La Zona Muerta

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about one R.E. Turner the Third. Don’t worry; I’m not doing three thousand words on the eccentric philanthropist. I haven’t the time and frankly, I don’t know the lore that well. This is a light entertainment blog, not a heavy research think tank.

The part of Turner’s story I do know a little better than some is where it butts up against our peculiar little wrestling bubble, but even then, I’m not the guy to chronicle all of that, to make his case for the Observer Hall of Fame, etc. In my usual fashion, I’d rather talk about feelings and observations. And as I observed person after person mention him in the same breath with Vince McMahon in light of Turner’s passing yesterday, I felt like firebombing the internet, as if it were one gleaming, physical target I could plot a strafing run against.

Ted Turner may have been Vince McMahon’s archenemy, fine. McMahon went to bed for his robust four hours of sleep every night, dreaming of his boot on Turner’s neck for the better part of fifteen years.

Turner thought about McMahon probably a few times a year, if that. MAYBE.

If they were archenemies, it was the most one sided feud since Wile E. Coyote versus gravity.

McMahon was comical, even cartoonish in his villainy when it came to opposing his white whale in the form of Turner. Running ads in USA Today, and I don’t mean WWF ads, I mean anti-Turner ads aimed at Turner stockholders, desperate to expose Turner malfeasance. Letters addressed to Turner, chiding him for having blood on his rasslin’ shows. Shots at the differences between the respective drug policies championed by the WWF and WCW. Skits on his own TV shows*, depicting Ted himself as a brainless hillbilly dullard, buying up washed up wrestlers like “the Huckster” and “the Nacho Man.”

I’m sure main character Vincent K. McMahon really DID think Turner was his mortal enemy, that every business move Turner made was predicated towards destroying his little mom and pop wrestling company. What was distressing to me yesterday was seeing this kind of thing said, spread, regurgitated and more by people expressing sympathy (?) over Turner’s death. “I can’t believe McMahon lived longer than Turner!” “WWF finally really beat WCW!” “Death got the wrong billionaire!” I even saw one person say that they were surprised to see an obituary of Turner didn’t mention WCW.

How reductive.

I’m sorry (I love you), but WCW was the least of the things Turner did. Important to US, yes. Important to the landscape of cable television? Yes, if one knows the history and doesn’t turn up their nose at the thought of oily men grappling around. Important to the world at large? Not even in the least. What’s more important, staving off a North American pro wrestling monopoly for fifteen years, or donating over a billion dollars to the United Nations? Posing with Ric Flair for a photo op or saving the North American Bison**?

If you have half an hour and access to it, a few years ago, there was an ESPN 30 For 30 mini documentary produced about Turner’s 1979 entry into the Fastnet race, a yachting contest turned disaster that I found fascinating. The man had ALREADY won the America’s Cup two years prior, had nothing to prove and went out for this tough race anyway, and triumphed in the face of a storm that cost over a dozen men their lives.

I’d much rather you watch something like that and learn about another side of Turner than just “wrestling guy” or “wacky businessman who thought black and white movies were being held back by a lack of color” or who ruthlessly bought film library after film library until he needed four channels to hold everything he had access to.

McMahon? He has some apocryphal stories about fighting Marines as a kid. Such adversity. These are two different types of men we are talking about, here. They don’t belong in the same universe, let alone the same breath.

None of this is to say that I didn’t like AEW’s tribute to the maverick businessman. Tony Schiavone speaking from the heart about Turner being the reason for Turner Broadcast System and Turner Network Television showing wrestling in the first place is obviously true. Sting coming out and talking about Big Ted (ha ha) in his wacky manner, and sharing another true Turner quote where Turner said he’d fund wrestling forever because he had “deep pockets” was a fitting tribute (even if goofball fans chanting “holy shit” at Sting during the tribute was perhaps not the most respectful thing I’ve ever seen). No good billionaires, obviously, but wrestling fans were lucky that there was one crazy billionaire wrestling fan who leaned mostly towards the good side of the ledger and somehow, twenty plus years later, we wrestling fans are similarly lucky again to have the same.

Turner was a lot of things… but please, if you’re sparing him a thought, know that wrestling was a tiny, tiny part of his overall tapestry. He certainly doesn’t deserve to be forever linked to a human pile of excrement like McMahon.

Got to be honest with you, gang. I didn’t think there was a lot of notable wrestling on the show last night (the tell being that I just spent most of my time writing about a mildly liberal yet contradictory media mogul instead of about the show itself). The Darby Allin / Kevin Knight match was… fine, it certainly had a good closing stretch, a good finish, but it wasn’t in the same league as the Brody King or (ugh) Tomasso Ciampa defenses. I think it says VOLUMES that most of the excitement I saw in regards to Darby was not his upcoming apuestas match (!) with Maxwell Jacob Friedman*** but rather the impromptu match he’s going to have with the bastard PAC on Saturday, or the match that YAHWEH HIMSELF may need to intervene in on Wednesday with Kazuchika Okada. The idea of Darby somehow SURVIVING against Okada is, of course, anathema but one would suspect Konosuke Takeshita will somehow cost Okada the match. Someone get word to my beautiful, best boy Take that if he lets Okada win, Take could take BOTH the World title AND the International title, but oh, well.

