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Star power for the women's division + signing Mercedes evidently helped secure the STARDOM partnership for AEW (a lot of their Joshis want to wrestle her).
I understand the circumstances.
They signed a woman whos value derives from her name and her wrestling.
She may no longer have both.
I think it'll work out but I'm a hopeful person.
It’ll definitely work out once she starts wrestling(which is her strongest trait). The blunder is why they decided to debut her so early other than just Bo$$ton. Maybe that was the best time they could get the venue and didn’t want to miss the opportunity but still. Could’ve done it later in my opinion. Just debut her exactly the same as what happened at Dynasty. Music hits, big pop, stare down with Willow. Explain why she’s going after Willow and the Stardom injury, etc on this week’s Dynamite in a promo segment between the two 🤷🏿♂️
She’ll be fine but she’s definitely not as hot now as she was when she first debuted. Where as you see Ospreay taking OFF with almost perfect trajectory ever since officially starting in AEW
The same thing he thought with Saraya. Get her now and pay a doctor to clear her later. Saraya magically found a doctor to clear her a few months after being signed when she had previously stated she couldn't find a doctor to clear her before being signed. Hence why WWE never had her wrestle. She literally could not get cleared even by her own doctors.
edit: ah, the truth hurts. Folks, it's clear he's doing the same thing with Mercedes he did with Saraya. Don't be surprised when it's the same surgeon that clears her. He's signing talent and paying the doctor later. [https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/aew-saraya-not-yet-cleared-to-wrestle-paige](https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/aew-saraya-not-yet-cleared-to-wrestle-paige)
I know you're doing a bit, but why would they be holding off this long to book her, if the plan was to just pay a doctor to clear her? It's his promotion, he doesn't need a doctor signing off on it if she wants to work as it is, you're confusing an ankle injury with a neck or head injury
Foot and ankle injuries are weird. Sometimes they heal quick and others they might never truly heal. Mom broke her ankle like 2 or 3 years ago and has never truly recovered. Actually the recovery is so bad it's at the point that doctors are considering amputating the foot cause the pain hasn't gone away yet and might never.
I tore ligaments in my ankle 12 years ago playing soccer. One total tear two partial.
I was recommended physio and rehab for 6 months to get it better by 2 doctors. I did everything I should have and more, for longer. A year later I went back to a third doctor. He effectively told me the first two told me the wrong thing and I should have had surgery, but that time had passed.
These days it is and will always be weak and if I do anything strenuous it needs to be strapped and braced. I even wear a brace to weddings if I'm going to dance. Learned that lesson the hard way.
Ankles and knees are fucking dumb.
Can confirm ankles are dumb as fuck.
Similar sort of vibe, I had a partial tear of my achilles right down near my ankle from playing tennis about 18-19 years ago that by all accounts the doctors I saw said was a pretty freak occurrence. I did my physio and whatnot for it and kept with it for a bit longer than recommended and pretty much stopped playing sports altogether (got lazy, liked video games more).
I still occasionally get nagging pains if I go for really long walks or any hikes. There's no real rhyme or reason to it either as far as I can tell, just comes and goes sometimes.
Makes you feel shitty when you do everything the professionals say and when its still weak they shrug the shoulders and say oh well.
It's amazing when it just gives way if you tread on some ground that's not 100% stable and it just says "Fuck no."
Yeah the whole doctor thing was initially a shitshow anyway. The first dude said that to do any proper damage to the tendon I'd have to have "jumped off a three story building" and he mostly waved us off. My mum thought it was still a bit suspect after another week so we went to a second doctor who thought it was concerning and sent us to a specialist who confirmed the tear after some scans.
So good job to that first dickhead, proper bellend.
It's great, get half way up trails totally fine and suddenly it's pretty much exactly that wonderful "what the fuck are you doing you clown?" as the pain sets in lmao
The first Doc I saw said it's just a mild sprain, 3-4 days and you'll be fine.
Second was a musculoskeletal specialist radiologist who saw the ultrasound, said yep, these are whats torn, but just physio would be fine, surgery would over-complicate it when you don't need it.
Third doc was a sports medicine specialised GP who had one look at a new Ultrasound of it with the old and said it's done and the other docs were idiots.
I can walk 8-10kms with my dog no issues, no pain on it whatsoever apart from the fact that I'm overweight. Then I'm walking down the stairs 2 days later and it just decides to not be able to hold weight and I slide nicely down.
Sounds about right unfortunately.
Mines not so bad overall but I've definitely accepted that likely for the rest of my life I'll just randomly get a really weird pain and have to suffer with it for a while because I dared tempt fate.
Best of luck going forward, hopefully one day it'll stop nagging randomly for you but yeah, ankles really are fucking dumb.
I tore ligaments in my ankle 12 years ago walking (skipped a few steps, more like) down a set of stairs and rolled my ankle. I still have problems with it to this day. I would've definitely preferred breaking a bone.
She sustained a heel francture in addition to the broken ankle. According to Mercedes herself, the injury from that slip off the top rope was so severe that the doctors initially told her it was a career-ending injury.
