Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
Following big WWE PLEs, there’s normally a bit of a reset on the programming, new feuds,
new alignments, returns, debuts etc.
We saw this on Raw last night, with New Day returning, Shinsuke Nakamura’s solidified
heel turn and new feud, Chad Gable being awesome, etc.
But there’s one name that’s reportedly been discussed that could be returning soon.
According to PWInsider, there have been “some rumblings” recently within WWE of a Nia
Jax return to the company.
Jax made a surprise appearance in this year’s Royal Rumble match, but she was not re-signed,
and that was seemingly just a one-off deal.
Nia obviously wasn’t at Raw last night, but she could be back before long if this
report is to be believed.
Now that Ronda Rousey will be leaving WWE screens indefinitely, there’s certainly
a bit of a hole to fill - would you like to see Jax back in WWE?
Let me know in the comments, though I think I could guess the answer already.
But there’s another person in the women’s division that’s going to be out for a while,
as the curse of the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships continues.
After reports that WWE were hoping to settle down the women’s tag belts after Chelsea
Green and Sonya Deville won the belts, it seems that plan is now out of the window,
as Sonya has torn her ACL.
This was initially reported by TMZ, and PWInsider adds that Sonya is extremely well regarded
backstage, and there’s a lot of sympathy for her with this injury.
Torn ACLs are quite severe, requiring a lot of in-ring time to be missed, as we’ve seen
in the past, so we at WrestleTalk would like to wish Sonya the best in her recovery.
While nothing official was announced on Raw aside from the injury itself, no tournament
or anything to crown new champs, PWInsider is reporting that “there is already a plan
in place for the Women’s Tag Team titles.”
Which is probably better than they’re used to for the women’s tag division, so silver
linings I guess.
We’ll just have to wait and see what those plans are.
Sonya herself confirmed these reports and spoke about it on…X, still hate that, posting
a video where she said: “I've torn my left ACL last week on 'SmackDown'
in my match against Bianca and Charlotte.
I will be out for an extended period of time due to the fact that I have to get surgery
tomorrow…Obviously, it's super bitter to say that it's come to an end due to an injury,
especially it being my first injury in wrestling or sports in general.”
Once again, I swear those titles are cursed, and once again, I’d like to wish Sonya the
best in her recovery.
There’s some very interesting news coming from backstage in WWE though, as for last
night’s episode of Raw, PWInsider is reporting that Nick Aldis was backstage and working
as a producer.
There had been reports of WWE being interested in Aldis for a long time, and while I’m
sure there’s plenty of people out there who would have liked Aldis to join WWE in
a wrestling capacity, this seems to give some foundation to rumours of his signing with
the company.
Meanwhile, there’s another producer role given to a wrestler, as Fightful Select is
reporting that Bobby Roode was expected backstage at Raw last night too.
He reportedly wasn’t on SummerSlam run sheets, and is most likely shadowing.
Which seems to be a natural move for Roode, as he’s been out of action wrestling-wise
for a year.
Now over to Luke!
LUKE: But now it’s time for the return you’ve all been waiting for, the Star-man, the face
that rates the place…Mark Markerson!
MARK: You’re welcome, Luke.
You’ve missed me.
And I’m so excited to be here to remind you it’s time to reset your body clocks
to Tokyo Time.
New Japan’s G1 Climax is in full swing and this year’s lineup is unbelievable.
LUKE: Oh, it is, I’ve loved it so far.
MARK: Oh, really?
What’s your favourite match so far?
LUKE: I absolutely LOVED Eddie Kingston against Ishii, I thought it was both men at their
best.
MARK: What, you mean the match between the American and the Sellout?
As if, Luke.
Open your eyes.
A much better pick for match of the year was SANADA vs Kaito Kiyomiya on night 7.
The story here was that in this, NJPW’s crown jewel tournament, their World Champion
was being taken to the limit by an insurgent wrestler from a secondary promotion.
Not only that, but each man has a shared history with the legendary Great Muta.
So the opening stages of the match were brilliantly slow, with each man feeling the other out,
not wanting to make a mistake.
As the match progressed, there were counters upon counters upon counters and before we
knew it, Kaito had started working over SANADA’s knee, aiming to cut his offence off for the
last five minutes.
Draws are an important part of the G1, but the drama created through the match added
an extra layer of tension to the closing stages - with the time checks coming thick and fast,
the near falls started piling up, until SANADA managed to muscle Kaito’s shoulders to the
mat for the three count with two seconds remaining.
Luke, what a year it’s been.
These matches keep getting better.
And this one…was eleven stars.
LUKE: How in the blue hell have you arrived at eleven?
MARK: Well.
I liked it as much as the last match, and I’m excited to be back.
So it gets an extra one.
Eleven.
LUKE: Okay then.
– And now it’s time for my review of Monday
Night Raw - aka the ‘you can clearly tell Vince was messing with this show for the last
few months but is now injured and can’t mess around’ edition of Monday Night Raw…
in about five minutes.
The show opened with a long recap of Summerslam, with Michael Cole - sorry Kevin Patrick - touting
the show’s success.
He attributed much of it to Cody Rhodes, who came out for a promo to set up his next feud.
That could possibly be Seth Rollins, who came out to essentially challenge Cody for the
belt.
On paper this is a good thing.
It’s a big program for Seth, it’s a big program for Cody and - importantly - it’s
a big program for the title, which really needs it.
The problem is that Cody has been so vocal about not wanting to win that belt because
it means jack-spit to him and that isn’t finishing his story, that it’s hard to get
invested in any story they might want to tell.
The Judgement Day came out and did their usual schtick, and Balor attacked Rollins from behind.
Sami ran down for the save, and I smell a trios match , playa.
