at least once or twice every week for the next six or seven weeks as Darby Allin does something potentially career threatening to himself or to others. Good Gotch in the Great Ring in the Sky Above; this dumb dumb took an AIR RAID CRASH from the middle rope to the outside (!!!) as administered by Tommaso “running out of ways to hint this guy is a Blue Lives Matter goon; how familiar are you with Police songs” Ciampa. Don’t worry; Ciampa did some KISSIES during the show, so never mind the cops breathing down your neck in whatever we laughingly refer to as “real life.”

A “funny” aside; some time ago, me, my then girlfriend and our roommate were being good, little consumers and taking a shortcut we had taken literally dozens of times, cutting behind a Target shopping center to get to the complex that contained the (now defunct) Toys ‘R’ Us and the Half Price Books that weren’t quite next door, but were Target lot adjacent, likely to fuel MY toy lust / book lust / crippling kenophobia. We were stopped by random police officers, making life safe for parking lots everywhere; actually… that’s not accurate. I’m white (or a lilywhite as YUSEF ISLAM once said) but tall, broad shouldered and bespectacled. Big and nerdy. The missus is of vague Nordic descent, so she is DEEPLY white, pale and fair. Gloomy and nerdy. Our roomie was of Native American heritage, having slightly olive colored skin and otherwise being a bit of a short fella. Friendly and nerdy. WE weren’t stopped… HE was. The shortcut itself didn’t involve trespassing or anything untoward; we took it dozens of times before and after this particular incident. They simply detained him (and us by adjacent proxy because we weren’t going to abandon our comrade) to “ask questions” about where he was going (!) because his skin shade was slightly more pointed towards the vaguely Mediterranean spectrum than the pastier European one. CHECK THE BOX WHEN YOU FILL OUT THE FORM; CAUCASIAN OR “OTHER.”

Love cops.

Love ’em.

Anyway, yeah, I could bag on Ciampa all night. I HATE his seeming police advocacy. I HATE that he makes constant references to his NXT tenure and, indeed, gimmick. I HATE his pandering to the portion of the AEW audience who squee when he talks to preachy-preach about kissy-kiss… but he is a good (if perhaps over indulgent) wrestler. He bled like a stuck pig in this match and for all the awful stuff he did to Darby in their match, he TOOK plenty, as well. The Air Raid Crash I mentioned before (Nigel McGuinness called it the “Psycho Driller,” so maybe he did that in Ring of Honor? I only remember the “Project Ciampa” backbreaker)…? Ciampa took as much of a bump on that as Darbs did, the pair of them crashing without an ounce of grace into the mat. I screamed out loud, and even the generally cold blooded and unflappable Mrs. Convoy grimaced. The ring apron, by the end of the match, looked like a crime scene and Ciampa was a… sigh… good choice to create a sense of drama and urgency in a title match where the champion is a guy who makes his living getting his ass kicked. Get used to it, this particular formula is gonna be the cornerstone of Darby’s title reign; survival. Darby himself said in the pre match promo that he’s gonna defend the title, every week (!) until his BODY GIVES OUT. If kayfabe were real, and wishes were horses, beggars would ride… but I would think the company itself would be like “Hey, baby, chill out” in regards to Darby’s self destruction prophecy. Hell, maybe in REAL LIFE, too. You are an ASSET, you goth weirdo! They shoot wrestlers, don’t they?

Brody King was out immediately in the aftermath of this brutal-ass match to call his shot in challenging Darby for the next title bout. We’ve seen that match a number of times before but, of course, never for the Heavyweight title. That should be another complete TRUCKING of young Mr. Allin and he’s going to sell the peril tremendously.

I KNOW there’s still gnashing of teeth about Darby being champion. I don’t know if it’s warranted, even if I don’t completely disagree, but… Darby is here, he’s champion, and we may as well enjoy the ass kickings we are going to get (and that Darby is gonna endure) over the next few weeks.