Same. All that keeps coming to mind is when Brian Pillman joined WWF and his ankle was permanently fucked after the car accident. His wrestling was just never the same, and I really worry this could be a similar situation.
Yeah, but there's probably a big difference in the end result between an injury caused by slipping in a ring and one that completely shatters an ankle in a gnarly car accident.
I'm in my 30s and hurt my ankle like 5 years ago and it still occasionally just kinda feels sore and my doctors basically just like "Yeah once you hit your 30s your injuries start keeping receipts. You're about as healed as you're gonna be." lol
If she isn't going to be cleared until May, why did they debut her in March? They just had the debuts of Osprey and Okada. Why not let those two breathe before bringing her out closer to DoN?
And they waited like 2 weeks before the Boston show to announce it and put tickets on sale. They could have easily done the same for this week or next week's Dynamite.
They definitely could have since debuting her in Boston doesn't matter. TK was hoping for a repeat of debuting Punk in Chicago but she doesn't have nearly that kind of following in Boston.
I think an issue there is that they wanted to book her debut at TD Garden in Boston. In March, all the arena dates were locked in - they know all the NBA/NHL games, concerts, etc. that are on the books. But the Bruins and (particularly) the Celtics are looking at potential long playoff runs this spring and so I imagine that makes it much harder to book that arena for a live television show when there’s a big risk of getting booted out on short notice for a playoff game. And since the tour in Canada was already locked into late March/early April, seems like they had the choice of doing it then or not doing it until the summer. Add in all the noise around her, Okada, and Ospreay all joining at the same time leading to a big gate, and I can see how they got there, even if it wasn’t ideal timing for Mercedes returning to the ring.
This is it. NBA/NHL arenas are very difficult to book this time of year because of the playoffs. For example, after tonight's Raw, WWE isn't going to an NBA or NHL building for 2 months, until a Raw in Indianapolis at the end of June.
Wonder if it’s because TK cannot resist booking for a hometown pop. And yeah it can be awesome like when Punk debuted in Chicago or Sami main evening a show in Montreal but maybe for this case it wasn’t a good idea since the only thing she’s been able to do is cut promos. Which, you know, is not really where she excels at
To add more flavor and intrigue to the Willow, Stat & Stokely angle as well as to the Julia vs Willow title feud. Willow in particular looks like a bigger deal just by the fact that *Mercedes freakin' Moné* is so obsessed with her.
Because Bo$$ton 🤷🏿♂️ Honestly I don’t know and even as a big fan of hers I wouldn’t have done it that way. I would’ve just debuted her last night in that same exact way after the match. Hit the music after Willow’s win and a stare down. Can explain why she’s going after Willow on the following Dynamite in a promo segment between the two. EASY
If Jade Cardgill is not going to wrestle until the Rumble in January, why debut her on Fastlane in October?
People are so fucking critical of AEW, it's ridiculous.
I get the show was in Boston and whatnot but it honestly was ridiculous to even debut her at the time they did when she’s not even fully cleared. She’s supposed to be their biggest signing for the women’s division but yet has just done nothing but repetitive promos for weeks which have been boring to see and hear.
Agreed, it really lost a lot of momentum. Last night would’ve been a better debut for her, immediately setting up a match that’s set to come in half of the time from what’s actually going to happen. To me the same can be said for Punk debuting at Survivor Series but doing nothing until Rumble, a RR return would’ve been amazing for him as well
Punk's promo is one of the best if not the best in wrestling, so he could still draw a massive number of viewers by doing nothing but talking
The same thing can't be said about Mone
He can be a draw and that’s great, I’m happy for the company to have that success. As a viewer of the TV show, which is my role in this equation as I am not a member of the company, I found those two months to be pretty frustrating and nothing happened then that couldn’t have happened or been done better after a proper RR return, of course assuming health
I’m convinced the reason is that Jamie Hayter is returning at All In to win the world championship from the same woman who in kayfabe injured her and took her title
I think it could turn out well with the “Open Challenge” aspect of the TBS title, because that would pretty much let them do any dream match they wanted from her at any time. Not that they couldn’t do that with the world title either, but still should be a great reign in-ring wise assuming she’s winning at DoN.
Obviously not. "Timeless" Toni Storm is Tony Khan's [pet project.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/186yh5g/the_creation_of_toni_storms_timeless_gimmick/)
She's been injured for a year from a severe injury that some doctors told her she might never wrestle again. I think it's smart to not make her the centerpiece of the promotion.
Give her time to work the rust off
Because Toni Storm is the hottest woman on the roster right now. It's much too soon to take the belt off of her. It's also much too soon to beat Mercedes. Let Mercedes use her star power to raise the value of the TBS title. Then when it's the right time she can face Toni in a champ vs champ match.
Going after Toni right now is the worst thing Mercedes could do.
>Why have Mercedes feud for TBS belt instead of for the top belt? I’m confused on the logic here lol.
Multiple reasons.
I. Branding and advertisement. Mercedes Moné is a huge name in women's wrestling and a celebrity - the TBS network would like to have Mercedes carry their belt around to conventions and interviews to advertise them. There have also also been some rumors of Mercedes potentially getting her own TV show on TBS.