Rollins seemed annoyed about all of this, which played into the rest of the show as
they couldn’t get on the same page or be cool with each other - even though Sami did
his best to play peacemaker.
There was a fatal four way to crown a new number one contender to Gunther’s IC title
between Chad Gable, Tomasso Ciampa, Ricochet and Matt Riddle, which makes a lot of sense
when you think about it.
Gable earned this chance by taking Gunther to the limit last week, Ciampa earned this
shot by losing to Shinsuke Nakamura last week, Ricochet got it by losing to Logan Paul at
Summerslam, and Matt Riddle got this chance by losing to Ludvig Kaiser last week.
Oh, wait.
Cynicism aside, this match ruled.
Because of course it did, look at the talent in the ring.
There were some crazy inventive spots and a brilliant finish that saw Chad Gable try
and hit the Chaos Theory Suplex on Matt Riddle, but Ricochet stole the move to hit the Recoil.
So Gable tried to hit Ricochet with the Chaos Theory Suplex but the move was stolen by Ciampa
hitting a FameASSer.
So Gable instead hit the Chaos Theory on Ciampa for the win.
Great finish to a great match, and a brilliant next feud for Gunther.
Shinsuke Nakamura ended his feud with Bronson Reed by beating him in a decent little match,
which was a nice bit of tidy booking as it fed into the main event - more on that in
a bit.
Raquel Rodriguez still isn’t cleared, but at least she’s found new friends in Candice
LaRae and - who is that?
- oh it’s Indi Hartwell, I forgot she was called up.
It is funny that Vince has his ‘life-altering’ surgery and the following week we get the
on-screen returns of Candice and Indi.
And you can tell this is a Triple H booked show, as there was only one women’s match
on the show and it was pretty heatless.
It was set up by Becky Lynch hyping her match next week with Trish Stratus, and was interupted
by Zoey Stark, who was interrupted by Shayna Baszler.
We then got Baszler vs. Stark, which was slightly overshadowed by Becky making overt references
to not being booked on Summerslam, and Triple H’s seeming digs at her social media activity
during the press conference.
You see, she brought the lemonade she made when she wasn’t wrestling at the PPV - which
Wade Barrett described as “not bitter at all” - and she did the Triple H spit when
Baszler picked up the win.
The positives here is that I was worried that Baszler might fall to the side after the Ronda
feud, but they’ve moved her straight into a feud with Becky Lynch - one of the biggest
stars in the company - so that gets a massive thumbs up from me.
The Becky stuff, I guess, is just for people like you and I who know about the issues she
had with her lack of Summerslam match.
I don’t think it’s building to a Triple H vs. Becky feud?
JD McDonaugh chatted with Finn Balor earlier in the show and made the astute observation
that the Money in the Bank briefcase is causing issues within the Judgement Day - gee, ya
think?
- and then he attacked Sami Zayn backstage.
It was announced Sami couldn’t wrestle in the main event, and Nakamura offered his services
instead.
Miz came out for a promo to call out LA Knight because Brand Split LOL, calling him a flash
in the pan and an Attitude Era cosplay.
He pointed out that he’s been here for nearly 20 years and has done it all, despite people
saying he never would.
What has Knight done?
Well, Knight responded by saying that WWE would never take the chance on him because
he wouldn’t have laid down and taken all the BS Miz had to put up with in his early
run.
Instead the company kept betting on the wrong horses, like The Miz.
They had a brief brawl and Knight hit his finish to stand tall.
This was awesome, pardon the pu.
Even though Knight stumbled over his words a couple of times, he still felt like a megastar.
It’s hard to take Miz seriously given his booking for the last few years - he was beaten
by Snoop Dogg at WrestleMania, let’s not forget - and I’m not that into a Knight
vs. Miz feud especially when they’re supposed to be on different brands - but this segment
did make me forget about a lot of that, and hyped me to see them get it on.
So, yeah, this worked.
Yeah.
Viking Raiders issued an open challenge which was accepted by a returning New Day, who beat
them in a fun little tag match.
It’s so great to see both men back.
They then told Not Cathy that they wanted to win the tag belts.
Sadly it’s not as good news for the other tag belts, as they announced Sonya Deville’s
injury and that they “need to figure out” what they’re going to do with the belts.
And the main event saw Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins and Shinsuke Nakamura beat Judgement Day in
a decent trios match, when Cody and Seth worked together to pin Finn Balor.
Sucks to be Pinn Balor.
Cody and Rollins finally shook hands, but then Nakamura attacked Rollins to establish
himself as the next contender for his belt.
Which is a great choice.
This was a really good epilogue edition of Raw.
It tied up some stuff from Summerslam, and set us up for the next few months of TV.
It also felt like the most Triple H show since Vince came back into creative, and that was
very refreshing.
A solid 4 out of 5 episode.
The Summer Season of Wrestle League came to a dramatic climax at SummerSlam, which means
it's time to officially announce our amazing winners.
Our Summer Season Champion is Steve Bebee, who amassed 103 points and will receive a
$250 Amazon voucher as his prize.
There was a THREE-WAY tie for 2nd place, but thanks to their superior tie-breaker question
skills, William Winslow and Adam Kent took 2nd and 3rd place, who win $100 and $50 of
Amazon vouchers respectively.
Sure, the Summer season is now over, but the Autumn/Fall Season is just weeks away, and
starts with a banger: AEW All In.
To give yourself a chance to win the autumn season while proving you know the most about
pre-determined wrestling results, you can sign up completely free using the link below.
Make sure you click the notifications subscribe button too, to make sure you never miss a
show!
And now go and check out Oli Davis’ news from yesterday, with chat about other people
frustrated with their WWE booking.