To get as much content in the can as possible before Steve Corino Total Lockdown restrictions
mean wrestling promotions can no longer make wrestling shows, WWE have been taping the
next two weeks of Raw, SmackDown, NXT and, yes, even WrestleMania, over the last few
days. And somehow, even with skeleton crews working
on individual matches, with tapings being done in different locations like the Performance
Center and Full Sail University, WrestleMania spoilers are apparently being leaked.
Because tell a friend. Tell a gram. Tell a wrestler.
After WWE’s first day of WrestleMania tapings yesterday, with the rest to be finished today
before the Orlando total lockdown order comes into effect at midnight, the very reliable
WrestleVotes tweeted out to say they had received WrestleMania spoilers, but would not be tweeting
them out. Good guy WrestleVotes. But despite WrestleVotes not posting those
results, if spoilers have gotten out with just a relative handful of people knowing
them, that means they’ll likely appear online soon. So tread very, very carefully if you
don’t want to see them. But the Internet is all I have in these hard
times, hard times! Well the full 90s X-Men cartoon is on Disney+
That’s what I’m doing. And I’m totally fine.
Speaking of the Too Big For One Night WrestleMania, insert joke about Daniel Bryan’s balls at
Elimination Chamber. Bryan is set for an Intercontinental Championship match against Sami Zayn for one
of those shows, with new bestie Drew Gulak at his side.
But once that match is filmed, which was either yesterday or today, he’ll have to enter
a period of quarantine before heading home to his family - as Bryan’s wife, Brie Bella,
revealed on the latest episode of her Bella Twins podcast:
“My husband has an autoimmune disease. He also fought asthma really bad when he was
young. He was always sick when he was a kid and I’ll admit, I lost sleep last night.
“I feel bad because he’s over there and when he comes home, we’re gonna have him
be put up in a hotel and our Naturopath, Dr. Jane, he’s gonna kind of work with Bryan
to see if we see symptoms before he comes home to Bird and I.”
Bryan won’t be the only WWE star self-quarantining for precautionary reasons, as both Rey Mysterio
and Dana Brooke were sent home from the Performance Center tapings last week - with Mysterio’s
planned WrestleMania US title match against Andrade being scrapped, and Brooke having
to be dropped from the six-pack challenge for the SmackDown women’s title.
Before Brie revealed Bryan would be self-quarantining, Wade Keller of PWTorch reported a third name
who was not currently showing symptoms had done the same. Keller said that since the
third name had not been publicly released, he wouldn’t reveal them, but confirmed it
was taken as a preventative measure, and they currently weren’t on the WrestleMania card.
This could be Bryan, then, as his match with Zayn won’t be confirmed until Friday’s
SmackDown, or it could be another WWE star. Even with one set of tapings already filmed,
though, WWE are reportedly no closer to determining what each respective night’s main events
will be, with Fightful now reporting Night One being either Becky Lynch vs Shayna Baszler
and Roman Reigns vs Goldberg. Fightful writes the original plan was for
the women’s match to close the first night, but there’s since been a push backstage
for Reigns vs Goldberg to have that spot instead. With everything taped in advance, WWE can
move the match order around after the fact, based on the quality
of the matches. Bryan Alvarez has revealed WWE have already
filmed the top matches for the show, leaving the undercard matches for tonight’s set
of tapings. One would assume that would mean that the big title matches, and blood feuds
between Orton and Edge, Cena and The Fiend and AJ and the Undertaker would have been
recorded yesterday. But it’s not just the main events that are
undecided, as the actual card itself is still reportedly not finalised, with PWInsider reporting
more “random, sorta zany matches” to be announced.
Because of Steve Corino, the entire WrestleTalk office has been working from home, which is
why I’m on every video. And because of that, I can’t do a full review of NXT this week,
because I can’t physically watch everything and record all this at the same time. I will
have a full review of AEW shortly, because I’m watching that anyway for the WrestleTalk
Podcast later today. And because Tony Khan pays me, just so much money. But Pete and
Laurie will have a full NXT review podcast up on this channel soon.
But for a recap for those wanting to know, here’s what happened on last night’s NXT
episode. Now TakeOver: Tampa Bay isn’t happening,
the card’s matches will be taking place on regular old NXT starting from next week,
so this episode was spent building towards them.
