Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk MECHA NEWS which is coming to you on Christmas eve,
which means I can officially say there’s only one more sleep till Christmas. It also
means I’m the only person in the office today, it’s ever so lonely, so leave a comment
down below to let me know how you’re spending the holidays! We’ve got a stacked Mecha
News for you today, including those Royal Rumble scrapped plans, a new trademark by
All Elite Wrestling, and the details on Impact Wrestling’s new TV deal.
And make sure you support WrestleTalk by buying one of our super awesome sexy t-shirts. I
mean, you won’t get them in time for Christmas - damn you Post Office! - but everyone loves
getting presents - it doesn’t have to be Christmas.
Like a wedding present for awesome people like Sarah Rowe of the Riott Squad and Rowe
of War Raiders for example - who recently got married on December 22nd. But this wasn’t
just no ordinary wedding. Presumably trying to out-do Ember Moon’s Game of Thrones themed
wedding, Logan and Rowe had a viking wedding! Logan posted on Instagram, “There are no
words to explain the magic that was last night. And I am confident everyone there can attest
to that.” And those there included NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler look utterly terrifying
and her Riott Squad companions Ruby Riott and Liv Morgan. Now I wouldn’t change a
thing about my wedding day outfit, but Rowe’s outfit does look super comfy. Congrats guys,
the wedding looked rad!
And while Rowe is off getting married, one of NXT’s biggest signings of 2018 Matt Riddle
is looking ahead to 2019 - in particular January’s Royal Rumble. Riddle is set to make his WWE
main roster debutt - so to speak - at the 26th of December Madison Square Garden show
- where he teams with Aleister Black, Ricochet, Pete Dunne & Velveteen Dream to take on Tommaso
Ciampa & The Undisputed Era of Adam Cole, Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish.
Johnny Gargano was originally supposed to be in Riddle’s spot, but his pseudo-heel
turn has removed him from the line-up all together. Riddle tweeted of the match, “If
you haven’t heard my year isn’t over and I get to wrestle in the Legendary MSG in NYC
on the RAW brand, which makes this my biggest DeButt of 2018 and it’s gonna be the DeButts
of all DeButts!”
And while guesting on the latest E & C Pod of Awesomeness, Riddle told Edge and Christian
that he wants another DeButt in 2019, saying, “I know TakeOver is the same weekend as
the Royal Rumble and I’ll be honest, I’m a big Rumble guy. You never know, there might
be a spot open, maybe I get in there, maybe I make some history.”
But someone who’s Royal Rumble plans have changed is The Man and former Smackdown Women’s
Champion Becky Lynch.
Last week it was announced by The McMahons and Triple H McMahon that we were heading
into a new era of WWE full of change for the greater good. One of those announced changes
was the removal of the automatic rematch clause, a storytelling crutch WWE has had for many
years that has unnecessarily extended feuds - and despite reiterating this point to Becky
Lynch and Charlotte Flair on Smackdown, it was randomly announced on Main Event of all
shows that Asuka would defend her Smackdown Women’s Championship against former champ
Lynch in a rematch. Does anyone actually watch Main Event? What are The Acension up to these
days?
However those plans have now been changed. With no official announcement, the match was
removed from WWE.com and former Smackdown General Manager Paige tweeted, “Soooo I
tried to make one last match before my time as #SDLive GM came to end...but unfortunately
@BeckyLynchWWE vs. @WWEAsuka for the Smackdown Women’s Championship is NOT official for
#RoyalRumble. #Oops”
So what happened? Well according to John Pollock of POSTWrestling, Asuka vs. Becky Lynch was
the plan for Royal Rumble and was going to be announced on Tuesday’s Smackdown Live,
but on Tuesday morning it was decided to reformat the Rumble card and the match was cancelled.
Sadly the people in charge of Main Event’s production were not told this, and aired the
announcement of Asuka vs. Lynch as they hadn’t been given the new information. So like Baron
Corbin, the McMahons have placed all the blame on Paige. Dammit Paige this is all your fault!
