In this WrestleTalk News, news on the Hall of Fame and who will be inducting Rey Mysterio,
CM Punk does his latest tease of returning to wrestling, AEW’s got yet another wrestling
show it seems, and more.
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A couple of weekends ago it was AEW Revolution, and pretty much everyone who watched the show
agreed that it was pretty darn great.
Not so for the former executive of the company Cody Rhodes, who despite going on record to
say he still loves the company and such is obviously a filthy liar who lies because he
said to Good Karma Wrestling that: “I actually only saw some highlights from
Ricky.
I had a pirated feed, which I probably should’ve just figured out how to get a right feed.
Not going to tell you who sent me that” Hello FBI?
I’d like to report a crime.
Anywho, it was announced on SmackDown last week that Rey Mysterio will be the first inductee
into the Hall of Fame class of 2023, prompting everyone to speculate that Dominik will be
retiring him at WrestleMania and taking his mask, which honestly, I’d be all for.
The other question coming out of this was who would be inducting Rey, considering it
probably won’t be Dominik what with the whole ‘I hate you Dad’, ‘I still love
you, son’ dynamic they’ve got going on right now.
Well it seems we may have our answer, as Dave Meltzer has tweeted that “Konnan will be
inducting Rey into the Hall of Fame.
Rey asked for him and the company approved it.
As noted last night, to me it was the only choice.”
Konnan is considered one of the bigger exports that Latin America has ever produced, and
had many matches with Rey during their time in WCW together.
Konnan also works as a manager and producer/creative consultant/booker for MLW and AAA, which is
interesting on two counts as MLW are currently embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit with WWE,
but more positively WWE have been forming links with AAA recently, with their newest
signee Dragon Lee being able to announce his signing on AAA television.
But the Hall of Fame Class of 2023 will be more than just Rey Mysterio, as we might have
been informed of the next inductees courtesy of a tease from Hulk Hogan.
And when I say tease, I mean he named a specific tag team, said he wanted them in, he thinks
they should be in, and he’s got a good feeling they’ll be in.
Brother.
On his own YouTube channel, Hulk Hogan did a video saying how happy he was that Rey Mysterio
is going into the Hall of Fame, but that he feels like there should be another act in
there too, that being The Rougeau Brothers.
“Those two guys need to be in the Hall of Fame I’m voting for them hopefully they’ll
be the next inductees in the Hall of Fame man.
Man, I just think it might happen.
I’ve got a really good feeling about that one, brother.”
But who can say?
Wink wink nudge nudge, not making any promises.
Much love HH.
But for those fans of the Hall of Fame ceremony each year, all three of you might be upset
to know that this year’s show is reported to be shorter than others.
For those of us who are fans of sleep though, this is a win.
Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter mentioned that the “working idea” is to
keep this year’s ceremony shorter than in past years.
Why this is, I don’t know, but I think it’s probably smart.
Maybe they won’t induct 17 million acts a year, that might keep the time down.
But you know it’s been a whole…few minutes in today’s news video and we haven’t spoken
about CM Punk yet, seems like that’s something we should do.
CM Punk did an Instagram story where he was in the gym and the song that was playing was
Hatebreed’s Honor Never Dies.
And his ‘home’ promotion so to speak is Ring of Honor.
CM Punk return to wrestling definitely 100% confirmed.
And where better for CM Punk to wrestle again than not Ring of Honor, but AEW’s new in-ring
wrestling show because yes, that is seemingly a thing that’s happening.
According to Andrew Zarian of the Mat Men Podcast, AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery are
closing in on a deal for a third weekly wrestling show.
This new show will reportedly be in a similar vein to Rampage, being one hour long.
This will reportedly be announced “within the next month”.
Interestingly, Andrew Zarian also teased that this would be in the historic timeslot of
6.05pm on Saturday nights, which was the timeslot WCW Saturday Night had back in the day.
While there’s no word on what this new show will be called from this report, it’s worth
noting that AEW did recently file a trademark for AEW Collision, which was a trademark usable
for a wrestling show.
This will also be the fourth weekly TV show that AEW airs, along with their new AEW: All
Access show that will be coming soon.
It seems that relationship between AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery is looking pretty sweet
right about now.
Meanwhile over in AAA, former three-time AAA Trios Champion Chessman has been suspended
from the promotion for slapping social media influencer Adrián Marcelo backstage during
their combined show with NWA during the ‘The World Is A Vampire’ music festival in Mexico
City.
Many people are seeing this as a work, as Chessman was being interviewed by Marcelo
in a backstage interview, but grew irritated with his line of questioning and slapped him.
Marcelo threw a beer in Chessman’s direction and the pair needed to be separated, so yeah,
so far so work, right?
