La Zona Muerta

O frabjous day! The clanky sounds of Chairgate (don’t ask) have given way to the sharp, barking sounds of Dogggate (super don’t ask).

Sigh.

Look, all I require is a decent episode of Dynamite and a star to guide her by.

In This Week in Supplemental Material, AEW remembered Will Ospreay is meant to be, y’know, likable, and started airing videos of Will redesigning, rebuilding and reclaiming (um, where have I heard that before?) from his goldurn neck surgery last year. All well and good… but why in the name of good Gotch above didn’t they start showing this stuff MONTHS AGO?! What happened to that loveable puppy dog brained man of years past?

Ospreay apparently still has the HOT SUPPORT of Franchesco Akira and Toa Aaron HENARE, so that sort of tracks that they came out to be his backup in the never ending battle against the Don Callis Family. I’m not super into the United Empire Civil War storyline and AEW already muddied these particular waters thoroughly the last time the UE guys were here, so, squint at the screen to make it all work, I guess. The UE thing will play out elsewhere and I have to admit, I likely won’t be paying a great deal of attention to it.

But that all brings us back to Wiil, the man who Tony Schiavone referred to as a MASTER STRATEGIST. I’m guessing that concept and that name have never been mentioned together in the same sentence before. Such is the beauty (?) of the English language. I realize that within the tiny corner of the internet that I, my friends, my readers and people that think somewhat similarly to me occupy, that Will’s no good, very bad year probably looms larger to us than it does to Bob and Jill AEWWatcher, but this build has not been… used to best effect, perhaps. Obviously Ospreay still gets big pops. He was BIG in BALTIMORE. But they are acting like if he doesn’t win the BIG ONE, he will be DEPORTED from JOLLY OLD ENGLOID.

I know some people aren’t super hyped in regards to Kyle Fletcher meeting Konosuke Takeshita and Kazuchika Okada in a three way DAN dance but honestly, that’s the match I’m probably looking forward to the most at All In. I think that match has had a fair amount of decent build. Sure, it doesn’t need a great deal of storyline support. Sure, it could go off the rails with a wacky result… this remains AEW, after all, but both Okada and Kyle delivered great promos about the upcoming match in their own manners. Okada is beautiful and perfect and needs to never learn another word of the King’s English. Okada and Fletch are united in their hatred for Takeshita (unlike… TAKESHITA… oh, wait) which gave me a chuckle, and Takeshita just happened to be ready to hear Fletcher’s shit talk, much to Kyle’s shock. This has been largely a fun build; I just want there to be tangible repercussions and movement up the card here, particularly for Kyle. Well, REALLY for Takeshita, but I have come to accept that he will never break the AEW (real) glass ceiling.

Don Callis was notably absent, possibly loafing in Greece. The missus indicated that might be a good place for Don to… uh… scout.

The Will Ospreay / Kenny Omega sit down interview followed.

They are striking HARD, right off the bat, with Kenny at his most passive aggressive, in order to MAKE CERTAIN we know Kenny is the heel and Will is the face.

Why?

Why can’t it be the rubber match between the two best wrestlers in the world? Why does there have to be a “villain?” The funny thing was Kenny calmly pointed out how the real malefactor in their previous encounters had really been Will, and Will couldn’t really mount a defense to that.

The interview then changed into some strange “who suffered more during COVID” dick measuring contest. I know, for our collective sanity as a society that most of us have memory holed that year and a half and reduced it to the time where we all grew beards and learned how to make bread by watching YouTube, but WE ALL HAD IT ROUGH, DAWG. Ospreay continued to wail about his problems (to be fair, his very real problems; shit was dire) in COVID era New Japan. Baffling, even if he wasn’t wrong. Regardless, Kenny shut that down fast by largely saying what I just did; we ALL had it rough.

It tickles me when Kenny, who has forgotten more conversational Japanese than I will ever know, constantly uses the term gaijin (a sort of not nice, impolite way to say foreigner) as opposed to the more temperate term gaikokujin which I have seen some finger waggers… uh… finger wag for, advocating it’s use. I think I’ll err on the side of THE CLEANER, thanks.

