In this WrestleTalk News, Tony Khan doubles down on the anti-AEW bots being a real thing,
Kevin Nash is involved in a Hollywood lawsuit, Oli’s review of AEW Dynamite and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos because
it’s AEW Forbidden Door confirmed.
A joke that I made when the whole Forbidden Door thing began and was 100% a joke.
And now it’s real.
Wild.
[SUPPORT WRESTLETALK] Tony Khan made another huge announcement on
last night’s episode of Dynamite, introducing the AEW/New Japan crossover show called AEW
Forbidden Door, which Luke will speak about in a little bit here, and will be talked about
some more in more depth on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel later today as well.
But TK was also making headlines for more talk about anti-AEW bots!
So hang on, let me just get appropriately dressed here…there we go.
TK has recently clarified what he meant about the whole bot situation, where he claimed
that there was a staunch anti-AEW online community that was boosted by a wildly expensive army
of bots.
Now who would do such a thing?
Speaking to TV Insider, Khan spoke more on the situation, saying:
“There are a handful of accounts that are being run by a few people running a lot of
accounts.
Those are real people.
A lot of their engagement, their retweets, likes, people responding, and signal boosting
for what they are saying, those are bots…I’m not making this up.
I have hired IT experts that put together a much more sophisticated explanation than
I’m capable of giving.
It’s a real thing, or I wouldn’t have brought it up.
I have a pretty good reputation in this business for honesty.”
He is very honest, so maybe we should trust him.
Or maybe this is all part of his elaborate plan to overthrow the wrestling business,
and hoodwink each and every one of you- Anyway, it might be helpful to see this data
from the IT experts themselves, as that might help TK’s case, and stop people, you know,
having a bit of a laugh at it instead.
Sticking with TK for now, and after last night’s AEW Dynamite, but prior to the Rampage taping,
Khan came out to address the crowd, and told them that they would be recorded for use in
the upcoming AEW videogame.
They were then recorded doing such chants as FTR, Aubrey Edwards, Cash, Dax, We Want
Jeff, Sting, BOOM, Bay Bay, and Adam Page according to Fightful.
But TK also mentioned what the console game will be called: AEW: Fight Forever.
A release date is still yet to be revealed, though current speculation puts it at September
this year.
With an All Out around that time as well, with that being AEW’s current biggest show
each year, that would seem like a good time to promote it.
But now we transition into something decidedly less fun, as yesterday on Twitter, Kevin Nash
was trending due to the ongoing Johnny Depp/Amber Heard defamation lawsuit.
If you weren’t aware, actor Johnny Depp is suing his ex-wife Amber Heard over an opinion
piece Heard wrote in 2018 about alleged abuse she suffered at the hands of Depp.
In court this week, text messages were brought up surrounding a wrap party for Magic Mike
which Heard attended, with Depp expressing his displeasure that she was out all night.
A photo from that wrap party has now been making the rounds again on Twitter, with Heard
hanging out with none other than WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash.
And to clarify as well, as some are speculating on social media, there has never been any
evidence to suggest Nash and Heard are anything more than friends.
Whether Nash will be more involved in the ongoing case because of this photo or not
remains to be seen.
And now hot tag to Oli!
Before we get on with the rest of the episode, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to
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Now it’s time for my review of AEW Dynamite… in about 5 minutes.
WrestleTalk is lucky enough to count one of the kindest men we’ve ever had the opportunity
to meet amongst our community - the Mayor of Painsville Dan.
But don’t let that nickname fool you.
He’s an absolute sweetheart and we’re proud to call him a fan.
His favourite wrestler of all time is Dustin Rhodes, so it was uniquely pleasurable to
watch my favourite wrestler CM Punk CRUSH HIM IN THIS OPENING CONTEST!
They had a terrific psychologically rooted rasllin match where both men sold their legs,
Dustin got a great near fall off a CrossRhodes - silly Dustin, you need at least nine CrossRhodes
to beat someone these days - and when Punk couldn’t hit the GTS, he locked in a technical
pin to win instead.
Both men had a heartwarming show of respect after the match, but Punk’s other staredown
was far more significant: as Hangman Page, fresh off his Adam Cole feud climax last Friday,
went face to face with Punk on the ramp, finally starting their long-teased World Championship
storyline.
But even more significant than that was a fan holding up a picture of me in the front
row.
I was almost as close to Punk as Hangman Page was.
Gasp!
Maybe that means I’m being set up to face Punk after he wins the title!
The best thing in wrestling right now, the Blackpool Combat Club, then continued their
very toxic hazing process in a trios match against three promising young wrestlers: Dante
Martin, Brock Anderson and Lee Moriarty.
The rookies all looked good, but they were ultimately easily beaten by Danielson, Moxley
and a more violent looking Yuta.
The most confusing thing here, though, was that the Combat Club stood in the wrong opposite
tag corners to normal.
Adam Cole was trying to rally the Undisputed Elite backstage after their series of recent
losses, setting up a ten man tag for them all next week.
The Young Bucks seem pretty dejected as Cole explained to them all their other friends
are gone - which is surely building to a Kenny Omega return.
A return that’ll be complicated by a larger faction union in AEW…
Tony Khan’s big announcement was introducing the president of New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Holy crap, did he just sign New Japan too?