But anyway, yeah, an apuestas match, (Turkey) hair versus title.

That’s the stip?

I mean, cool, I guess, but so much for the grandiose fantasy booking of restoring Hangman Adam Page to full championship contention (a possibility I had thrown doubt on last week, in these very pages) or causing Max to himself do “the Cody.” Given the seriousness of Darby’s constant proclamation that Max needed to put up something important, a hair versus title match wasn’t anywhere on my radar. Maybe Max didn’t like how his new hair (you can swim with it, shower AND lead an active lifestyle) came out?

Hey, remember when Wheeler YUTA lost his hair and it was basically all back like three weeks later?

Anyway.

I should shout out the fantastic promo PAC cut, telling Darby that PAC himself was a mountain Darby could NEVER climb. Greatness.

The only other match that really did anything for me was the aforementioned Okada versus Brian Keith. And Brian Keith is GREAT, completely underutilized… but throwing him out there on a random TV… no one CARED. It was a good match, but utterly COLD. Why not give Keith some wins on TV to give him a tiny bit of credibility before feeding him to the Rainmaker? Even a string of wins in Ring of Honor would have been SOMETHING, at least. Don Callis tried his level best to put Keith over, and there was a struggle over a Tiger Driver that comprised most of the closing sequence that MAY have got the crowd back, but… yeah. I think this sort of thing is one of AEW’s biggest weaknesses; a neat match on paper but a match that has no real grounds or stakes. Coordinate the chances of the midcard carpenters a bit better, please! Also, AEW is VERY inconsistent when it comes to the champion coming out second. I realize that’s very much a Wade Keller-esque old man yells at cloud thing, but I’m enough of a traditionalist to believe the champion should come out second for presentational emphasis.

Other than that…? There wasn’t a lot for me, here. Jericho and the Hurt Men (sounds like a shitty band name) against the Demand and whomever in a Stadium Stampede? I don’t have much interest****. Edge and Christian against FTR? Yeah, I get it already. The DOGS are vulgar. Cool. Mina Shirakawa dramatically ripping off Harley Cameron’s top? Dude, I’m not twelve any more! I don’t get a kick out of that; I don’t sublimate my sexual desires into wrestling*****. Will Ospreay and his wacky neck bridge hour? I thought the backstage vignettes were fun last week. Now, it’s whatever. HEY, ANDRADE IL IDOLO SAID THE CATCHPHRASE AGIAN. There are actively a LOT of acts on AEW TV that I’m not into right now. The Death Riders feel locked into a holding pattern. The Bucks are just having party matches, which is fine, but ultimately not very satisfying. No Kenny Omega (again). Hangman is MIA. Swerve Strickland had a quick promo but nothing else. How does Bandido feel about being called out? Beeats me.

This wasn’t a bad Dynamite, by any means, but I found my attention drifting multiple times. I am somewhat intrigued by the golf thing on Saturday, I must admit, if for the venue novelty if nothing else (but that show also houses PAC and Darby, which has me all atwitter). The coming pay per view? Shrug. I have liked car crash Darby’s title run but have little interest in Max ending it. Maybe I’ll get more excited by the time the Owen Cup rolls around.

* and the people running the USA Network were lucky that these potentially slanderous skits were beneath Turner’s notice or that he had a sense of humor about himself. Indeed, the then head of USA eventually cracked down on McMahon over all of this as the sketches persisted and began talking much more about Turner himself than they did WCW. Turner himself said in regards to the skits something to the effect of “boy, Vince must be hurting if they are running that stuff.”

** even if Ted just really, REALLY had a hankering for a lean steak

*** that hair belongs to MISTICO, you coward

**** and some people REALLY don’t get what the Jericho Vortex (TM) means. A prominent podcaster whom I enjoy 95% of the time RANTED AND RAVED at those of us who don’t care for Jericho about how silly we were since he came back and immediately put Ricochet over… but Ricochet has got NOTHING out of that. We are STILL linking Ricochet and Jericho and it’s been nearly TWO MONTHS OF THE SAME OLD CRAP. Perhaps it shouldn’t be the Jericho VORTEX, but rather the Jericho Morass or the Jericho Sargasso or the Jericho Hotel. You check in, but you don’t check out

***** they go into food, frustration and late stage arm curls exercise, like any other NORMAL person. Duh.