Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
Today’s top story is actually one we spoke about on Wednesday’s episode of the news,
but there’s more now.
If you recall, we were talking about this Monday’s episode of Raw, and how the first
30 minutes of the show was seemingly changed last minute by Vince McMahon, cutting out
the challenge to Seth Rollins’ World Heavyweight Championship and instead being replaced with
a Finn Balor beatdown.
If you were watching then, do you remember when I said:
And then, and then, do you remember when I said:
And now we know!
And it turns out I’m a genius and absolutely nobody could have predicted what I predicted
and I’m a detective mastermind and you should all praise me, because Fightful Select are
reporting that Tommaso Ciampa was originally supposed to answer Seth’s open challenge,
and that’s what Vince McMahon pulled.
The match was reportedly set to get a “ton of time”, and you may be thinking that Vince
canned the match so he could protect Ciampa in his first match back and not have him take
a loss, but you’d be wrong wouldn’t you, because Select also reports that the match
would have had a non-finish.
And the people involved in all this reportedly didn’t take the changes well, with the report
noting that “those around the match were clearly frustrated by the change”.
Which makes a lot of sense honestly - if Ciampa was going to come back, put on a banger of
a match against Rollins with loads of time and look better for it coming out of it, solidifying
him at a higher level on the card than he was when he left, and instead he came back
to beat up The Miz, I’d be annoyed too.
And if I were Seth I’d be annoyed, not having the chance to put on that great caliber of
match that he so clearly wants to provide to the fans at every opportunity.
And with Vince making frustrating changes backstage, once again focus has been drawn
to the influence Vince has over shows, with questions raised about his authority, who’s
really in charge etc.
And Ricochet has shined some light on his experience with it, saying in an interview
with Sporf: “Vince is still involved and Vince is still
talked to.
He’s still someone that everyone looks to, especially with creative.
So he’s got his fingers in everything too.”
Ew.
Now, heading to AEW, this next story contains spoilers for tonight’s episode of Rampage,
so if you don’t want to know, skip ahead using the chapters and timestamps in the description
and pinned comment.
Ready?
Because I’m going to talk about it now.
Here come the spoilers.
Here they are.
Without any delay, right now, from this moment on, this will be the moment-
On Rampage, AEW saw the return of John Morrison, who was last seen in the Owen Hart Cup last
year.
He returned as a heel, attacking The Acclaimed & Daddy Ass, and PWInsider reports that Morrison
has actually signed with AEW now - and, even better, he’s got a new ring name.
What would you be thinking?
Johnny Elite?
John Dynamite?
John Collision?
Nope, it’s much worse, or better depending on your viewpoint, as they also report that
his ring name will be Johnny Television, or Johnny TV.
No comment.
I’m not gonna say what I think.
I’ve got a great pokerface, you’ll never be able to tell.
But it seems AEW has its one-in-one-out policy, as Fuego Del Sol announced he was departing
AEW and would be accepting bookings elsewhere.
Fuego won his contract with AEW on the first episode of Rampage, with Sammy Guevara handing
it to him, do you remember?
Wait, but, contracts are usually for full years, whether it be one, two, or more, and
that first episode of Rampage was in August, and he’s saying he’s a free agent as of
July 1st, so does that mean…he had already signed before he was handed his contract?
Do you mean to tell me that was a work?!
I’ve never felt so betrayed.
There’s updates on a few members of the AEW roster ahead of Forbidden Door this weekend,
which by the way, looks absolutely stacked.
I’m very excited.
One of the matches I’m most excited for is Bryan Danielson vs Kazuchika Okada, because
that just sounds oh so tasty.
But, there’s a little asterisk next to that match now, as Fightful Select is reporting
that Bryan Danielson has been “banged up” as of late, and he had some spots pulled from
the Anarchy in the Arena match at Double or Nothing because of that.
Danielson has instead been primarily providing commentary for Blackpool Combat Club matches,
and hasn’t been involved in a number of the ensuing brawls.
He also seems to be transitioning into more of a backstage role, as he’s also reportedly
been “heavily involved in creative for the first several weeks of AEW Collision”.
And y’know, good for him.
I hope he’s taking his time to recover properly, because the wrestling world is better with
him in it, and if he wrestles less frequently but just puts on dream matches when he does,
and works on creative the rest of the time, I’m pretty ok with that.
One of the other matches from Forbidden Door that actually raised some eyebrows upon the
announcement was Sanada defending his IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Jack Perry.
Not that people don’t like Jungle Boy or anything, but just that it seems there could
have been some other wrestlers higher up the card that would have potentially made that
spot feel a bit bigger.