Io Shirai made her return from injury to attack Xia Li, beat Aaliyah and get a spot in the
NXT Women’s Championship Number One Contendership Ladder match. That’s so many words. As did
Candice LeRae by beating Kayden Carer. Matt Riddle beat Roderick Strong, for Malcolm
Bivens to finally debut on NXT managing the new tag team of Rinku Singh and Saurav Gurjar,
who took out both Riddle and Strong. Triple H said Gargano and Ciampa’s feud
will finally end in two weeks time. But then, as the three of them stood there with the
show going to black, a vignette played for Killer Kross showing him in person as the
minute hand moved to 12 to end the show. And here’s what happened on the 25th March’s
AEW Dynamite… The first match saw Cody leave the commentary
desk and kiss the ring announcer. What kind of social distancing is th-oh, right she’s
his wife. To beat Jimmy Havoc in the latest example of Cody making his opponents look
awesome. Jake the Snake then appeared on the video
screen challenging Cody to a match with Lance Archer. Cody deflected the invitation, saying
Lance can’t just come into AEW and get a match with him. He’s got to work his way
up - which he’ll start with his in-ring debut next week.
After Darby Allin’s latest black-and-white short film where he sets fire to pictures
of the Inner Circle - that guy really likes fire - he took on Kip Sabian in a decent TV
match, where Cody proved he’s not just great at putting over guys in the ring. He can do
it from commentary too. Darby won with his new Last Supper leg lock
pin combination - which somewhat protected Kip in defeat.
Jake Hager had an impressive video package blending his AEW power spots with his MMA
fights, and then squashing Chico Adams in the cuddle sleeper!
Jon Moxley attacked Hager afterwards as revenge for the Inner Circle powerbombing him off
the stage, and promised he’d come for the rest of the faction soon. There are, of course,
far more significant impacts of Steve Corino on society, but to focus on our wrestling
bubble, it’s such a shame Moxley’s momentum from his world title win has been partly derailed
by the outbreak. The Dark Order’s recently unveiled Exalted
One Brodie Lee came out with just one crawler next - because cults aren’t really built
for social distancing - where he wrestled an excellent squash match, really getting
over his impressive moveset of brainbusters, Blackhole Slams and his awesome Wyatt Family-referencing
finisher of a Sister Abigail discuss clothesline. What was most interesting, however, was the
look at Brodie’s new character in the preceding video package. Lee was presented as a mob
boss rather than a cult leader, not letting Dark Order members John Silver and Alex Reynolds
eat their dinner until he’d finished his, and then throwing them out for sneezing. That’s
not actually a common symptom, Brodie, you wanna look for new, continuous dry coughs.
It was like Brodie was channeling Vince McMahon, which is an interesting evolution of the Dark
Order gimmick. Hopefully it will work with what’s come before, as Brodie as the leader
was never the original plan. Kenny Omega then beat Sammy Guevarra in a
terrific match to retain his AAA Mega championship - I forgot he had that title too. The last
five minutes had some tremendous sequences. And the great thing about Sammy is that it
never really feels like his opponents beat him. It’s his own arrogance and showboating,
which really protects him, even though he actually loses a lot.
And the main event saw Broken Matt Hardy have a one-on-one confrontation with Chris Jericho,
after Hardy appeared at the top of the arena and teleported down the stands to the ring.
Which… I didn’t like. It was a cool visual, it fits Matt’s broken
world, and hey, there’s no fans, so who really cares? But I think it’s ultimately
misjudged and I hope Matt’s supernatural abilities don’t appear in AEW reality ever
again. Having Matt believe he is a 3,000 year old
vampire is a complex, interesting character. But having the show of AEW believe he’s
a 3,000 year old vampire is hokey and undermines everything else it’s trying to do. It’s
like if PAC started selling Orange Cassidy’s superkicks, as undeniably deadly as they are.
If you take the teleportation out of this segment, it was actually fascinating, with
Matt and Jericho saying they’ve seen each other live through so many different personalities
- but the same insecurities persist through them all.
Jericho eventually slaps him, starting a brawl with Guevara, Kenny and Cody to close the
show. What do you think of supernatural Matt Hardy
in AEW? Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
And vote with your rating of the show by clicking the i above my head.
This was a decent episode, with great in-ring wrestling, and Brodie Lee starting an interesting
new chapter for the Dark Order. This week’s Dynamite is ⅗.
Bray Wyatt’s WrestleMania pitch has been leaked! Click the video on the right now to
find out his crazy John Cena plan. And what are the 10 greatest NXT TakeOvers of all time?
Click the video below that for Adam Blampied’s latest list. I’ve been Oli Davis, and that
was wrestling.