Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
It’s been a while since we’ve had some CM Punk-based wrestling news isn’t it?
Too long I say, so let’s bring him up again.
Ever since he was released from AEW, fans have been wondering whether he’d ping pong
right back to WWE again, with opinions divided on the ‘he’d do business’ argument and
the ‘WWE released him on his wedding day’ argument.
Is there too much bad blood there to be forgotten about?
It’s seemingly more beef than Punk had with The Elite and Jack Perry, and we saw how that
one went.
But, there may be some clues as to Punk’s future, and it comes directly from WWE Raw.
Seth Rollins has been vocal in the past about his dislike of CM Punk, even calling him a
cancer in an interview.
But could the very same person be teasing a feud with Punk in the near future?
On Raw last night, Seth Rollins was talking to Michael Cole in the ring, where Cole mentioned
that Rollins has been called many things over the years, Architect, Visionary, but also
Puppeteer, Manipulator, but this time he’s the puppet.
Eagle eyed viewers, or I guess in this case eagle eared listeners, noted that this little
line shared some similarities with a certain iconic CM Punk promo from Ring of Honor back
in 2005, where Punk said ‘This is my stage, this is my theater.
You are my puppets and I pulled those marionette strings.’
Now, that might seem a little tenuous, sure there’s a link about puppets but is that
really all?
Well on last week’s episode of Raw, Seth Rollins also just so happened to remark that
his 100% makes him…the best in the world.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
But also…two weeks in a row of noticeable similarities with things related to CM Punk?
There could be something there.
And just to add further fuel to this fire: Survivor Series this year is in Chicago.
Look I’m not saying it’s confirmed or anything but…there’s something there right?
Play this clip back when it either does or does not happen and you can all call me a
genius/idiot based on the outcome.
Sean Ross Sapp on the Fightful Raw post-show stream said that he’s going to exhaust his
sources this week and will have an update regarding CM Punk and WWE soon.
Which will prove that I’m a genius/idiot, depending.
Elsewhere on Raw, there were a couple of advertised matches that didn’t end up happening.
Going into this week’s episode, Jey Uso vs Damian Priest and Becky Lynch vs Tegan
Nox for the NXT Women’s Championship were both slated to be on the show, but neither
happened, for seemingly different reasons.
Fightful Select reported that Becky Lynch had not been cleared to compete.
At NXT No Mercy, it was reported that Becky sustained a laceration that required 11 stitches,
and she reportedly hasn’t been cleared since then with that injury ongoing.
Which is yet more rough luck for Tegan Nox, who I think has a shout for unluckiest wrestler
ever.
Meanwhile, Jey Uso vs Damian Priest was pulled from advertising for the show beforehand,
which seems to have just been creative changing, as both Jey and Priest were on Raw but in
a different capacity.
More of those last minute changes eh?
Thank you, Pete, and it’s now time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka the ‘we
finally found that Johnny Gargano toy down the back of the sofa’ edition of Monday
Night Raw… in about five minutes.
The show was supposed to open with Nia Jax vs. Shayna Baszler - in the first of our advertised
things that didn’t happen - but they just brawled to the ring.
Raquel Rodriguez joined the fun, as did Rhea Ripley who made her return to lay out some
security guards.
It was a fun and chaotic way to open the show, and sets up a nice fatal four way down the
line.
It wasn’t announced for Fastlane, so one would presume this will happen on Raw in the
next few weeks.
Rhea stayed in the ring, though, to transition into our next talking segment - and there
were a lot of those on this show - where she wanted to address the issues within the Judgement
Day.
Well, it’s Groundhog Day.
Again.
Ripley blamed Damian Priest for the team falling apart and for Dom Dom losing his title, and
told Dom that she’d got him a rematch for the North American Championship on NXT, and
if he didn’t win it, he shouldn’t even consider coming home.
Never have the stakes been higher on any match in history.
WWE had also advertised Jey vs. Priest for this show, but they announced in this segment
that Priest wasn’t medically cleared and couldn’t compete.
Our second advertised thing that was cancelled.
Jey Uso came out to flirt with Rhea, and got into a brawl with them alongside Cody Rhodes
who came out to even the odds, and Adam Pearce announced that Finn and Priest will defend
the tag titles against Jey and Cody at Fastlane.
At least it isn’t Kev and Sami again, I guess.
Later in the show, JD McDonaugh suggested that they drive a wedge between Kev, Sami,
Cody and Jey.
I don’t think that will be particularly difficult, mate.
