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) Did you see The Rock’s latest film, DC’s Black Adam? What did you think, or, if you haven’t seen it yet, are you planning on watching it?
I hated it. I’m a huge superhero fan, but not the biggest fan of Shazam and the Captain Marvel series as a whole. So this wasn’t even a matter of me having too high of standards as a fanboy. I just thought it was poorly written, badly acted, the pacing was terrible and it was riddled with cliches that dated the script to something more akin to 15 years ago when we first had this project in the making.
If you want to see a better DC project starring a pro wrestler, check out Peacemaker with John Cena.
2) What was your biggest takeaway from Halloween Havoc, if any?
Overall, the event had a series of solid matches, but nothing that felt must-see. I wasn’t a big fan of the haunted house skit like some other people were. Wes Lee winning the North American Championship seems like a transitional reign in the making, but maybe I’m wrong.
My biggest takeaway was that it felt like a “special event”, which is what I want to see more of. Just having the gimmicks and the set design really went a long way in differentiating it from a regular episode of NXT. They need to do more things like this. Bring back Bash at the Beach, for instance, and decorate it like that.
3) WWE trademarked the name Lyra Valkyria. Do you think that will end up being Sarah Logan, Aoife Valkyrie, a returning Franky Monet/Taya Valkyrie, or someone else?
I think the likelihood this is tied to Taya Valkyrie is extremely slim. The name is super similar, sure, but I’m assuming she’s signed to Impact Wrestling and not a free agent.
Aoife Valkyrie is in a limbo state. She was out for a while with an injury, which may or may not be healed up by now. But we don’t even know for sure if she’s still signed to WWE. She’s technically still on the roster page, but the website has errors all over the place and you can’t trust it as an infallible source. They still list the Heritage Cup as being active, for instance. Plenty people like Isla Dawn, Aleah James and Noam Dar are in that question mark range of “Did they get released with the removal of NXT UK, or are they still under contract, or what? Why haven’t we seen them or heard anything one way or another?”
Oro Mensah was Oliver Carter in NXT UK, but they changed his name on the switch. Maybe they want to do the same with Aoife Valkyrie.
However, since we haven’t heard ANYTHING about her, whereas Sarah Logan’s been popping up as a tease to join The Viking Raiders, maybe that’s the endgame of this. That’s at least more of a sure bet since we know she’s in the mix for sure. Technically, they could just keep her as Sarah Logan, but Lyra Valkyria does sound like a viking-themed gimmick.
My guess is Logan, but if it’s as simple as Aoife, I’ll be kicking myself for getting that wrong.
4) MJF has been positioned more and more as a babyface with his promos as of late. Do you think AEW should turn him, double down on his status as a heel, or something else?
He’s in a tough spot. I would assume MJF works significantly better as a heel, but we haven’t seen him do the babyface act quite yet. Any great talker like The Rock or Chris Jericho or Stone Cold has managed to be just as successful, if not better, as a face, so that’s something that could definitely work so long as he doesn’t lose his edge.
My hesitation to fully turn him face is that I don’t know if there’s a strong enough heel foundation on AEW’s roster for him to feud with. Then again, how do you stop the fans from cheering him and go back to a full-blown heel character?
I think I would lean toward the latter and have him do something awful at Full Gear to win the title, and just trust that he’ll sort it out.
5) Which of the following recent changes do you think will work out better in the long run: JBL with Baron Corbin, Elias returns, Rey Mysterio switching to SmackDown, or the reversion back to heel LA Knight?
I’m a fan of all four ideas, to an extent. But here’s how I’d rank them.
- Heel LA Knight works so much better than the Max Dupri thing, or babyface LA Knight. If they had kept going in either of those directions, I think he would have floundered. This gives him a legitimate shot at being someone.
- Rey Mysterio going over to SmackDown is a logical move to stall out the Dominik Mysterio match until WrestleMania. He’ll have some fresh opponents in the meantime, too.
- They didn’t fully get rid of all the Happy Corbin elements yet. Thankfully, the name is gone. I don’t quite see the connection with JBL at the moment. It seems somewhat random. But I’m willing to give it a shot.
- Elias is going to need to do more than get interrupted and then make a fool of himself, but Ezekiel was a shit character and I think they’re still making the better decision to make him Elias again.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
