-I mean, the Mercedes Mone celebration wasn’t bad, but it sure was confusing. Let’s put a pin in that. Mone looks great with the TBS Championship and it was important to feature her championship win at Double or Nothing in an impactful way. They did that, so thumbs up. Here’s the thing, though, she continues to present as a character that has absolutely zero sense of how she wants fans to feel about her. The CEO presentation, dancing, and calling HERSELF the best in the world is incredibly heelish in nature. It’s unlikable. At the same time and in the same promo, she defends babyface acts like Willow Nightingale and runs down heels like Stokely Hathaway and Kris Statlander. She’s got to pick a lane. Simply being a big star isn’t enough and it hurts Mone’s ability to connect with the audience.
-I don’t mind Swerve Strickland getting a clean and relatively easy win on television over Killswitch. The match happened to feature Swerve as AEW World Champion and it did that. Good stuff.
The awfulness of The Learning Tree
-The Learning Tree segment was awful, but was supposed to be awful. Does that make it tremendous? I’m still working through the psychology of this, but Jericho continues to reinvent himself and align with how the audience has been reacting to him. It’s pretty damn masterful.
-I always like a good Moxley kicking someone’s ass match. This was that and Rocky Romero was the guy. Fine enough to get Moxley on the show, but AEW really needs something with more depth for one of their top tier stars.
-Hey! Orange Cassidy didn’t sign the contract to become a member of the Don Callis family. I’ll be damned! I kid. Cassidy not signing the contract was no surprise, but he didn’t really address why he decided to associate with and lean on Callis as he feuded with his Best Friends counterpart, Trent Beretta. That was an important chapter they glossed over just to get to Trent joining Callis instead. Whatever. The feud continues between Trent and Cassidy, which isn’t good at this point in time.
-It was fun seeing Mercedes Mone wrestle an unannounced match on the show this week, but I was already watching the show. Seems like it would have been important to advertise this match in order to get people to watch, right?
A new gear for a new heel
-Wow. Kris Statlander found a new gear on the microphone. She cut a very effective promo that not only got her heel heat, but defined the new heel character too. She gave context around why she turned and that’s an important base to set for the audience.
-So, I don’t know guys. The back and forth power struggle between Tony Khan and The Young Bucks feels totally unbelievable now that Khan is back with Christopher Daniels as his mouthpiece. Remember, The Bucks took control because Khan was unavailable. Now, aren’t they just EVP’s that report to Khan again? Their promo was fine and it got some heat, but the essence of this story is off base at the moment. The Bucks winning control because of Anarchy in the Arena could have served as the connectivity in the narrative, but they’ve gone in a different — more confusing — direction.
Where is MJF?
-Before we get to the main event, it’s pretty stunning that MJF wasn’t on the show this week. I know they hyped him for next week, but he was the biggest storyline coming out of Double or Nothing. As a company, AEW needs to build day-to-day and show-to-show momentum with their top stars. It’s silly for the company not to capitalize on the interest around his return in a timely fashion.
-Well, here we go. Will Ospreay vs. Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Championship is set for Forbidden Door at the end of June. Going to this match now makes me question why you’d have Will Ospreay win the International Championship. It’s early to do this match. Ospreay winning the battle royal to get there worked well enough, but they very much have to put some direction behind his journey to the world title and why that is important to him after he just won another championship. I’m excited for this one and the feud will provide a nice platform for both Swerve and Ospreay to shine on the microphone and in the ring.
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