In this WrestleTalk News, CM Punk not happy with the Elite after Dynamite jibes, WWE’s
Money in the Bank plans revealed, Ric Flair WWE return and so much more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
It’s time we all moved on from the All Out Brawl situation, The Elite are back in AEW,
the matter is seemingly settled…
Kenny no, get that out of your mouth…
it was done.
So the Elite returned to Dynamite for a match against Death Triangle as part of their best
of seven series and throughout taunted the Chicago crowd with a series of references
to their backstage ruckus with CM Punk and Ace Steel.
This included Kenny pilfering Punk’s signature taunt, hitting the GTS and biting PAC’s
arm - an overt reference to the rumor that Ace Steel bit Omega during the fracas.
This didn’t go over all that well with the die-hard Punk fans in attendance and reportedly
didn’t make the people close to Punk happy either, according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling
Observer Radio: “I know that there’s people close to CM
Punk that were… boy were they not happy with that six-man tag match.”
Obviously the Elite got to take the michael with no real chance for Punk to shoot back
at them now that he is off TV.
How does that medicine taste, Punk?
Like your own?
Admittedly the Elite also took a swipe at Hangman so… yakknow… he can’t win.
Punk’s camp were always likely to be angry about this as, especially with the Elite also
saying that they want the matter to be settled and for everyone to move on.
Yeah we’ll just move on, it’s fine…
no wait Kenny, don’t press send… oh piss…
Because Kenny rubbed some more salt in the wound when referencing the fact that he borrowed
CM Punk’s finishing move during the match the Go To Sleep.
Sending a Tweet to New Japan star and inventor of the GTS KENTA to thank him for the lending
the move.
"Thank you, @KENTAG2S.
Always a good brother.
Bullet Club 4-Life amirite?"
Just another little bit of expert level trolling from Kenny.
Man you can really tell that he is an avid gamer.
KENTA decided to get in on the joke too tweeting back to say “you’re welcome… but”
and including a gif of an encounter between the two where KENTA tells Kenny to “shut
the f*** up”.
And the thing is, if I was Tony Khan I would try and nip this kind of behavior in the bud
because it’s dominating all of the dialogue about AEW.
It’s like the only thing people are talking about - that and how Toni Storm should be
recognised properly as AEW Women’s Champion rather than just an ‘interim’.
So while it might be fun to poke fun at Punk in matches or to stir the social media pot
it is overshadowing work other people are doing in the company and ultimately there
are only so many times you can ride the lightning of legitimate backstage drama spinning out
into onscreen drama.
They just about managed to reign it back in with MJF.
One person who thinks the whole situation is a bit s-word is Shawn Spears who said as
much during a virtual signing for K&S WrestleFest: "Sad, overall sad,That's what I think.
It's sad.
I wish it didn't happen.
That's the other thing too, I wasn't there.
Most things do happen publicly, but I wasn't there and I don't have any first-hand knowledge."
Rumors regarding a shake-up of the WWE PLE calendar have been well documented since Triple
H took charge in the summer, with events such as Day 1 and Hell in a Cell already casualties
of the new regime.
However, there is one existing event’s status that has been up in the air a lot recently,
that being Money in the Bank.
The MITB match concept itself isn’t under any threat of disappearing, but reports have
suggested Triple H is keen on moving the match back to its original home of WrestleMania
and scrapping it’s PLE namesake in an attempt to purge those gimmick shows that Trips isn’t
keen on.
However, a new report from Fightful Select may be set to extinguish those reports as
according to multiple higher-ups and sources within the creative team, while the MITB move
to Mania “isn’t impossible” it has not “come across their desks yet”.
But that’s not the only MITB rumor doing the rounds as despite the match’s location
being up in the air, there had been rumors that WWE had landed on their choice for the
next winner of the men’s briefcase in 2023, none other than LA Knight.
However, Fightful has once again come in to quash these reports with one of their anonymous
sources in WWE stating:
"I like LA Knight, but we don't even have definitive plans across the board for months
down the line, much less next year's Money in the Bank".
"If we wanted it on him so bad, it wouldn't have been hard to take [Austin] Theory's to
put on him.
I've never heard him discussed in the same conversation as Money in the Bank.
Not that it couldn't happen, because he's a great performer, but it's not been discussed.”
What do you think of LA Knight as next year’s MITB winner?
Let us know in the comments below.
While Triple H’s regime has seen a lot of returns there is one former legend who has
close ties to The Game that has yet to make a comeback, none other than two-time HOF Ric
Flair.