Marcelo took to social media to complain to AAA and implore they take action against Chessman
lest he file a lawsuit, and they have now done so, suspending him for two weeks.
So yeah, still a work right?
Maybe?
Probably.
We’re bouncing all over the shop on the news today, so back to WWE we go as we need
to talk about the Intercontinental Championship.
On SmackDown there was a Fatal 5-Way to determine Gunther’s number one contender for WrestleMania,
which was jointly won by Drew McIntyre and Sheamus, meaning the two will now have a follow-up
match between them on this week’s show to determine the true number one contender.
While there’s been rumours of a Triple Threat between Gunther, McIntyre and Sheamus for
a while, which still may very well be the plan, there were also other reports of other
various plans for the IC Champ at the big show, including a reported planned bout with
Brock Lesnar.
Interestingly though, Fightful Select is reporting that Gunther’s WrestleMania plans have been
set in stone since December 2022, and by the time we all found out about a potential Gunther/Lesnar
feud, the option was already off the table.
If it were me, I’d do the triple threat, have Gunther pin McIntyre, have Gunther go
on to break Honky Tonk Man’s record and then have Sheamus eventually dethrone him.
That sounds like fun to me.
Funnily enough though, in hyping their match on SmackDown, Sheamus tweeted that the winner
of his bout with Drew McIntyre will go on to have an “IC Title Match Main Event at
WrestleMania 39 Day One”.
Now is this confirmation that the Intercontinental Championship will be defended in the main
event of Night 1 of Mania, or is this WWE just calling any match they want to feel important
a ‘main event’ of the show?
I think it’s probably the latter, but hey maybe this will actually main event the first
night, which right now seems to have a lot of contenders of what should main event from
Sami and KO vs The Usos to Charlotte vs Rhea, to Bianca vs Asuka, and now the IC title match.
Whatever happens, I’m kinda curious, and also this Mania is shaping up to be a hell
of a show.
I feel like this is about the seventeenth time I’ve said this sentence in the past
week, but since Triple H took over creative in WWE, we’ve seen numerous returns in the
company, from Johnny Gargano to Bronson Reed to Karrion Kross to Chelsea Green.
Cody Rhodes has named one more person that he’d want to come back to the company before
long, that being the former Zack Ryder, Matt Cardona.
Speaking to the Good Karma Wrestling podcast that, he said:
“What Matt does next is gonna be huge.
If he goes to AEW, that’d be cool but if he comes back to WWE, that’s what I want,
it would be off the charts…I think he’s a huge get, a huge free agent, he’s the
best he’s ever been…”
Of course this isn’t the first time Cardona has been seen in the place where Cody’s
been working as he showed up in AEW to help his pal back in 2020, saving him from a beatdown
from John Silver and Alex Reynolds.
How times change.
While Cardona wasn’t long for AEW, leaving the promotion just a few months after with
his last match at All Out 2020, he of course has plenty of history in WWE to draw on, so
maybe after Cody wins the Undisputed Universal Title we’ll hear Woo Woo Woo one more time
and he can be Cody’s first challenger.
Not gonna lie though, I’d kinda hate that.
WWE’s latest signee however is already making waves, as Dragon Lee was seen sitting in the
crowd at last week’s NXT TakeOver: Roadblock.
And he’s continued that momentum by making his in-ring debut for the company.
At a house show.
NXT held a live event on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Florida, and pictures from the event have
circulated online, showing Dragon Lee making his in-ring debut against Eddy Thorpe.
Who do you think won that bout?
Answers on a postcard.
Since Bray Wyatt returned to our screens in October last year, he’s…well he’s not
done much has he?
We still don’t know who Uncle Howdy is, or what he wants, nor do we really know who
Bray Wyatt is at this point.
There’s been a fair amount of criticism thrown his way, and there’s now been some
more courtesy of WWE veteran Dutch Mantell, who said on Smack Talk:
“To me right now, he’s hitting a zero.
He started out with a lot of promise and a lot of thoughts about him and where he could
go.
Now you’re watching them thinking, ‘What the hell are they doing?’”
In the words of one Bobby Fish…where’s the lie?
And unfortunately we have to end today’s news episode with some sad news, that being
that Arn Anderson’s eldest son Barrett, and brother of AEW talent Brock Anderson passed
away at the age of just 37.
Arn himself confirmed the news on Twitter, and we would like to give our condolences
and well wishes to the Anderson family at this difficult time.
And on a lighter note, if you haven’t seen the latest episode of 3-Count with Oli and
Luke, go check it out now because they have to review every WrestleMania ever in 3 words
or less.
It’s fun.
Here’s a clip.