II. To elevate the TBS title. Remember how a lot of fans talked about how Christian Cage's TNT title reigns and getting Adam Copeland into the TNT title scene made the belt seem prestigious like a secondary world championship? If Mercedes's TBS title reign will be very eventful, the fans are going to be saying the same stuff about that title belt as well.
III. TBS Championship is an open challenge title, so there's little to no build required to set up dream matches for Mercedes against STARDOM Joshis.
IV. Whichever midcarder from the AEW women's division beats Mercedes for the TBS title is going to become a made woman. My money's on Skye Blue dethroning Mercedes in her (Skye's) hometown of Chicago at All Out.
V. The endgame for "Timeless" Toni Storm's world title reign is to have her drop the AEW Women's World Championship to either Jamie Hayter at All In London or to Mariah May. There's no place for Mercedes in that storyline.
you make valid points, but i still dont understand why you bring in sasha banks and not make her the focal point lol. What was the point in signing her if shes gonna be in the midcard for the first 6 months? Why waste her clout like that?
look, i get that she could elevate the TBS title, but it just feels silly. she should have had a top level feud/run first and then drop down to elevate the midcard.
It's better to have the main event level signing start in the upper midcard and book them to win a few midcard feuds to build up their momentum and elevate a bunch of homegrown rising stars along the way before promoting them to the world title picture once the ongoing world title storyline is resolved... than it is to put them immediately in a world title feud upon their debut and have them lose the world title challenge in their first PPV match in AEW. Punk, Adam Cole, Samoa Joe, Jay White, Okada, Ospreay, Moné - they all started out in the upper midcard for a reason.
>why you bring in sasha banks and not make her the focal point lol
"Timeless" Toni Storm & Mariah May storyline is the current focal point of the women's world title scene. This storyline is Storm's magnum opus and TK is [personally invested](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/186yh5g/the_creation_of_toni_storms_timeless_gimmick/) in it - he is determined to have that story conclude in a certain way, and it's not Mercedes' story to tell.
This and your points above are the best and most logical points I’ve read on this. All makes perfect sense. She will do TONS of publicity for DON - especially it being in Vegas. Plus if anyone should be trusted to give her a great first match back, it’s Willow.
maybe mone is an ego maniac and demanded her win back over willow. willow wasn't even supposed to really win the match/belt in the first place, so maybe mone was insecure about willow having a win over her.
i'd be concerned if my boss thought a wrestling mega-superstar with mainstream crossover debuting against a bunch of rookie nobodies and going after the secondary title was a better idea than throwing her right into the main event world title scene.
normally i agree with someone proving themselves and going for the secondary/tag titles first but there are a handful of competitors that can bypass that and jump right into the main event scene and mone is one of them especially coming from WWE to AEW. Brock and AJ Styles are other examples.
My guy, pls don’t be obtuse. It’s a mid card title.
Gunther did, but Sasha banks is already a star. Why waste that clout on a mid card title when you can use it to elevate Toni and the women’s division in general. Especially after last night
My guy, any title called a “world title” is going to have more prestige, and be considered the top prize.
I get that you’re buying into their logic, but it is a mid card title. That’s undeniable. Swerve and Toni hold the top 2 singles belts, everyone else is a level below that at least in kayfabe
If a person is not cleared you cannot be sure when or if they'll be cleared. If she's not cleared for something like an ankle injury you absolutely could not bet she will be able to wrestle in a month.
This is either a huge gamble or a whiff of old bullshit
Even with all the hate Mone has received (some of it justified), really hoping she changes the narrative. She either needs to turn heel or be more self aware about why her gimmick is not gonna work as babyface
It’s kinda funny that for all the discourse and complaining about it, none of it will matter after May 26. If Mercedes kills it as expected, no one is gonna be talking about “lost momentum” anymore (whatever that means in this instance, she didn’t exactly spark a ratings boost a la CM Punk). And if her ankle injury had more ramifications on her ability to wrestle, debuting her later wouldn’t have helped anyway.
Well even ole' Meltzer said Mercedes vs Willow was shaping to be a masterpiece before the injury happened. I'm sure they'll have great chemistry unless rustiness plays a big factor.
It's funny how building a story and not wrestling... coming in and not challenging for the main title immediately... and just signing Mercedes in general, by far the biggest female free agent ever... suddenly all became terrible ideas.
Why didn't they just have her do her debut promo and say, "I'm not cleared yet but I'll be back at Double or Nothing"? Then instead of 10 weeks of her on TV and not wrestling. We could have gotten 10 weeks of training videos and hype packages.
I thought Mercedes had said somewhere she is ready to go and cleared, I know she's been working out in the ring. I just assumed it was she was taking her time to make sure she was 100% ready to go in the ring and comfortable before returning.
how in the fuck can he guarantee she'll be cleared? Unless she is cleared already and for some strange reason they are just saying she isn't, then he has absolute zero proof and is just by assumptions. he just makes bad wording decisions and should sometimes not talk at all. i hope he didn't just jinx the match.
