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) What do you think (or, rather, what do you hope) will happen with the next step of the Undisputed Tag Team Championship now that those belts are on Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso? Will they continue to hold both brands’ titles in a semi-unified fashion but still be declared separate until a new team wins them? Are the belts finally going to be truly unified as one set? Or will there be something else?
I keep holding out hope that we’re going to get new title designs, as I absolutely hate those, and I’ve hated them since they first appeared nearly 14 years ago.
With the tension between The Judgment Day, I had thought there was a chance we might see Damian Priest and Finn Balor separate the titles and take Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh with them. Clearly, that didn’t happen (unless they were to win the belts back, which I’m not expecting).
But I do think there’s a chance Cody and Jey having these titles could be the storyline reasoning, eventually, for separating these titles again. After all, why did WWE not bother to unify these belts properly after all this time, unless they were planning on splitting them up at some point? My tin foil hat theory about Roman Reigns and his two titles is very much a similar thing, where they want two separate title reigns so that it boosts his overall numbers, and they’ll eventually merge those 3 world titles and don’t want the Universal Championship to exist instead of the WWE Championship, but the big record-breaking reign is the universal one, so they need to keep both.
With that in mind, they’ve set up the idea that someone will be drafted to SmackDown to offset Jey Uso going to Raw. One of the biggest candidates from the start has been Cody, and if they separate the two, then they can have Jey as the Raw champion needing to find a new partner, while Cody goes to SmackDown with that belt and has to get a new partner that way.
However, since I keep thinking of ways for them to split the titles, and they keep not doing it, I can’t help but to imagine I’m probably wrong and what will happen is Cody and Jey will drop the titles to either Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa, or they’ll just lose them in a random match on Raw or SmackDown before Royal Rumble to a team like The Street Profits or something.
2) What do you think Undertaker will end up doing at NXT on Tuesday night?
Glass half full, he gets involved in the Bron Breakker storyline with Von Wagner or has some sort of interaction with Ilja Dragunov, just because those are some top storyline things going on.
If they’re doing something funny with him, Chase University would be the most oddball placing for him. I don’t see that happening, though, mind you. For that matter, Tony D’Angelo and Stacks having anything to do with Taker is not my prediction, or most of the other people.
It’s actually hard for me to think of anything he could feasibly do. A lot of people are jumping straight to Joe Gacy because he has a more cultish vibe and all, but what would you really do in that scenario? Gacy isn’t some undead zombie or whatever. He’s not going to summon lightning. Why would Undertaker care about Schism?
3) Speaking of Tuesday, what are your predictions for AEW Title Tuesday’s episode of Dynamite?
- Rey Fenix drops that International Championship back to Jon Moxley. Fenix was never supposed to be the champion to begin with and he’s banged up, right? Seems like an open and shut case.
- Adam Copeland beats Luchasaurus
- Jay White beats Adam Page because Swerve Strickland interferes in some fashion. Likewise, Bryan Danielson defeats Strickland because Page gets back at Swerve.
- Saraya retains over Hikaru Shida. We probably get Mercedes Mone on here.
- Powerhouse Hobbs vs Chris Jericho is the only one I’m 50/50 on, but I’m leaning more toward Jericho winning.
4) There was quite a tease for a combined Judgment Day and Bloodline unity, possibly for WarGames. How would you structure those teams, or would you do something different entirely?
To be honest, if WWE told me I could do whatever I wanted and I tried to keep some continuity instead of hitting a full reset button on a lot of the current setup, I would actually not do WarGames at Survivor Series, but instead, at Crown Jewel. Survivor Series would revert back to the Raw vs. SmackDown setup so we could get Seth Rollins vs Roman Reigns (champion versus champion) as well as maybe US champ Bobby Lashley against IC champ Gunther, Rhea Ripley vs Iyo Sky or Charlotte Flair (most likely Flair winning the belt at Crown Jewel from Bayley costing Iyo by accident), a tag team title match, a women’s tag team title match and the Team Raw vs Team SmackDown men’s and women’s elimination matches.
WarGames itself, at Crown Jewel, would then be comprised of a 6-on-6 match:
- Team Babyface = John Cena, LA Knight, Cody Rhodes, Jey Uso, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn
- Team Bloodline / Judgment Day = Jimmy Uso, Solo Sikoa, Damian Priest, Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio and JD McDonagh
Meanwhile, Roman Reigns would have to defend the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against AJ Styles, Seth Rollins would defend the World Heavyweight Championship against maybe Drew McIntyre since there aren’t a lot of viable contenders right now on Raw and I’d rather not do yet another Shinsuke Nakamura match.
5) With Triple H making an appearance, Roman Reigns returning and this being the season premiere, are you expecting anything particularly interesting, game-changing or exciting for Friday Night SmackDown?
I had thought they originally said Triple H would have “an announcement”, but the website currently just says “to make a special appearance.” That may indicate there’s less going on and he might just kick off the show welcoming everyone to SmackDown and nothing more. But if he does in fact do something extra, I think it’ll be tied to Cody Rhodes and Jey Uso with the tag titles, as explained above.
With Roman Reigns, I’ve been burned enough times to know that it isn’t worth hyping up. More often than not, he has a promo segment, is shown backstage a few times talking to Paul Heyman and being annoyed at having to handle business. Then, maybe there’s a brawl segment. But I don’t think we’ll get any major wow moments with him.
The rest of the show will probably feature Charlotte Flair making a case for how she deserves another title shot by making Asuka tap out, maybe another LWO vs Bobby Lashley and Street Profits encounter in some fashion like a United States title match, and not that much more else.
Overall, I think WWE is banking more on Roman merely being there to be the draw for the season premiere than anything else.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
