Mission 022 – When WWE Comes in Hot!
Ok, ok, I know that all of you were expecting (maybe even hoping) for another Anthony update, but he honestly won’t be updating for at least this week as he suffers the consequences (via a week-long suspension) for “accidentally” falling into Stacy Keibler’s…pillows. So, instead, you’ll get me reviewing the top highlights of WWE’s first 8 days of the Seventh Era’s Second Season! Besides, we will have a moment to offer a brief preview of what AEW has to offer for this Monday’s season premiere!
Let’s get right to it, shall we?
Showcasing Ethan Page, Carmelo Hayes, and Mystico
For starters, let’s look at how WWE got right to work in building the future world champions that they gained via the draft. No group of young draftees have done better so far than Ethan Page, Carmelo Hayes, and Mystico. Mystico, especially, has been prominently featured by WWE ever since the draft concluded, with much of those signs becoming apparent at Starrcade via his confrontation with the Intercontinental Champion, Chad Gable!
Hayes may have come up short in challenging Karrion Kross for the NXT gold, but he made a statement of sorts in his own right. Kross is a world champion in waiting, and to give that man a run for his money is no small accomplishment in this new home.
Finally, we have Ethan Page, who scored a milestone debut victory of his own after a hard fought battle. It was quite evident from his presentation that WWE has serious plans for this young man!
Tiffy Time?
Of course, we can’t talk about promising young draftees without also mentioning Tiffany Stratton! Tiffany gave Liv Morgan a good run for her money over in AEW late last season, and she is wasting no time proving all the critics right: she is the future! Her dominant victory over Sonya Deville put all of her strengths on full display, and she topped off her debut night with a little nod to the Women’s Championship for which she will undoubtedly be vying very soon!
Fun with the APA and Chase U (with a side helping of HBP)
With WWE, you are always bound to see a ton of levity, and the combination of overlapping stories with APA, Chase U, the D’Angelo Family, and HBP being tossed in between was no exception!
Week One of this brand new season saw the former USWA and UWA champion put through hell as he desperately sought to escape catering, wound up in Chase U, and then jumped on board the D’Angelo Family train (as a chauffeur!) all the while briefly serving as an interim coat rack for the APA’s little hideout!
I can’t lie: I am dying to see what happens next here! Whatever it is, it is bound to be gold.
Even so, I am also digging the newfound journey for the former ULW Tag Champs, APA. While I was hoping that they would have a more serious career path, I will happily settle for what we are getting, because it has been excellent.
And don’t get me started regarding Chase U! This has POTENTIAL written all over it!
Moxley and the Judgment Day
Starting with the mayhem at Starrcade, we saw signs of some possible allegiance between Jon Moxley and the newly-reformed Judgment Day. Now, with the most recent series of events, it is obvious that the Judgment Day thinks there’s a connection while Moxley is seemingly just in it to target his former close friend, Roman Reigns. The pairing of Moxley and the Judgment Day may be a mere coincidence of being in the same place with the same foes at the same time.
Though, there’s definitely potential here, and it is clear to me that WWE thinks so as well, with the Judgment Day sending signals that they think Moxley belongs with them; even as Mox isn’t overtly of the plan himself.
Their common enemy – Roman Reigns -, though, will have another hurdle to climb as Damian Priest has returned to WWE and joined forces with the group he once led at the end of the Sixth Era.
One note here, though, and it is that Priest is only NOT in ULW right now because ULW felt that they had to make a deal for AJ Styles by sending two previously-exempted stars (and former world champions in their own right) to AEW (the other star being Becky Lynch) in exchange for AJ Styles; whom has long been on the radar of Cash Mouse Entertainment and its predecessor companies of Mmouse Enterprises and Brown Inc., respectively.
So, this begs the question: who the hell did WWE give away in exchange for Priest???
Ventura’s 24th “World Title”
At Starrcade, Jesse Ventura used his acceptance speech for his Hall of Fame induction to announce that he would have “30 dates” remaining before his official retirement, and that such would include his pursuit of a 24th world title reign.
