In this WrestleTalk News, an update on Kenny Omega’s AEW contract, are there going to
be more intergender matches in WWE?
And Luke’s review of Raw.
Over the course of the last few months, we’ve seen the AEW return of Kenny Omega, followed
by the suspension of Kenny Omega, and the AEW re-return of Kenny Omega.
It’s been a wild few months.
Omega originally returned after taking an extended period of time off to recover from
all the injuries following Full Gear 2021.
Just so many injuries.
After being suspended following Brawl Out and returning again at Full Gear 2022, questions
are now being brought up about his AEW contract, as it had previously been reported that his
contract was originally set to expire in January 2023.
Dave Meltzer confirmed on Wrestling Observer Radio that it was either January 30 or February
1 when the contract actually expires - and wouldn’t you know it, the Best of 7 Series
concludes on January 11th at the latest, meaning that could still be the case.
However a listener to the show would mention that AEW is advertising Omega for the Winnipeg
show in March, which, if you’re good with dates, you might notice is in fact after January
and February.
Crazy how that works.
Meltzer would say in response: “As far as I know, he hasn’t signed a
new contract, and I would think if he had, they would have sent out a release like they
did (for Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley).
But because he had all that time off with the injury, I think that they froze it and
will extend it.”
Which, if true, means Omega hasn’t re-signed just yet - do you really think he could leave
AEW?
Honestly, it would probably be the most shocking thing to happen in the wrestling industry
until maybe a week later when something else nuts happens because wrestling never stops.
On last night’s Raw, which Luke will be reviewing here shortly, Rhea Ripley had an
intergender match with Akira Tozawa, which is yet another little dose of intergender
altercations that WWE likes to pepper in once every couple of years, like Nia Jax in the
Royal Rumble, or Baron Corbin hitting End of Days onto Becky Lynch.
But there’s one person who seems quite excited about the possibility of more intergender
matches opening up in WWE, and that’s Xavier Woods.
Woods at one point had a storyline with Retribution where he faced each of the members back to
back for four weeks running, losing to T-Bar and MACE, but winning over Slapjack and Mustafa
Ali.
I know, I have absolutely no recollection of that happening either.
Regardless, one member of the group he never got to face was Reckoning, now Mia Yim, but
now that possibility has opened back up, with Woods tweeting:
“Hold on.
Wait.
So do I finally get to finish out the series against #Retribution?!?!?
DO I FINALLY GET TO FACE RECKONING?!?”
This would be a great payoff for all the fans of the Retribution story, and I’m glad all
two of you get the fan service you deserve.
It’s coming to the end of the year when people start looking back at the past year
for the bests and worsts - check out WrestleTalk’s Wrestler of the Year 2022 on the WrestleTalk
Podcast YouTube channel - but there’s one more milestone to hit for Intercontinental
Champion GUNTHER before the year is out.
If GUNTHER makes it to December 30 as the IC champ, he will become the longest reigning
Intercontinental Champion in a decade, surpassing Shinsuke Nakamura’s reign of 201 days.
The record after that to beat would Cody Rhodes’ 2011 reign, which lasted 236 days - which
seems entirely feasible for the big lad.
It wouldn’t even be all that surprising to me if he surpasses Honky Tonk Man’s reign
of 454 days, though he most likely is losing to Braun Strowman isn’t he?
Ugh.
And now hot tag to Luke.
And now it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka bloody hell they really did
save the best Raw of the Year until the end of the year didn’t they edition of Monday
Night Raw… in about 5 minutes.
The show opened with WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion Paul Heyman introducing Roman Reigns
to set up our show-long storyline: The Bloodline attacking Raw to send a message to Kevin Owens
for daring to step up to him and bringing back John Cena.
It gave Roman this mafia boss vibe, and actually made it feel like he was on the show despite
never appearing in the arena.
The aura of Roman was all over this show, which made the angles feel even stronger.
We saw The Bloodline kill Mustafa Ali backstage, and later on they attacked Dolph Ziggler,
Cedric Alexander, Elias, and even NXT’s Andre Chase, who we were told was at Raw because
he was wrestling on Main Event.
This angle even made the audience take note of Main Event!
It was a brilliant bit of storytelling that, granted doesn’t exactly hype up Raw all
that much and was there to promote a SmackDown episode in two week’s time, but made the
show feel important.
I don’t know if this is a reactionary move to the record low ratings that Raw got last
week, but this was a stacked show that very rarely let up.
We always used to joke that Vince was at his mad best when his back was against the wall;
perhaps we’re seeing that Triple H is at his chaotic best when he’s in the same position.
That’s not a negative, by the way, because it always makes for great television.
Which we got all over this Raw, kicking off with Street Profits beating The Judgement
Day when Akira Tozawa caused a distraction by throwing water into the already injured
eyes of Dominick Mysterio.
I mean, the commentary told us it wasn’t water, but it was quite clearly water.
Tozawa was not drinking gin neat.
The action was also very good, with Damien Priest looking awesome, Montez Ford looking
jacked, Angelo Dawkins having my favourite hot tag in WWE, and Finn Balor grunting up
a storm as though he was trying to get himself into Adam Bibalo’s Grunt Hall of Fame.
