I know, I know, it’s only been three weeks and I should probably be more patient, but I’m really starting to wonder whose idea it was to have Mercedes Mone talk instead of wrestle on three consecutive episodes of “Dynamite.” Now look, I love Mercedes. Huge fan over here. But I don’t love her because of her promo skills. Mic work has always been her biggest weakness as a performer; theoretically that should be fine in AEW, where she can easily get and stay over based on her advanced ring work, but she hasn’t wrestled a match yet. She actually hasn’t even had her first match announced yet, and her booking hasn’t exactly made it clear what she’ll be doing. My best guess is that Willow Nightingale dethrones Julia Hart at Dynasty and moves into a title feud with Mone, but that would seem to suggest that Mercedes’ debut match for the company won’t come until after Dynasty on April 21, which is a long time to wait for someone who made her debut on March 13.

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And in the meantime, AEW has her cut two consecutive in-ring promos the last two weeks, and then they put her on commentary tonight. She didn’t embarrass herself, but she was also barely there. Tony, I know you were clearly never a fan of women’s wrestling, so take this from me: didn’t nobody become a Sasha Banks stan because she could talk. We became a fan because she could wrestle. If she’s still not fully recovered from her injury, that’s your own fault for putting her on TV before she was cleared, and if she is fully recovered, you have to get her in the ring. Is AEW really going to sign Mercedes Mone right before they debut a big new PPV and then not have her wrestle on that PPV? What’s going on here?

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I very much hope this hatred ages badly, and that by next Wednesday we’ll know that Mone has a Dynasty match against Skye Blue or whoever. But if she doesn’t, and if AEW puts her in another talking segment rather than booking her in-ring debut, I am going to start seriously wondering if they’re already botching their biggest free agent signing of 2024.

Written by Miles Schneiderman