While WWE have distanced themselves from Flair in recent
years following allegations of sexual misconduct which surfaced on an episode of Dark Side
of the Ring from 2021.
And while Flair had stated that he would never return to the WWE under Nick Khan (as he believes
it was Khan that removed Flair’s Woo from the WWE signature), it seems that could be
about to change.
On his latest episode of his To Be The Man Podcast Flair dropped the news that he has
been invited to attend two marquee WWE events in January, that being the 30th anniversary
Raw show in Philadelphia and the week after at San Antonio’s Royal Rumble event.
Not only that but in classic Flair fashion he has offered to buy drinks for a whole host
of WWE legends such as Undertaker, John Cena and Steve Austin.
Well isn’t this just another example of never say never, a saying that Flair must
have plastered on his wall at this point if his latest in-ring exploits are anything to
go by.
Moving to a current WWE star now and The All-Mighty Bobby Lashley has been in bit of a weird spot
as of late, despite seemingly turning heel against Brock Lesnar following their match
at Crown Jewel the past few weeks of Raw have not made this abundantly clear at all.
If anything Lashley has seemingly resumed his face role, only with an extra layer of
viciousness added on top.
According to F4WOnline’s Bryan Alvarez, Lashley is still listed internally as a babyface
despite the post-match attack on Lesnar at Crown Jewel.
With Rollins turning face a few weeks back it seemed likely the roles would reverse and
Lashley would play the heel in their program.
However, Austin Theory has now been injected into the feud to take that role, seemingly
keeping Lashley on the good guy side for now.
One man we haven’t seen for quite a while on Wednesday’s or Friday’s is former two-time
TNT champion Scorpio Sky.
Sky featured heavily on TV for the first half of 2022 being aligned with Dan Lambert and
American Top Team before winning the TNT Title twice in a feud with Sammy Guevara before
dripping the strap to Wardlow in July.
Sky has been absent ever since, reportedly dealing with a knee injury prior to his loss,
however, some five months later there is still no sign of Sky, so what is the latest?
Well, according to Fightful Select Sky is cleared to return and has actually been for
“quite some time”.
Despite him being good to go, AEW reportedly has nothing for him creatively at the moment
so as a result he has not made his return just yet.
With Lambert no longer on TV and his former partner Ethan Page aligned with Stokely Hathaway
and The Firm, there is no clear path back for Sky, but hopefully TK can figure it out
and get him back sooner rather than later.
Moving on to another absentee AEW star and an update has been provided on the now former
AEW Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa’s likely return date following her back injury.
According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio Rosa is likely to be ready to return
around February 2023.
Meltzer notes that AEW’s initial projections and hopes saw Rosa returning around November/December
thusly why they kept the interim title tag around during Toni Storm’s 76 day reign,
however given AEW’s decision to scrap the ‘interim’ tag for Jamie Hayter on Dynamite
it’s clear that Rosa isn’t as close as they had hoped she would be to a return.
Rosa herself has responded to being stripped of the title via her Twitter thanking her
fans and stating “this is not how I wanted to lose the championship, but you deserve
a present champion”.
So with all that interim business thankfully behind us how does AEW plan to deal with future
instances of injuries to current champions?
Well, according to Dave Meltzer AEW is not scrapping the interim title idea in the future
with the temporary strap being utilized when an injury is likely to keep a wrestler out
“for a few months”.
Meltzer says that more serious injuries for around six months or longer will result in
a championship being vacated altogether.
Lastly keeping the injured wrestler theme going, this week’s episode of Rampage has
seen yet another injury scare occur for AEW.
And most tragically of all it seems to have affected a member of a team that has had a
frankly horrendous string of bad luck with injuries, none other than Top Flight.
However, this time it has reportedly not affected the long-afflicted Darius Martin but instead
his brother Dante.
The brothers were competing against FTR in a ROH Tag-Title match on Friday’s episode
and according to pictures taken from fans following the match it appeared that Dante
was being attended to by the AEW doctor at ringside.
Despite the situation looking dire for Dante and Darius thankfully a fellow AEW talent
provided a much appreciated update on Dante’s health via Twitter with The Acclaimed’s
Anthony Bowens responding to a fan’s question regarding the injury saying that Dante is
“fine thankfully”.
Fingers crossed that is the case and Dante’s injury is not as severe as first feared as
the Martin brothers were finally beginning to build a bit of momentum following Darius’
lengthy absence for much of the year.
We at Wrestletalk would like to extend our well wishes to Dante Martin at this time.