Here’s where MY gnashing of teeth kicks in… Dynamite this week took seventeen, count them, SEVEN DAMN TEEN MINUTES to get action in the ring. THIS IS WHAT THE OTHER GUYS DO. DO NOT DO WHAT THE OTHER GUYS DO.

For all of his BLUSTER about being a generational talent, Maxwell Jacob Friedman sure feels increasingly one note. GO TAKE TIME OFF AND MAKE YOUR MOVIE OR WHATEVER. ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW SLIGHTLY LESS BORED WITH YOUR ONE NOTE NONSENSE. Worst of all, MJF, cutting his tired “I was screwed, I want a rematch” promo was REPEATED LATER IN THE SHOW. Like, we get it, dawg. WE GET IT. The somewhat interesting thing here is that Kevin Knight came out and goaded MJF into a match next week. Will MJF put over two dudes in a row? I have my doubts but we shall see. Knight is still a bit rocky on the mic, but they are giving him reps and are clearly 100% behind the guy. I saw some grousing about Knight referring to slapping Max’ “big nose off of his face,” but, if you are gonna get ancy at that, please don’t forget Max made fun of Knight’s speaking, referred to his “type of people” (careful there, pal) and called him “boy” off mic, so, you know… do you REALLY want to go there? Lest us not forget that Max REALLY doubled down on calling referee Aubrey Edwards a “skank,” and while he’s obviously not going into business for himself, if you are going to pretend to get mad about one thing… shouldn’t you get equally mad about all the other gaffes and collar tug moments?

Max… I am BEGGING. YOU REALLY ARE BETTER THAN THIS, AND YOU KNOW IT. He is capable of MORE and we are NOT getting his best foot forward. We are getting one note, rote formula, served up as pablum. PLEASE EVOLVE.

Added to the issue of Max and the opening Dynamite with a promo problem was the addition of the first of two video packages for Darby (yes, I KNOW he won the title. I FOLLOW THE PRODUCT, TK) and a deadly dull Chris Jericho promo. My wife (Borat voice) walked in the door from work at about quarter after five and basically started to ask what she had missed when Justin Roberts told us our OPENING MATCH was just starting.

At 5:17 PM.

Unacceptable.

Oh, in regards to Jericho (what a sentence)… apparently, people far smarter than I seem to think his new gimmick is mocking what WWE would have done to him had he returned to the Fed, losing his first name, playing the hits of his previous gimmicks and so on. NOT TRUE. His ACTUAL new gimmick is playing Kevin Nealon’s old “Subliminal Man” character from Saturday Night Live. And BADLY, I might add. I hope he utters “hot sex” under his breath to a female talent and gets irrevocably cancelled, but for real this time.

OH, I KID.

Mostly. (hot sex)

Lest I forget, at some point, Copeland Edge Cope Old Guy who chose to retire here, not up North Adam cut a promo about how FTR kicked his and Christian’s collective asses. Yup, they sure did. He wanted another match with FTR (gotta get that win back), and announced the amazing stip, a… New York Street Fight.

Yawn.

Obviously, this feud HAS to culminate in some sort of ladder affair, but it is a LOOOOOONG way to All In. Copeland “offered” up the idea that he and Christian can never team again if they lose, which… yeah. I’m sure it’ll be something dumb like he and Christian can’t team again but that doesn’t preclude SEXTON HARDCASTLE or DAMON STRYKER or BROOD EDGE from teaming with Christian. Gonna be a long four months, friends.

The other match I wanted to flag up here was the only one I was particularly looking forward to when the bouts were announced. The Will Ospreay / Mark Davis affair. No, I don’t have the energy to talk to you about Lio Rush’s new goblin gimmick (IT IS NOT THE BLACKHEART PERSONA!!!).

