I’m Pete Quinnell, welcome to the WrestleTalk News.
Anything big happen last night?
Hm?
CM Punk got officially announced for Collision’s debut on June 17th in Chicago which is the
thing that we’ve been talking about for weeks and weeks and got a severely mixed reaction
from the live crowd in attendance and might be one of the most chaotic returns that AEW
could possibly do?
Cool, nothing major then.
Yes, on last night’s Dynamite it finally happened.
Tony Khan announced that CM Punk will be returning to AEW on the debut show of Collision on June
17th, which the crowd responded to with some light CM Punk chants, which were then taken
over by boos.
Sounds like a flawless plan to bring him back.
Punk himself responded to the news in his new favourite way to communicate with the
world: Instagram stories!
Posting the announcement graphics, along with a clip from Billy Madison where Billy beats
a bunch of children in a dodgeball game.
So you could say that what he was trying to say was that…he would be working with a
bunch of f****** children.
That’s what he said at the All Out-never mind.
Everyone of course has opinions about this return announcement, one of those people being
New Japan star KENTA, who’s had a long and rather one-sided beef with CM Punk - where
he mentioned that he’s free on June 17th on Twitter.
I mean, it would be a hell of a return for Punk to face KENTA right away.
I say book it TK, what’s the worst that could happen?
Oli will have his thoughts on the announcement coming up as part of his Dynamite review.
In other news, someone else who has been off our screens for quite a while is Bray Wyatt,
with reports noting he had an extended illness following his Pitch Black match against LA
Knight.
That match of course, being the one where Uncle Howdy showed up and jumped off the stage
about three light years away from his target.
Everyone loved it.
Well, according to Fight Fans, which I believe is an untested source currently, so take this
with a pinch of salt, it seems WWE weren’t “overly fond” of the Pitch Black match
either, with their thoughts being that the new Bray Wyatt just wasn’t as good as The
Fiend.
The report then goes on to say that WWE were pushing “fairly hard” for The Fiend to
return after the Royal Rumble, but talks “stalled somewhat shortly after”.
Now though, the report says talks have picked up again with Wyatt getting ready to return
to in-ring action.
Once again, pinch of salt and all that.
But would you want Wyatt to return as Wyatt or as The Fiend?
Let me know in the comments!
And if Wyatt does return soon, he’ll be doing it without Alexa Bliss by his side,
as she announced that she’s pregnant earlier this week, with the baby due in December.
Congratulations to her and her husband.
When she announced her pregnancy however, some people assumed that this was the reason
she’d been absent from WWE programming for an extended period, however Fightful Select
is refuting those rumours, reporting that “there were not creative plans for Alexa
Bliss for quite some time before she announced her pregnancy”.
So yes, WWE still didn’t know what to do with Bliss before her pregnancy too, they’re
not getting off the hook that easy.
And Bliss will still tweet about her unrest with creative once she’s ready to return
to the ring I’m sure.
Which she’ll be able to do for longer as she also confirmed herself that WWE have extended
her contract because of her appearance on The Masked Singer and her pregnancy, so she’ll
be sticking around until at least 2024.
When everybody else’s contract in wrestling expires.
And now over to Oli.
It’s Thursday, you know what that means…
my review of the Double or Nothing fallout episode of AEW Dynamite.
The show opened on Blackpool Combat Club’s Jon Moxley, Claudio Castignoli and Heeler
Yuta picking up where they left off from the previous Wednesday - elbowing Penta and Fenix
in the head…
now with added Bandido!
It was another great match, with the luchadors’ high flying, and occasionally insane strength
oh my god Bandido held a delayed vertical one-armed suplex for a whole minute, being
complimented by the BCC’s newly coined style: Death Jitsu, which Bryan Danielson succinctly
explained on commentary as violent technical wrestling.
I’m in.
What I loved most, however, was the continuation of Yuta’s story from last week’s show.
He wasn’t only the guy who got pinned then, Danielson was furious at him for a lackadaisical
cover during that tag match.
Danielson got over on commentary that the BCC used their veteran disciplinary measures
to force Yuta to be better.
And on paper, it’s undeniable.
He was the one to pin Kenny Omega at Double or Nothing, and also the one to get the pin
here.
In reality, of course, that’s down to loads of cheating.
But it lends the BCC a dangerously justified psychology.
The Elite meanwhile are sad.
Sad news.
Kenny had apparently left the country - which could be Canada, or anywhere else in the world
where AEW has a partner promotion with whom they’re running a joint pay-per-view later
this month.
I’m of course talking about…
…OWE, Oriental Wrestling Entertainment.
The Dark Order then came over to act passive aggressive about Hangman’s new, but also
old, boyfriends, and stormed off.
Which is fair, because Hangman has actually been a total asshole to them.
Jay White and Juice Robinson then got the best segment they’ve had since becoming
All In a few months back.
