AEW All In Fallout, Go-Home Payback & All Out, RIP Bray Wyatt and Terry Funk (Monday Morning Q&A)

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) When you hear the name Terry Funk, what is your first thought? (Bonus question: Do you have a favorite match to recommend people watching?)

As a product of the late 80s, who was deepest into his fandom in the mid to late 90s, I immediately think of his partnership with Mick Foley in WWF. I’m not big on the golden age of wrestling, nor on the NWA / territories style in general, so Funk’s history prior to being the “middle aged and crazy” guy is lost on me, admittedly.

But even still, I think of someone who gave off a presence of a quality entertainer who was having fun doing what he was doing, and was very clearly a groundbreaking entity in the business who paved the way for a lot of styles and individual talents to come.

2) One pretty much universal thought regarding Bray Wyatt was that his potential was never tapped into. Whether by editing things from his past or by speculating on the future that will sadly never come to be, what do you wish could have been different about his career?

There are so many things that, with the benefit of hindsight (or if I had been given creative control and was on the writing team during those eras), I would have changed about Bray Wyatt’s career. I always thought his feuds went on way too long and were dragged out to the point of weakening their impact, and then, leading to dud finales that weren’t worth all the effort, so a general rule of thumb I’d apply would be to condense them. Less is more, sometimes, and by having a 2 or 3 month feud, rather than something that’s 6 months long, that could have made a huge difference.

As far as specifics go, I never would have had him working with Randy Orton for a second WrestleMania. Both would have been doing something different. The first one, too, I would have had as a Triple Threat with Luke Harper included, and it wouldn’t have been for a world title; just a regular feud. Nix those stupid special effects, too. I’d have never had The Fiend lose a Hell in a Cell match because the referee disqualified Seth Rollins, and I never would have had the red lighting. Too many distracting things that didn’t work out and weren’t worth the risks, as they should’ve seen the outcome beforehand while testing and decided not to go in that direction.

When it comes to the future, I feel like one of the biggest things we’re missing out on would be an amazing feud between the more cult leader Wyatt and Cody Rhodes. The American Nightmare would have been a perfect opponent for a multi-month feud to tap into the light vs dark dynamics, Cody’s amicable fondness of the superhero genre, and their histories as second-generational talent.

3) What would you say were your biggest highlights and low points of All In?

Highlight: MJF vs. Adam Cole. The main event was fantastic. I loved it pretty much from start to finish.

Low point: If I can’t just lump all the underwhelming elements together as some catch-all like “the entrances weren’t as good as they sounded like they would be on paper” and all, and had to pinpoint something specific, I would go with the women’s title match being the weakest of the show.

4) The All Out card has yet to be filled up. Are you getting the sense AEW doesn’t have enough built up for it, do you think it’s already looking great and can only get better, or do you honestly not care whatsoever and would be excited for the show even if no matches were announced?

Certainly the first one. Hence the question being asked. While a match like Orange Cassidy against Jon Moxley will surely be entertaining and I’m looking forward to Konosuke Takeshita vs Kenny Omega, naturally, the rest doesn’t do much for me, and since they need to add some more, I’d imagine it’s going to feel rushed.

I can’t picture, for instance, AEW being able to properly set up a challenger for MJF that isn’t just “do the Adam Cole match again”. Maybe they defend the ROH tag titles, but unless that’s against The Kingdom and they lose the belts, nothing quite makes sense to me that won’t feel like a match for the sake of a match. The same goes for the trios titles, FTR’s tag titles and so on. I’d rather see Toni Storm fight Saraya, for example, than to just go with the generic, bland and uninspired Hikaru Shida vs. Saraya rematch clause concept.

I’m expecting Dynamite to just be a blur and for the remainder of the card to be tossed out there by Excalibur, or for there to be lesser feuds I’m not particularly interested in, like if we get Swerve Strickland against Nick Wayne or AR Fox, or Jeff Jarrett vs Grado.

5) WWE Payback doesn’t have exactly the most bombastic card set right now, either. How would you fix it if you were put on WWE Creative Monday morning with just one episode of Raw and SmackDown to make adjustments?

First things first, I’d remove the Grayson Waller Effect segment with Cody Rhodes. That just reeks of “we still don’t have anything in mind for Cody and never have since WrestleMania; we’re just waiting for Mania 40 to come around at most” and interview segments shouldn’t be on pay-per-views. At least make that a match between the two, but even that feels like it shouldn’t be happening right now. Very disappointing. But with Superstar Spectacle coming up, maybe I would suggest doing a quick angle to set up Jinder Mahal, Veer and Sanga against Cody Rhodes and Alpha Academy, with Indus Sher winning the match (Gable or Otis can take the pin) to justify their future tag title shot and give Cody someone new to feud with in Mahal.

Austin Theory against Rey Mysterio is a waste. They’re just stalling. We all know Theory won’t win the title back. To make it more interesting, I’d book a segment on SmackDown that revolves around the whole “Santos Escobar should’ve had the title shot” concept and find a way to insert him into the match for a Triple Threat. That would at least get people talking about he and Rey possibly turning on each other and frankly, I’d probably have Escobar win the title. I don’t see the point in having it on Rey instead of someone who can use the push more.

Let’s add Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn against Finn Balor and JD McDonagh for the tag titles. That’s more interesting to me than if Balor, Damian Priest and/or Dominik Mysterio were to team up.

I’m assuming The Bloodline is off limits. Ideally, SOMEONE in that group would be doing SOMETHING on this card. It’s ridiculous how much of a stall that whole thing’s been. Sadly, it’s too rushed to pull the trigger on Iyo Sky vs. Bayley, so that’s unfortunate, and just having Sky against even Asuka or anyone would just feel like another “She’s obviously going to retain” situation, so despite how talented they are, that’s not spicing it up enough for me. Nobody would care about the women’s tag titles being added to the card, Gunther’s already had his IC title match with Chad Gable and that doesn’t leave too much else to work with.

Poor balancing on WWE’s end kind of screws saving this card at the last minute in a lot of ways.

Let us know your thoughts about these questions by answering them in the comments!

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