In this WrestleTalk News, two WWE stars leave their contracts, Jon Moxley unhappy with AEW,
a wrestler arrested and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
After 15 years with WWE, two of the promotion’s most recognisable mainstream names have left
- The Garcia Twins.
You know, the Garcia Twins, with their classic Garcia Twin Magic and their entrance music
‘You Can Look (But You Can’t Touch) A Garcia Twin’.
The Garcia Twins, of course, used to be known as the Bella Twins, Brie and Nikki Bella,
because when they announced they were leaving WWE on Tuesday 14th March, they also revealed
they’d be known by their real surname ‘Garcia’ from now on - a family name that not only
honours their heritage, it’s also one that isn’t owned by WWE.
The story began when fans noticed Nikki and Brie had started updating their social media
handles and info to their new/old Garcia names - with no reference to the WWE Bellas.
They then more formally introduced themselves on Twitter:
“Hi I’m Nikki Garcia, Hi I’m Brie Garcia.
And we’re the Garcia Twins.
👯‍♀️ Welcome to our next chapter!
🦋✨🤍✨🦄🤩🥳🫶🏼🫶🏼🍷🥂🍾” Along with a video trailer of them walking
through a new door - METAPHOR! - and the empowering voiceover:
“This next chapter of our lives is about taking it to the next level.”
Yeah… but I bet it’s going to be exactly the same as the previous level.
Just with a new name.
The video ended with a title card announcing their Bellas Show podcast is also getting
rebadged, you fools, to The Nikki & Brie Show.
In their marketing savviness, this was synchronized with a clip of the show on Sirius FM’s YouTube
channel explaining more about their new direction, and their split from WWE:
“Brie and I, almost 40, we’re going to be 40 in November.
We’re mothers, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re executive producers, we’re starring, now
we’re hosting shows, winemakers, and when our contracts came up with WWE, mutually we
all knew like, we just needed to head into this new chapter.”
It’s just a case of two entrepreneurs outgrowing the wrestling characters they started out
with all those years ago, and the two sides amicably parting ways…
Just one more thing.
Despite the Bella Garcia Twins being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021 (confusingly
as part of the pandemic delayed 2020 class) and them featuring in the 2022 Women’s Royal
Rumble match, their relationship with WWE turned publicly sour in January this year.
They claimed WWE booked them for a media tour for Monday Night Raw’s 30th anniversary
on January 27th, to tie in with promotion for their Nikki Bella Says I Do reality show
- but they ended up being told “they had nothing for us” on the night.
This led the twins to cut an Instagram Live shoot promo on the lack of recognition for
women’s wrestling on the 30th anniversary show - the same episode were as advertised
Becky Lynch vs Bayley cage match had to be pulled because of time contraints.
But they aren’t the only wrestlers potentially unhappy with the promotion that contracted
them…
AEW is set to stage their first ever house show - which is an untelevised live event
- this Saturday 18th March.
It’s a new area of business for the promotion, contracting Jeff Jarrett not just as an onscreen
talent, but as a backstage Director of Business Development to expand the company into live
events - given his experience at TNA.
They’re titling the new arm of their business ‘House Rules’ - which is the name of one
of our series over on No Rolls Barred.
I await my gold in the post, Jeff.
The main event is set to be the Blackpool Combat Club’s Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli
vs The Firm’s Big Bill and Lee Moriarty.
Stop trying to make The Firm happen.
Problem is, the March 18th date conflicted with one of Moxley’s long booked in independent
shows, and according to Bryan Alvarez: “There was obviously the problem where Jon
Moxley was double booked and they made him do the house show, which he was not happy
about.”
The conflicting booking was for the Irish promotion OTT and their biggest show of the
year, ScrapperMania 7 - where he was scheduled to face Big Damo.
Sometimes you might let AEW off if it was only an appearance booked in over the last
six months, but Moxley at ScrapperMania has been in the works since before the pandemic
- with him originally supposed to appear at 2020’s ScrapperMania 6.
AEW drew some criticism about how the situation went down.
They originally announced Moxley for their first ever house show on March 18th back on
the 1st February, but didn’t address the double booking until several weeks later.
