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) Which event do you think was better, ROH Final Battle or NXT Deadline?

Easily NXT Deadline. Not only was it the quicker watch to sit through, it featured people I enjoy more. I don’t know some of the ROH talent and a good portion of them don’t wow me by any means. There was also significantly less effort put into building that card.

Don’t get me wrong. NXT is far from perfect. But I’ll take Apollo Crews and Bron Breakker fishing while talking about how they’re equals over “I don’t know. AR Fox and Blake Christian against Dralistico and Rush tomorrow. You happy?”

I’m not sure I agree with 2 of the title changes from ROH (Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta winning their belts back) or Samoa Joe retaining his title, whereas I think all the winners from Deadline were the right call, and I’m excited about The New Day being NXT tag team champions.

The Double Dog Collar Match was great. But that wasn’t enough to justify all the other hours in comparison to Deadline being the overall better show for my tastes.

2) Is the Iron Survivor Challenge a successful gimmick, or do you think it still needs tweaks or to be tossed out entirely?

It could definitely use a few more tweaks, but I was pleasantly surprised. I expected it to be far more of a travesty with people not being able to time things correctly like what happens once in a while on normal Beat the Clock matches, let alone with all these other things going on.

Penalty box stuff was almost impossible to keep track of. I wasn’t too fond of the graphics on screen, either. That’s nitpicking, though, I know.

All in all, I’m down to see a second go-around for this next year. But it’s not entering my top 10 favorite gimmick match types or anything.

3) ROH is heading into 2023 without an actual television deal, but more lingering questions and a reversion back to Honor Club. Disappointing? Tellingly bad? More than you were expecting? What are your thoughts?

I get the impression Tony Khan jumped at the chance to buy ROH without having any real foundation. Then, he likely thought Warner would welcome it with open arms. When that didn’t happen, he probably expected the buy rates would win them over and they’d want to have a television show.

My guess is they are fine hosting the pay-per-views and making that money, but don’t want to commit to a television program because they know the ratings won’t be good enough to make money on commercial ad revenue.

Look at it this way. ROH was a niche brand that already died out. It is doubtful they have just as many fans as before, if not more, which is what they need. AEW has a wider audience, but not to a level that they can automatically boost ROH to even close to the AEW audience, just like how Raw and SmackDown promoting NXT doesn’t make Tuesday nights reach the same viewership.

When you factor in how little effort they put into 99% of these ROH events, not even bothering to set up most matches with any story, why would the casual audience care when even the AEW crowd doesn’t transfer over, and this is even more “inside baseball” than All Elite Wrestling?

I think doing the Honor Club idea was the backup last ditch resort. By no means is this what Tony Khan actually wants. They just can’t shop the show elsewhere, Warner does want it, and they think this is better off than putting it on YouTube, cause they might be able to milk $10 from the diehards compared to the ad revenue they can make on AEW Dark streams, which has to be going down more and more each week compared to when it first started.

Honestly, in retrospect, I wish WWE had bought out the tape library and just let ROH die for real.

4) The next pay-per-view is the 2023 Royal Rumble. This far in advance, who do you currently think will win those men’s and women’s matches?

Right now, I’m thinking The Rock still has the best chance of winning the men’s match, even though I’m growing steadily suspicious the plan is to have someone waste their title match at Elimination Chamber instead. I wouldn’t be shocked if Kevin Owens wins and they do that, so that The Rock doesn’t have to appear on television until March. Or, my third guess is that Roman Reigns enters the Royal Rumble, wins, declares that he will pick his own challenger, and that’s how they stall.

The women’s match is essentially down to three options, too. Either Becky Lynch wins to challenge Ronda Rousey (most likely), Charlotte Flair wins to challenge Bianca Belair, or Rhea Ripley wins to challenge Belair. I’m banking more on the Lynch scenario.

5) What are your predictions for AEW Winter is Coming?

• MJF retains both the world title and Dynamite Diamond Ring over Ricky Starks, obviously.
• I’d like to see The Elite lose this match against Death Triangle, but I think they’ll win.
• Ruby Soho beating Tay Melo makes sense to me. It ultimately doesn’t matter.
• House of Black beats whoever they go up against.

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