Thankfully no, and in an even smarter move, they let the bulk of this corporate relationship
promo work be cut by the wrestlers - namely Adam Cole and his Bullet Club bestie Jay White,
where they announced a supershow crossover event called Forbidden Door on the 26th June
in Chicago - which has typically been the annual date of AEW’s other special Fyter
Fest.
Cole revealed he’ll be facing Ishii in an Owen Hart Tournament Qualifying Match this
Friday on Rampage, while White turned up in the arena to say it’s not about AEW, or
New Japan - it’s about the Undisputed Elite and the Bullet Club, because it’s still
their era.
But all my heart wants is Ishii vs the Butcher.
Ooh, Butcher.
He looks like Dr Robotnick on crack.
In a rare treat, we got Butcher in a singles match, taking on Wardlow as MJF’s hired
hitman, who was watching from a private box and pouring popcorn over fans.
Part of the legal agreement was that Wardlow couldn’t come out with music, and he’d
be handcuffed the entire time he wasn’t in the ring.
This created the awesome intended effect of the crowd chanting his name instead.
Wardlow won relatively easily, hitting four Powerbombs to win.
MJF then revealed his next opponent: the far more challenging Lance Archer, where Jake
the Snake and MJF briefly shared the screen in a passing of the great promo torch moment.
There are so many dream matches yet to be done in AEW, that sometimes you forget about
those in plain sight, like Kyle O’Reilly vs Jungle Boy, which we got right here in
an Owen Hart Tournament Qualifying match.
Their styles complimented each other perfectly, with a lot of counter wrestling and Kyle trying
to lock in an arm bar in every possible way, all fueled with the last six months of their
respective factions blood feuding.
Kyle won the very well worked match - setting up Cole’s promise that a member of the Undisputed
Elite will win the Cup - while Christian helped Jungle Boy backstage in an understanding,
fatherly way.
He is so turning on him.
One of the naturally coolest wrestlers in years, Hook, then made his Dynamite debut
easily beating Anthony Henry - despite Mark Sterling and Tony Nese making notes in the
crowd, and Danhausen attempting to curse him.
Hook has like four feuds going on at any given time.
That’s the mark of a great character.
Stymied yet again, Danhausen jumped in the ring after the match and said if Hook doesn’t
want to be cursed by him, he’ll have to fight him!
The idea of Danhausen returning from injury got a huge pop from the crowd, but the real
awesomeness is in how cool Hook looks in this shot.
Look at him just giving the camera a glance that says: what is this comedy bulls***.
Sammy Guevarra’s heel turn at Saturday’s Battle of the Belts has had the surprising
consequence of turning American Top Team face.
Scorpio Sky made up with Kaz backstage, and then him, Ethan Page and Dan Lambert were
roundly cheered against Guevarra and Tay Conti, despite not doing that much different - with
the classic Lambert line: “Give Sky his rematch, or I send these two
men into the ring to give you the kind of pounding your girlfriend dreams about.”
Sammy agreed to a TNT title ladder match next week, but only if they get an intergender
tag too.
It’s good the heel/face dynamics have been aligned with the crowd reactions, but the
last two months have felt like a major waste of the midcard belt.
The House of Black cut another promo on Fuego del Sol.
The House of Black are much better than this, and it’s paused their momentum.
Britt Baker made her first appearance since losing the women’s title a month ago, and
she received a huge hometown pop from Pittsburgh.
She beat Danielle Kamela in an Owen Hart qualifier, and then cut a promo on the other tournament
competitors.
She was presented far more as a babyface without Rebel and Jamie Hayter accompanying her.
Another stacked line-up was run down for next week, including Shida vs Serena Deeb in a
Philadelphia street fight, and Cash Wheeler vs Dax Harwood in an Owen Hart qualifier.
No, FTR, I don’t want to see you hurt each other!
And the main event was the coffin match between Andrade and Darby Allin.
In a smart heel use of the stipulation, Isaiah Cassidy and the Blade interfered right away.
But Darby had his own plan - someone standing up in the crowd to reveal themselves as Dadhausen!
Sting brawled with the stooges, no sold a chair to the back, and then did his new favourite
spot - jumping off something high, doing a balcony dive on everyone!
The remaining Andrade vs Darby portion in the ring was fun, but oddly lacked the heat
of the rest of the show.
Swole Jose tried to stop Darby closing the lid by taking off his top - because of the
aforementioned swoleness - but Darby threw him onto the tacks to win.
The Hardys then did Delete chants at the top of the ramp - which Jeff seemingly injured
his own arm doing!
… possibly teasing broken cinematic match between them all, allowing for more Sting
involvement.
What did you think of AEW Dynamite?
Let me know in the comments.
This was a great episode of wrestling TV, with a varied blend of in-ring wrestling and
two hugely newsworthy angles of Punk vs Page and the New Japan supershow.
This week’s Dynamite is 89%.
We’re still getting these Andy Datson comments on our videos.
So if you really like the guy, you’d tune into his monthly Fan QuizzleMania show today
- which you can access by joining Patreon.com/WrestleTalk.
Or find out the real reason Kushida left WWE…