In this WrestleTalk News, WWE suing AEW?
Cody Rhodes to WWE, then not to WWE, then actually back to WWE confirmed, maybe, my
review of SmackDown, Tempest’s review of Rampage and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos to acknowledge
your Tribal Pete because hot dog it’s Revolution tomorrow and I. Am. Pumped!
Stay tuned for the reviews and all that.
AEW has been a bit of a haven for high profile releases from WWE, as WWE fans are very quick
to point out.
And it’s been a well known secret for a little while that Jeff Hardy, who was released
from WWE late last year, would probably be making his way to the promotion to join his
brother Matt once again.
This was made all but confirmed when a video was leaked online of Jeff accidentally revealing
that he’s going to AEW in a candid chat.
This forced Jeff to comment on it, saying he didn’t actually mean it, and it was more
of a goal of his to get there…because we definitely believe you Jeff.
The problem with this is that Jeff is still technically contracted to WWE.
Until his 90-day non-compete clause has expired, he legally is not allowed to sign anywhere
else.
So Jeff confirming he’s going to AEW is a bit of a legal no-no, as it hints that there’s
been contract talks between the two parties.
And according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, WWE know this, because:
“Hardy, today, is under contract to WWE.
If you say that, it’s like, it’s frickin’ admission to tampering.
Jeff saying it’s already a problem with WWE, because, of course, they’re looking
to do something legally in this situation.
I mean, they’re looking for that mistake.”
Whoopsie poopsie Jeff.
You might have got your future employers into some hot water.
The saga of Cody Rhodes continued this past week, as there was a report stating that talks
between Cody and WWE had ‘fizzled out’, and that he could be returning to AEW to take
on a new role in the ROH acquisition.
This was following a report saying that things had gone ‘eerily quiet’ on the Cody to
WWE talks as well.
But then new reports came in to say that Cody is definitely still on his way to WWE as creative
is still working on plans for him, and now Ringside News, pinch of salt required, has
weighed in to say that their source, who is reportedly a tenured member of the creative
team, told them “I know what’s scheduled for Cody for Mania, and that it’s still
on the list.
If it’s changed, no one has told us yet or corrected the internal documents.”
Cody to WWE and also AEW and also ROH and also WWE again confirmed.
It’s Revolution tomorrow night, but Tony Khan has been looking beyond that at their
next PPV: Double or Nothing.
Tickets just went on sale for the event yesterday, and TK announced on Twitter that this was
their first ever $1Million gate for a show.
The show is scheduled to take place in the T-Mobile arena in Las Vegas, which according
to WrestleTix on Twitter holds a maximum capacity of around 14,000 if every section is opened
up, which currently, it’s not.
And now here’s my review of last night’s SmackDown in about 5 minutes.
The show began with a bunch of people cutting promos to the camera, including Paul Heyman,
Ronda Rousey, The Usos, The Viking Raiders, Sami Zayn, Ricochet, and Sonya Deville who
said that in her match with Ronda Rousey nothing can beat the power of…
Cari?
Cardi?
Acari?
Ohhh authority.
That makes more sense.
Last week I said that Ricochet vs Sami Zayn for the Intercontinental Championship could
be a lot of fun if WWE wanted it to be.
As it turns out, they did want it to be.
The pace of this match was fast, the nearfalls were plentiful (honestly maybe too plentiful),
and the match culminated in Johnny Knoxville coming out and distracting Zayn for Ricochet
to get the hurricanrana pin for the win and new Intercontinental Champion.
Backstage afterwards Sami was freaking out and challenged Johnny Knoxville to a match
at WrestleMania.
This was fun, but I feel like WWE has looked at what people consider good matches and gone
“huh, these have lots of nearfalls in them, let’s do that but immediately overuse it
from the start of a match.”
But you know, better wrestling ain’t a bad thing.
After a recap of Vince McMahon on the Pat McAfee show, where it was announced that Pat
would be getting a WrestleMania match, Austin Theory came out and announced himself as Pat’s
opponent and then slapped him in the face.