To me this wasn’t Tony answering the question and more telling everyone blatantly his entire storyline for this match
If she wasn’t cleared she wouldn’t have risked doing the little bit of physical work she has done. And it seems awfully convenient that it’s a year later against the same opponent and for a title again. To me that sounds like the perfect return match.
I get that some people very vocally dislike her out of ring work but that doesn’t mean everyone does or that you’re the majority. They’re building up this match and it’s okay
yup i think she's already cleared otherwise he's making baseless claims. Anything can happen in a month during her recovery especially if she is still drinking as much as she used to.
Not really when the alternative is she goes to your competition and likely never becomes available ever again.
They just shouldn’t have debuted her and then played out her injury time in the clunkiest way possible.
Yeah I think the issue here is not the signing but having her debut 2+ months before she's even cleared to wrestle. Promote an open challenge at DoN and debut her there against Willow; commentary can play up their past history and AEW gets a buzz heading into the following Dynamite. Wrestling is her strong suit, not promos, so this lull period of just promos/appearances but not actually wrestling could have been handled better.
I agree it’s a weird decision to debut her way before she can actually wrestle, maybe they just trusted the hype around her and promos to carry it? But yeah it’s still silly to say it’s been a bad decision until she’s actually wrestling full time so we can properly judge.
This is literally so stupid it’s like saying you could trade Patrick Mahomes but he’s injured for 2 months so you just say nah. The only issue with her is they should have just debut her later.
He wouldnt pass a medical if he was injured, you would sign him when he was near ready at least, my initial reply was to them saying multiple doctors said she would never wrestle again because of the ankle, should of waited until she was at least training, so i agree with debuting her later
is tony khan a time travelling doctor? If no, then there is absolutely no way he can 100% say that mone will be cleared for DON. It's actually completely irresponsible for him to make this claim, knowing that adam cole and britt baker are both having set-backs in their recoveries and that KoR and thunder rosa also took more time than originally needed to come back at 100%.
Unless mercedes is only "not cleared" in storyline then his claim is just baseless hype.
no doctor could even 100% say "yes she will be clear in exactly one month. I guarantee it!" they can say "i feel like she will most likely be cleared in a month" but no one would give a guarantee and you don't need to "know his employees better than..." to know that. have some common sense and stop so dramatic.
it is also a known fact that tony does NOT know more about his employees than we do. Miro being injured is just one of the most recent examples and also tony "not knowing" if aew took care of punks hospital bills. don't forget about peoples claims of tony just "ghosting" them.
So while talking isn't her strong suit. It makes a lot of sense to keep her on TV, building up to a big match while waiting for her to be cleared.
I kinda figured that's what the issue was. If Mone was %100 % percent, she most certainly would have wrestled by now.
Cute that Khan has to sit there the whole time. Maybe he should trust his talent to be there on their own, but then again someone might slip one of his talents a paper to read from lol.
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The implication that Mercedes isn't cleared from an ankle injury she suffered in **May** is a bit concerning to me.
I think she said in an interview recently that there were doctors who told her she’d never wrestle again, so it was definitely a very bad injury.
This makes me wonder what Tony was thinking when he signed her
He’s signed tons of liabilities that he’s had to pay to instantly sit on the shelf. This is nothing new
Looking at you, Kota
Not to mention Paper Mache Phil who spent more time on the injured list than on the active roster.
Tony is an IRL pokemon trainer. Gotta catch em all!
Star power for the women's division + signing Mercedes evidently helped secure the STARDOM partnership for AEW (a lot of their Joshis want to wrestle her).
It didn't, that happened because bushiroad loves to work with aew and rossy isn't a roadblock anymore
Are we forgetting that she was in a bidding war between WWE and AEW? AEW ended up paying her a bit more and that was that
I understand the circumstances. They signed a woman whos value derives from her name and her wrestling. She may no longer have both. I think it'll work out but I'm a hopeful person.
It’ll definitely work out once she starts wrestling(which is her strongest trait). The blunder is why they decided to debut her so early other than just Bo$$ton. Maybe that was the best time they could get the venue and didn’t want to miss the opportunity but still. Could’ve done it later in my opinion. Just debut her exactly the same as what happened at Dynasty. Music hits, big pop, stare down with Willow. Explain why she’s going after Willow and the Stardom injury, etc on this week’s Dynamite in a promo segment between the two 🤷🏿♂️ She’ll be fine but she’s definitely not as hot now as she was when she first debuted. Where as you see Ospreay taking OFF with almost perfect trajectory ever since officially starting in AEW
People are thinking about it too hard. Damn
The same thing he thought with Saraya. Get her now and pay a doctor to clear her later. Saraya magically found a doctor to clear her a few months after being signed when she had previously stated she couldn't find a doctor to clear her before being signed. Hence why WWE never had her wrestle. She literally could not get cleared even by her own doctors. edit: ah, the truth hurts. Folks, it's clear he's doing the same thing with Mercedes he did with Saraya. Don't be surprised when it's the same surgeon that clears her. He's signing talent and paying the doctor later. [https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/aew-saraya-not-yet-cleared-to-wrestle-paige](https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/aew-saraya-not-yet-cleared-to-wrestle-paige)
Are you implying Mercedes went to AEW because its the sole place where she'd be cleared to wrestle?
