In this WrestleTalk News, the mystery partner for War Games revealed, Bryan Danielson confirms
when he’ll stop wrestling full-time, Luke’s review of Raw and more.
On last night’s episode of Raw, Asuka faced Rhea Ripley for the advantage going into this
weekend’s War Games match, though Asuka was fighting for the currently 4-women team
featuring herself, Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss and Mia Yim, newly renamed to Michin.
While Ripley won the match, meaning the heels will have the advantage in the match, THE
CORRECT THING TO DO AND WAY TO BOOK A WAR GAMES MATCH, the final member of the babyface
squad wasn’t revealed on the show, with Bianca instead announcing they’ll be announced
on this Friday’s episode of SmackDown instead.
And now we might know exactly who that is.
Despite speculation from fans online pointing to a potential Sasha Banks return, primarily
because there appears to be a little bit of blue hair on the match graphic featuring the
unannounced participant in the match, Fightful Select weighed in with their own report.
According to them, as of last week, Becky Lynch was expected back in WWE “soon”
after suffering a separated shoulder at this year’s SummerSlam in her match with Bianca
Belair.
Moreover, Lynch has reportedly been “discussed and planned” as the mystery fifth partner
in the Survivor Series War Games match, though of course it is always worth noting that plans
can change.
But if this does ring true, it means we might be seeing Lynch back on our screens as soon
as this coming episode of SmackDown, and her alignment with Bianca Belair would make a
lot of sense given their alignment following SummerSlam and subsequent staredown with the
newly debuted Damage CTRL.
Would you like to see Lynch in the War Games match?
Let us know in the comments!
Over in AEW, Bryan Danielson has confirmed when he’s going to stop wrestling full-time.
A day which will make everyone very sad indeed.
Speaking to Ron Funches on his podcast, Danielson stated that:
“I'm not gonna be a full-time wrestler for much longer.
When my AEW contract is up that's pretty much me being done being a full-time wrestler.”
Though we may see a stop to Danielson being in the ring every week, he made sure to state
that as long as it’s something that brings him joy, he’s happy to continue to wrestle
every once in a while for the rest of his life.
Honestly a Bryan Danielson managerial or coaching role with the occasional match sounds delightful,
or even a proper part-time wrestling schedule like a Brock Lesnar and just wrestling big
matches I also wouldn’t complain about.
Whatever makes him happy.
After this weekend’s Survivor Series War Games, WWE don’t have another premium live
event scheduled until the Royal Rumble at the end of January, which is absolutely wild
for WWE.
It’s like it’s some sort of off-season or something.
Maybe someone else has suggested an off-season in WWE, specifically at this time of the year
too.
Maybe you should go watch that video.
Who can say.
But even though we’re still in November, the Rumble next year looks like it’s already
set to be a huge success, with its live gate already surpassing the $5million mark, making
it the largest gate for a Royal Rumble in history.
As of November 18, there were reportedly over 30,000 tickets sold for the Rumble according
to WrestleTix, so it’s set to be a hell of a show, and I for one am rather excited
about it.
And if you haven’t yet, consider subscribing to the channel and liking the video so you
can stay updated on the latest wrestling news.
And now it’s time for
my review of Monday Night Raw - aka you should really just watch SmackDown at this point
edition of Monday Night Raw… in about 5 minutes.
The show opened with the hot closing angle from SmackDown, as Kevin Owens came out to
address why he joined Sheamus’ team for Survivor Series this weekend.
He said it wasn’t about Sami Zayn - but me thinks it sort of is about Sami Zayn - and
it’s actually about dethroning Roman Reigns.
This should add an interesting dynamic to the Sheamus team, as Sheamus is clearly gunning
for a title shot too which could cause some conflict on the good guy side.
The Brawling Brutes and Drew McIntyre came out through the crowd and felt like mega stars
on this show, which brought out The Judgement Day to have a promo war.
This really exemplifies the good that Triple H has done since taking over the creative
process of WWE.
Before the summer, The Brawling Brutes were a group of lads that no one cared about and
made fun of because Pete Dunne had been renamed Butch and given a terrible Scrappy Doo gimmick.
Meanwhile The Judgement Day were just a group of losers that kept losing to Edge because
they’re such big losers.
But now, as we near the end of the year, Brawling Brutes are one of the most over trios on the
SmackDown roster, and Judgement Day feel like the single biggest thing on Raw.
Which meant when it lead to a trios match of Judgement Day versus Brawling Brutes I
was genuinely excited.
This feels like what the old Raw vs. SmackDown Survivor Series should have felt like but
never quite did.
It was also a great match with some amazing performances, but the stand out for me was
- and I can’t quite believe this one either - Dominik Mysterio.
He was so great as the chicken s-word heel hiding behind both Damien Priest and Rhea
Ripley, only to be left alone in the ring with Sheamus to a massive rection.