This felt a little anticlimactic since they hyped up that Vince McMahon himself was at
the show and would be making the announcement himself, and the announcement itself didn’t
have that much fanfare all things considered, but I’m more excited about Theory vs McAfee
than I was for the reported McAfee vs Vince McMahon match because I have no interest in
seeing Vince try to wrestle.
Naomi defeated Carmella very quickly to further the women’s tag title feud, and we also
got to see dissension between Carmella and Zelina in a promo before the match - because
that’s what we all wanted to see!
The only other team in the women’s tag division and the current champions breaking up!
Corbin & Moss are backstage playing cards, and Madcap does a joke before Drew McIntyre
enters on their TV screen, which begs the question: what feed are they watching?
Because they can’t be watching SmackDown, because they’re on SmackDown.
Drew McIntyre quickly beat Jinder Mahal - do you remember when people wanted this as a
WWE Championship feud?
The nutters.
Afterwards he cut a pretty decent promo saying he was going to take Corbin out at WrestleMania,
and it cuts back to Corbin & Moss, where Moss tries to lighten the mood with a joke, but
Corbin doesn’t laugh.
More dissension!
Later in the show there was also a throwaway segment where Drew tried to kill a man, as
Corbin & Moss were playing darts and when Corbin was counting up his points, Drew instead
pierced his sword into the dartboard directly next to Corbin’s head.
One-hundred-and-eighty!
That was the whole segment by the way, Drew used his sword, Corbin and Moss ran away and
Drew stood there looking smug.
You should probably lay low for a while Drew, because you’re probably wanted for attempted
murder.
We then got a lengthy recap of Reigns and Lesnar’s contract signing, which was essentially
the entire segment just with the breaths taken out, before we got Rick Boogs and Shinsuke
Nakamura entering.
They were ambushed by The Usos though, and here comes Roman Reigns doing his long entrance.
Roman then cut a promo about Brock Lesnar, and winning at WrestleMania, and giving a
spoiler, and then said Acknowldge Me.
Classic Roman stuff.
But in the tag title match itself, it was a bit of fun.
Once again, WWE bashed out a ton of nearfalls, including Jimmy breaking up the pin after
a Viking Experience, but The Usos won clean with a 1D.
I wrote in my notes, WWE are spamming nearfalls, but you know what, it’s working.
A decent little match.
We were supposed to get Big E vs Sheamus next, but because Sheamus was so angered by…Big
E owning a quad bike, Ridge Holland attacked Kofi before the bell as Sheamus attacked Big
E, and they then stole the quad bike and during an ad break, destroyed it with some sledgehammers.
They did the Street Fighter 2 bonus stage!
Next week it’ll be Big E & Kofi vs Sheamus & Ridge, and maybe this one will actually
be a match.
Earlier tonight, here’s Ricochet winning the Intercontinental Championship from Sami
Zayn.
And here’s the promo Sami Zayn cut afterwards.
And here’s Johnny Knoxville, who said yes to Sami’s challenge at Mania.
Were those recaps entirely necessary.
And then wouldn’t you know it we’re already onto the main event of Ronda Rousey vs Sonya
Deville because hot damn this show was a lot of filler.
Charlotte Flair was on commentary for this one and distracted Ronda a couple of times,
but Ronda obviously won fairly quickly with the armbar.
During the match, Charlotte Flair mentioned that she’d never been tapped out.
Hmm.
Really Charlotte.
Never been tapped out huh.
You must be right, I definitely believe you.
Charlotte got into the ring afterwards and then Ronda put her in an ankle lock and made
her visually tap.
So even if you’d never tapped before, now you have Charlotte.
Storytelling.
Sure love when the payoff comes before the match and not during it.
That was the show and I honestly don’t have much more to say about it.
Ricochet with the belt is cool if they want to push him a bit, though I don’t have much
hope, the rest of this show was a bit of nothing.
2?
3?
It was a show.
80% of you voted for Ricochet New IC Champ on our poll on a pole match on our Community
Tab.
Anyway here’s Tempest
with AEW Rampage.