This left OTT in a very difficult position, seemingly caught unaware that their main draw
was being pulled from their biggest show of the year.
They noted that AEW would be sending two wrestlers as replacements - which were later announced
to be Eddie Kingston and PAC.
Alvarez’s report hints that it’s not just Mox who wasn’t 100% on board with AEW’s
new House Rules project, saying: “They very much wanted all of the big stars there, or
at least the biggest stars they could get that would do it.”
He went onto say that in WWE, the structure of each wrestlers’ deals mean you make additional
money if you do a house show.
It means there’s a financial incentive for them to work more dates.
Alvarez notes that while he doesn’t know for sure, perhaps that’s not the case for
AEW - and that they’re just paid their contract money regardless of how much they actually
do (similar to the old lucrative contracts in WCW).
To counter, though, that could be the exact detail that will make AEW’s live events
a success.
If wrestlers’ additional dates are already covered in their contracts, that negates one
of the biggest expenses of running additional live shows.
Onto a serious story now.
The Tennessee newspaper site Clarksville Today has reported professional wrestler Anthony
Mayweather has been arrested after violating a protective order.
TNA fans of a certain vintage will know Mayweather as Crimson, a former TNA World Tag Team Champion
who had a long running 470 day undefeated streak in the promotion.
His last notable run came in NWA in 2022, where he won the NWA National Heavyweight
Championship - not to be confused with the more famous NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship.
Mayweather had been previously jailed in 2016 for headbutting his wife.
When police conducted a welfare check on the 24th February 2023, “it was found that Mayweather
had made several calls to his juvenile son’s phone and sent several text messages to his
wife.”
[QUOTE] A warrant was subsequently issued for his
arrest, and he was booked this week.
It’s the Road to WrestleMania baby, yeah, which means there’s a big build up on the
M1 of loads of news stories.
Here’s a run down of everything else going on:
-Fightful Select is reporting The Hall of Fame ceremony is set to be “way smaller
than in previous years” where it’ll be taking place immediately following SmackDown,
rather than existing in its own distinct venue.
The class of inductees looks set to be reduced too, as unlike previous years, we currently
only have one announced entrant as Rey Mysterio.
Ric Flair is expected to announce he’ll be inducting The Great Muta, and PWInsider
is reporting Stacy Keibler is also “100% confirmed”.
Beat still, 14 year old Oli’s heart.
-WrestleVotes has told GiveMeSport that WWE are planning John Cena vs Logan Paul for a
future event, possibly this year’s SummerSlam.
There’s only one thing that could possibly stand in its way: Cena’s own mouth.
In an interview with AP News, Cena was asked about his relationship with Vince McMahon.
To which Cena gave one of the worst answers you can possibly give:
“I mean, everyone has the right to have their perspective.
I have the right to have mine.
When you love somebody, you take them as imperfectly perfect as they are.
We all make mistakes, we all have poor decisions.”
The ‘mistakes’ and ‘poor decisions’ Cena is referencing there, are multiple allegations
of sexual misconduct against Vince.
-PWInsider writes that Drew McIntyre has a lot of respect backstage in WWE, as he constantly
works no matter what condition he’s in physically.
On the 10th March episode of SmackDown, McIntyre was reportedly “extremely ill” and was
only cleared to return to the ring after he arrived backstage - yet he still competed
brilliantly in that night’s five-way.
He’s described as “very much a locker room leader” behind-the-scenes.
-But let me talk to ya, someone else who is impressing is LA Knight, yeah.
Dave Meltzer discussed on Wrestling Observer Radio how loud Knight’s reactions were at
WWE’s house show in Madison Square Garden on Sunday 12th March - a venue WWE has historically
used to gauge who could be their next big stars.
WrestlingNews.co have added that people in positions of power backstage are very happy
with Knight’s work and the reactions he’s getting at live events - with the belief that
Triple H wants to do something more with him following WrestleMania.
He was also praised for being open to the wackiness of the Bray Wyatt feud, and Fightful
report he was even one of the names presented to Stone Cold Steve Austin as a potential
Mania opponent.
Yeah.
Shazam is out in cinemas this week in Winnipeg!
Here’s Luke Owen to tell you all about
the movie…