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 will win the vacated Women’s World Championship on Raw?
Since this will be a battle royal, WWE is not beholden to any particular setup of women prior to the match that we can fully scope out. As in, just because this is for the top Raw women’s title doesn’t mean it can’t include women from SmackDown or NXT. And, on top of that, just because someone is a woman on Raw doesn’t mean she’s guaranteed to take part. Nikki Cross might not be involved in this at all, for example.
But if we keep it to just Raw’s roster, I think the only real candidates in contention are Becky Lynch, Liv Morgan, Nia Jax and POSSIBLY Sonya Deville, if WWE just wants to go for a surprise element and crown her to write that off the bucket list.
My gut is telling me just go with Liv, as it’s the simplest option. However, my brain is telling me there’s a very good chance WWE puts the belt on Becky so that Liv snaps even more, starts a feud with Lynch, and beats her for the title after a full heel turn.
Gun to my head, I’m saying Morgan will win, but I’m keeping my eye on The Man.
2) What do you think of the Raw and SmackDown tag titles being rebranded the World Tag Team Championships and WWE Tag Team Championships?
Pros and cons. First and foremost, I’ve been saying for over a decade that I absolutely hated the old tag title belts, so these are definitely a step up, and I’m incredibly grateful of that. I hated the red and blue straps, I hated the plates…all of it.
Where I get nitpicky is how I’ve never liked the whole “WWE title” and “World title” distinctions that WWE has going on again now. It’s just messy to say that there’s an Undisputed WWE Universal Championship aka Undisputed WWE Championship which is the lineage of the WWE World Heavyweight Championship which is also further broken down to be the “World Wrestling Entertainment World Heavyweight Championship” and there’s also a “World Heavyweight Championship” which isn’t the “World Heavyweight Championship” from before, and neither are “undisputed” anymore. It’s just nuts. How do you distinguish the WWE title from the World title? Both are defended worldwide!
I also don’t get the decision to make the world tag titles have red in them, as that means if you traded them in the draft, you’d have to get new blue versions made for SmackDown, or just have a red belt on the blue brand. Odd choice, whereas the WWE Tag Team Championship titles are all gold, so there’s no problem there.
I like how the new SmackDown belts look reminiscent of the old WWE Tag Team Championship titles. They were never my favorite designs, but since it is historic, it gives it a boost. Whereas the world tag titles are VERY round, which I’m not the biggest fan of in any kind of design aesthetics, but they look better than the 24/7 Championship, at least.
All in all, it’s not what I would have gone with for belt designs or names, but I think it’s an upgrade, and I’ll take any kind of step up to replace the awful looking belts we had been dealing with. Thumbs up.
3) What are your predictions for week 1 of NXT Spring Breakin’?
- Sol Ruca beats Blair Davenport in their Beach Brawl match
- The D’Angelo Family beats No Quarter Catch Crew in order to position one of them as the next challenger for the Heritage Cup
- Lola Vice’s big surprise person that will be ringside for her NXT Underground match against Natalya will be Shayna Baszler. I can’t imagine anyone else having a connection to Vice.
- Trick Williams beats Ilja Dragunov to win the NXT Championship
4) How do you feel about Jack Perry being back in AEW?
I’m of two opinions. Part of me thinks this just reiterates the things that people are critical of and it shows a shortsighted, “this will get people to pop” type of mentality that will backfire, similar to showing the All In footage.
But to be honest, a bigger part of me is just so over all of this that I think it’s fine. Stuff happens. People get into arguments at the workplace. Mistakes are made. If—and I hope this is the case—all parties can acknowledge their flaws in the situation and learn from it, rather than thinking that they’re 100% clean of any wrongdoing, then I think it’s often better to just move on and not dwell on things.
Pro wrestling has had so many incidents that would have been made to be a bigger deal if social media would have been around back in the day, and people moved beyond those. History has shown that Shawn Michaels could make up for his errors, people who have gotten into fights have made up, guys who hated each other could get back on good terms, and so on. If Perry causes any other issues or exasperates anything else in the future, fire him instead of suspending him, cause it would be a sign of immaturity and headaches to come. On the other hand, if he’s in a better spot now, give the guy a chance and let’s see what can happen as a result. Maybe it’s going to be awesome.
5) After some title changes and some champions retaining their belts, what do you think is the future landscape of the championships in AEW?
- I’m hoping the ROH Six-Man Tag Team Championship is truly unified and no longer exists. I just don’t see there being much use for that, and the AEW World Trios Championships have even been a stretch at times. Keep that one, get rid of ROH.
- Kazuchika Okada is in the same position in my mind as he was before, in that I don’t think Tony Khan has anything particular in mind for when he’ll drop that title and to whom. He’s holding it a long while, I’d believe.
- Malakai Black has a strong opportunity to win the TNT Championship. My guess is Adam Copeland will eventually retain it over Black, , but I don’t think it’s a lock by any means, and it wouldn’t shock me if the belt did change hands.
- Roderick Strong feels like he’s in somewhat of an Okada situation. I don’t think there’s a plan in place to transition him to a new champion and we’re on that track quite yet. However, I don’t expect him to still be champion after the summer.
- Hook will win the FTW Championship back from Chris Jericho, maybe as soon as Double or Nothing.
- Toni Storm’s probably keeping her title until Jamie Hayter is back, whenever that is.
- The Young Bucks are going to go on a long run, I think. I expect them to still be tag champs going into Full Gear. Who will they drop them to? Maybe the Motor City Machine Guns, if they’re not just their first Double or Nothing title defense?
- Swerve Strickland made history winning the AEW World Championship, but I think it would be a mistake to have him hold it a full year. Wrestling fans have had a lot of that, recently. I used to think Will Ospreay had this title waiting for him by All In, but I no longer think that. Now, if Strickland can get past a returning Hangman (maybe his Double or Nothing match?), I think his biggest test will be when Adam Cole is back in action. The Undisputed Kingdom isn’t super hot right now like they were intended to be, but they’re still sticking around, and I could see Cole being the one to beat Swerve.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
