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 of Tony Khan’s Twitter reactions as of late from the NXT vs Dynamite Title Tuesday battle?
He’s not coming across well, that’s for sure. I’m not someone who will say he “went too far” or anything, mind you. But I do think he gives off the vibe that he’s flipping out, stressed, and stretching to pat AEW on the back while WWE is being relatively silent and not worrying about anything. The more that happens, and the more noise he makes while WWE doesn’t bother to acknowledge him, the more desperate it comes off.
Trying to remain competitive is one thing. I liked the move of having the first half hour commercial-free, for example. I even didn’t dislike the pre-show title match to try to lead people in. But in particular, the comments of trying to say it’s a win because John Cena and Undertaker were on a show that didn’t draw a million is like someone saying “I might have lost the lottery, but what I REALLY find fun is scratching off all those tickets, so in a way, I really did win.”
AEW should strive to be its own best product—not to “beat WWE” as its top goal. If you create something great enough, it will inevitably beat WWE anyway, right?
2) Nick Aldis is the new general manager of SmackDown. What are your thoughts about this and what are you looking forward to or concerned about going forward?
I love the idea. Frankly, I don’t know why he’s not just wrestling, but if he’s going to be doing anything else, having him as a general manager is the best alternative route in my mind.
I’ve wanted them to return to general managers for a while. Clearly, WWE doesn’t know how to run these programs without that crutch anymore. It became too much of a writing device that when they stopped doing it, they quickly found themselves having Adam Pearce and Sonya Deville just being “officials” and trying to pretend like they weren’t GMs. In a similar vein, it’s like how they don’t have the automatic rematch clause anymore, but from just a few weeks after getting rid of that, they started booking former champions in a contender’s match that they would obviously win, just to set up a rematch anyway.
Look. Writers have their tropes. You’d be hard-pressed to find an article of mine that doesn’t toss out the phrase “On the other hand, ____” for example. It just happens. Do the best you can with that in mind. Keep the GMs, and it also allows you to justify why there’s a draft and Raw vs. SmackDown at any point in the year.
Now, the fact that we haven’t had that confirmed whatsoever for Survivor Series is interesting to me. Are we going to finally have two competing general managers who could be picking these teams, only to have a WarGames match again instead of the brand supremacy? That’s strange, unless there are plans to switch Survivor Series up and to instead bring back the Bragging Rights event at another point in the year.
I hope there’s just an actual plan in place with Aldis, rather than having him out there to do nothing but pretend to make matches. Even then, though, at least the roster will have someone to report to in kayfabe.
3) Ronda Rousey has officially retired from WWE. Do you think there was anything left for her to do that she’s leaving on the table?
I can’t think of anything worthwhile for her to do that she didn’t already take care of. Winning Money in the Bank would’ve been a waste. Feuding with virtually anyone on the roster right now isn’t important enough, save for Jade Cargill.
Rousey had her match with Shayna Baszler. She’s main-evented WrestleMania. Once you check off winning Royal Rumble and the two women’s titles and the tag titles, what else really is there for her?
I don’t even think she did anything all that worthwhile on her second run to justify that, either, to be honest. Her legacy in WWE might have been overall better off in the eyes of a lot of fans had she left with WrestleMania 35. But at least she put over Baszler on the way out.
4) Orange Cassidy won back the International Championship after the injuries of Jon Moxley and Rey Fenix. How do you think AEW should book his title reign? Should Moxley just beat him a second time to reset that and go back to square one from the original plan, or something else?
I would really like to see them deviate from the obvious path and instead of Moxley just winning it again, have Cassidy retain it. Considering how good his previous title reign was, I’m down for it to go on for a while, but I would venture a guess the better route to take is not to just repeat the fighting champion angle. Rather, let’s see OC be pickier with his opponents because he knows he wore himself too thin and he doesn’t want to lose the title again.
I’m not calling for a heel turn. That’s not going to work for him. But he can be asked to defend the title and just say “nah” and it would be funny. Then, maybe we can play with him having to dig down deep to win matches and possibly even beat some heels with some underhanded tactics to show that he’s desperate.
As far as the next champion goes, I’d probably give it to someone like Juice Robinson, Jay White if they can stretch it out past Full Gear since he’ll fail in his bid to become world champion and this would be a decent way to spring back, or maybe give it to Konosuke Takeshita.
5) What do you think of Brian Pillman Jr’s new character and ring name of Lexis King?
I can’t say it’s what I would have pitched. My instinct would be to just allow him to be Brian Pillman Jr. and go that route. But I always feel that way, as I’d prefer Joe Hennig over Curtis Axel or Michael McGillicutty, I think Rex Steiner was a better name than Bron Breakker, etc. Lexis King doesn’t sound too bad, though, all things considered.
I will say, though, that I don’t necessarily mind it. Frankly, if he’s going to potentially come in with the Men’s Breakout Tournament, I say book him to win it, set him up against Ilja Dragunov, and put the belt on him. Dragunov isn’t going to do anything with the title that we haven’t seen him do with the NXT UK Championship. King/Pillman is fresh to this roster and I enjoyed him enough in AEW to feel confident he’d be a decent champion out of the gate. Worst case scenario, you have someone beat him at Stand & Deliver or whatever, right?
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
