In this WrestleTalk News, a huge match featuring more than one return for the Royal Rumble
has been leaked, Cody Rhodes has been gettin’ physical, an update on Goldberg in WWE and
more.
We’re very soon entering Royal Rumble territory for 2023, which means information about the
event is starting to come out.
Not only will we be seeing what happens with Roman Reigns and his potential challenger,
or challengers if some reports are to be believed, at WrestleMania, but the customary slew of
returns and call-ups that Rumbles are well known for.
Plus this will be the first Rumble that Triple H will be overseeing, so that’s also exciting.
As we spoke about in Saturday’s news episode, there’s already a Forbidden Door-style Rumble
appearance expected in the women’s match, that being one Kairi Sane, but there’s more
details about the show as a whole coming out now too, with one match reportedly featuring
not just a returning wrestler, but a returning stipulation as well.
WrestlingNews.co is reporting that a slated match for Rumble 2023 is Finn Balor vs Edge,
inside Hell in a Cell.
But it’s not October and/or May, how can there be a Cell match this time of year?
It’s an encouraging sign, not just because that match sounds very fun and makes sense
in terms of keeping out Judgement Day so Balor and Edge can have the match alone, but also
because it lends further credence to there not being a Hell in a Cell Premium Live Event
in 2023 either, which is a very good thing.
It’s yet another step on the rehabilitation journey for many aspects of WWE programming,
with this one attempting to restore the mystique surrounding Hell in a Cell.
Though Triple H definitely has his work cut out for him, with also needing to rehabilitate
wrestlers, title belts, the idea of actually paying attention to the wrestling and not
just entrances and finishers, commentary, promos, storylines, feuds, wins and losses
mattering somewhat, and a partridge in a pear tree.
This feud will also be the first time we’ve seen Edge on our TVs since Extreme Rules,
where he lost in the excellent I Quit match to Balor - which you would also assume writes
out either of them winning the Rumble match itself too, not that you’d expect either
of them to win anyway.
Because it’s going to be Omos.
Who could possibly eliminate him, he’s so tall.
Are you excited for the return of Hell in a Cell, and not at the Hell in a Cell PLE?
Let us know in the comments.
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and subscribe to the channel more news videos because we upload every single day of the
year.
News.
One person many fans have been speculating might win the Rumble in the new year is Cody
Rhodes, who we haven’t seen since the last Hell in a Cell event - look at that, symbiotic
news.
The man had a severe case of the ouchies at the show, having torn his pectoral muscle
immediately prior in a weightlifting accident.
Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t wrestling after that and needed extensive time off to recuperate.
His chest was purple.
Look at it.
But while fans do think he has a strong chance of winning the Rumble, there’s been no confirmation
as of yet that he’ll actually be medically cleared in time, as while it’s been about
7 months since the injury occurred, need I remind you that his chest was in fact purple.
However, there might be an indication that he’ll be back before long as it seems he’s
been getting
a bit physical.
Fightful Select is reporting that last week, there was a commercial shoot for 2K, and it
featured Cody Rhodes, or at the very least someone dressed exactly like him, locking
up with The Miz.
Now while that might seem incredibly tame, for a torn pectoral, just locking up is a
good sign of recovery.
Granted, this gives no indication if he’s cleared to wrestle or take bumps or anything
of the sort, but at the very least, if this was Cody at the shoot, he probably would have
been given some sort of clearance to do anything physical at all.
That’s good news.
Whether he’ll be back in time for the Rumble itself is of course still up in the air, but
the report also states that WWE fully expects to have Cody back in time for WrestleMania,
which reportedly WWE were never in doubt about.
So even if he misses the Rumble, he’ll be back to have a featured match on the biggest
show of the year regardless.
That’s also good news.
If Cody isn’t facing Reigns at Mania, who would you have him wrestle instead?
Seth Rollins?
Karrion Kross?
Bray Wyatt?
Bobby Lashley?
Gunther?
I think there’s some pretty good options there.
But one person it probably won’t be is Hall of Famer and resident headbutt enthusiast
Goldberg.
Fightful Select has shot down recent reports making the rounds that Goldberg has signed
a new deal with WWE, and noted that his current deal expires at the end of this year, but
with no matches left on said deal.
The original reports stated that Goldberg had signed a new two year, five match deal,
with three of those matches set to be against ‘younger talent’, whatever that vague
term means in contractual language, however Fightful Select reportedly spoke to Goldberg’s
representatives, who denied this, and said those reports were news to them, and considering
they are the ones who would negotiating such a deal, it seems unlikely to be true.