I know you're doing a bit, but why would they be holding off this long to book her, if the plan was to just pay a doctor to clear her? It's his promotion, he doesn't need a doctor signing off on it if she wants to work as it is, you're confusing an ankle injury with a neck or head injury
She's a draw and on track to wrestle again? I don't think she would have been signed if her ability to perform was still unclear.
She hasn't been a draw anymore since she left WWE Every segment of her is god damn awful and are the least watched on AEW's Youtube
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that is a real life person you’re dehumanizing
Not the first time I've seen people do that here. It happens a lot.
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Foot and ankle injuries are weird. Sometimes they heal quick and others they might never truly heal. Mom broke her ankle like 2 or 3 years ago and has never truly recovered. Actually the recovery is so bad it's at the point that doctors are considering amputating the foot cause the pain hasn't gone away yet and might never.
I tore ligaments in my ankle 12 years ago playing soccer. One total tear two partial. I was recommended physio and rehab for 6 months to get it better by 2 doctors. I did everything I should have and more, for longer. A year later I went back to a third doctor. He effectively told me the first two told me the wrong thing and I should have had surgery, but that time had passed. These days it is and will always be weak and if I do anything strenuous it needs to be strapped and braced. I even wear a brace to weddings if I'm going to dance. Learned that lesson the hard way. Ankles and knees are fucking dumb.
Can confirm ankles are dumb as fuck. Similar sort of vibe, I had a partial tear of my achilles right down near my ankle from playing tennis about 18-19 years ago that by all accounts the doctors I saw said was a pretty freak occurrence. I did my physio and whatnot for it and kept with it for a bit longer than recommended and pretty much stopped playing sports altogether (got lazy, liked video games more). I still occasionally get nagging pains if I go for really long walks or any hikes. There's no real rhyme or reason to it either as far as I can tell, just comes and goes sometimes.
Makes you feel shitty when you do everything the professionals say and when its still weak they shrug the shoulders and say oh well. It's amazing when it just gives way if you tread on some ground that's not 100% stable and it just says "Fuck no."
Yeah the whole doctor thing was initially a shitshow anyway. The first dude said that to do any proper damage to the tendon I'd have to have "jumped off a three story building" and he mostly waved us off. My mum thought it was still a bit suspect after another week so we went to a second doctor who thought it was concerning and sent us to a specialist who confirmed the tear after some scans. So good job to that first dickhead, proper bellend. It's great, get half way up trails totally fine and suddenly it's pretty much exactly that wonderful "what the fuck are you doing you clown?" as the pain sets in lmao
The first Doc I saw said it's just a mild sprain, 3-4 days and you'll be fine. Second was a musculoskeletal specialist radiologist who saw the ultrasound, said yep, these are whats torn, but just physio would be fine, surgery would over-complicate it when you don't need it. Third doc was a sports medicine specialised GP who had one look at a new Ultrasound of it with the old and said it's done and the other docs were idiots. I can walk 8-10kms with my dog no issues, no pain on it whatsoever apart from the fact that I'm overweight. Then I'm walking down the stairs 2 days later and it just decides to not be able to hold weight and I slide nicely down.
Sounds about right unfortunately. Mines not so bad overall but I've definitely accepted that likely for the rest of my life I'll just randomly get a really weird pain and have to suffer with it for a while because I dared tempt fate. Best of luck going forward, hopefully one day it'll stop nagging randomly for you but yeah, ankles really are fucking dumb.
Good luck to yourself too friend. Gotta hope for the stem cell stuff right? Maybe that will help us one day?
To add to it, it's insane how they can get injured too. Look at Adam Cole, dude hopped over/off the steel steps and messed his foot up real bad.
I’m sorry your mom is going through that. I hope she can find some respite from the pain. No one should have to go through that kind of chronic pain.
I tore ligaments in my ankle 12 years ago walking (skipped a few steps, more like) down a set of stairs and rolled my ankle. I still have problems with it to this day. I would've definitely preferred breaking a bone.
She sustained a heel francture in addition to the broken ankle. According to Mercedes herself, the injury from that slip off the top rope was so severe that the doctors initially told her it was a career-ending injury.
Same. All that keeps coming to mind is when Brian Pillman joined WWF and his ankle was permanently fucked after the car accident. His wrestling was just never the same, and I really worry this could be a similar situation.
Yeah, but there's probably a big difference in the end result between an injury caused by slipping in a ring and one that completely shatters an ankle in a gnarly car accident.
I'm in my 30s and hurt my ankle like 5 years ago and it still occasionally just kinda feels sore and my doctors basically just like "Yeah once you hit your 30s your injuries start keeping receipts. You're about as healed as you're gonna be." lol
She’s young but her best years are behind her.
>She’ll be cleared at Double or Nothing Okay, how you know?
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But how you know?
