In this WrestleTalk News, AEW announces its latest new signing, the AEW crowd turns on
CM Punk, MJF makes a statement after winning the AEW World Championship, and more.
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Last night was AEW Full Gear, and while I’m not here to review the show, I am here to
tell you some of the news from the show, including the crowd’s reaction to an absent CM Punk.
One of the matches of the night was the highly anticipated return of Kenny Omega and the
Young Bucks following their long suspension as a result of the infamous events at All
Out earlier this year.
Omega and the Bucks ultimately failed to regain their belts from Death Triangle, but there
was something else very interesting that happened outside of the ring last night.
Eagle-eared viewers, or actually anyone who can hear, will have heard the raucous Full
Gear crowd completely turn on former World Champion CM Punk, who remains suspended by
AEW for his part in the alleged All Out backstage fight.
Chants of both “F*** CM Punk” and “Colt Cabana” could be heard throughout the match,
leaving those watching at home in no doubt as to whose side the live crowd was on in
all of this mess.
The intensity of the chanting may have come as a surprise to many, as while a lot of people
have publicly condemned Punk’s words during the post-All Out Media Scrum and his alleged
actions in the aftermath, many fans have already forgiven him, because he’s CM Punk, and
that name tends to be slightly more forgivable than others.
In terms of the latest reports on the whole CM Punk situation, it really feels like we’re
never going to see him in an AEW ring again, as the relationship between Punk and AEW is
at an all time low.
According to last week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, “Colt Cabana wrestling Chris
Jericho only made things worse as far as issues with the two sides”.
While it wasn’t exactly an official statement, Punk has sort of made his first public comments
on the matter during a recent appearance as a commentator on an MMA show.
Punk joked with the other commentators that “everything is hurt, I’m nursing everything”
in reference to the injury he sustained at All Out.
He also said “Oh I’m bad news, you don’t want me in the locker room,” which I think
it’s safe to say is probably a shot at AEW, although CM Punk is usually very level headed
and understanding, so maybe I’m just reading way too much into his very obvious shot.
Shortly before last night’s show, AEW announced their latest signing in the form of highly-rated
Japanese star Konosuke Takeshita.
Takeshita is the latest in a long list of international stars signing with AEW, and
the signing will likely have a lot of fans excited, given his previous performances for
AEW.
While Takeshita was given the classic All Elite tweet, it’s interesting to note that
he isn’t actually signed to an exclusive contract with AEW, as DDT Pro Wrestling, Sanshiro
Takagi, confirmed Takeshita has a dual contract with both AEW and DDT, allowing him to freely
wrestle for both promotions.
While many of his previous AEW appearances have come on episodes of Dark, Takeshita has
made several appearances on AEW Rampage, and was part of a fantastic match with former
Ring of Honor World Champion Claudio Castagnoli at Battle of the Belts III earlier this year.
Fingers crossed Takeshita can escape the lackluster booking some Japanese stars have been dealt
in AEW.
Thankfully, if he is booked poorly, he can always just wrestle for DDT and try to forget
wrestling QT Marshall on AEW Dark Elevation.
On the subject of Japan, it appears an incredibly
exciting match is going to be taking place at Wrestle Kingdom 17 in January next year.
A few hours after Full Gear went off the air, New Japan Pro Wrestling tweeted a video of
Kenny Omega, in which he challenged current IWGP United States Champion Will Ospreay for
a match at New Japan’s biggest show of the year.
During the video, Omega said: “Once AEW was built, there was nothing keeping
me in New Japan, so I had to be replaced.
And just who was that replacement?
Oh it just had to be the masterful Willian Ospreay.
And how did that turn out?”
Since Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks joined AEW, New Japan’s popularity taken a significant
downward turn, but it’s clear that the relationship between him and Japan is still very strong.
Ospreay and Omega are arguably two of the greatest wrestlers on the face of the planet,
and I think I can actually hear Tempest squealing right now as he hears this news.
Hopefully you have seen by now that MJF is the new AEW World Champion, and if you haven’t,
whoops, I suppose you do now.
Thankfully, his title win doesn’t seem to have started any massive backstage brawls,
but that doesn’t mean he didn’t celebrate in the most MJF way possible by interrupting
the post-show media scrum.
Interrupting AEW President Tony Khan, he said: "The times, they are a changing.
Let's talk, shall we.
AEW is now destination television, once again.
The ship has been steered properly, once again.
This belt is now the most important belt in this entire sport, and it's thanks to three
letters.
It damn sure ain't AEW.
