La Zona Muerta

I dunno.

The shows AEW fields after a big pay per view often feel kinda ad hoc, kinda thrown together… and while there were presumably the ends to a couple of long running programs (Chris Jericho and Ricochet, Kris Statlander and Hikaru Shida)… I just didn’t think there was enough meat on the bone to sustain my interest for nearly three and a half hours of TV show.

I realize it’s tough to provide all killer, no filler every single time out of the gate… but this show didn’t really have a lot of great wrestling. But you know what it DID have? Jaw-jacking.

There was a near fifteen minute MJF promo. A sequel to Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay commiserating in the doctor’s office. Several minutes for Kevin Knight to explain his actions (not an indictment; they had to do that given Knight’s heel turn). A fucking Edge and Christian “for the benefit of those with flash photography” segment in the year of our lord 2026 (but don’t worry, they’ll be feuding with my personal favorites THE DOGS. *cough*). A long, somewhat sexually charged Don Callis Family segment (again, understandable given the results of the pay per view, but still). A dumb Rocky-style vignette for Jungle Jack Perry because, uh… Philadelphia, I guess? I figure there had to have been at least a solid half hour of JUST TALKING when you add it all up, maybe even a little more, given how long that MJF segment went. Couple that with a so so Jericho / Ricochet match to kick off the show, an underwhelming “SuperStation” four-way where big, jacked Brian Cage appeared to have trouble picking up wee Orange Cassidy (a man so slight that I could pick him up with little trouble), and nothing particularly substantial in ring until Claudio Castagnoli versus Brody King in hour TWO, and even that was merely fine, not great.

It’s not like anything was bad, exactly. The King / Claudio match was better than I am giving it credit for, I just sort of… forgot about it. There was a pretty good Death Riders (with Will Ospreay) match against the Rascalz in the third hour. Statlander and Shida certainly overdelivered in the main with a violent twenty minute treat of a match; the quality of their match almost inversely proportional to the quality of their overall program together (and yes, of course people were PRE MAD that the women would be short changed timewise. I wonder if any of them deleted their comments when the match went eighteen minutes past the hour). I just wasn’t particularly engaged for the better part of the evening. Samoa Joe is leaving again for awhile after everyone was throwing roses at his feet for his performance on Sunday. They are SLOWLY drip feeding us the Kenny Omega plans going forward for Wembley. We have no idea what the Bucks are doing*. No Kazuchika Okada. Just a quickie word from Swerve Strickland. Zero indication of what is coming up for Forbidden Door for anyone (although to be fair, we don’t always get a great picture of Forbidden Door until much closer to the show).

You have a neat opportunity when they give you the three hour show… man, I’d load that mother out. Party matches. Some tag action. Maybe a fun squash with a heartbreaking hope spot for a local geek, or better yet, an indie fav. Not saying you can’t have promo segments; the Kevin Knight and Don Callis / Kyle Fletcher promos were 100% necessary. Despite the similarity to the last one, obviously they are telling us the Kenny Omega journey to the world title in this specific fashion, via the medium of sad boy backstage promo, for a reason. Of course you’re going to get an MJF promo to explain his upcoming direction. I’m just saying I would have paced this a bit differently, added some more spice, driven some more interest.

May as well get into a couple of those talking segments since there isn’t a lot to talk about, otherwise.

It might feel like I’m negging the Kenny thing ever so slightly, and I’m not, really. I’m just puzzled as to why we are getting it at such a slow pace. Actually, they sort of incorporated that feeling into the piece; Kenny was in the doctor’s office and puppy dog Ospreay showed up to ice his bicep. Big Ken gamely offered Will some ice and they basically just checked in with each other. Kenny finally flat out asked Will “why the Death Riders?” and Will pointed out how good they had been for them. Fixed neck, more focus, etc. (Maybe Will started taking ALPHA BRAIN.) Kenny felt hurt that Ospreay didn’t come to him, instead, pointing out that the two of them were apparently closer than they’ve ever really been portrayed on TV, and that he would have dropped everything to help Will. Ospreay looked at Kenny and said he didn’t rely on Kenny for help because KENNY IS NEVER THERE, which… yeah, that resonated. Finally, Kenny tried to warn Will about the Death Riders and Jon Moxley showed up and muttered that was “good advice.” The temperature in the room lowered noticeably, and Kenny told Ospreay passive aggressively (believe me, I’m a big fan of passive aggression) “I’ll leave you to do your… neck bridges or whatever it is you do,” and split.

This was intriguing, sure, but that’s it, that’s all we get. No Kenny match, no live promo (this was taped at the pay per view). Like Ospreay said, Kenny isn’t here, and this after he proclaimed that he was back. If Kenny is gonna be world champ, WE NEED TO KICK THIS SHIT INTO SECOND GEAR, MAN. He needs to be ON TV, WINNING MATCHES. We need to know what’s goin’ on in that wacky brain of his. And we need to know that MJF is actively DODGING him.

The other biggie, the real trial by fire was Kevin Knight’s big “why, Kevin, why” heel coming out party. I opined that he needed to crush it here… I’d say, if I were to use a trite sports cliche, he probably hit a solid double. ‘Twas fine. Basically, Knight pointed out that he didn’t EXACTLY turn heel (until he started using that tried and true heel weapon; LOCAL SPORTS HEAT, as he said he could no longer TRUST THE PROCESS. Even I got that one); he was really just punishing Darby Allin for blowing it against MJF. His eyes are still locked in on MJF and becoming 2 Fly 2 Belts or whatever. His partner Speedball Mike Bailey appeared, wearing a, um, uh… smoking jacket equivalent of a gi? Like a fancy, dinner gi? I dunno. If Knight had said he was turning purely because of this jacket, not a jury in the WORLD would have convicted him. Anyway, Speedball tried to talk Knight down and told him that he was too headstrong, too impatient. Knight made up his mind… and clobbered Speedy. Then he felt bad about it and went to leave… and CAME BACK AND REALLY GAVE SPEEDBALL A THRASHING. This constitutes a face turn in the Convoy household. As I say, this was fine, not the home run I envisioned, but not the mindless “I am bad guy now because you people” garbage we’ve endured a zillion times. Knight later made his displeasure with MJF known to the man himself, so I imagine we will get that as a placeholder feud between the two for TV.

For me, the middling episode of TV is pretty much the least engaging thing to write about. There’s nothing for me, really, to sink my teeth into, nothing to really riff on. Sure, could I crank out 500 words about the wrongheadedness of having an E&C dopey throwback to 26 years ago segment and the online “fight” I got into with somebody about it earlier in the day? Of course. But I don’t want to. It’s not much fun to talk about; it’s another brick in the wall of the constant motion of AEW moving away from the things I like. I didn’t enjoy getting into it with a mutual over such a stupid, silly thing… it’s just silly wrestling. But it’s also me committing three and a half hours on a Wednesday night, and me expecting to be entertained for the better amount of that time. I wouldn’t write about AEW every fucking week if I didn’t LIKE it… but AEW doesn’t always give me the things I want… and on a night like this, the thrown together nature of the show I think really hurt it, overall. The pacing sucked, the matches didn’t deliver to the ridiculously high standard we all hold AEW to. It happens. Hopefully Saturday, we get things back on track.

*Yes, yes, I realize their generational rivals are likely coming in, and then the dudes from the other place. But one of those things won’t happen until late July and the other probably not until Wembley or just prior

Kenny