RAW Instructs Us that Money in the Bank Is What's Hot Now...

How’s It Going, Enthusiasts?

 

So, there are a few things to chat about going on in the wrestling world. I’m just getting up to speed after taking a little time off. Must admit, not all that surprised at what I returned to.

 

The obvious news is that of Jeff Hardy getting arrested yet again with a DUI being mixed in there as well. This is interesting. Many would say this is the behavior of an addict, but I think it’s a little simpler than that. Not too long before this incident, I saw reports of Jeff Hardy bailing on a match again, much like the incident that led to his dismissal from WWE. However, the difference here is that AEW let him be. WWE said get your shit and get out of here. Now, I understand WWE doing what it did. It’s the whole, “Fool me once…” kinda thing but AEW is the up and comer. Jeff Hardy’s career is far longer than AEW’s existence. There’s no telling if it will even have the same longevity. Hardy is older than his current boss, to that extent. So, the concept of authority here is a bit nebulous.

 

I brought up a similar point when Jon Moxley went into detox. Though Moxley’s issues aren’t as well-documented as Hardy’s it’s the same diff in the sense that AEW simply doesn’t have the clout to say shit to either one. In both cases, they’re just lucky to have them. So, the threat of “consequences” is greatly diminished. Regardless of how you feel about WWE, there is money to be made and if a performer plays her/his cards right, s/he can get a piece of that action. There’s a threat of consequence when you fuck up. One could lose that opportunity. Earn a bad rep. that affects your chances with other promotions.

 

Hardy started off looking good here. When he was dismissed from WWE, he appeared to be the recovering bad boy, cast aside by a company that wasn’t interested in giving him a second or third chance. If he went on to take care of himself in AEW and have an otherwise respectable final chapter to his career, that would have held true. Now, WWE looks wise in hindsight for cutting ties with a chronic troublemaker.

 

There’s no way to tell if this would have happened if WWE worked with him. All we can conjecture is that given Hardy’s recent situation, he didn’t feel pressured as much to keep his shit together under AEW.  I don’t know what led to this “relapse”. There’s a lot of talk of Hardy working injured and being simply beat-up by the life but what I’m generally getting at is that Hardy fell into “give a shit” mode. Maybe he had a bad night. Maybe he had a good one. Regardless, he didn’t feel the need to keep himself in check and let loose. Some of that could have been due to the fact that AEW wouldn’t know how to check him if it tried. We’ll see what happens but ultimately, what happens next is completely up to Jeff Hardy. All I can say there is that I hope he’s honest with himself. He needs to identify what the problem is and make his peace with it. If he needs to take some time off to heal and reconsider sobriety, so be it. If he needs to contemplate how he wants to end his career, he should do it. What’s obvious is the man is a living legend and so, the real question is does he go out honorably or in infamy. We’ll see what he decides.

 

In other news, it looks like Paige’s time with WWE is coming to an end. Well, we already know they don’t know what to do with their active roster so, what is WWE going to do with someone they can’t use? Not to say that she couldn’t be a manager or some sort of on-screen liaison, but you see, they’d have to flesh out that purpose and there’s the matter of what to do with the people who can work the show. It looks like they’re just cutting their losses.

 

This is a tough one because her career was cut short due to injury. I personally was never really impressed with her but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t have blossomed in some other way. Yet, with no valid ideas on the table, moving on may be the best thing to do at present. Looks like there was another release in NXT too but I never heard of him so WWE may be a little more hush-hush when it comes to trimming the fat. My general point is that without a good reason to keep Paige, they might as well send her on her way. The upside is that she could always come back so if that appeals, she should take some time to brainstorm a comeback angle.

 

So, that brings us to tonight’s RAW. SmackDown left us with a new Intercontinental Title holder in Gunther/Walter and Riddle is now set to battle Roman Reigns for the Unified Title. Tonight, Seth Rollins will explain to us why he sent Cody Rhodes to surgery as battered and bruised as possible. We’ll also see how Finn Bálor plans to establish his newly acquired Judgement Day. For everything else, we have to tune in and see. Funny tweets and Likes get retweeted. We are officially in No Man’s Land while the road is paved to Money in the Bank. Let’s see if they make good use of the dead space. I’d experiment. That’s the beauty of sitting there with nothing.

 

 

See You in a Bit,

-Nicole Alexis (^_~)