Omega pointed out that Ospreay didn’t need to join up with Don Callis in the first damn place. Ospreay admitted he needed the help, the edge to use against Omega. Will again made himself look… not great…as Big Ken calmly pointed out Kenny didn’t need Don Callis’ help to beat Will… and Will needed Callis to beat Kenny. “I FORGIVE YOU,” Kenny said in the ice cold line of the interview, ABSOLVING WILL OF HIS MANY SINS. Absolutely BRUTAL. Kenny got annoyed at the ten trillionth mention of his diverticulitis, and lord, who could blame him? Kenny ran down Will’s surgically repaired body and confidence, and it was BEAUTIFUL. Kenny got under Will’s skin here with ease, I’d say. Will again brought up doing it (winning) for England, how much pressure he’s under and… CHRIST ALMIGHTY. THE BRITISH ALSO LIKE KENNY, MAN. YOU SOUND LIKE A CHILD. Will’s whole thing is that England is COUNTING on him somehow, and we really haven’t seen any evidence of that. Maybe SHOW us that, show his family, his trainers, his peers pointing out how important this all is, huh? Would Will be like this if All In was emanating from Texas again this year? “Win, lose or draw… I still respect you, Will. But that boy of yours might need a new hero,” said the EGO Assassin, Kenny Omega. What a baffling segment. It wasn’t bad… quite the opposite… but what exactly am I supposed to be taking away from this? Part good, part cringe, part great. They want to turn Kenny so desperately but the meaner, the more passive aggressive he is, the more he acts like a condescending older brother, the better we like it. Make it make sense!

Next up was another permutation of Hikaru Shida vs. Maya World vs. Persephone vs. Kris Statlander. Fine, even really good in a couple places but overall the match felt a bit…water tread-y? One might assume some version of this match… again… will be the Wembley bout. Maya World picked up the win to retain her TBS title.

Did’ja know that the Brawling Birds are British ladies? They are, they are, they is! Best in all Westminster, guv’nor!

BRITISH.

They decided to burn Jay White versus Jon Ospreay to kick off the second hour. I guess that match White had with the deadly dull David Finlay last week was fairly divisive; I thought it stunk, but folks I like, respect and trust loved it. White had no problem getting right in Mox’ face, which I liked as the two former IWGP Heavyweight champions traded holds.

Hey, you think Moxley knows about SA GRIPPU? I think we know that answer.

Jay is finally starting to feel like he has his confidence back, hitting head scissors takeovers and a particularly nasty suplex into the corner on the much larger Moxley. I don’t know if it was real or not, but at one point, Mox started ramming his own shoulder into the ring, presumably to pop it back in place. GRIM. Jay hit three cutthroat suplexes in a row, which fired up Jon… but Jay reminded us his specialty is counter wrestling, turning Mox’ charge into a flatliner. Beautiful. They did a false finish I bit on where it looked like Jay won the match. Mox eventually won with the choke (after a Death Rider), but it was a GREAT match, like a classic match, and White loses nothing here; he took Mox to the limit. Lovely stuff, possibly one of the best TV matches this year.

Of course, the lovely match had to have the highly lame DAWGS attack afterwards, robbing me of the afterglow. I guess Brody, Bandido and Hangman intervened, but my eyes were busy conducting an inventory of my neurons. Something something trios something. To be fair, this actually was predicated upom Hangman throwing down a challenge to any trios teams who wanted it at Wembley.

The highly great (and definitely NOT portraying anyone else on the active roster) Jon Cruz got got by Andrade, but not before running him down EN ESPANOL, POR FAVOR. Cruz said that he would speak Spanish so Andrade would understand, but after Andrade’s stumbling Spanglish from Arena Mexico, I wonder if even straight Spanish is a string in Andrade’s bow. How ANY of us know? Perhaps we can develop a crude system of pictograms to communicate with which to communicate with the “real Latino male.”

MJF cut a pre taped promo that AEW miscued. Par for the course.

Willow Nightingale vs. Mercedes Moné promo and brawl; pretty good, but it’s still hard to feel like Mercedes could do an impromptu promo session without the help of WWE cue cards. Also, Mercedes said “dumb bitch” not once but TWICE, which just made me long for the strangely absent Thekla.

Swerve Strickland wants those trios titles. Too bad he’s gonna recruit that tired Unicorn / Cereal / Pancake collective.