But the real shock came after the match - when Rhea Ripley challenged Akira Tozawa to a match
which was accepted and made official.
We got an intergender match here on Raw!
Sadly because of some of WWE’s rules, Tozawa couldn’t really do any offensive moves to
Ripley, but that wasn’t the point of this match.
Ripley dominated and beat Tozawa in a match that was such a spectacle and superb way to
continue the slow build of Ripley to be the woman who will likely dethrone Bianca Belair.
I loved all of this.
We got a tease of MVP reuniting with Bobby Lashley in a backstage segment, or maybe I’m
just projecting that onto the segment as they didn’t really allude to that, and then The
Good Brothers beat Alpha Academy in a short match.
But much like the opener, this was about the post-match as The Bloodline attacked The OC
and left them laying, with Sami Zayn brawling with AJ Styles after their promo to set up
a match for later on tonight.
Watching The OC beat Alpha Academy for the second week in a row - AJ beat Gable last
week - I was a bit worried that the group were really directionless and needed a big
storyline following their loss to Judgement Day.
But it would appear that we are going to get an OC vs. Bloodline feud down the line, maybe
for the new year or even next summer following WrestleMania.
At the very least, we’ll get more between the two teams on Raw which I am all for.
Alexa Bliss and Bianca Belair had a sitdown interview with Byron Saxton and his excellent
socks, which saw Bliss basically re-write her character motivation for 2022 to try and
make it all make sense, and said that Belair didn’t need to be worried about Bray Wyatt
- she should be worried about her.
And after a flash of Bray’s symbol on the screen behind Bliss, she attacked Belair and
left her laying.
Maybe they should stop putting screens around Alexa Bliss.
Their title match is in two week’s time as next week’s Raw will be a Best Of episode.
Wow, this has been an excellent Raw thus far, I can’t think of anything that would dampen
my mood.
Ah, goddammit.
In fairness, this was a totally fine ladder
match with some decent comedy spots.
I don’t think this Iowa crowd were that into this storyline, though, as when babyface
Dexter Lumis was in peril the crowd were chanting to The Miz to use a table.
Which only made the lack of reaction to the main roster debut and WWE return of Bronson
Reed all the more palpable.
It’s cool to see Reed back, who attacked Dexter and helped Miz get the win, but he
also just feels like a step-in for Tomasso Ciampa while he’s out injured.
And it also means, I think, this storyline must continue.
Long-term booking lol.
AJ Styles and Sami Zayn had a very good match, which Zayn won when Solo Sikoa interfered
and hit the Samoan Spike on Styles to allow Sami to win with the Blue Thunder Bomb of
all moves.
Seth Rollins came out for a promo to promote his United States Championship match in two
week’s time, and Austin Theory came out to respond - saying that Rollins is just the
third most successful member of The Shield.
Rollins fired back with a really fiery babyface promo, yelling at Theory that the man makes
the title, and challenged him to have their match right now.
It looked like it was about to go down, when The Usos appeared through the crowd.
And given what has happened all show, this ramped the tension up by several dozen notches.
We then got an awesome sight, as two big stars of Raw and bitter rivals put aside their differences
to stand up against the invading force, until Theory bailed and left Rollins on his own
to get beaten down.
This was so awesome, made even more awesome by Kevin Owens coming out to make the save
to set up a tag match for the main event.
This was so, so great.
And the show didn’t let up, as Becky Lynch and Bayley had their first single’s match
together in four years, and it did not disappoint.
Becky cut this promo before the match that wasn’t shot like all other promos which
made it feel more impactful, and the two really showed why they are two of the best in this
company.
Damage CTRL made their presence known, which caused enough of a distraction to allow Bayley
to hit the Roseplant on Becky after a monitor shot, and get the win.
A really good match that sets up future matches between the two.
And then we got that main event of The Usos taking on Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins.
My only complaint is that this only went 10 minutes when I could have easily taken another
10.
Isn’t that weird that it felt like this didn’t have enough time on a 3-hour show
- it shows how stacked this Raw was.
Like Vin Diesel, the action was fast and furious and turned into one giant schmoz finish that
was very reminiscent of Attitude Era Raw finishes.
Solo Sikoa came out to interfere, but ended up brawling with The Good Brothers.
Seth took out Jey Uso with a Stomp on the outside, but was the laid out by Austin Theory
with a title shot, and Kevin Owens pinned Jimmy Uso with the Pop-Up Powerbomb.
And then after the match had an intense staredown with Sami Zayn who slid into the ring, but
he backed off before any punches were thrown.
I cannot wait for that tag match on SmackDown.
What an episode of Raw.
I know some of you watch these reviews without watching the show, but this is one of those
weeks where I am telling you that you should find the time to watch this episode.
Even with my minor quibbles about the ladder match, this episode of Raw didn’t let up.
Again, I don’t know if this was a reactionary move to the record-low ratings last week,
but if it is then I hope we get more low ratings.
This week’s Raw is an easy 5 out of 5.