They made a big deal out of Jade Cargill signing - which they should because it is a big deal
- and over 20 minutes since the start of the show, we got our first match.
A fun little 10 minute tag with Imperium beating Alpha Academy, which saw Vinci play the difference
maker as he saved Kaiser from getting an avalanche fallaway slam from Otis to get the win.
We got a recap of Becky Lynch and Tiffany Stratton’s excellent No Mercy match, and
they showed the injury she picked up in said excellent match - as well as announcing that
the announced Becky vs. Tegan match also wasn’t happening now.
That’s three, everyone.
The weirder thing here, though, is that they said Becky vs. Tegan would happen at some
other point, but Lynch will be on NXT tonight looking for her next challenger.
It’s Tegan Nox, she’s the next challenger.
You just told us that.
Bronson Reed squashed Cedric Alexander, and Drew McIntyre told Adam Pearce that he didn’t
want to do the pre-announced MizTV segment.
That’s 4 for 4!
All 4 things pre-announced for this show did not happen, which might be a new record.
Thankfully, WWE instead gave us a much bigger match that wasn’t pre-announced.
As Tomasso Ciampa and Gunther’s contract signing for Fastlane was instead moved to
tonight’s main event.
It was a great promo from Ciampa, and an even better one from Gunther.
After AEW’s looooong 4-hour show on Sunday with a couple of matches that could have happened
on TV, I quite like WWE’s method of having big matches happen on Raw - even if the constant
ad-breaks ruin the flow.
Xavier Woods picked up a win over Ivar in a match that didn’t quite live up to expectations
set by the Kofi match two weeks ago, but it also wasn’t given the time to do so.
More on that later.
But even though Woods won, Ivar killed both Xavier and Kofi after the match and hit the
moonsault on both of them.
So who’s the real winner?
It’s Xaiver Woods.
He’s the real winner.
Do you know how good WWE’s video department is?
I’ve said time and time again that they are the best in the world, and this is a great
example of why: with only pre-existing footage, they made the Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
feud look… great.
The segments have been broadly average at best, but this video made it look like the
biggest story on Raw.
Kudos, lads.
Seth came out for a promo with Michael Cole, where he talked about his love of pro wrestling.
Nakamura cut a video promo, but it was a distraction so he could attack him from behind.
He laid out Seth and counted to 10, but Rollins kept getting up.
Eventually, Nakamura kept him down for the 10, and held aloft the title.
A simple and effective go-home segment for a cold as balls feud.
Tegan Nox and Natalya are friends now, which is a good thing, as she stopped distractions
from Piper Niven so Nox could pin Chelsea Green in just over 2 minutes.
Literally just over 2 minutes.
5 seconds over 2 minutes in fact.
And guess what?
The crowd didn’t care.
And why should they?
You can’t get someone over in 2 minute competitive matches.
This isn’t helping Nox in any way shape or form.
She and Nattie hugged after the match, so I guess they’re your new contenders for
the women’s tag titles no one cares about.
This was also the only women’s match on the show.
Drew came out for a promo, but was interrupted by The Miz - so you may as well have done
MizTV - and it led to a match where Drew beat Miz in his suit by throwing him into an exposed
turnbuckle.
I love Drew in this role.
I have no opinion on The Miz acting like a child pretending to barf.
Fun fact: that match went longer than the Tegan Nox one.
Lol.
Not Cathy Kelly interviewed Trick Williams about his North American Championship win,
which was also used to announce that all of Judgement Day will be on NXT tonight.
Judgement Day and Becky Lynch on NXT?
Is it TV rights negotiation season by any chance?
And the work doesn’t stop for Judgement Day, as Cody Rhodes announced they’ll also
be on SmackDown - and so will Cody and Jey.
Brand split lol.
And the main event saw Ciampa and Gunther have a 20 minute banger which the crowd didn’t
care about much early doors - instead doing Fireflys with their phone torches - but the
action was so good that they got into the nearfalls.
Gunther put Ciampa away with the sleeper, and then Johnny Gargano made the save from
Ciampa being beaten down by Imperium.
They set up to do the Meet in the Middle Kick, but the broadcast ended and we missed it.
Cool.
That main event and Gargano return - even without the pop - saved this episode.
Little to no wrestling on a three-hour wrestling show is unforgivable in my eyes, but most
of the segments were pretty good.
It’s your average 3 out of 5 show.
It’s Fastlane this weekend so it’s time for you to check out our predictions for the
show in just 3 words or less!