I know for a mother****in' fact it ain't MOX.
It's MJF.
Goddamn, you people are f***ing dumb.
No offense.”
He continued not offending people by called them stupid and morons, but remember no offense
at all.
Continuing his impassioned promo, he said “Here's what's going to f***ing happen.
I'm going to take a shower, I'm going to get all of Moxley's disgusting hepatitis A through
Z off of me, and then in the morning, I'm going to do what nobody else on the roster
does because I'm the only real f***ing star here, I'm going to hop on a jet and I'm gonna
go to my goddamn movie set.”
He then finished his impromptu promo, or “oratory exhibition” as he’d like it to be called
by cutting the classic Jim Cornette line: “Any questions?
Just kidding.
F*** YOU.”
He signed off with the equally mild-mannered sentence of “Thank you, f*** you, bye – the
champ is f***ing out baby.”
Such a polite young man.
In a more PG section of the post-Full Gear Media Scrum, Tony Khan addressed Jamie Hayter
winning the interim Women’s Championship from Toni Storm, and what that means for the
interim title going forward.
The whole interim championship thing that Tony Khan has presented on two occasions now
has led to scrutiny from both fans and the talent themselves.
Prior to Hayter’s victory, Toni Storm was incredibly vocal for her dislike over the
‘interim’ tag and now that she has lost the gold, it begs the question whether that
reign will even be recognised historically despite Storm holding it for over two and
a half months.
So, with current proper Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa looking unlikely to return before
the end of the year, what does our new ‘interim’ champion Jamie Hayter think of the whole thing?
Well, when asked as such at the Full Gear media scrum Hayter answered with a whole bunch
of nothing, with Tony Khan instead chiming in to clarify the current ‘interim’ situation.
“It’s a new championship reign absolutely and I’ve been evaluating that and its something
we’ve been taking under consideration…
when we get a better timeline for Thunder Rosa’s return I’ll have to make the decision…”
So while Tony's answer seems to suggest that Hayter’s title reign will in fact be recognised
as a proper one, then we have to ask once again, why bother with the interim thing in
the first place Tony?
And it turns out that we are not alone in that way of thinking, as current AEW talent
Shawn Spears weighed in on Twitter eloquently summarizing that “This ‘interim stuff’
is bullshit, you’re either a champion or you’re not.”
Well said Spears, well said.
The tweet has subsequently received a whole bunch of likes and retweets so it seems like
everyone in the wrestling community is united on this one, isn’t that nice?
So back to the positive stuff now and as mentioned earlier, Saraya’s comeback was undoubtedly
a highlight of the night and a moment not many (including Saraya) thought would ever
come.
So how did it all come about then?
Well, speaking in the media scrum following Full Gear Saraya went into further detail
as to the precautions that AEW took prior to her getting the all clear, praising Tony
Khan and the medical team for taking care of her.
“We did MRIs, CT Scans, X-Rays, and my neck was 100% ready to go.
Even I was shocked, I didn’t realize it would be 100%.
With Tony, he’s very understanding when it comes to injuries.
We said, ‘I want to take it slow coming back.
I don’t want to rush back in like I did the last time’ where it was a lot of work
straight away.
He was so understanding.
I really appreciate him.
I’m happy I got to do this in AEW, I’ve been wanting to come here for a long time.”
Not only that but Saraya revealed that the AEW doctors conducted heat, electric and pressure
point therapy prior to her match with Baker.
Something that she revealed they are going to continue to do every time she appears for
the company, even if she’s not scheduled to wrestle.
It’s clear that Saraya is in a great place and it’s honestly a joy to witness, congratulations
to her once again!
Another notable occurrence from Full Gear came in the Tag Team Title match between the
current and former champs The Acclaimed and Swerve In Our Glory, where after a whole lot
of teases over the past few months Keith Lee and ‘sneaky’ Swerve Strickland’s relationship
imploded.
At the conclusion of the contest, Swerve became obsessed with using a pair of pliers on Bowens
and Caster, imploring ‘Bearcat Lee’ (sorry) to get evil and rip those scissoring fingers
right off, to which Lee quite rightly refused.
This then led to Swerve slapping Lee and Lee proceeding to abandon ship, leaving Swerve
to fight Bowens and Caster all alone.
Now, according to Fightful Select the plan following the split is unsurprisingly to have
Lee and Swerve proceed into a singles feud, likely making the way for some new challengers
to The Acclaimed (cough FTR).
Check out Pete’s Full Gear review from earlier today by click the link on screen now!