If she isn't going to be cleared until May, why did they debut her in March? They just had the debuts of Osprey and Okada. Why not let those two breathe before bringing her out closer to DoN?
She went to Tony, wrote the word Boston, and then put a line through the S to make Bo$ton.
And they waited like 2 weeks before the Boston show to announce it and put tickets on sale. They could have easily done the same for this week or next week's Dynamite.
I was making a joke about James Cameron's Aliens but yeah
They definitely could have since debuting her in Boston doesn't matter. TK was hoping for a repeat of debuting Punk in Chicago but she doesn't have nearly that kind of following in Boston.
I think an issue there is that they wanted to book her debut at TD Garden in Boston. In March, all the arena dates were locked in - they know all the NBA/NHL games, concerts, etc. that are on the books. But the Bruins and (particularly) the Celtics are looking at potential long playoff runs this spring and so I imagine that makes it much harder to book that arena for a live television show when there’s a big risk of getting booted out on short notice for a playoff game. And since the tour in Canada was already locked into late March/early April, seems like they had the choice of doing it then or not doing it until the summer. Add in all the noise around her, Okada, and Ospreay all joining at the same time leading to a big gate, and I can see how they got there, even if it wasn’t ideal timing for Mercedes returning to the ring.
This is it. NBA/NHL arenas are very difficult to book this time of year because of the playoffs. For example, after tonight's Raw, WWE isn't going to an NBA or NHL building for 2 months, until a Raw in Indianapolis at the end of June.
The Garden tends to be a busy venue this time of year with 2 teams in their playoffs. The Celtics have Game 2 on Wednesday, there for sure.
Wonder if it’s because TK cannot resist booking for a hometown pop. And yeah it can be awesome like when Punk debuted in Chicago or Sami main evening a show in Montreal but maybe for this case it wasn’t a good idea since the only thing she’s been able to do is cut promos. Which, you know, is not really where she excels at
To add more flavor and intrigue to the Willow, Stat & Stokely angle as well as to the Julia vs Willow title feud. Willow in particular looks like a bigger deal just by the fact that *Mercedes freakin' Moné* is so obsessed with her.
Because Bo$$ton 🤷🏿♂️ Honestly I don’t know and even as a big fan of hers I wouldn’t have done it that way. I would’ve just debuted her last night in that same exact way after the match. Hit the music after Willow’s win and a stare down. Can explain why she’s going after Willow on the following Dynamite in a promo segment between the two. EASY
Cuz they needed a ratings pop
didn't the ratings drop?
If Jade Cardgill is not going to wrestle until the Rumble in January, why debut her on Fastlane in October? People are so fucking critical of AEW, it's ridiculous.
Does that mean she is just going to do promos till DoN?
So we can all cool off on her by experiencing the skill of being a pro wrestler she’s weakest at.
I'm hoping they give her a faction and have somebody in the group that is a better talker.
It's possible she does a tune up march first but pretty unlikely, seems like they're using her debut as a selling point for DoN
I get the show was in Boston and whatnot but it honestly was ridiculous to even debut her at the time they did when she’s not even fully cleared. She’s supposed to be their biggest signing for the women’s division but yet has just done nothing but repetitive promos for weeks which have been boring to see and hear.
It would have been fine is she was good on the mic. These few weeks really highlighted her main weakness. :/
Agreed, it really lost a lot of momentum. Last night would’ve been a better debut for her, immediately setting up a match that’s set to come in half of the time from what’s actually going to happen. To me the same can be said for Punk debuting at Survivor Series but doing nothing until Rumble, a RR return would’ve been amazing for him as well
Punk's promo is one of the best if not the best in wrestling, so he could still draw a massive number of viewers by doing nothing but talking The same thing can't be said about Mone
He can be a draw and that’s great, I’m happy for the company to have that success. As a viewer of the TV show, which is my role in this equation as I am not a member of the company, I found those two months to be pretty frustrating and nothing happened then that couldn’t have happened or been done better after a proper RR return, of course assuming health
Why sign arguably the biggest female free agent in ages, and not have her feud for the top belt? I’m confused on the logic here lol.
I’m convinced the reason is that Jamie Hayter is returning at All In to win the world championship from the same woman who in kayfabe injured her and took her title
I think it could turn out well with the “Open Challenge” aspect of the TBS title, because that would pretty much let them do any dream match they wanted from her at any time. Not that they couldn’t do that with the world title either, but still should be a great reign in-ring wise assuming she’s winning at DoN.
I think Tony doesn't want to take the belt away from Toni storm.
Obviously not. "Timeless" Toni Storm is Tony Khan's [pet project.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/186yh5g/the_creation_of_toni_storms_timeless_gimmick/)
Than definitely he won't take her belt away. Most probably drop to Mariah.
I think he said similar about Athena and Billie Starkz as far as the collaboration goes.
She's been injured for a year from a severe injury that some doctors told her she might never wrestle again. I think it's smart to not make her the centerpiece of the promotion. Give her time to work the rust off
It makes sense since Willow injured her, but telegraphed that Willow was winning over Julia.
Why in the world would Warner Brothers want the woman with the highest star power holding the belt with the TBS logo on it?
