Welcome back to another Monday Morning Q&A where I toss out some questions to get a feel of how you guys and gals are feeling about certain topics.
So here are 5 questions I’d like to toss out for this week. I’ll give my answers, too, but the key here is that I want to know what YOU think! So make sure you chime in!
1) Bryan Danielson and CM Punk are heading to AEW. If you had to pick between them, which of the two are you more excited to see in All Elite Wrestling?
CM Punk. As much as Daniel Bryan is going to have more matches and likely better ones, too, I think Punk will make more of a splash with less effort.
Frankly, I don’t know why it’s taken this long to sort out that kind of deal. Punk going to AEW felt like a guarantee from the very start. I’m curious to know what the negotiations were like and what kept them so long from working together.
There are so many matches that will be fun to see between both and I’m really looking forward to both in AEW. However, even though I’d assume I’ll get more bang for my buck with Bryan, I think his storylines will be very straightforward and just about “Wouldn’t a match against Wrestler X be great?” whereas Punk will bring more character to the mix.
2) Nikki A.S.H. already successfully cashed in her Money in the Bank title shot and won the Raw Women’s Championship. Why do you think no woman other than Carmella has held the briefcase more than a day so far?
I think it’s a mixture of coincidence and WWE lacking focus. For the most part, they haven’t had two people with briefcases at the same time for long even when it was a Raw and SmackDown male Superstar holding both.
With such little attention being put on the briefcase on a regular basis, along with so many failed runs in recent years like Otis, it seems WWE just can’t focus on more than 2 things at the same time. Right now, they’re focused on Reigns/Cena and “isn’t it great fans are back?” along with firing nearly everyone, it seems. Focusing on two MITB runs at once shouldn’t be that difficult of a task, but I guess history shows that’s asking for too much.
I don’t think this has to do with A.S.H. or even about giving Flair a quick title reign to boost her numbers, though I do think those two factors may have played a part in it. More than anything, I think it’s a matter of WWE wanting to get one of the briefcases “out of the way” so they don’t have to worry about it going forward.
3) Roman Reigns denied John Cena’s challenge, but accepted Finn Balor’s. How do you think this will play out?
Frankly, I don’t know. This seems strange. Balor would be a perfectly fine candidate for a match against Reigns for the title at a lower-level pay-per-view like Clash of Champions. Why throw it away on SmackDown leading up to SummerSlam?
Clearly, in some fashion, they’re going back to Reigns vs. Cena. That’s the match that truly matters. Maybe they think Reigns needs a decisive victory over someone else to make him look stronger heading into the event and they’re already going to sacrifice Balor? If so, that’ll take place on an upcoming edition of SmackDown to pop a rating and get the crowd hyped up.
I think this is a mistake. There are no scenarios I can imagine where this works out best for Balor, Reigns, Cena and WWE as a whole. It just feels like a disjointed, unnecessary extra detour to take on the road to Cena/Reigns where Balor is going to be sacrificed even though nobody needed to fill that role.
4) SmackDown was recorded in two locations this week. Did you enjoy that and would like to see it happen more often, or were you indifferent or disliked it?
While that opened itself up to an interesting dynamic shift, I don’t think that was worthwhile. Switching over to another location only temporarily made the episode feel different. It didn’t actually do anything but split the action in two between the live crowd, which I’d assume were annoyed they didn’t get a full episode in front of them.
I say don’t do it again. There aren’t any real positives that spring to my mind.
5) Is there anyone on the roster right now (ie, not Brock Lesnar) who you would be more interested to see Bobby Lashley face at SummerSlam instead of Goldberg being the challenger?
To be honest, given the amount of time before the pay-per-view, I don’t think WWE could manage to pull off setting anyone up enough in time. Big E would have been the only option and it wouldn’t have been as big of a deal by any means. Goldberg is a stronger marquee name on paper and will draw more of a casual viewer’s intrigue than anybody who I can think of who I personally like better.
For instance, Keith Lee. I’m a huge fan of the guy and I hope he’s the one to beat Lashley for the title. However, his return isn’t going to spark that buy rate the same as a one-off by Goldberg, even though the latter match will be significantly worse in comparison.
Not many casuals are into match rate quality. They’re into spectacle. Goldberg is spectacle. It’s the smart play, even if it upsets people in our bubble who aren’t super thrilled about 5 weeks building up to a 30 second match of nothing but spears.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
