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) Who do you think should dethrone Logan Paul for the United States Championship?
It really depends on how long WWE intends to keep the belt on him and how many defenses are in his future before he drops it. However, I’d venture a guess that he’s keeping it until WrestleMania, and he’ll have maybe 3 or so defenses in between then, if we’re lucky.
With that in mind, I think a match against Santos Escobar is on the horizon, but unless he has to drop it pretty soon, I don’t think Escobar is the right call. Instead, I’d like to see Paul cross Santos off the list, then have a match against Dragon Lee, maybe also someone like Sheamus (once he’s healed up) and Kevin Owens, before ultimately losing the title to LA Knight at WrestleMania.
Owens would be my secondary pick, if not just to try to get another title reign to his name. I still think KO should win another world title, instead, though, and I’d certainly be up for Dragon Lee winning the belt instead. It’s pretty much down to those, with Sheamus not having much of a chance (and just being a good option to fight Paul).
LA Knight just fits to me as a perfect opponent for Paul at WrestleMania, given how they can focus on their promos, fans will eat up cheering Knight over Paul, and the United States Championship would be a good consolation prize for him getting over so much.
2) Should Kairi Sane join Damage CTRL, or should the group split up in some fashion? How would you book the next step of this story?
I’ve actually thought Damage CTRL could use a breakup for many months now. Granted, I still think what should trigger it is Iyo Sky losing the title due to Bayley’s interference inadvertently screwing it up, leading to the split with someone else as champion, rather than for it to come about out of jealousy that Kairi Sane is involved. That requires at least one more title defense. But that’s how I’d book it.
Essentially, it depends on what happens for Survivor Series. If WWE isn’t doing any kind of Raw vs. SmackDown or champion versus champion thing, and Iyo is defending her title, then I think Bianca Belair or Charlotte Flair or whoever they want to be the champion heading into WrestleMania should win it via Bayley’s screw up. If not at Survivor Series, then an episode of SmackDown in the next few weeks. But it would still be the same story where Bayley is trying to out do Kairi as far as helping and proving that she knows best, only to mess it up, royally. Then, we get a feud between Iyo and Bayley, as well as Kairi and Bayley. Once Dakota Kai is back in action, she teams with Bayley against Iyo and Kairi.
3) Sami Zayn stole Damian Priest’s Money in the Bank briefcase and ran off at Crown Jewel. What do you think will come out of this storyline?
None of this is what I would have been booking back when Money in the Bank still hadn’t been settled on. However, now that this is the direction, I’m trying to picture what possible outcomes can actually happen as a result of that bit.
First and foremost, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if WWE follows this up by just simply having The Judgment Day beat down Sami, reacquire the briefcase, and that’s it. It might just be an angle they decided to do at Crown Jewel specifically, with no legs after that.
If not, I think we could see Zayn being on the run from The Judgment Day for the next few weeks, culminating with a match where the briefcase is on the line. Ideally, a ladder match, because that allows for interference and the tension of people climbing to retrieve the briefcase. Then, if WWE has no intention on having Priest successfully cash in, I’d be totally down for Zayn to officially win the briefcase, but that has only happened twice in the past, so I doubt that’s what we’re in store for.
It sounds lame, but my prediction is that nothing comes about from it, and my hope is that it serves a good purpose to tell a viable storyline and isn’t just a means to eat up some more time with the same group of people feuding for another couple months.
4) Nearly every week features a “big announcement” from Tony Khan. This past week was simply saying tickets for AEW All In will go on sale in a month. Are you still okay with this being a regular thing, or has he already reached Dixie Carter levels of Boy Who Cried Wolf for you?
I hate that this is the case, as it seems like Tony Khan hasn’t learned from the mistakes of others. This has been happening for a long enough time—and enough instances of lackluster announcements—that I just roll my eyes at these announcement ideas anymore.
I remember when people were upset that Christian Cage was joining the roster, as they felt like that wasn’t a big enough name. That wasn’t my perspective at the time. But now, when you’re doing things like saying “in a month, tickets will be on sale for an event in August of next year”…you lose your benefit of the doubt in my mind. Now, I’ll be able to use this as another example of how people shouldn’t get their hopes up.
It’s likely just an attempt to bump the ratings with a mystery box. I’d hope, at least, that it isn’t an instance of Khan thinking these are legitimately big announcements that everyone else should be just as hyped about and that he expects a standing ovation for all of them. Attempting to manipulate the crowd and just being off on how lazy it comes off is one thing, but not having the right perspective about your own hype is dangerous, as that means a continuation of poor decisions for other things will happen, too.
Let’s just say the next time AEW hypes up a big announcement, I’m going to assume it’s something lame like this, rather than an actual game-changing situation to come. And it isn’t going to make me want to tune in to the show any more by teasing something, either. In fact, it’ll make me even less interested, because I’ll just imagine they’ve got nothing better to market on the lineup.
5) Put yourselves in the kayfabe shoes of Adam Pearce and Nick Aldis. If you could pick any 5 men and women on your two Survivor Series teams for Raw and SmackDown, with the only rule being that you cannot choose champions, who would you pick?
TEAM RAW (MEN):
- Cody Rhodes
- Drew McIntyre
- Jey Uso
- Ricochet or Bronson Reed (leaning toward Ricochet)
- Sami Zayn
TEAM SMACKDOWN (MEN):
- Bobby Lashley
- Kevin Owens
- LA Knight
- Rey Mysterio
- Solo Sikoa
TEAM RAW (WOMEN):
- Becky Lynch
- Nia Jax
- Raquel Rodriguez
- Shayna Baszler
- Zoey Stark
TEAM SMACKDOWN (WOMEN):
- Asuka
- Bayley (but I’d be tempted to swap her out for either Zelina Vega or Shotzi)
- Bianca Belair
- Charlotte Flair
- Kairi Sane
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
