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 are your predictions for AEW Grand Slam?
- Jon Moxley beats Bryan Danielson. No MJF cash-in.
- The Acclaimed beats Swerve in Our Glory
- Toni Storm retains in the four-way.
- Pac retains over Orange Cassidy.
- Claudio Castagnoli retains over Chris Jericho due to something with Daniel Garcia.
- Action Bronson and Hook beat Angelo Parker and Matt Menard.
- Sting and Darby Allin beat House of Black
- Sammy Guevara beats Eddie Kingston with help from Tay Melo in order to push the Ruby Soho mixed tag team match to the future.
- Maybe Adam Page wins the Golden Ticket Battle Royal? That one’s tough.
- Jade Cargill retains over Diamante
- Jungle Boy beats Rey Fenix. It’s a toss-up.
- Ricky Starks beats Powerhouse Hobbs
- Wardlow and Samoa Joe beat Josh Woods and Tony Nese
2) Logan Paul will face Roman Reigns at Crown Jewel. This seems to have upset a lot of people. How are you feeling about it?
A resounding “meh” compared to most responses I’m seeing. I’m not as upset about it, but I understand why it rubs people the wrong way.
As far as the business is concerned, this makes sense. Logan Paul is a bigger name than anyone on the roster in terms of drawing attention from mainstream media. Having him fight for the title gets people interested, even in an “Oh no, don’t do it” way, and is a bigger deal than if he were to just wrestle someone like Jinder Mahal.
Then again, I do get the idea that he “doesn’t deserve” a title shot to come in and fill that spot when others on the roster aren’t given that upward mobility. If I were a wrestler on Raw or SmackDown, I’d potentially feel slighted. But then, I’d look at my Twitter followers and realize maybe that’s why.
I don’t think the match will be great or horrible. It’ll probably be a decent spectacle, but not anything to be wowed over. And if Paul wins, good lord will there be online riots.
3) With Extreme Rules coming up, are there any gimmick matches or stipulations you’d like to see on the show to spice things up?
I don’t think we need to see a Handicap Hog Pen match again, or a Kiss me Arse match or anything along those lines. But I would like to see them do something different, rather than just cop out with “Extreme Rules match” being the default for one or two matches and that’s it.
I’ve long been complaining about how they act like a rename of No Disqualification means that it’s special. There are no fundamental differences to a Street Fight compared to a No Holds Barred match or how a Triple Threat becomes No DQ. Stop with that.
Since Karrion Kross is so into clock stuff, maybe his match with Drew McIntyre can be time-based in some way, like a 30-minute Iron Man match?
We haven’t had a Championship Scramble in forever, but I don’t think that’ll ever come back at this point and no titles stand out to me as fitting that gimmick right now.
There will probably be another steel cage match. But why not make it more interesting and add the weapons with the asylum gimmick?
We just had Last Man Standing, so I’m fine not having that, but I like Falls Count Anywhere and think we should see more of those.
I miss casket matches. It’s a shame no one could do them right now and have it make any sense.
4) Agree or disagree: Solo Sikoa won the NXT North American Championship so all true members of The Bloodline are carrying titles, as he couldn’t win the Intercontinental Championship from Gunther.
Yes and no. I do think that was a factor, as they want to make Sami Zayn stick out as the honorary member of the group who doesn’t pull his weight and is on a ticking clock.
However, I also think that they plan on using this to put some extra eyes on NXT. With the North American champion popping up on SmackDown, that reminds audiences that NXT is a thing on Tuesday nights and can possibly convince them to watch.
In particular, if Sikoa is advertised to defend the title on NXT, and people get used to him on SmackDown, maybe that’ll convert some viewers over.
5) The current lineup of pay-per-views for WWE and AEW is Extreme Rules, Halloween Havoc, Crown Jewel, Full Gear and Survivor Series with nothing in December. Are you feeling that sense of coasting until we get to Royal Rumble, or has that not kicked in yet?
I didn’t until the Logan Paul situation. After that, it started to hit me how WWE essentially just said Roman Reigns won’t fight until November 5. Then, he’ll probably take off Survivor Series, and since there’s no event in December, that’ll only be used to build to Day 1, which is effectively just a pit stop to Royal Rumble.
Boooo, right? I’m sure Extreme Rules and such will have some worthwhile moments, but it does seem like WWE is going to coast.
AEW has Grand Slam coming up, which could be a big show that readjusts much of the roster after having so many shifts recently as is. Won’t Full Gear kind of feel like its just the fallout of that, more than the big show that was being built toward? It does to me, right now, but I hope that I’m wrong about that.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!
