Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News!
I’m Oli Davis, and I’ll be replying to people in the comments section for the first
15 minutes after each News episode goes live - so turn on notifications for WrestleTalk
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Notification Squad 4 life.
If you thought Handsome Rusev was handsome already, you better prepare yourselves for
Haircut Rusev.
The Bulgarian Brute has shared his barber visit on Instagram, where he presumably asked
for The Kevin Owens.
If only Raw could have a similar cut in length to make it two hours again.
The third hour on this week’s episode dropped over 300,000 viewers, making the final average
3.093 million.
This is down from last week’s 3.216 million average - a worryingly low figure for an episode
that had Seth Rollins’ return, a Goldberg appearance and the fact that it’s a go-home
show.
And going by THEWRESTLEDAILY’s image on Twitter the live attendance doesn’t seem
to be any better, with a large area behind the hard cam being taped off.
This just five weeks before Wrestlemania.
As for you guys, the results for this week’s Raw poll are in with 54% of you agreeing with
me that it was ‘Poor’ while 24% thought it even worse at Bore.
This is one of the worst received episodes there’s been since I’ve been doing these.
You can watch my review of this week’s Raw by clicking the little ‘i’ above my head.
According to PWInsider, WWE might already have a plan to turn Raw around.
Potential HUGE EX-WWE STAR RETURNING spoiler here, so you might want to skip the next 30
seconds.
It’s coming in 3...2…
PWInsider are reporting that Kurt Angle is expected to make his return to WWE television
on the Raw after Wrestlemania 33.
The Wrestling Observer has previously reported there are plans for Angle to wrestle again
in WWE, providing he passes the company medical.
With Mick Foley seemingly on his way out for hip surgery, Angle could replace him as Raw’s
General Manager. ...providing he isn’t castrated by Stephanie
McMahon every week.
Smackdown, however, put on an excellent show last night.
The lower card programmes weren’t fantastic, but the interconnected storylines of Randy
Orton finally turning on Bray Wyatt and AJ Styles beating Luke Harper means there’s
genuine intrigue over who will fight for the WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 33.
The episode also opened with a cracking in-ring promo between John Cena and Nikki Bella against
The Miz and Maryse - the first full-on confrontation between the four to build their long-reported
mixed-gender tag match at Wrestlemania.
Up until January, the plan backstage was for Cena to finally face The Undertaker at WWE’s
biggest show of the year, but Vince McMahon reportedly changed his mind and made The Deadman’s
opponent Roman Reigns.
In the almost shoot-like opening Smackdown segment, Miz accused John of being a master
manipulator in WWE’s backstage politics - to which Cena responded:
“If I was really this Black Arts manipulator, pulling all the strings, this close to Wrestlemania,
you think I’d be standing in the ring, toe-to-toe, face-to-face, with you?
Hell no, I’d be standing face-to-face with The Undertaker.”
This might be more than just a worked shoot promo line, as Cena told Sports Illustrated
last week something very similar.
“I don’t pitch ideas, I don’t go and say, ‘This is what I would like to do’...I
get my hand told to me, and I play it the best I possibly can...As far as WrestleMania
is concerned, whatever I’m supposed to do I’m going to do to the best of my ability...You
sometimes get an off-the-beaten path request, and it’s your job, as a professional, to
make it interesting and make it the best you can.”
That certainly could be interpreted as Cena really did want his Wrestlemania match against
The Undertaker, especially because this could be The Deadman’s last, but instead he’s
in the “off-the-beaten path request” of a mixed-gender tag.
A match that he’ll be warming up for on next week’s Smackdown, with a battle of
the Baseball Caps!
Watch my review of this week’s Raw or catch up with the latest wrestling news by clicking
on the videos to the left, and press subscribe.
I’ve been Oli Davis, and that was wrestling.