He tried to run away but was chased back to the ring by The OC, got his chest pummelled
by Sheamus and took the Brogue Kick for the Brawling Brutes win.
They should win, of course, as they’ve got the PPV match this weekend.
But, I can’t help feel like this was a step backwards for Judgement Day - especially as
Balor also is on PPV against AJ Styles.
Later on in the show they brawled with The OC in the parking lot which was wonderful
chaotic fun that was poorly shot, and I still wish that was the PPV match rather than the
singles match.
Johnny Gargano was supposed to have a match with The Miz, but Miz revealed he injured
his hand doing a TikTok.
Should have made a Hive joke.
With his injury meaning he couldn’t wrestle, he brought out a replacement for Gargano to
face: Omos.
Who got about the same level of reaction Bobby Fish got when he asked where the lie is.
Bless Gargano’s cotton socks as he tried to make Omos look good, but there’s only
so much one man can do.
Omos was clumsy, slow, and boring.
And he won.
Gargano also got new music so this was all a big thumbs down for me.
Seth Rollins cut an excellent promo which referenced The Goonies.
And because I’ll be 40 in a few years, I understood that reference.
Theory cut a fantastic return promo from the locker room, and then faced Mustafa Ali in
a really good match that Theory won with the A-Town Down.
Bobby Lashley came out for a brawl with him, and Theory ran away - which seems out of step
with this new character of his - and it led to Lashley beating up Ali some more because
clearly no one likes Ali backstage.
They announced that Rollins would defend the US title this Saturday in a triple threat
with Lashley and Theory, and I kinda think that they may put the belt back on Theory
to get this new character over.
The Alpha Academy took on Matt Riddle & Elias, aka the wish.com version of RKRro, and the
good guys won in a match that got real great by the end.
The crowd didn’t care much at all at the start, with Elias’ hot tag getting the same
level of reaction as Bobby Fish asking where the lie is, but they really picked up when
everyone got in and did big moves - even breaking out a light THIS IS AWESOME chant.
Baron Corbin and JBL played some poker and got some easy local town heat, and then Corbin
took on Drew McIntyre in what was apparently a WrestleMania rematch but I have zero memory
of these two having a match at WrestleMania.
It was a big boy beefy bout, which then had some comedy thrown in as Akira Tozawa - ditching
the Vince McMahon version of his character - stole JBL’s hat and distracted Corbin
to allow Drew to hit the Claymore for the win.
And the main event of the show was Asuka vs. Rhea Ripley where the winner will gain their
team the advantage for War Games.
I think it says a lot about the ‘And Friends’ status that Asuka has found herself in since
aligning with Bianca Belair that she came out for her singles match to Belair’s music.
At least Rhea came out to her own theme.
But the big problem here is that this angle highlights just how unimportant Raw feels
at the moment.
The big storyline going into War Games isn’t who gets the advantage - that’s for the
heel team to have and it should always be that way - in this case it’s who is the
fifth member of Belair’s team.
Could it be Candice LaRea?
Could it be Beth Phoenix?
Could it be Becky Lynch as Pete discussed in the news portion?
Could it be a returning Sasha Banks?
It’s a genuinely interesting and intriguing angle, but there’s no urgency to it on Raw,
instead you’ve got to watch SmackDown to find out who it is.
Why on earth is this Raw storyline - and this is a Raw storyline - getting its big reveal
on SmackDown?
The answer, of course, is because SmackDown is the bigger show with the bigger audience
on the bigger network, but this is setting a precedent that Raw is inconsequential.
Why bother watching Raw when you’ll get it recapped on SmackDown anyway, and all the
important bits are on that show.
Raw right now feels like SmackDown did back in the pre-brand split days.
In some ways it feels like SmackDown did in the early days of the second Brand Split.
Second fiddle, second best, second place.
Then you think back to earlier in the show and SmackDown’s Brawling Brutes beat Raw’s
Judgement Day and SmackDown’s Drew McIntyre beat Raw’s Baron Corbin.
Raw feels so unimportant in the grand scheme of things, when SmackDown has all the coolest
wrestlers, the best storylines and all the focus.
And that’s only exacerbated when Raw is a whole hour longer and feels twice as long
to watch.
Ripley and Asuka had a good match, which Rhea won clean with the Riptide - and this led
to a rather predictable brawl between the two teams.
Tune into SmackDown to see the actually important part of the story.
So that was this week’s Raw and as a go-home show for the PPV this didn’t quite land
for me.
The wrestling was solid - at times really good - but nothing felt like it mattered.
I’m sure SmackDown will be so much better, because it always is.
Raw is still 1000 times better than it was earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean
it isn’t without fault.
This week’s Raw is 3 out of 5.