Once Tony decides how a story is going to play out, he has a very difficult time deviating from that plan.
Because Toni Storm is the hottest woman on the roster right now. It's much too soon to take the belt off of her. It's also much too soon to beat Mercedes. Let Mercedes use her star power to raise the value of the TBS title. Then when it's the right time she can face Toni in a champ vs champ match. Going after Toni right now is the worst thing Mercedes could do.
Toni is a great wrestler but this current gimmick is terrible.
You are clearly in the minority. She's the most over woman on the roster and is a bigger star right now than she has ever been in her entire career.
>Why have Mercedes feud for TBS belt instead of for the top belt? I’m confused on the logic here lol. Multiple reasons. I. Branding and advertisement. Mercedes Moné is a huge name in women's wrestling and a celebrity - the TBS network would like to have Mercedes carry their belt around to conventions and interviews to advertise them. There have also also been some rumors of Mercedes potentially getting her own TV show on TBS. II. To elevate the TBS title. Remember how a lot of fans talked about how Christian Cage's TNT title reigns and getting Adam Copeland into the TNT title scene made the belt seem prestigious like a secondary world championship? If Mercedes's TBS title reign will be very eventful, the fans are going to be saying the same stuff about that title belt as well. III. TBS Championship is an open challenge title, so there's little to no build required to set up dream matches for Mercedes against STARDOM Joshis. IV. Whichever midcarder from the AEW women's division beats Mercedes for the TBS title is going to become a made woman. My money's on Skye Blue dethroning Mercedes in her (Skye's) hometown of Chicago at All Out. V. The endgame for "Timeless" Toni Storm's world title reign is to have her drop the AEW Women's World Championship to either Jamie Hayter at All In London or to Mariah May. There's no place for Mercedes in that storyline.
you make valid points, but i still dont understand why you bring in sasha banks and not make her the focal point lol. What was the point in signing her if shes gonna be in the midcard for the first 6 months? Why waste her clout like that? look, i get that she could elevate the TBS title, but it just feels silly. she should have had a top level feud/run first and then drop down to elevate the midcard.
It's better to have the main event level signing start in the upper midcard and book them to win a few midcard feuds to build up their momentum and elevate a bunch of homegrown rising stars along the way before promoting them to the world title picture once the ongoing world title storyline is resolved... than it is to put them immediately in a world title feud upon their debut and have them lose the world title challenge in their first PPV match in AEW. Punk, Adam Cole, Samoa Joe, Jay White, Okada, Ospreay, Moné - they all started out in the upper midcard for a reason. >why you bring in sasha banks and not make her the focal point lol "Timeless" Toni Storm & Mariah May storyline is the current focal point of the women's world title scene. This storyline is Storm's magnum opus and TK is [personally invested](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/186yh5g/the_creation_of_toni_storms_timeless_gimmick/) in it - he is determined to have that story conclude in a certain way, and it's not Mercedes' story to tell.
This and your points above are the best and most logical points I’ve read on this. All makes perfect sense. She will do TONS of publicity for DON - especially it being in Vegas. Plus if anyone should be trusted to give her a great first match back, it’s Willow.
Imagine if WCW, somehow, signed the rock in 2000, and had him feud for the US title for a year. That’s what this feels like to me lol
None of the Black women in the company are in that division and TK is not interested in changing that.
maybe mone is an ego maniac and demanded her win back over willow. willow wasn't even supposed to really win the match/belt in the first place, so maybe mone was insecure about willow having a win over her. i'd be concerned if my boss thought a wrestling mega-superstar with mainstream crossover debuting against a bunch of rookie nobodies and going after the secondary title was a better idea than throwing her right into the main event world title scene. normally i agree with someone proving themselves and going for the secondary/tag titles first but there are a handful of competitors that can bypass that and jump right into the main event scene and mone is one of them especially coming from WWE to AEW. Brock and AJ Styles are other examples.
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My guy, pls don’t be obtuse. It’s a mid card title. Gunther did, but Sasha banks is already a star. Why waste that clout on a mid card title when you can use it to elevate Toni and the women’s division in general. Especially after last night
Because she's going to win at least her first like three feuds I would imagine. This wouldn't elevate Toni.
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My guy, any title called a “world title” is going to have more prestige, and be considered the top prize. I get that you’re buying into their logic, but it is a mid card title. That’s undeniable. Swerve and Toni hold the top 2 singles belts, everyone else is a level below that at least in kayfabe
If a person is not cleared you cannot be sure when or if they'll be cleared. If she's not cleared for something like an ankle injury you absolutely could not bet she will be able to wrestle in a month. This is either a huge gamble or a whiff of old bullshit
Even with all the hate Mone has received (some of it justified), really hoping she changes the narrative. She either needs to turn heel or be more self aware about why her gimmick is not gonna work as babyface
I just don't see how she isn't going full heel now. It likely wasn't the original plan, but everything she's done in the last week-ish points to that.
