AEW: Mick Foley on “Probably” Would Have Chosen MJF for Final Match Opponent, Mercedes Mone on Mixed Reactions During Her Britt Baker Match at All In 2024, More News

Aug 30, 2024

Mick Foley Comments on He’d Probably Would Have Chosen MJF as Opponent for Final Match

A recent Nickel City Comic-Con 2024 event in Buffalo, New York featured WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley as one of the guests. One of the topics discussed included Foley’s thoughts about a recent meeting he had with MJF and how he probably would have chosen MJF to be the opponent for a potential final match of his wrestling career.

“Man, when I was thinking of having that last match, I’ll tell you what, when I announced that intention, there were no shortage of people from every promotion reaching out to me and one guy I probably would have gone with because he’d clearly done some thinking about it and lined out six great weeks of TV was MJF… We didn’t take a photo together because we didn’t wanna ruin the secret meeting but, I heard what he had to say, I really liked it. I had no doubt that he would have pulled it off perfectly and you know, he’s so good and in his prime that he could have worked around my weaknesses and played to my strengths and I think we could have done something pretty cool. MJF. Final answer. Take that, Matt Cardona (Foley laughed).”

Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com

Mercedes Mone Comments on Mixed Reactions & Audience Fatigue During Her Match Against Britt Baker at AEW All In 2024

A recent issue of the Mone Mag fan newsletter featured Mercedes Mone reflecting about her TBS Championship match against Britt Baker at this past Sunday’s AEW All In 2024 event.

Audience Fatigue?
I’ve heard a lot of mixed reactions to my All In match with Britt. I had a really good time out there with her. I did sense some audience fatigue. It’s only natural being third to last, as the crowd had already seen over 10 matches before ours. They arrived at 5:30, and by the time we came out, it was around 9:00. That’s a long time but, at the same time, amazing because AEW really gave them their money’s worth. I could hear some DMD and CEO chants but again it’s harder in a stadium. Britt told me later, that on video you can hear crowd reactions much better and that there were more crowd reactions than we felt.
Britt vs Mercedes
Is there anything I would have done differently? There is. Honestly, a lot. But I don’t ever want to go too deep into what ifs about my matches, or life for that matter. I’ll just say that I learned a lot from the match and can only grow by continuing to try new things. I maybe would have listened to my instincts more. I feel I did things that maybe were not necessarily required for that match: things I could have saved for another time. But again, little sense in looking too far back other than what we can learn and use moving forward. One thing is for sure, I can’t wait to do it all over again next year in Texas.

Mone also revealed that she had spent over $10,000 on her special ring attire for her match at the event.

$10,000 Ring Attire
My hair wasn’t the only thing that cost a pretty penny. My robe, which was so beautiful, grand, and regal, was also my most expensive in my 14 years of wrestling. The whole outfit, in total, cost me over $10,000, All In (no pun intended).
Spending on Ring Costumes
As far as wrestlers investing so much money into their attire, it really depends on where they’re at in their career. If you’re not there salary wise, you try to find cheaper ways to look your best and it’s for sure possible. I did. When it comes to the biggest events, you invest all that you can. These stages are huge and these moments last forever so you want to put your best foot forward. It doesn’t always come down to money. It comes down to investing the time, being creative and resourceful. Doing so elevates standards and elevates your character. I feel it’s all worth it, and in the end, it does pay off. I hope to teach this sentiment to some of the younger girls on our roster.

AEW News & Notes

Fightful Select reported that indie wrestler Arie Alexander and former NWA talent Joe Alonzo were used as extras at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show in Champaign, Illinois. It was reported that Alexander was one of the people in the background during Mercedes Mone’s backstage party segment while Alonzo was one of the security members shown during Jon Moxley & Marina Shafir’s backstage promo and brawl with security segment.

Artist Youth Energy confirmed on Twitter that he recently joinedAEW to be a new merchandise artist for their merchandise department. In a follow-up tweet, Youth Energy stated that he was hired as a freelance artist for the company.

