In this WrestleTalk News, everyone to AEW confirmed, WWE still don’t know what they’re
doing for WrestleMania 38, Raw hits a record low and more!
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos because
Eddie Kingston is my best friend.
There’s no real connection there between subscribing to this channel and me and Eddie
being best friends.
I just want you to know we are.
On last Friday’s Rampage, AEW President Tony KHAAAAAN announced we’ll see the promotion’s
latest debut, where they’re set to wrestle Isiah Kassidy for a spot in the Revolution
ladder match, and become fully All Elite by signing a contract.
This is thought to be the ‘dream forbidden door’ signing teased late last year we still
have yet to see.
And in a huge update, I can tell you that it’s going to be Keith Lee.
Or Mia Yim.
Or Karrion Kross.
Or Scarlett Bordeaux.
Or Jeff Hardy.
Or Shane Strickland.
Or Windham Rotunda.
Or Adam Scherr.
Or maybe someone from New Japan.
Everyone released by WWE back in November had their non-compete clauses expire last
Wednesday, meaning there’s a load of free agent names it could be.
But thanks to some internet sleuthing, we might be able to get it down to just 6 to
8 wrestlers.
I present to you, the Keith-spiracy!
Mia Yim posted a photo of her and her new husband Keith Lee seemingly on their honeymoon
yesterday after the couple got married by Mick Foley over the weekend.
Aw, look at the happy couple enjoying their cocktails by the beach.
Or are they?!
Twitter user @MachoBeard5Life has embodied the Charlie from Always Sunny meme, tweeting:
“Yo let me put on my silver foil hat on for a sec
pics 1 Keith Lee and Mia Yim today pic 2 Keith Lee 2 days ago
pic 3 Mia Yim yesterday Hmmm....”
Mia has different coloured hair, just one day apart.
Or was it just one day apart, as Macho Beard shared another photo from the 8th August 2020
- a year and a half ago - of Yim posting a holiday snap on Instagram, which appears to
have her in the exact same bikini, hair and sunglasses combo.
The theory is Mia could’ve posted the fake honeymoon snaps to throw us off their AEW
debut scent tonight.
Ronda Rousey admitted to a similar misdirect over Royal Rumble weekend, where she hosted
a live gaming stream to make it seem like she wouldn’t be returning to WWE.
Keith Lee and Mia Yim to AEW tonight confirmed.
Also, Karrion Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux to AEW tonight confirmed.
Also free agents, Kross and Bordeaux seemingly referenced their own AEW debuts in an autograph
signing from earlier this week.
When the host asked if they would be traveling to Atlantic City for tonight’s episode of
Dynamite, this happened.
Kross and Bordeaux to AEW tonight confirmed.
Also Shane Stickland and Jeff Hardy to AEW tonight confirmed.
A new report has come out from Fightful Select
that there is significant interest from AEW in Shane Strickland, who wrestled in NXT and,
very briefly SmackDown, as Isaiah ‘Swerve’ Scott in Hit Row.
Apparently the promotion inquired about Swerve’s status and when he’d be available to wrestle
very early into his free agency.
But they’re not the only interested party, as both New Japan’s USA branch has reportedly
made an approach, and MLW are expected to offer him a spot too.
But, as Matt Hardy points out, it’ll probably be AEW, because Tony Khan has all the money.
Jeff Hardy was released by WWE around the 9th December, and thus won’t be able to
compete elsewhere until the 10th March.
That rules him out of debuting on AEW Dynamite tonight.
Or does it?
Speaking on Twitch, Matt said of his brother: “I don’t think he’s the guy coming in
this Wednesday in AEW against Isiah Kassidy.
Although, who knows?
Tony Khan, Papa Khan has a lot of money.
Maybe he bought him out of his contract and he is coming in early.
Who knows.”
The Hardy Boys are already booked for a series of independent shows after the 10th March.
A wild Windham Rotunda, the former Bray Wyatt in WWE, has also been spotted in Twitter land,
with John Morrison sharing photos of them both at mutual friends’ wedding.
Tony Khan has continued to tease tonight’s debut to Sports Illustrated, again calling
it a “huge signing for us” and “It’s going to be a big reveal on Dynamite.
It sets up this week’s Rampage and puts a lot of irons in our fire.”
Who do you think will debut for Dynamite tonight?
Let me know in the comments.
That could be exactly what they need to turn their Raw ratings around - which drew a record
low audience this week.
But it’s not actually as bad as that sounds.
Raw was bumped from their usual USA Network to SyFy because of the Winter Olympics coverage.
But despite a change in stations, competition against the Men’s Figure Skating, and the
previous week having a huge post-Royal Rumble bump, Raw only dropped 25% of its audience,
being watched by 1.39 million viewers.
It still managed to rank as the third show on the night on cable, and pulled in 0.36
rating in the 18-49 demographic - which Dynamite will be hoping to beat tonight.
This is the show’s lowest non-prime time rating in its history, though not the lowest
ever.
That dishonor goes to the 25th August, 2008 episode, when Raw was bumped to 20 to 1 in
the morning because of the US Open Tennis, and drew just 483,000 - which would be considered
a terrible number for NXT 2.0 today.
New segment time!
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Bully Ray has suggested:
“I think this is the perfect opportunity for the WWE to stir a lot of sh*t up and a
huge monkey wrench into it.
I’d have, personally, Goldberg come back and beat Roman in Saudi and immediately do
a rematch on SmackDown the following Friday night and put it back on Roman.
People would be talking, it would be different and it would be the exact opposite of what
it is right now, which is extremely predictable.”
Don’t give WWE too many bad ideas - like AJ Styles winning the United States title
from Damien Priest next week so that can also be on the line in the Elimination Chamber,
so Brock Lesnar can win both the WWE and United States Championships at Saudi Arabia, and
Roman can win the Intercontinental title on SmackDown, making Roman vs Brock for all the
championships at WrestleMania - because their plans for the biggest show of the year are
reportedly still getting worked out.
It used to be that WrestleMania’s major matches were figured out by Survivor Series,
so you could start building them over a six month period.
Over the last five years, though, that planning has just been limited to ‘What’s Roman
Reigns doing?’
WrestleVotes have now tweeted that, this year, it was also meant to include ‘What’s Shane
McMahon doing?’
“Source states the spot Shane McMahon was going to have on the WrestleMania card was
to be positioned near the top.
Therefore, WWE now needs a new “major attraction” matchup outside of the titles.
This goes w/o saying, but the WM card is still in complete flux.
It’s quite amazing.”
Speaking of Shane, yet another story has come out about his conduct in the Royal Rumble
match.
Apparently, Shane was meant to be the No. 29 entrant, with Randy Orton as number 28.
But because plans had been changed so much during the day, the music cue sheet didn’t
have the final running order.
They played Shane’s music at 28, despite Randy waiting at Gorilla to make his entrance.
According to Fightful Select, this is where Orton looked at Shane and said ‘I’m not
coming out to Here Comes The Money’, so McMahon entered instead.
Shane went out and then, I quote Fightful’s report:
Leaving Orton “immediately bursting into laughter at the error, to the point where
he fell on the ground laughing at the situation — literally rolling on the floor, laughing
his ass off.”
One big free agent name that won’t be is Kurt Angle.
He claimed on a recent podcast that he went to the Royal Rumble as WWE wanted him “to
do a short program that they ended up canceling at the very last moment.”
Ringside News have now refuted this claim, reporting “There was an idea for Kurt Angle
to make his way back to television, but it was never given the green light.”
It was only ever a pitch that Vince McMahon never signed off on.
Now it’s time
for Tempest’s review of NXT… in
about 5 minutes.