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) There are four more mystery competitors wrestling on this week’s NXT. Who do you THINK will fill those spots and who do you WANT to be picked, if they aren’t the same choice?
We know Roxanne Perez has chosen Raquel Rodriguez to face Cora Jade. Still left are Perez’s opponent, Channing Lorenzo’s opponent and the two partners for Cameron Grimes.
All parties should and I think will be from the main roster or a return, rather than anyone we could normally see on NXT. It would be super lame if Grimes said he would team with two people he could trust on the whole roster, only for it to be just Andre Chase and Bodhi Hayward or whatever.
- Roxanne Perez’s opponent = Rhea Ripley was brought up. That has to be the safe bet answer. But I wouldn’t rule out Lacey Evans, Shayna Baszler or Xia Li. Any of those could make sense as a hired gun, but less so on Evans. My guess is Rhea, but my choice would be Baszler.
- Channing Lorenzo’s opponent = I see one theory going around that this is Bronson Reed. I don’t know why Tony D’Angelo would pick him, but hey, that’d be interesting, at least. I can’t think of anyone else to be a more “be ready for war” option that stands out. It certainly wouldn’t be someone like Reggie, nor would they waste someone like Braun Strowman or Sheamus in this role.
- Cameron Grimes partners = I feel like this has to be an already established team. We can rule out The Street Profits, since Montez Ford is injured. Maybe The New Day or Hit Row? I’d probably pick Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods, even though it doesn’t make any sense what that connection might be.
2) I’m assuming the endgame of Seth Rollins as United States champion is for Cody Rhodes to beat him at WrestleMania. Is that “good enough” in your mind to distract from Cody going after the world title for the meantime?
In the grand scheme, I’d be okay with it only if the follow-up to it eventually still includes Cody Rhodes becoming champion at some point. He doesn’t necessarily have to beat Roman Reigns for the belt, mind you. We all know The Rock is fighting Roman at WrestleMania, and with The Tribal Chief holding both titles, they’ve booked themselves into a corner with the Royal Rumble. I don’t want someone winning and then using their title match for Elimination Chamber or Super ShowDown or something. So let’s just have The Rock win the Royal Rumble and go the obvious route.
But I do think Cody Rhodes should win the WWE Championship at some point, and that this shouldn’t be “good enough” to compensate in the long run. His motivation to return was to be the top guy, not to win more midcard belts. This should be a stepping stone where he wins the 2024 Royal Rumble and wins the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 40, either by beating Roman or by winning the title after it’s been split apart through some means.
3) The Good Brothers are back in WWE. Which teams are you most interested in seeing them face in the near future?
I’m not the biggest fan of what we’ve seen from The O.C. overall, so I’m not jumping out of my seat ready for a dozen feuds, if I’m honest. I do think there are some decent ones I’m interested to check out, though, like The Bloodline and The Viking Raiders. The Street Profits comes to mind, too.
But I’m actually more interested in them against a team like Gallus or Imperium. I want to see them as babyfaces against the heels more than as the heels against say, Hit Row.
4) What was your favorite of all the noteworthy elements of AEW from this week (ie, Orange Cassidy wins All-Atlantic title, Stu Grayson returns, Shawn Spears returns with Perfect 10 gimmick, Renee Paquette joins the broadcast team, Daniel Garcia turns on Bryan Danielson, etc)?
I’m leaning toward the Orange Cassidy title win, as ultimately, that’s the thing I’m overall the happiest with. I’ve wanted Cassidy to win a title for a while, since I’ve enjoyed him from the start of AEW. Since they bypassed giving Best Friends the trios titles, and the TNT title and world title weren’t in his grasp, obtaining the equivalent of the European Championship will do.
Granted, I do still have my issues with it. Namely, I’m not normally fond of the “guy loses, but we’ll just do another rematch and he’ll win it, so that’s okay” booking philosophy. It’s been happening too often in the past 2 years (in both WWE and AEW). Unless you give me a good enough reason to stall—which is rare—it just feels like you wanted to swerve for the sake of a surprise and stretch things out for a few more weeks out of laziness.
But, still, despite how that irks me and I’m nitpicking, I’m more fond of that title win than the other things. A close second would be Renee joining AEW. She’s a great asset to that team and I’m looking forward to her interactions with MJF and Jon Moxley in particular.
Garcia’s turn feels, again, like a “gotcha” that doesn’t make a ton of sense. Spears returning is cool, but we’ll see where that leads. Grayson returning won’t move the needle.
5) Elias is returning to Raw. Were you into the Ezekiel angle? Is this the right step to just go back to Elias? Should WWE have tried an entirely new gimmick instead?
Elias is what brought him to the dance. Even though the character had smaller reactions over time, I don’t think the Ezekiel gimmick worked at all. Maybe one or two promos were funny, but it was ultimately a waste of time, as he was just “a guy” most of the time.
I can’t honestly think of a third, brand new character for him to play that I would pitch as an alternative. It’s better to just go with Elias and see where that takes him than to make him now Edmundo or Elijah or whatever.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