It’s worth noting that it’s entirely possible that Goldberg could sign a new deal in 2023,
but as of right now, his contract expires in a couple of weeks and there’s nothing
lined up for him in terms of WWE appearances.
His last match was at Elimination Chamber this year in February, where he lost to Roman
Reigns in a few minutes, so fingers crossed if he does come back in 2023, it’s to have
the sort of fun match he had with Dolph Ziggler, and not a World Title match.
Again.
Please.
The recent talk in the wrestling news world has been surrounding Sasha Banks, as it has
been for the latter half of 2022 really, with the occasional pitstop to talk about Vince
McMahon or Brawl Out.
But news recently emerged that Banks is lined up to appear at Wrestle Kingdom 17, which
if you weren’t aware, is a pretty big deal.
This is reportedly to set up a match with current IWGP Women’s Champion, KAIRI.
And if you missed the bit earlier in the video where I mentioned that KAIRI is set to appear
in the women’s Rumble match, isn’t that exciting, because will Banks be there too
to further that story?
Oh the possibilities.
Interestingly though, Banks appearing at Wrestle Kingdom wasn’t always a cut and dry deal,
as the Wrestling Observer Newsletter is reporting that initially, STARDOM turned down the offer
to have Sasha Banks on their shows as they thought it wouldn’t be “cost effective”.
STARDOM and New Japan Pro Wrestling are both owned by parent company Bushiroad, hence the
crossover here.
And you know, fair enough, considering Banks was reportedly asking for a hell of a lot
of money to appear for them - but it seems like it’s more of an investment to kick
off their IWGP Women’s Title legacy and have the title be meaningful off the bat,
even if they don’t make the money back immediately.
The other talk of the wrestling world in the past week has been the release of Mandy Rose.
After suddenly dropping the NXT Women’s Title on last week’s episode of NXT, a title
she had held for over a year, Rose was let go from the company, reportedly due to content
she was uploading to her FanTime page, with it being reportedly deemed too explicit for
the PG company WWE are.
The reports surrounding Mandy’s release noted that she was making considerably more
money from her own content than she was from her WWE contract, and now there’s more evidence
of that from CJ Perry, the former Lana in WWE too.
Fightful Select is reporting that Perry has exceeded her best year’s earnings in WWE,
primarily due to her own BrandArmy site.
When she launched her page back in May, she reportedly earned $20,000 in the first day,
the largest launch day in the site’s history.
While this is just an interesting factoid by itself, it also lends a bit more context
into why Rose would be hesitant or resistant to shutting down her page or toning down the
content if she’s far exceeding her WWE contract earnings like Perry is/was.
Meanwhile in WWE though, The Bloodline story continues to be the best thing going in wrestling
since sliced bread.
Which, now I say it out loud is the name of a wrestling move, and yes I’d say it is
better than the wrestling move called Sliced Bread.
And also better than actual sliced bread.
One of the many elements of the story is the inclusion of Kevin Owens and his dynamic with
Sami Zayn, and this will most likely be leading to a title shot for Owens at either the Rumble
or Elimination Chamber, which is due to take place in Montreal.
However, despite Owens being a key factor in this story right now, he was reportedly
forced to miss not just one but two episodes of SmackDown due to travel issues according
to Fightful Select.
There were double tapings in Chicago for SmackDown, and Owens was forced to miss both, which means
he won’t be featured until after Christmas.
Luckily there’s still plenty of time to build to the Rumble, so this shouldn’t affect
the story too much.
Since Triple H has been in power, there’s been a ton of returns under his watch, from
Karrion Kross to Dexter Lumis and everyone in between, but one person that hasn’t returned
as of yet is Matt Cardona, the former Zack Ryder.
While Cardona has been getting himself over in various promotions, such as GCW, NWA and
Impact, he has now said he wants to return to WWE at some point before his career is
over in an interview with Chris Van Vliet: “One goal that I’ve been saying for a
long time is to win that WWE championship.
That’s not a lie…But I would be lying if I said I never want to wrestle at Madison
Square Garden again or I never want to have a WrestleMania match…So I’m not saying,
you know, there’s this plan to go back as soon as possible but before I hang up the
boots I’d love to go back at least one time.”
Matt Cardona to dethrone Roman Reigns confirmed?
Can you imagine?
And as it’s nearly the end of 2022, we’re looking back across the year to figure out
what was best and what was worst, so why not check out Adam Blampied’s Top 10 Wrestling
Matches Of 2022 over on partsFUNknown right now?