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) Most likely, you didn’t watch NXT UK, correct? But will you check out NXT Europe whenever that starts? Why or why not?
For this job, I still watched NXT UK. However, I’ll admit that I skipped anything that was unnecessary. It just became very clearly not all that important in the grand scheme of things. I incorporated NXT UK talent into lots of my articles and people would say they had no idea those wrestlers even existed. If you can wrestle for years for WWE and nobody even knows who you are, that’s a shame, and it does weigh down on the promotion as a whole.
Having SO MANY hours of wrestling every week makes it tough to care about the lesser shows. That’s why I don’t even bother watching AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation in the slightest anymore. Not one minute of it. But when it comes to NXT Europe, I’m hoping they have a revitalization that makes it worth the while. At the very least, I’ll be checking it out out of curiosity to start and then, hopefully, I’ll enjoy it enough to actually watch it every week, rather than just get the spoilers (though I’m still hoping to get spoilers to make it easier for the work!)
2) Speaking of NXT Europe and the NXT UK situation, do you think Gallus should beat Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen to win the NXT UK tag titles this week?
Yes. As much as I’m glad JB and BJ got a set of belts to help push their careers along, with Worlds Collide coming up, I want to see pure NXT UK talent be going against pure NXT talent. Give the belts to Gallus so they can be the final NXT UK tag team champions proper. Then, have them lose to The Creed Brothers and hopefully, integrate them into NXT for the coming months.
3) With Clash at the Castle coming up, who do you think are the greatest WWE Superstars from the UK of all time?
I did a long podcast about this recently, covering my top 10 list and an overall Mount Rushmore of a few categories. You can find that in full here. Long story short, William Regal was one of the absolute top names in almost every category. Paige was the top woman, kind of by default, particularly as Becky Lynch doesn’t count as she’s not from Northern Ireland. British Bulldog Davey Boy Smith, Wade Barrett and a few others make some major plays for top spots, along with, of course, Drew McIntyre.
4) Trish Stratus seems to be making a comeback to WWE, despite having a retirement match with Charlotte Flair at SummerSlam a few years back. Bayley looks to be her main feud. Is she the right opponent if Stratus wrestles again? Should that be her true final match? Is there anyone else you’d rather see fight Trish? Do you think she shouldn’t wrestle again?
Lots of questions all lumped together. Sorry about that! My overall thoughts are that I don’t think Trish Stratus vs. Bayley is a better retirement match concept than the Charlotte Flair one at SummerSlam in Canada. However, I do think if it is possible to see that match, we should get it. More so, I would like to see Bayley and Sasha Banks against Trish and Lita. I don’t know how we didn’t get that. It is on that list of “WWE, WTF? You had multiple opportunities and just didn’t do it? Why?” like Sting vs. Undertaker, DX vs. DIY, and The Four Horsewomen of WWE vs. The Four Horsewomen of MMA.
As far as an alternative final opponent for Stratus, I know lots of people might go with someone like Mandy Rose just based on looks, or even someone like Tiffany Stratton if they’re into her career ascension. I’d go with just straight-up Sasha Banks.
5) Lots of negative buzz in the AEW camp these past few weeks. This time around, a lot has focused on CM Punk reportedly (take it with a grain of salt) threatening to walk out. Are cracks forming in the company, is it all b.s., or what? And as far as the Punk title situation with interim champion Jon Moxley, who do you want to see walk out with the belt after Dynamite?
I do think there is likely some truth to the reports we’ve been seeing. No company has a 100% A+ morale 24/7 from every single employee. People make mistakes. That’s not good, but it’s okay, as we’re all only human. It wouldn’t shock me if the way Tony Khan does business was all fun and games at first, but now that the honeymoon period is over and decisions need to be made as far as people to cut, who to focus on and who to make into enhancement talent or sidelined, and his overall focus being divided within too many projects, maybe he’s lost his “golden boy” status. That, coupled with Triple H getting into power in WWE and so many of those talent loving working for him in NXT, likely means some people are wishing they hadn’t gone to AEW and are wishing they could come back.
As far as the title situation goes, Punk was never my choice to win the AEW Championship to begin with. However, now that he has the title, I think it would be a mistake to just keep it on Moxley. He’s already had a long title reign and this interim run is supplemental to that. Let’s see what Punk has to offer in terms of feuds at the top for a little while before moving on to someone else. Hopefully, that next guy won’t be a former WWE star, or at least will be someone who didn’t win a world title in WWE.
Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!