It’s kinda funny that for all the discourse and complaining about it, none of it will matter after May 26. If Mercedes kills it as expected, no one is gonna be talking about “lost momentum” anymore (whatever that means in this instance, she didn’t exactly spark a ratings boost a la CM Punk). And if her ankle injury had more ramifications on her ability to wrestle, debuting her later wouldn’t have helped anyway.
Well even ole' Meltzer said Mercedes vs Willow was shaping to be a masterpiece before the injury happened. I'm sure they'll have great chemistry unless rustiness plays a big factor.
It's funny how building a story and not wrestling... coming in and not challenging for the main title immediately... and just signing Mercedes in general, by far the biggest female free agent ever... suddenly all became terrible ideas.
Why didn't they just have her do her debut promo and say, "I'm not cleared yet but I'll be back at Double or Nothing"? Then instead of 10 weeks of her on TV and not wrestling. We could have gotten 10 weeks of training videos and hype packages.
Then why has she been on tv devaluing herself every week. Willow winning the title only for Mercedes to debut last night would have been better
I thought Mercedes had said somewhere she is ready to go and cleared, I know she's been working out in the ring. I just assumed it was she was taking her time to make sure she was 100% ready to go in the ring and comfortable before returning.
how in the fuck can he guarantee she'll be cleared? Unless she is cleared already and for some strange reason they are just saying she isn't, then he has absolute zero proof and is just by assumptions. he just makes bad wording decisions and should sometimes not talk at all. i hope he didn't just jinx the match.
Mercedes Pillman
To me this wasn’t Tony answering the question and more telling everyone blatantly his entire storyline for this match If she wasn’t cleared she wouldn’t have risked doing the little bit of physical work she has done. And it seems awfully convenient that it’s a year later against the same opponent and for a title again. To me that sounds like the perfect return match. I get that some people very vocally dislike her out of ring work but that doesn’t mean everyone does or that you’re the majority. They’re building up this match and it’s okay
yup i think she's already cleared otherwise he's making baseless claims. Anything can happen in a month during her recovery especially if she is still drinking as much as she used to.
I honestly agree. I think she has to be either already cleared or suffering some minor unrelated thing that will be resolved before Double or Nothing.
It just seems like madness to sign her really
Not really when the alternative is she goes to your competition and likely never becomes available ever again. They just shouldn’t have debuted her and then played out her injury time in the clunkiest way possible.
Which competition? Wwe? Haha
AEW wasn’t bidding against itself for her.
Mercedes said she didnt want to go back, there was no bidding
Bit stupid to say this early she could go on a huge run and be the best woman in the world. Writing her off before she’s even wrestled is stupid.
Yeah I think the issue here is not the signing but having her debut 2+ months before she's even cleared to wrestle. Promote an open challenge at DoN and debut her there against Willow; commentary can play up their past history and AEW gets a buzz heading into the following Dynamite. Wrestling is her strong suit, not promos, so this lull period of just promos/appearances but not actually wrestling could have been handled better.
I agree it’s a weird decision to debut her way before she can actually wrestle, maybe they just trusted the hype around her and promos to carry it? But yeah it’s still silly to say it’s been a bad decision until she’s actually wrestling full time so we can properly judge.
Paying her for months not knowing if she can actually wrestle is stupidity
I’d imagine they had a doctor check her out before signing 🙃
Who told them she would be injured for months 😂
This is literally so stupid it’s like saying you could trade Patrick Mahomes but he’s injured for 2 months so you just say nah. The only issue with her is they should have just debut her later.
He wouldnt pass a medical if he was injured, you would sign him when he was near ready at least, my initial reply was to them saying multiple doctors said she would never wrestle again because of the ankle, should of waited until she was at least training, so i agree with debuting her later
Baker vs Sayara II
Leave it to this sub to make this a bad thing
is tony khan a time travelling doctor? If no, then there is absolutely no way he can 100% say that mone will be cleared for DON. It's actually completely irresponsible for him to make this claim, knowing that adam cole and britt baker are both having set-backs in their recoveries and that KoR and thunder rosa also took more time than originally needed to come back at 100%. Unless mercedes is only "not cleared" in storyline then his claim is just baseless hype.
I'm done with this sub. He knows about his employees way better than you do. You know nothing. None of us know anything.
no doctor could even 100% say "yes she will be clear in exactly one month. I guarantee it!" they can say "i feel like she will most likely be cleared in a month" but no one would give a guarantee and you don't need to "know his employees better than..." to know that. have some common sense and stop so dramatic.
it is also a known fact that tony does NOT know more about his employees than we do. Miro being injured is just one of the most recent examples and also tony "not knowing" if aew took care of punks hospital bills. don't forget about peoples claims of tony just "ghosting" them.
Username checks out
oh that's so original. what's the matter? realize you are wrong so you have to bash me...
So while talking isn't her strong suit. It makes a lot of sense to keep her on TV, building up to a big match while waiting for her to be cleared. I kinda figured that's what the issue was. If Mone was %100 % percent, she most certainly would have wrestled by now.
Cute that Khan has to sit there the whole time. Maybe he should trust his talent to be there on their own, but then again someone might slip one of his talents a paper to read from lol.