In this WrestleTalk News, Undisputed Elite star not having his AEW contract renewed,
ex-NXT star arrested again and Pete is going to be here reviewing AEW Dynamite.
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AEW has been a port in the storm for many wrestling talents over the last couple of
years, with WWE doing its level best to give off cartoon evil corporation vibes by letting
reams of staff go during the middle of a pandemic, A-E-DUB was there to sign them all up.
It was also an opportunity for talent who knew their worth to leave WWE while the getting
was good, which is what Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly chose to do.
The third member of the Undisputed Elite and former Undisputed Era member Bobby Fish took
a little longer swimming upstream, but eventually found his school in AEW.
However, a new report from Fightful Select suggests that Fish might have flopped in AEW.
Sean Ross Sapp posted to say that the current backstage chatter suggests that Bobby Fish
might not be having his AEW contract renewed when it comes up.
On a liveshow pre-report publishing Sapp said: “I kinda hope I’m not hearing the right
thing but the people that I have discussed this with, I had one person outright tell
me, ‘I know he’s not getting renewed, just don’t know when it’s up.'”
The report went on to suggest that Fish’s contract is believed to be up soon and is
not currently planned to be renewed.
None of the Undisputed Elite have been seen on AEW TV since August 3rd.
Updating on his Twitter for clarity Sapp added: “I wanna make this clear — thus far, no
idea when this decision was made.
Over the last ten days Fish has worked indie bookings for the first time since last year,
started a podcast, done interviews and taken seminar bookings.”
Fish meanwhile has been talking up the leader of the opposition recently in interviews,
saying that he believes WWE under Triple H is pretty much guaranteed to be successful
and he would “go to war for that man seven days a week”.
Which makes sense, Undisputed Era were the golden children of Triple H’s NXT during
the latter years and they must surely be at the top of his tampering-uh-shopping list.
So potentially not all doom and gloom for Fish if he does find himself chucked back
into the unsigned talent pool.
Sticking with ex-NXT performers, the ongoing arrest drama surrounding the former Velveteen
Dream, Patrick Clark continues as Clark finds himself incarcerated.
To somewhat explain the timeline of events: Clark was initially arrested for possession
of drugs, concealing evidence and having no lights in his vehicle in November 2021 and
eventually sentenced to 12 months probation in April 2021.
Then in August, four months into his probationary period, Clark was arrested for trespassing
on property following a warning and first degree battery.
On August 22, 2022, current WWE talent Tehuti Miles (Ashante ‘Thee’ Adonis of Hit Row)
put up $1,200 in bond money to bail Clark out of jail.
But then on August 26th, Clark was arrested again due to a warrant being triggered because
the August 20 arrest took place during his probation period from the November arrest.
Another controversial wrestling figure has also resurfaced and been spotted in a training
session with a number of current WWE talent.
Matt Riddle posted a picture of himself training at the Daniel Gracie Orange County gym along
with Karrion Kross, Shinsuke Nakamura, NXT’s Cameron Grimes and Bodhi Hayward and Inaugural
Women Of Honor Champion Sumie Sakai, amongst the group was also Marty Scurll.
The former Bullet Club member has been keeping a low profile on since allegations emerged
during the Speaking out movement in 2020 in which he was accused of sexually assaulting
an intoxicated 16 year old girl in the UK.
Scurll had shared a statement in response to the allegations, claiming that he believed
the encounter was consensual.
Scurll’s ROH departure was announced shortly after these allegations surfaced.
Fans online were quite shocked to see Scurll pop up in the picture and this led to a not
insignificant amount of heat on those seen training with him.
A similar backlash was faced by Santino Marella when he booked Scurll for a show back in July.
Hot tag to Pete for the Dynamite review.
And now it’s time for my review of the go-home edition of AEW Dynamite for All Out 2022 in
about 5 minutes.
After the biggest talking point coming out of last week was Punk’s squash loss to Moxley,
the show began with the next thread in this story - with Moxley coming out and running
down Punk in his hometown of Chicago.
It goes to show how over Moxley is that the crowd didn’t immediately turn on him and
still were like ‘yeah, you’re insulting our boy but also we love you’.
Mox revealed he has an open contract for his World Title match at All Out, and he doesn’t
care who signs it, so he’s just going to leave it in the ring.
And then, maybe two minutes later, Ace Steel wandered out and picked it up.
I’m not sure why several people weren’t immediately flocking to the ring like it was
a 24/7 title segment, because we see how ready people are to interfere in other stuff, but
no-one cares about a World Title match on PPV?
Makes sense to me.
This paid off later, when CM Punk came out to speak to the fans, and thanked them for
their support and their love, but he’s thinking now that that love might not be enough.
His foot was fine, he’s at 100%, but it’s a new 100%, and maybe he’s just not good
enough.
But out came Ace Steel, who had trained Punk since day 1, and told him he can’t quit,
he can’t give up in front of these fans, he’s broken past every barrier and he slapped
Punk, firing him up.