What I am about to say is to take nothing away from the match, the complete awesomeness of Mark Davis (how many times can I apologize for being WRONG about Aussie Open, but it IS funny that both Davis and Kyle Fletcher are better off for having split) or Will Ospreay’s generosity in a match, particularly here.

Ospreay can be beat up, falling apart. That is fine.

THEY HAVE TO STOP WITH THIS HE IS SO HURT HE CAN BARELY TAKE OFF HIS ROBE WHILE HIS BODY IS SLOWLY BEING CONSUMED BY KINESIO TAPE SHIT. The mummy is ready for his MYSTICAL JOURNEY.

If Will is so cooked that he CAN’T EVEN REMOVE HIS ROBE WITHOUT PAIN, why would he be cleared? Either he is cleared or he is not cleared. According to commentary, Will exists in a state of Schrodinger’s Clearing, just barely cleared to wrestle, but that clearance could be revoked at any time. Meanwhile, the match was set up for Mark Davis to dump Ospreay ON HIS FUCKING BRAINPAN OVER AND OVER, getting that hack doctor (who in real life and real time, cleared stupid Matt Hardy, concussed as six t-boned car crash victims, to be able to FINISH A MATCH) involved.

So anyway, Doctor Concusso is out there, squeezing Ospreay’s hand and we were HOWLING “JUST BREAK HIS GODDAMNED NECK THEN” at the screen. I think our pleas carried over the cable and straight to the Rose City as Davis tried his level best to fulfill our wish. Davis smashed Ospreay’s brains in SO MUCH that Ospreay actually lost the match via count-out, which was a surprising outcome, one that AEW doesn’t do very often at all.

I get what they are trying to do. It is just so fucking HEAVY HANDED. No subtlety for you, champ, this is SPARTA WRESTLING. Ospreay rushed coming back and he is falling apart before our eyes. Fine. BUT ENOUGH WITH THE I CAN’T TAKE OFF MY ROBE deal. Enough with the fake doctor run ins, especially since real injuries and real doctor run ins happen all of the time. There has to be a better way to convey whatever they are trying here… perhaps Will comes back as CYBER OSPREAY or something, I dunno.

Then, after the match, when Mark Davis was gonna FINISH THE JOB, the Death Riders came out and ABSCONDED with Ospreay’s CORPSE, presumably to anoint him in the waters of CRATER LAKE. I really don’t know what to make of that. Do the Riders rebuild Ospreay in their image? Bind, torture and KILL him? Given Mox’ proclities… who knows. Amusingly, after Ospreay’s ABDUCTION, there was a promo with Alex WINDZAAAAAA, his real life and freshly acknowledged on screen a couple of weeks ago main squeeze. She was apparently NOT WORRIED ABOUT OSPREAY IN THE LEAST, as she didn’t even acknowledge his absence, which made us chuckle mightily. A pal said that Windsor clearly doesn’t watch the show and I suppose that must be the case. I am cautiously intrigued by where this story goes (if a bit leery), but I am BEGGING Ospreay to leave the kinesio tape mummy man gimmick behind.

AEW feels a bit peculiar right now. We don’t yet know the directions for at least three top people (Swerve Strickland, Hangman Adam Page, Kenny Omega) but they seem to be, at the same time, making inroads into investing in the guys just bubbling under the surface, your Kevin Knights, your Mark Davises, your Brody Kings. That’s good, but there are still trappings I am concerned about (WWE style feuds being stretched over many pay per views, video packages creeping in like kudzu, egregious amounts of time without in ring wrestling, etc.).

To wrap this up, I saw a real brainbox yesterday on Reddit (I know, my own fault) say something completely fetid; WWE features too little wrestling, but AEW features too much. Gross. There are also lots of “how do I get started with AEW” type posts that I’ve seen recently, and who knows? Maybe AEW is actively seeking out these fans who are worried about too much wrestling, who are worried about how to “start” watching AEW (pro-tip; just like start watching, my guy). Just don’t punish ME, the long time viewer, when you court these people, please.