And that was your Impact Wrestling Slam of the Week, but it’s not quite the most recent
entry. As some of you will have noticed Oli Davis did a su-su-Super News [with sounds]
on Friday instead of my MECHA NEWS, and as such, I couldn’t show you all this little
gem of The Professional Athlete Jon Murray getting a legit Holy s-word chant during his
match with Stone Rockwell. The video comes from Impact Wrestling’s joint show with
Rockstar Pro Wrestling from December 14th, which aired on their Twitch channel. And as
you would expect of a clip of this caliber, it was shared online. And as you might have
guessed, Jim Cornette saw it and didn’t like it.
“Was assuming this was a rib & not a REAL @IMPACTWRESTLING show--I see I was wrong.
Sorry, guys, I like some of your employees, but putting this unprofessional fat f**k on
the air is one of many reasons why your business has the stench of grisly death on it.”
I see Jim Cornette is yelling at clouds again.
This tweet had a few wrestlers come to the defence of Murray including his opponent in
the ring Rockwell, Sugar Dunkerton, Jimmy Jacobs and the master of the Dick Druids himself
Joey Ryan who tweeted, “Given Cornette’s track record of being wrong about every star
to breakout over the past 15-20 years, it looks like @TVsJonMurray is about to make
a lot of money.”
But while Jon Murray has been getting Impact Wrestling some social media buzz, a press
release from late last week might be a bigger news story.
Throughout November it had been reported that Impact Wrestling were leaving PopTV in search
of a better TV deal. Pop has been the home of Impact for a couple of years now, but recently
moved the show to a later 10pm slot which drastically hurt their ratings. The Wrestling
Observer and PWInsider both reported that Anthem - the company that owns Impact - were
shopping the product around to various networks including WGN - who hosted All In’s pre
show - TruTV - the home of Impractical Jokers - and Syfy - the former home of WWE’s Smackdown.
It was then reported that because Impact hadn’t found a new home, it was going to stay on
Pop until at least the first quarter of 2019.
Well that looks like that’s no longer the case, as Anthem sent out a press release about
the new home for Impact Wrestling: Pursuit Channel. The press release reads, “Beginning
on Friday, Jan. 11, featuring the aftermath of Homecoming, IMPACT! will air weekly on
Pursuit Channel on Friday nights at 10:00 p.m.” Pursuit is most known for being a
hunting channel, but more interestingly is partner of Impact Wrestling owners Anthem.
However the show being moved to Friday nights and staying at the worse timeslot of 10pm
has not been seen as a good move by many wrestling journalists - made worse by Pursuit Channel’s
Twitter feed not advertising the show’s announcement or debutt. Not only that, but
Pursuit Channel is available in 55% fewer homes than PopTV was and is not carried by
the likes of Comcast.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider has reported that, “Impact had spoken with a number of cable
networks about potentially shifting there, but the fact that they were unable to score
a deal anywhere other than a network that their parent company has a vested interest
in doesn't speak well for how those conversations went.” He adds in another report, “No
matter how positive anyone wants to claim this move is, it's obvious this was a stop-gap
move made out of desperate necessity.”
Someone who is staying positive about the move is Impact producer Petey Williams, who
told Dennis Farrell on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast, “I don't know what Pop's demographic
was, per say, but when you have to be cautious of what you say or do so you can still be
on that PopTV channel, that's tough. Because that limits what you can do with your product.
Now we're on Pursuit, it's an outdoors channel. It's a demograph pretty much for males, like
hunting, shooting, fishing, that kind of stuff. Male dominated interests and activities…
So it will be interesting to see if we're going to be a little more edgy, maybe? Which
I know a lot of wrestling fans have been starved of with the PG era that's been going on with
WWE. Maybe that's going to be a thing going forward.”
