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) Which teams do you think will qualify for the six-pack challenge ladder match at WrestleMania?
- The New Day beats Alpha Academy, particularly since Chad Gable isn’t listed with Otis.
- DIY beats The Creed Brothers. I don’t know what Brutus and Julius did to get in the doghouse.
- Awesome Truth beats Indus Sher.
- New Catch Republic should probably beat Legado Del Fantasma’s Angel & Berto
- Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson are likely fighting The Wolf Dogs at NXT Stand & Deliver, so I think they lose to Austin Theory & Grayson Waller. The Street Profits probably beat AOP. Then, AOP costs The Street Profits the victory and we get Theory/Waller as the final team for SmackDown.
2) Now that we know the bracket, how do you see the AEW World Tag Team Championship Tournament playing out?
To be honest, I’m surprised about Infantry beating House of Black. That’s already taken me by surprise. But I still imagine FTR would have beaten either of those two teams, along with probably Ricky Starks & Big Bill after they take out Top Flight.
On the left side of the bracket, I think Young Bucks beat Private Party, Best Friends beat The Don Callis Family and beat The Undisputed Kingdom, but lose to The Young Bucks.
Essentially, Bucks against FTR for the finals. They run that tag team match back again. Young Bucks walk out victorious.
3) What did you think of the debut of Mercedes Moné at AEW Big Business?
Get your pitchforks ready. I thought it was meh at best. She didn’t say anything that we haven’t heard a million times from other people in other ways that were delivered in a more engaging and entertaining way. I’m glad she had her moment, as it was clearly emotional for her, and she deserves to be treated like a big deal, so that’s cool. But I’m not jumping into “OMG best promo ever” territory for her basically saying “It’s great to be here.”
I haaaaaaaaaaaate the CEO chants in the entrance music; especially when it plays for as long as it did. That got old super fast. I also thought they way they ended the show, with her coming out to help Willow Nightingale fight off Julia Hart and Skye Blue, was weak.
Bottom line, her debut isn’t going to be as important in the long run as what she can do overall. She’s so above everyone in the women’s division there already that she’s created a giant gap between the average performer and herself on the totem pole. Hopefully, she’ll be used in a way to boost others up, rather than to just look like she was outclassing them and never belonged.
I do think she’ll win the title by the time we get to the end of All In/Out. She’ll likely turn heel by the end of 2024. 3 years from now, when her option to leave is on the table, I could see her coming back to WWE, already scratching this itch. Whether or not she leaves AEW in a better state remains to be seen, but for as great of a talent as she is, I honestly didn’t feel like the pendulum shifted momentum into AEW’s side with her signing the way that I was hoping it would feel.
4) Who would you like to see induct Muhammad Ali in the Hall of Fame?
My first thought would be Hulk Hogan. As problematic as he is, WWE seems to not be shying too much away from him as of late. He was utilized in promotional material for 2K24. In all likelihood, he has his ties to Ali with that first WrestleMania main event, and he’s still the biggest name in pro wrestling history. There aren’t many years left where he can be called upon to do something. Might as well, if they’ve already proven they don’t think there will be any significant backlash for putting Hogan on screen.
But if that’s not the case and they’re looking for someone else to do the honors, maybe this could be a good spot for Sylvester Stallone. After all, Stallone was the one to induct Hogan, so he’s not a stranger to this gig. Plus, you can work out a deal with him to do either the intro to WrestleMania XL and tie in to the Rocky aspect of it, or he can do something else for the weekend to reinforce Cody Rhodes as being in that position for round #2 against Roman Reigns.
There’s no third option I can conceive of. At that point, if it isn’t one of those two, I think the best course of action would be just announcing a video package to talk about Ali, and then, have his children (predominantly Laila Ali) give a speech accepting on his behalf.
5) Do you expect the Continental Championship’s Triple Crown to be broken up with Eddie Kingston defending just that title against Kazuchika Okada on Dynamite and just the ROH World Championship against Mark Briscoe at Supercard of Honor?
100%. I called that from the start, too, that there’s no way they’d still keep this a Triple Crown by the time the 2024 tournament would go on. There was no way they would keep up the momentum and booking of having 3 different rosters in sync with 1 person holding all those belts at the same time. I just thought it would be split up closer to Forbidden Door and not this early.
But the writing is on the wall. Tony Khan wants to put a belt on Okada, and with Christian Cage doing great stuff as TNT champion, Roderick Strong just winning the International Championship, and Okada not making sense to be defending the 2 other titles, the Continental Championship is just breaking off. Then, by proxy, Kingston can keep up his losing streak, drop the ROH title to Briscoe, and likely drop the STRONG Openweight Championship to someone in the coming weeks, too, but I have no idea who that could be as I don’t follow that promotion.
Ignoring my criticism of “I knew you couldn’t keep up your own booking the moment you announced it”, I think this is mostly a good thing. The Triple Crown idea couldn’t sustain itself. ROH should have its own world champion, clearly AEW operates where the more titles, the more TK is happy as he doesn’t need to book a more complicated feud for his talent, and STRONG can move on to someone else.
It wouldn’t shock me at all if the Continental Championship and International Championship end up merging at some point down the line. But it’d be interesting to see what they try to do in the future with this Continental Classic and if they want to keep that an annual tournament, but it somehow gets tied into a title belt. That already seems like it is messy. There are a few more months to figure that out, though.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
