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) Rumors and buzz surround the WWE returns of both Kairi Sane and Nia Jax. If either or both of those are true, how would you like to see them brought back and utilized?
To be perfectly blunt, I wouldn’t want to see Nia Jax return at all in any capacity. I just can’t imagine she’s gotten better and would justify her presence on the roster. If I absolutely had to do something with her, though, I would probably put her on Raw, bring her in as a monster that Rhea Ripley can beat, and then, pair her up with someone for the tag team division for the foreseeable future.
When it comes to Kairi Sane, though, I’m definitely hoping she returns. Part of me says she should just go straight to SmackDown and reform The Kabuki Warriors with Asuka, but it might be worth separating her from the two other Japanese stars so that one brand doesn’t have all of them. Funny enough, that would mean I’d also put her on Raw and have her as a potential feud for Rhea Ripley over the coming months, as Ripley needs people to fight before she gets to her big WrestleMania match against someone like Becky Lynch.
Jax as a babyface for a one-shot against Ripley before turning heel. Sane as a babyface up until the point that she needs to turn heel, but I don’t even think if she reformed The Kabuki Warriors or The Sky Pirates that a heel turn would be necessary. They’d be more fun as babyfaces, so turning Asuka / Iyo Sky would be my preference there.
2) Jey Uso is “leaving WWE” according to SmackDown. Naturally, how fast do you think we will see him next?
I guess this was done just to stall, but for how long? Surely, it can’t be all the way up until the Road to WrestleMania…right?
My gut tells me WWE just doesn’t want to do Jey vs. Jimmy at Payback or Superstar Spectacle, so they’ll wait until early September for Jey to return and set up a match for Fastlane on October 7th. Or, at the very most, Jey will come back later in September or early October and a match will be booked for the next Saudi Arabia show, as I’m expecting Crown Jewel to return around Halloween or the first week of November.
I can’t imagine Jey’s still going to be off television around the time Survivor Series is going down. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be shocked if we saw him in 2 weeks.
3) Who is your immediate prediction for the next in line as United States champion now that Rey Mysterio has the belt?
Going with Rey Mysterio was a surprise to me. I just assumed that belt had either Santos Escobar or LA Knight written all over it. Since WWE went with Rey, and there isn’t an obvious feud being set up quite yet—nor is Dominik Mysterio on the same roster wherein he could win that title—I’m guessing we’ll see Escobar turn on Rey at some point to win the title.
WWE loves its in-fighting and teammate splits even more than having a team to begin with. Most people are put together just so they can be broken up. But if there’s no heel turn in the future plans, and we’re just looking for a straight-up normal heel to beat Rey, then my eyes are on Grayson Waller, Solo Sikoa and Bobby Lashley.
With Waller, he’s clearly someone they like. Rey could be a transitional champion just to move from Austin Theory to Waller. Stranger things have happened.
With Sikoa, it could be an attempt to put even more attention on The Bloodline and deflect from the lack of title defenses Roman Reigns does.
Lashley is interesting. WWE seems to be hesitantly dipping its toes on the water of turning The All Mighty and The Street Profits heel, without going full force on it. If that’s true, then Lashley has nothing to do if he’s not going to fight Reigns at any point. Winning the United States Championship could give them a top main event talent holding a belt that can be defended more often to compensate for The Tribal Chief’s “once in a blue moon” matches.
4) What do you think will happen when Chris Jericho gives his answer to Don Callis on the next episode of Dynamite?
First things first, Jericho obviously tells Callis that he rejects his offer to join his crew. If he were to accept it, I’d be shocked.
After that, since The Jericho Appreciation Society isn’t around to back him up, he’s going to get jumped. By who? It could be Konosuke Takeshita, or it could be an outsourced thing like Blackpool Combat Club end up doing Callis a favor. But my overall prediction is that this leads to Will Ospreay against Jericho at All In, so the simplest thing to do is for Ospreay to fill that role and cut straight to it.
Aussie Open could back him up, and we might even see some kind of crossover with the Adam Cole and MJF storyline. Hell, we could see a trios match on an upcoming Dynamite or Collision to further that.
But I’ll stick to the basics: Jericho rejects Callis, so Ospreay attacks Jericho, and nobody helps him out because he’s burned those bridges and has to go it alone.
5) Would you like to see the FTW Championship become the official AEW equivalent to the Hardcore Championship, with every defense being FTW Rules?
Absolutely. If they’re going to keep that belt, it needs to have a distinction that gives it a reason to stick around and be different from the TNT Championship and International Championship.
FTW Rules having the Falls Count Anywhere stipulation on top of No Disqualification allows for more flexibility and fun. AEW doesn’t typically have pinfalls outside of the ring, so any time this belt would be on the line would be a treat.
If they ever wanted to transition it into a more official capacity and brand it something else, they could easily do that, too. All they’d have to do is announce that the title was being renamed, like they did with the All-Atlantic Championship once they realized how dumb that name was. FTW Championship isn’t my favorite by any means, but if it were the pseudo-hardcore championship, I’d give it a pass.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