Punk lit up and went into the crowd, going full babyface for the hometown fans, saying
we are Chicago and signing the contract for the match.
Now, last week on the Dynamite podcast, most of us in the live chat and presenting agreed
that, while Punk vs Mox last week was exciting and fresh and fun, if the plan still was for
Punk vs Mox at All Out, then it was a poor choice.
Now though, having seen the story play out, I think it’s an interesting wrinkle in Punk’s
story, and that’s all it was meant to be.
Mox won because Punk thought he’d injured himself, and now Punk has to overcome not
only the shame of losing so fast, but also his new 100% that’s he’s still coming
to terms with.
They’ve handicapped Punk, so he’s the clear underdog going into the Moxley rematch,
which I also think means Punk is absolutely winning on Sunday.
Do I think this was the best potential use of the story they had from last week?
No, not really, and I would have preferred if there were more time to let this story
breathe, so that Punk could have had a couple of weeks off, then tell the story of him not
giving up after he comes back, giving room for something us to be done with Mox in the
meantime, but I still think this is fine.
I do think people will be upset Punk isn’t turning heel though, unless he is and this
is all one big swerve.
While the onus of whether this story was a good one was placed on this week’s followup
to last week’s match, that buck has now been passed to All Out - where I think if
Punk wins clean this might not be the best story told, but if he gets desperate and cheats
to win, or Mox wins and Punk spirals out of control, that is infinitely more interesting
I’d think.
Well I suppose I should also talk about the rest of this show too, now that I’m halfway
on my time.
Bryan Danielson beat Jake Hager in a perfectly serviceable match, where after the match,
Chris Jericho threatened to hit Danielson with a chair and Daniel Garcia stopped him,
which allowed Danielson to hit the knee on Jericho.
Garcia had only just reaffirmed his allegiance to Jericho in a backstage segment, so I can’t
wait to see Garcia join BCC after this weekend, especially because he’s got an ROH Pure
championship match next week against Wheeler Yuta.
The Wingmen were in the ring, when they were interrupted by W. Morrisey, who beat them
all up and then took one of Stokely Hathaway’s business cards.
Tony Schiavone tried to ask him what these business cards mean, but Hathway told him
it’s none of his business.
I would also like to know where this is going, because Stokely sure has an eclectic group
of people under his watch now, from Jade Cargill and the Baddies to W. Morrisey, Lee Moriarty,
Ethan Page, the Ass Boys, it’s…certainly something.
Toni Storm & Hikaru Shida beat Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter in a fun match next, where
Shida got the pin on Baker, clean as anything, which was very nice to see.
A good, fun match that put over the four competitors and made people look strong ahead of this
weekend.
Nothing to complain about here.
Kip Sabian did a promo explaining the cardboard box thing, and I still don’t get the cardboard
box thing.
He’s got an All-Atlantic title match against PAC at All Out, because what we needed were
more matches for that show.
Miro, Darby Allin and Sting said they were gonna beat House of Black, FTR & Wardlow squashed
three guys, and then Andrade tried to buy the services of 10, who’s injured, Evil
Uno rejected the advances and was attacked, meaning he’s also sidelined.
Who could Silver and Reynolds possibly team with now they don’t have a tag partner?
Hmm.
Oh hey there’s Hangman - who said he can be their partner if they need him.
That final should be fun at All Out hey.
Another match at All Out is the Casino Ladder Match, with Claudio Castagnoli, Penta, Andrade
El Idolo, the Joker, and Dante Martin, RUSH, Rey Fenix and Wheeler Yuta, the last four
of which had a really fun four way on this show.
I’m happy RUSH is starting to get over, because he’s really good, and the match
had a wonderful finish of Yuta rolling up Dante Martin in a super unique and creative
pinning combination.
Then we had the main event of United Empire vs The Elite, and this was delicious.
From Kenny’s introduction taking shots at Ospreay, to the intensity between the two
of them, the next beat in Kenny’s story of his return from injury of him not wearing
the shoulder brace but still having the compression shirt, which Ospreay ripped off to reveal
bandages on his shoulder and abdomen, oh and also the really f****** good wrestling, this
was a classic main event of Dynamite.
At several points I thought it was over but it kept going, with the great finish of Kenny
and the Bucks hitting the Indietaker on Ospreay to rule him out, then a V-Trigger into the
One-Winged Angel on Kyle Fletcher for the Elite to win, with Ospreay sitting on the
ramp and seething.
This Ospreay/Omega feud isn’t over, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them go at
it in the Tokyo Dome next January.
A great end to a pretty good show I think.
There wasn’t anything bad, the segments were all good to great, not much to complain
about, and I’m curious on the direction of where Punk’s story is going from here.
This is a very good, 4/5 show by Dynamite’s very lofty standards.
Tempest and I will be doing All Out live reactions, as well as reviewing this episode of Dynamite
in full later today on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel - so subscribe over there for that.