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio was less positive about the move, noting that
it’s the same worse time slot on a worse day on a station that very few people even
know exists. However he reports that there is a reason for the later time slot. “It’s
not for now, but in October the feeling is millions of people are going to be watching
wrestling from 8-10pm on Fox, and [Impact] is going to start right after that ends. So
that’s the reason they chose that time slot.” Adding that they didn’t want to go in a
prime time slot and compete against WWE, because the last time they tried that in 2010 they
did not fare well.
Wrestling journalist Rovert is far more doom saying of Impact’s current status posting
on Twitter, “Please remember *THAT* mysterious IMPACT meeting with WWE at Titan Towers. Was
told before it was made public several days later that IMPACT was up for sale to WWE.
They are in dire straights.” Dave Meltzer on the other hand noted on Wrestling Observer
Radio that Anthem will want to keep Impact in business for FiteTV in Canada, especially
since they have now lost UFC.
January is set to be a big month for professional wrestling, with New Japan holding their annual
Wrestle Kingdom on January 4th, Impact going back to their old stomping grounds for Homecoming,
NXT UK hosting their first TakeOver event in Blackpool as well as NXT TakeOver: Phoenix
and the Royal Rumble. But one other important piece of news coming in January is the announcement
teased by Cody Rhodes which likely be details on the rumoured All Elite Wrestling - which
is set to be run by Cody and The Young Bucks along with their Elite cohorts.
Trademarks for All Elite Wrestling and AEW were filled a couple of months ago by Tony
Khan, the son of billionaire Shahid Khan - including what many believe is a new TV show called
Tuesday Night Dynamite. And that January announcement just got more interesting, as it’s being
reported that a new trademark has been filled by the team behind AEW for Fight For The Fallen,
which has been filled for wrestling, music, iPPV and merchandise , which could be a good
indication that this will be the name of the second All In show off the back of their incredible
success in September.
Perhaps AEW will be the subject of January’s Fantasy Booking Warfare - but who will it
be between? We’re now doing a winner-stays-on version of FBDub, with myself going head to
head with El Fakidor Laurie Blake this month on pitching our booking for Becky Lynch vs.
Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania 35 - which was suggested on Patreon by Jack VanFleet and
voted for by the rest of our Pledge Hammers. If you haven’t watched them already, our
pitches went up yesterday - and there is already a clear leader - with Laurie Blake storming
ahead with 2,352 votes while I’m on just over 1,000. There’s still time for me to
pull this back though. So make sure you watch both videos and cast your vote to see who
will take on Oli Davis in January.
And that’s all from me in 2018. Well, me in live form anyway. We’ve pre-tapped a
load of content that will be going up until the end of the year - it’s lista-a-mania!
With WrestleTalk counting down the 10 most Shocking Moments in WWE, every heel turn ranked,
WWE’s biggest successes, as well as Raw, Smackdown and NXT year in review WrestleRambles,
and of course our top 10 wrestlers and matches - which will no doubt get people mad because
the NXT North American Championship ladder match is not in the list. And tomorrow we’ve
got a special treat for you, as it’s the annual WrestleRamble Christmas Special - where
Oli, El Fakidor, myself and WrestleTyke Andy Datson drink beer, open presents, play games
and generally talk a load of nonsense. And if you’re a subscriber to the podcast feed,
we’ll be releasing a special Christmas present for you - 3 and a half hours of Oli and I
reading Big Apple Takedown - which comes from our Patreon exclusive podcast RambleClub.
This has been my first full year at WrestleTalk and it’s been a great one. We’ve had the
highs of Wrestling Media Con, the new WrestleRamble set, and Beyond the Mat at the Prince Charles
Cinema - and we can’t wait to share our next projects with you in 2019. I would like
to thank Oli and the rest of the WrestleTalk team - including our editor Simon, hi Simon
thanks for editing this on Christmas eve - and I would like to thank each and every one of
you for your comments and feedback this year - even those of you who don’t like me.
A Merry Christmas to you all, or happy holidays if you would prefer that. Love you guys!
But with that out of the way, why not watch one of those list videos with every NXT call
up in 2018 ranked! And subscribe to the WrestleRamble podcast to get that special Christmas present
tomorrow morning. I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.