Well, with 28 dates remaining, Ventura has seemingly accomplished his primary goal…sort of.
I guess this is the wrestling version of a semantics debate in the grand scheme of things, but when I think “world title” the newly-created “Evolve” championship doesn’t necessarily come to mind. Then again, I suppose one could argue that the Evolve title counts since Evolve is seen as a separate brand of WWE with NXT, Raw, and Smackdown each representing the other three WWE brands; all of which have their own world title.
Regardless, I am here for the ride, and despite my initial misgivings regarding the classification of this arguably-glorified developmental brand’s title being a “world championship”, I will get over it if it means that this incredibly great superstar gets to have some peace of mind and hang his hat proudly on a career well-done.
Kudos, Jesse. You deserve it! Now, onward to 28 dates that we will never forget!
The “Life & Legacy” Previews
Also announced at Starrcade as part of a Hall of Fame speech was the reality show centered on the insane personal life of Mr. Murrey, his bastard ref son, and his kidna-er, now daughter-in-law, Nikki Bella.
I can guarantee you that when Nikki won the Knockout’s Championship at EWA’s “Hell Hath No Fury” back on November 30, 2019, that she had no clue that this journey would land her in a position to be draft-pimped out to the second-most famous ref to ever officiate a bout as part of a twisted background story for the man who brought us all here to begin with.
How the mighty have fallen…but the ratings certainly haven’t! Look, a major contributing factor for WWE defeating ULW in the Independence Day premieres for both companies was this masterpiece of comedy gold.
I know Nikki is probably on her honeymoon spelling out “S.O.S.” with seashells right now, but her suffering is a small price to pay for our entertainment, and we demand more of it!
Just think…what if she and Pete…reproduce…
Rock and Brock
That brings me to the leading story in WWE, at least for this initial rollout of the new season: the war between the boss/WWE Champion, Rock, and the number one draft pick, Brock Lesnar!
The moment that Brock was drafted, there was an audible expression of rage from the ULW side of the room as Lenny reportedly punched Lawrence Mason in the thigh for not picking the right card when determining the draft order. Granted, this was the ONLY actual time that Lenny was enraged by a draft pick that was denied him, and one of his biggest regrets was that he wasn’t able to secure a trade with WWE on par with what we saw with AEW, and what we’re seeing right now between Rock and Brock is exactly why Lenny was so enraged.
The build for their match at Saturday Night Main Event was great, and while Rock came out on top, you would be a fool to bet against Brock trying again. The man has been obsessed with world championship gold since his only brief world title reign just a couple years ago.
Wrestling careers are flashes in the pan…even for beast incarnates. That said, Rock is on the run of a lifetime, and I still struggle to see anyone dethroning him before he breaks Duxen’s record in January. Could we be wrong in this prediction? Perhaps, but I am not going to bank on it!
Lastly, let’s look at some of what we know about the AEW season premiere coming up in less than 24 hours!
Lady Love’s Announcement
What’s this all about? Well, my thinking is that Love is going to relinquish the title to focus on raising her son, Young Crock…who is well-into college age. I fully expect shenanigans to disrupt all of this, including her ungrateful man-child causing a scene!
DIY challenges for the Tag Team Titles
This is just an effort to showcase the expanded tag division, but there’s no chance in hell that DIY is going to defeat the Gunn Club. Not happening, especially with Jay White needing his teammates to rebound with a victory for the so-called Bullet Club after he let victory slip through his fingers at Starrcade. I do expect a great showing by the former WWE Tag Champions, though.
LA Knight challenges for the TV Championship
As much as I would hate to see Knight lose a second consecutive high-marquee match fresh off of being AEW’s top draft pick (and second overall pick), I just can’t see Benjamin dropping the belt yet. Then again, out of all the gold being defended, this is the ONLY championship match wherein I am not giving the defending champion a 100% chance of retaining. Just saying.
