I record The Fight Game Podcast on F4WOnline every Thursday night with my co-host John LaRocca. We used to record Wednesday nights, but it was really hard to be finished with AEW Dynamite and have cogent thoughts on the show immediately after watching, and then talk about the rest of what was going on in wrestling.
Doing so one night later allows us to think about what we watched and figure out where things might be going.
This past Thursday was one of those nights where I was glad that we don't record on Wednesday night anymore.
MVP showed up on Dynamite to confront Prince Nana and called out Swerve Strickland directly. The fact that MVP showed up on AEW television is newsworthy in of itself, but it's more than likely the beginning of something and not the end all, be all of something.
I think most expect that Bobby Lashley is coming in and this sets the table for that. It makes a lot of sense. The Hurt Business, or whatever they'll be called in AEW, could be a new stable based on former WWE stars that infiltrate AEW. Or whatever the new "Outsiders" storyline could be.
But I also started to think much bigger picture about what this could be. And because we didn't record Wednesday night, we were able to see a tweet from The Young Bucks on Thursday morning that I wrote about yesterday which featured none other than Shane McMahon.
With MVP calling out Swerve, at least at first glance, it doesn't seem like we are getting a WWE invasion right now, though if you wanted to do one, there are enough former WWE stars that you could immediately put together a former WWE faction. And who would be better to lead it than none other than Shane McMahon?
I don't know that it's in the plans or that it would be correct for AEW to lean that way. But the tribalism in wrestling dominates the social spaces in wrestling; social spaces that both companies are leaning into more and more, and you kind of wonder if it's an idea that is more than just a dart hitting a dart board.
But back to Bobby Lashley and the discussion that John and I had on Thursday night. If he is coming in, it's going to be so interesting to see what Tony Khan has learned from hiring former WWE stars who don't agree with how they are booked and who come from that WWE infrastructure. You only have to look at talent like Miro and Malakai Black and see how stop and start they've been booked in AEW. How will Khan adapt his booking philosophy to someone like Lashley who has made a lot of money in wrestling and who probably isn't going to take poisonranas by smaller wrestlers.
And likewise, in order for Lashley to continue his career, how much will he have to adopt his own personal wrestling philosophy to join a company that doesn't book wrestling like Vince McMahon once did; protecting the bigger wrestlers, or shaming someone for doing a move that John Cena couldn't do.
I'm personally interested because whenever talent comes over from one side to the other creates at least an initial buzz, but I'm not convinced that either party understands or appreciates what they're getting into.