Sanada has even said since then that he has no knowledge of Jack Perry at all when speaking
with Tokyo Sports, saying: “I have no knowledge of Jack Perry.
It’s sad to see someone like that challenge for the IWGP.
Is an open challenge really that easy to decide?”
before then saying that it was a bigger prize than the AEW Championship and should be treated
as such.
And while the match I’m sure will be great, what comes after may be even more interesting.
Dave Meltzer mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio that AEW’s plan is to turn Jungle
Boy heel, whether that be at Forbidden Door or otherwise remains to be seen.
But whether this is a report or just conjecture based on what’s been happening on screen
lately in unclear - regardless it seems quite likely that we could be seeing the last vestments
of Jungle Boy being stripped away as the newly heel Jack Perry is born.
That’s what I’d think anyway.
And we have an update on Jeff Hardy as well, who was on the losing end of a match against
The Gunns on Dynamite, and he and Matt were then attacked by Bullet Club Gold after the
match.
This was done to write Jeff off TV according to Fightful Select, as he will be unable to
join them for their tour in Canada due to his previous arrests.
AEW has eight dates lined up for Canada, and their next show in the States is on July 19th,
with Dynamite in Boston.
As we spoke about in yesterday’s news, the Collision premiere…
it didn’t do too bad did it?
Averaging at around 816,000 viewers the primetime Saturday show got off to a seemingly strong
start, but was it enough for those big scary corporate Warner execs?
Yes, yes it was.
According to Insider, sources within WBD were said to be “thrilled” with Collision’s
strong debut numbers, a show that was obviously aided by the return of CM Punk.
And those good vibes seemingly rolled into this week's Dynamite as that show too rode
that Pepsi Phil wave to a solid 902,000 viewers up from the week befores 832,000.
The show also scored a 0.33 in the 18-49 demo up from 0.30 on last Wednesday.
Not only are WBD sure to be thrilled with this upward momentum but Tony Khan couldn’t
hold in his excitement either, responding to PWTorch’s Wade Keller who posted the
numbers saying: “LFG WADE”.
Which I believe stands for Look, Frankly Good (Ratings).
And that wasn’t all Khan had to say as yesterday saw a good ol Tony Khan pre-PPV press conference
ahead of Sunday’s Forbidden Door.
Now Khan had a fair bit to say and as always a few things not to say so let me give you
the cliff notes.
Firstly, sticking with WBD, Khan was asked by Dave Meltzer about CM Punk’s ‘one bill
Phil’ line from his promo on Collision last week.
Something that according to Punk is what WBD CEO David Zaslav refers to him as.
While many assumed the line was in relation to AEW having a one billion deal with WBD
Khan said that wasn’t accurate.
With him instead revealing he just thought it would be “cool” to have a top star
mention the man at the top of the TV company in a similar way to when Ted Turner was mentioned
on WCW.
He also felt the line was appropriate given it was Zaslav that came up with the idea for
Collision.
While Saturday night may be the Punk show in all but name Tony did clear one thing up
at the presser, CM Punk does in fact not run AEW.
Yes, that infamous ‘I’m trying to run a business’ line from Punk at the All Out
presser was brought up by David Bixenspan, which forced Khan to clear the air.
Khan called the line a “colloquialism”, saying Punk is invested in growing the company’s
bottom line and box office business; however, Khan is the man in charge.
Khan went even further to hammer this home, messaging Bixenspan to reiterate that no Punk
100% does not have an ownership stake in AEW.
So there you have it, Punk doesn’t secretly own AEW confirmed.
Last note on Punk, Khan also did what he does and refused to comment on the supposedly once
planned KENTA vs Punk match at Forbidden Door, instead hyping up his actual match against
Satoshi Kojima.
Tony also shot down Ariel Helwani’s report from the MMA Hour that he and his father Shad
Khan were looking to purchase MMA promotion Bellator.
Tony said he doesn’t know who he would even talk to about making a deal like that happen
before throwing some shade on known mortal enemy Helwani, saying:
“That is completely inaccurate, but that’s Ariel Helwani for you.”
And finally, as has become tradition for Tony at these pressers he was quizzed about the
possibility of bringing Goldberg into the company for a final run.
Perhaps to be Sting and Darby’s partner at Forbidden Door, however, according to SRS
Khan “kiboshed” that idea and only stated again that he had “nice conversations”
with Goldberg about AEW.
With Money in the Bank next weekend, why not check out Luke and Oli’s predictions for
the show with their 3-Count?
Here’s a clip.