Zelina Vega challenges for Knockout’s Gold
AEW is high on Vega, but they are not high enough to have her defeat the still-newly-crowned champion, Toni Storm; especially after spending all of last season building Toni to ascend to the top. Unless Riddle finds his way into the booking room and smokes everyone out of their senses, this is an easy loss for Vega, but not without a major display of her skills along the way!
Splinter to address the future of Logan Paul and MJF
While Lenny likes to act like he has moved on from his obsession, I am sure that his pants initially started getting tighter when he first read this recent announcement. However, I can 100% guarantee that MJF and Logan will remain put in AEW until we are hit by an asteroid. So, what this is really about is obviously setting up one more encounter between them. Rather, it is about setting up a first-time one-on-one match since their previously-scheduled bout was spoiled by the insurgent popularity of the now-reigning champion, Brandon Lee!
Adam Page challenges Lee for the AEW top prize!
Lastly, in the Main Event, Brandon Lee has to defend his world title against Adam Page. Now, I know what you’re thinking (no, I am not Sunfire, and I am sure that he will chew me out for this later after he finds out I used the phrase): Page is due for a world title, and looks unstoppable after Starrcade. The stars are aligning for him to get the strap!
Add on top of that the fact that AEW practically threw Brandon Lee into the world title picture out of some sense of obligation after Lee’s revival caught fire, and you have a perfect recipe for him serving as a transitional champion just as he was in PWI a few years ago.
The problem, though, is that this is Lee’s first title defense, and storytelling 101 in professional wrestling dictates that the protagonist usually wins when the odds seem stacked immensely in favor of the antagonist.
Does that mean that Page is destined to lose? I suppose not, but it makes little sense to me to “pop corn” this world title (as Kevin Kelly exclaimed about the ULW Undisputed Title at Starrcade) at this moment.
Now, do I see HOW they are going to avoid putting the strap on Page with all of his momentum and the stars aligning and what-not? No, except for maybe via a DQ finish of some sort. I don’t want to speculate too much.
I just know that AEW unintentionally booked themselves into a quasi-corner here. Yes, I probably should give this match at least a 50-50 chance of seeing a title change (thereby making my earlier comments about Knight’s match meaningless), but I sincerely don’t see Lee dropping the belt on his first defense thereof lest the company throw away all of the progress that he made over the course of his season-long revival last year. Call me crazy, if you want, but I just don’t see it.
So, there you have my predictions for AEW and review of WWE (I have nothing to predict for Raw this week, as we have had no preview, whatsoever…par for the course with WWE). I will close with the following Cash Mouse Entertainment press release that was just placed on my desk by Lawrence Mason:
“We here in Cash Mouse Entertainment take great pride in the product that we offer the fans of professional wrestling, and we stand by it. However, we acknowledge that we sometimes fall short of our goals in terms of ratings success. While ‘The Premiere’ this year was critically acclaimed across the industry and amongst the fans, it didn’t get the job in terms of defeating WWE’s Smackdown for a second year in a row. For their success in winning the battle of July 4th, 2025, we raise our glasses to WWE out of respect.
Yet, on July 7th, ‘The Shockwave’ BARELY defeated WWE’s Monday Night Raw – by a close margin of only 416 fans -, and unfortunately both companies saw a drop in viewership. As has been made clear in countless consecutive internal memos, this is UNACCEPTABLE for ULW, as greatness is ‘always expected’.
ULW will continue to strive on improving and perfecting our product week in and week out, and as we look forward to the debut installment of our new digital magazine (which will be offered at least once every other month), we will also take this time to announce that ULW will be introducing a new programming special to cap off the summer, which will be called ‘ULW Scorched’, to premiere on Monday, September 8th!
We look forward to seeing you all again this Monday for the season premiere of ‘Premier Aggression’ and this Friday’s ‘Extreme Intensity’!”
Until our next Quest, this has been Johnny with yet another mission!
World Of Wrestling: Murrey Universe 