According to a Wrestling Observer poll, Mercedes Moné vs Mina Shirakawa was the worst match of AEW’s recent WrestleDream pay-per-view.
Big Dave needs to do something about his readership’s terrible opinions, stat.
Listen, I know not everyone likes the same things in wrestling, but it’s hard to see where this level of dislike could be coming from. It’s a good match! It starts out hot, both women seemingly trying to end things quickly: Shirakawa almost immediately gets Moné into a figure-four leg lock; Moné rolls to the rope to force a break and then hops out to the announce desk to get some respite. Shirakawa lures her back into the ring by mocking her signature CEO dance, turning her back to bait Moné into a roll-up for a two count, before Moné escapes and turns the tables, locking Shirakawa into a Statement Maker... but only for a second.
This week, Moné broke Jade Cargill’s record for the longest ever TBS title reign. She’s a dominant champion, but she’s also been spreading herself thin, defending her CMLL title the night before WrestleDream. Probably, most people thought she’d retain her title, but both Moné and Shirakawa did their damnedest in this match to make you doubt your preconceptions.
The fast pace of the opening is misleading—they’re trying to make you think it’s gonna be a sub-5 minute squash. It isn’t.
Moné continues selling her dodgy leg for the rest of the match. She’s tired, she’s unprepared for Shirakawa’s tricksiness, and now she’s hurt. But she’s aggressive, yelling at Shirakawa that she might as well give up, because she’ll never get the win.
Except—maybe? Shirakawa seems prepared for most of Moné’s moves, managing to counter one manoeuvre after another, wiggling out of the Moné Maker and then slamming her forearm into Moné’s face to top it off.
The two women battle one another so intensely that Excalibur, on commentary, gets into full motor-mouthed flow more than once during the match. The match runs for over 15 minutes, with barely any let up. And it ends with a neat bit of storytelling that’ll carry Moné through to the next pay-per-view: she’s only able to best Shirakawa by cheating: initially by yanking on her hair, then, finally, by trapping her in a roll-up and using a sneaky foot on the ropes to give her the extra leverage to keep Shirakawa down.
What did the Wrestling Observer readers object to? There’s nothing obviously wrong with it.
Moné attracted the internet’s ire for a second time this week, too, with her title celebration segment on AEW Dynamite — and sure, maybe not everyone likes puppet antics and people getting smashed into giant cakes. Maybe they have some kind of frosting trauma in their past, who can know? But it’s wild to see people getting angry about it.
The fact is, whether her style is to your taste or not, Mercedes Moné is doing great things for wrestling right now. Her presence in AEW has pushed the promotion to feature more women’s wrestling than ever before. WrestleDream had three women’s matches on the main show, plus one on the pre-show; Moné has broken the record for the longest-running women’s match on both AEW TV and PPVs, not once but three times.
Her arrogant belt collector gimmick—11 titles and counting!—has seen her travel the world, appearing at independent wrestling promotions in locations as far-flung as Poland, Italy, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, and Wolverhampton. And everywhere she goes, she’s a massive draw.
Having Mercedes Moné on your show sells tickets. Having Mercedes Moné on your show sells on-demand subscriptions. Having Mercedes Moné on your show gets people’s attention.
And beyond that, everyone who works with her—bookers, wrestlers, photographers—rhapsodises about how great she is to work with.
Her critics seem to somehow think that Moné’s independent bookings are an example of her throwing her weight around, demanding more attention and money and glory, but let’s be real—she doesn’t need to do any of this. She’s reportedly the highest paid woman in wrestling. She could just kick back, do her AEW matches, and not worry about anything else.
Instead, she’s choosing to share the glory. She’s using her star power to elevate not just independent wrestling promotions, but independent women’s wrestling—she’s out there encouraging other women to push for what they’re worth, to demand more than one token match per show, maybe.
I don’t want to accuse her detractors of being racists and/or misogynists, but uhhhh also, maybe I do? It’s hard to imagine what their problem could be with her, except that she’s a wildly successful Black woman.
And look, as a new wrestling fan who’d only ever watched AEW and indies, I’ll admit that when Moné arrived from WWE, I was a bit wary. Given everything that went down with CM Punk, I was wary of any big name star from the Fed, in case they too came in and started trying to reshape AEW in their image. But Moné has proven me wrong, so I’ll happily admit it—she’s amazing, and I should never have doubted her.
I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do next.
Thanks for reading!
I didn’t mean to leave whole actual months between emails. I’ve been busy! And stressed!! Big stressed!! But now I’ve done two newsletters in a row that have Mercedes Moné in the thumbnail, so, hey, something something personal brand.
If you enjoyed this, you’d probably enjoy my podcast, too: find Waffly Bollox in your podcast app of choice. Or follow me on Bluesky: awfullywaffly.bsky.social. Or both! Or neither. You do you.
See you next time. xoxo