They both got to exude their unique dickishness in an in-ring promo to Tony Schiavone, called
out dumb FTR, and then clobbered Dax with a fistful of quarters.
Ricky Starks made the save, which will likely build to Bullet Club Goooold going Bullet
Club Ooooold - asking one of the New Japan version to join them for a Forbidden Door
six man tag.
It was then that Tony Khan made his latest levelling up announcement about AEW and their
relationship with Shazam: Fury of the Gods owners Warner Brothers Discovery about their
new show Collision, not currently scheduled next week for Winnipeg, but in two weeks’
time in Chicago will unequivocally, not-teasing-about-it, legally have CM Punk on.
Production did the best they could to show people wearing CM Punk shirts, but audio-wise,
it felt like most were booing the announcement.
And it was far from being a super sustained pop like other things received on this show.
But even though Tony Khan has literally said it.
Even though AEW have officially announced it.
If the last 8 months has taught me anything, it’s that you can never count out Ace Steel’s
employment situation ruining the whole deal.
So we will not be confirming CM Punk’s AEW return until WrestleTalk’s CM Punk return
correspondent has reported it himself.
Brian Children, has CM Punk returned to AEW?
BRIAN: ...no.
Stop being such a little bitch about it, Brian.
Big Bill continued to impress in a triple threat with Trent and Swerve Strickland.
Swerve got a characteristically opportunistic win, building him for a shot at Orange Cassidy’s
International Championship.
Daddy Ass said he felt like he let his Acclaimed boys down, losing to the House of Black at
Double or Nothing.
I wouldn’t blame yourself too much, Billy, because the reason is quite clearly the fact
the Acclaimed never bothered to take advantage of the opponents choice rule in the Open House
challenge.
Nevertheless, it prompted Anthony Bowens to say Billy Gun deserves to hold gold one more
time, presumably meaning their Trios feud will continue.
The best segment of the show, and actually one of the best segments in Dynamite history,
came next when Don Callis and Takeshita cut an in-ring promo to so much heat, you could
safely cook a wood-fried style pizza out there on the canvas.
I’m sorry, Luke won’t stop talking to me about his outdoor pizza oven research for
the Summer, and it’s taking over my analogies.
The crowd heat was so intensely loud, you could barely hear Don on his mic on the broadcast.
Footage from people in the crowd has been shared where you literally can’t hear him
at all.
The camera would cut to the audience, where it genuinely looked like they were extras
in a film scene, so perfectly united in hate they were for him.
The key lines were Don saying Takeshita isn’t just better than Omega, he’s better than
Okada - potentially setting up a mouth watering Forbidden Door fight.
And also that Callis is going to set up a new family to cut the Elite out of All Elite
Wrestling.
Implying he’ll be adding even more members.
Truth Commision return confirmed!
Wardlow challenged Luchasaurus for a TNT title shot.
Orange Cassidy and Darby Allin overcame their pay-per-view wear and tear to beat ROH Trios
championship the Gates of Agony.
This was mostly to further Swerve’s building feud with Cassidy, it was announced they’ll
fight for the title next week, but also did a good job establishing the Gates of Agony.
Sting also made his return to save the faces from a heel faction beatdown afterwards.
Tony Schiavone did spend most of the night in the ring on this promo heavy show.
This time he was about to talk to Hook when Los Ignorables interrupted.
Jungle Boy made the save.
Toni Storm oozed heel champion charisma in a backstage promo, as Ruby Soho and Saraya
kept mentioning how humble she was.
Kris Statlander made her first defence of the TBS Championship against Nyla Rose.
She was mostly worked over, and fought back with a 450 Splash to retain.
Taya Valkyrie was shown watching on backstage, where commentary put over how annoyed she
is, as she feels like she did most of the work beating Jade Cargill, for Statlander
to come out and reap her rewards.
Which is fair.
An insane line up for Rampage was announced, with Zack Sabre Jr vs Action Andretti and
Lee Moriarty vs Shibata being announced And the main event saw Adam Cole and Britt
Baker vs Chris Jericho and Saraya in an intergender tag.
This should’ve been their Double or Nothing match.
Not just because it’s near impossible to make unsanctioned and an anarchy in the arena
stipulations work on the same show, not just because the match they did have was heavily
disappointing, but because this version just worked so much better for the story.
The crowd were really invested in Britt getting her revenge on Saraya and Jericho, too, with
Baker even attempting a Lockjaw on Y2J despite that being against the intergender interaction
rules.
Reverse sexism, referee!
Cole hit the Boom on Jericho for the feelgood win, making it two decisive back-to-back victories
and surely the end of their feud-Oh no, it’s a Jericho storyline…
it’s just the start.
This was an entertaining show with an amazing Don Callis segment, but overall it lacked
the post-pay-per-view reset excitement AEW usually put on - likely because they’re
saving that all for Punk’s return and Collision.
AEW Dynamite is 77%.
Now go watch me, Adam, Sully, Tempest and more play wrestling board games on our brand
new PFK series!