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) A week has gone by since the sale announcement and disappointments of the latter half of WrestleMania and the Monday Night Raw to follow. How are you feeling about the state of WWE?
Not good. I can see that a lot of people have already rolled over and accepted all this, which just baffles me. No wonder nothing ever gets done anymore in the world. Nobody wants to actually do anything about the problems but momentarily vent their frustrations and then, succumb to a fatalist “oh well, I guess I just have to accept it and move on” perspective.
I hated Night 2 of WrestleMania. Raw sucked, too. SmackDown wasn’t anything worthwhile; it just lacked the overwhelming bad things from the prior two, which makes it look better by proxy.
I’m not hopeful for the future of this merger and the leadership in charge, the state of the roster, the likelihood the quality of the programming will improve or any of it. I think the worst is yet to come and I’m not feeling excited about watching hours of this every week and dedicating even more time toward analyzing it.
I’ve spoken ad nauseam about “the key part of enjoying entertainment is finding ‘joy’ in being ‘entertained’ and that’s not happening right now” and I’m even getting tired of hammering those same points. A few weeks ago, I was excited to take my wife to her first WWE house show at Madison Square Garden. This week, I’ve decided not to bother asking any friends of mine if they are interested in WrestleMania 40 tickets, as I don’t see the point in going.
Also, for all those “hijack SmackDown” people that were too afraid to do anything…you didn’t surprise me at all.
2) WWE trademarked Pantheon, Triumph and Gruesome Twosome. What do you think these will end up being used for?
I don’t think they’ll be related, as in a team called The Gruesome Twosome will be made up of Wrestler 1 being Pantheon and Wrestler 2 being Triumph. But what else can this really be, other than something like that?
For context, these haven’t been trademarked as “WWE Triumph” and “WWE Pantheon” where I would think it might be a show, pay-per-view or a game or something. What’s strange, though, is how much emphasis the trademarks have on merchandise. Cardboard packaging, stickers, clothing, toys, action figures, etc…everything you can think of, basically.
Gruesome Twosome could be the team name for Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler. Maybe Pantheon and Triumph are two terms that will apply to Roman Reigns with the God Mode stuff? But oh man, I saw one person’s suggestion that this is a rebranding of Julius Creed and Brutus Creed, as Pantheon and Triumph, and I really hope that isn’t true. Yikes! All I can think of is Patty and Selma from The Simpsons.
3) Jay White is in AEW now. Who are the top talents you’re looking forward to seeing him work with?
- Adam Cole
- Adam Page
- Bryan Danielson ***
- Chris Jericho
- Claudio Castagnoli
- Daniel Garcia
- Darby Allin
- Eddie Kingston
- Jack Perry ***
- Jon Moxley
- Keith Lee
- Kenny Omega
- Konosuke Takeshita
- MJF
- Orange Cassidy ***
- Ricky Starks
- Sammy Guevara
- Samoa Joe
Just to name a few.
4) AEW is bringing back the All In name for an event at Wembley Stadium right before All Out. How do you think AEW should balance out these cards? Do you think they’ll sell out the building?
As far as the sellout goes, no. That’s asking for a lot. They should have their biggest attending audience ever, I’m sure, but I don’t think it will be a sellout.
When it comes to balancing out the card, I’m hoping AEW doesn’t try to cram too much in there. One of my criticisms of AEW events is that they go on too long and it ultimately drags out the energy with some unnecessary matches. With two events being back-to-back, there’s room to move some of those off the All Out card and put them on All In instead.
Ideally, I’d like to see All In act as a sort of pure wrestling showcase where they don’t need to put a ton of effort into the storylines, as the biggest draw will be seeing wrestlers from AEW, ROH, and hopefully even New Japan, Impact and/or NWA coming in for some guest spots (akin to Forbidden Door, in a sense) while All Out can focus on more of the feuds featured prominently on Dynamite.
For instance, maybe the International Championship can be a bigger deal on All In and skip All Out. Maybe MJF doesn’t need to defend his title at both events. But if he does, give him a match against PAC in front of the UK audience to maximize that crowd’s energy.
It would be a mistake if AEW builds everything for All In and then has to rush in one week to set up a card for All Out, or has too many things dependent upon what happens at All In. There should be at least one match from All In that has a big effect on All Out (like a No. 1 Contender’s Match, Casino Battle Royale or something), though.
5) The 2023 WWE Draft was announced, but with absolutely no information beyond just that it is happening in some way in a few weeks. How would you go about doing it? Would you bring back the fake randomizer? Have Adam Pearce announce picks on two nights or just one? Other ideas?
One thing that never made any sense to me whatsoever was when WWE tries to tie matches into picks, like if a Raw Superstar beats a SmackDown Superstar, then Raw gets an extra pick. Why would you want more competition on your roster? Surely, you’d just throw the fight, right? So that doesn’t work for me. I would avoid that.
To be honest, I would rather see it treated as a Peacock special, rather than on Raw or SmackDown. The NFL Draft doesn’t take place during a game.
It does pop a rating, so I can see that argument, and it is a losing battle to try to persuade otherwise. That means we’re getting it at least on SmackDown, if not also on Raw. Splitting it up to two shows keeps both networks happy and I think that’s what we’ll see again.
Put on random matches to continue or even end feuds, and between those segments, just have Adam Pearce announce several picks in spurts of 5 or 10.
Selfishly, I’m hoping they don’t do what they’ve done in the past and say “stay tuned for more updates” and sporadically announce stuff on a random Instagram post and whatnot. That’s too chaotic to follow.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