This past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show featured a promo segment between Swerve Strickland and Hangman Adam Page to setup their Steel Cage match at next month’s AEW All Out 2024 event. During his portion of the promo segment, Strickland mentioned that he saw Page leave his house with his pregnant wife for the birth of a new child several months ago. Fightful Select reported that their sources confirmed that this was the real reason for Page’s lengthy absence from AEW earlier this year and his feud with Strickland being put on hold during Strickland’s AEW World Championship reign. It was reported that Page had “extensive paternity leave” included for the terms for his new deal with the company.

As noted before, this past Sunday’s AEW All In 2024 event at Wembley Stadium in London, England featured wrestling legend and former AEW wrestler Sting making a surprise appearance. In a recent YouTube stream, Sting’s son Garrett Borden gave his thoughts about his father’s surprise appearance at the event. Borden stated “If you watch my dad’s post-Revolution press conference, I know Tony had said, ‘It would be cool to have him around a little bit more.’ I don’t know any of my dad’s plans or anything like that, but it was cool to see that happen. Even since his retirement, he’s been doing ComicCons and that sort of thing.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

As noted before, Kevin Kelly was fired from AEW this past March over issues related to an online incident involving Kelly accusing AEW and ROH commentator Ian Riccaboni of committing libel against him and AEW officials not being pleased with Kelly’s work in the company. In a recent interview with the Reffin’ It Up podcast, Kelly stated that he was originally given a severance package as part of the terms of his firing only for AEW to take it back due to him failing to sign a form. Kelly stated “And of course, they fired me and it was real just sh*tty and picky. They gave me a… what do you call it? A little severance package. Very little. Then they took it back. They put it into my account and then a couple of days later, they took it back, because I didn’t sign some form or something like that. So, it’ll all come out eventually, and when the time is right, I can say, okay, here’s all the things that happened: A, B, C, D and E. Here’s times that it happened and here’s the reason why we’re doing what we’re doing.” (Transcript h/t: PostWrestling.com)

In a recent interview with Sportskeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast, Raj Dhesi, former Jinder Mahal in WWE, gave his thoughts about his interest in making a potential appearance in AEW in the future. Mahal stated “I haven’t talked to any major company yet. I am on the independents and working GCW. I have a bunch of other independent dates lined up. In the past two years, I haven’t wrestled that much, maybe ten matches, which is not what I’m used to. I want to get back in the mix, get my legs back, get used to bumping again. Get acclimated and get in ring shape again. Then, we’ll go from there. Anything is possible. I would love to go to TNA, AEW, New Japan, anywhere. Even just the independents. I’m having a great time picking my own schedule, spending time with family.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

A recent Terrificon 2024 event in Uncasville, Connecticut featured Samoa Joe as a guest. One of the topics discussed included Joe’s thoughts about him not being interested in having dream matches at this point late into his wrestling career and cares more about only doing matches that the fans want to see him do. Joe stated “It’s a tough answer because I’m only interested in doing the matchups that the fans want to see. I’m not, I have zero interest in doing a vanity match with somebody who is my dream opponent because I don’t do this for me. I’m not doing this to pad my resume, to add to my portfolio. I do this for the fans to want to come and watch it. Inevitably, that question at this point of my career and my life is left in your hands. What match do you want to see, because that’s what I’m interested in doing. I really have zero interest in doing a match with somebody because they’re skilled or that I think it could be a great match. No. At this point, with what time I have left in my career, I want to dedicate that time to what fans want, not what I want.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with Kotaku, MxM Collection’s Mason Madden gave his thoughts about his current career in AEW and Ring of Honor. Madden stated “At that point in my life, I had already had one of my three daughters, so I needed to wrestle in a way that could make me money. Obviously, WWE was the only place where you could do that at the time. And thankfully, that’s no longer the case. They’ve (AEW/ROH) been very open to our ideas, allowing us to pitch stuff and making our ideas work, which is really cool. It’s very gratifying to see your brainchild show up somewhere, have people be able to see it, and then have people react well to it, which is a completely foreign concept to us. It’s a great problem to have people want to see you more. Having a platform where we can showcase our art in any capacity that anybody can see anywhere in the world has been a great boon to us because I think people are really starting to be able to see what we can do.“