How could they toy with my heart like this, forcing Hechicero to battle Nigel McGuinness? Nigel suffered a (presumably kayfabe) injury to his foot on Collision to (presumably) throw some doubt on the outcome.

It’s funny:

Bandido loses too often

Komander loses too often.

Hechicero loses too often.

Notice a pattern?

Nigel pointed out that, even with an injury… it’s not like he generally fought during his active career at 100%, anyway. Fair point. Big Hech zeroed in on the foot, as well he should have. DON’T WEAR A TARGET, KIDS. A friend pointed out that both of these dudes are technically WRESTLING MAGICIANS, and he is RIGHT. Hechicero used some nasty offense; ripping at Nigel’s built up boot, applying an inverted figure four on the “injured” foot. Nigel managed to choke out the large alchemist. NO MENTION OF HIS UPCOMING CHALLENGE AGAINST LEE MORIARTY IN ROH ON FRIDAY BECAUSE WHY WOULD YOU EVER PROMOTE ANYTHING.

One issue with all this British stuff… we GET IT. I like Ospreay (mostly), I like the Birds, I LOVE Nigel… but their motivations seem to be nothing more than British wrestlers want to wrestle at British Wembley in a British manner, ‘coz they’re BRITISH. WE GET IT. It’s more British than mushy peas, bangers and beans on fucking toast.

Kevin Knight promoed on Darby Allin, causing the PHANTOM OF THE SKATEBOARD to appear. Knight DEMANDED that Darby be shorn of any hidden weapons, which honestly was a fair demand. Kevin Knight, however, turned the tables and BLEW UP DARBY WITH PYRO. We cackled; this was the stupidest and yet best sports entertainment nonsense. HIJO DEL STING came out to collect Darby’s cremains. They did a whole… THING with Darby being shipped out in an ambulance. I think I might know who Knight goes after next…

Hey, the Elite, the the Elite. I think those are the cats this place is named after, yeah? Huh. The Elite found themselves squared off against the DCF team of El Clon (god, I love that guy), Mark Davis and Jake Doyle. Ospreay tried to confront Kenny Omega at the entrance ramp, but security GOT WILL THE HELP HE NEEDED.

“Don’t worry; he’ll get the help he needs.”

Predictably, an Elite party match was a pretty good thing to see, particularly with two great bases and an awesome luchador like Clon in the mix. Kenny hurked up big Doyle for the One Winged Angel, which made me gasp. Then, as I predicted at six fifteen post meridiem, and YES, I HAVE RECEIPTS IF NEEDED, the show suddenly turned into WCW Monday Night Nitro circa 1997 as more Callis men, Christian Cage and Adam “Edge” Edgington all came streaming out. EL SCHMOZ. As the sea of men slowly parted, Ospreay came storming out to confront Kenny… but Kenny summoned security AGAIN. Tremendous. Of course Ospreay overcame the odds and attacked anyway. Kenny (I guess) turned full heel and delivered a One Winged Angel to Ospreay through a table, which was a BABYFACE MANEUVER in Casa de Convoy. I dunno what to make of it, honestly.

It feels like Will Ospreay the character is insecure. It feels like AEW the actual, real life promotion is insecure. IT’S OKAY IF THE BRITISH CHEER FOR KENNY. Is Kenny BETTER as a heel? I dunno; they didn’t give him a chance to have the fucking babyface run! My wife asked me if he had even defended then title once, and I said “yes, against Kevin Knight.” THAT’S IT. Is Will genuinely that unlikable now, that Kenny has to be a cartoonish super villain?

Maybe.

Obviously, despite the Dick Van Dyke “H’oh it’s a jolly ‘oliday wiv YEW, MAWEE PAWPINS” levels of forced British-oscity, this Dynamite was ten times, twenty times, SEVENTY THREE POINT SIX TIMES better than last week’s dire episode. Am I mad that Kenny is some kind of crazed passive aggressive (or maybe simply aggressive given the end of the show) psycho? No, not really. It’s more perplexing than it is anger inducing. In fact, most of the issues leading to All In got enough of a shine or polish here… that next week will probably fail to stick the landing. Such is the nature of building to a tent pole event, of course.

Since AEW couldn’t remind you, don’t forget that there is an ROH PPV Friday. I’m SURE that has a lot of long term care being poured into the booking.

*cough*