In this WrestleTalk News, WWE has no plans for a SmackDown star, Rampage’s worst ratings
ever, and our review of Raw. Since Triple H has taken over WWE, it’s
been pretty much sunshine and rainbows in WWE, at least from a fan perspective. More
and better wrestling, storylines that make sense, and a bunch of returns from released
stars to inject the product with a bit of life.
However, there may be some casualties along the way. You may have noticed that there are
certain wrestlers that have been off your screens for a while, and that situation might
not be changing for one wrestler in particular. Aliyah was being featured in the women’s
tag team championship picture alongside her teammate Raquel Rodriguez, but she suffered
an injury in September that sidelined her from action, meaning Raquel found a new partner
in Shotzi. And now according to the Wrestling Observer
Newsletter, it seems Aliyah’s absence from our TV isn’t actually down to her injury
anymore, as she reportedly has been cleared to come back, but creative has nothing for
her right now. Granted, WWE is currently pushing a bunch
of other women in the division right now, with Raw featuring two triple threat matches
to determine a number one contender’s match for the champion, but over on SmackDown things
aren’t looking quite so peachy with Ronda as champ, the fumbling of Liv Morgan, Raquel,
Shotzi…Natalya? Emma returned but hasn’t been featured much since, and others that
aren’t featured in-ring as much like B-Fab, Zelina Vega and Valhalla. SmackDown could
do with some bodies, but it doesn’t seem like Aliyah will be one of them.
How would you book Aliyah on SmackDown? Let us know in the comments!
Things aren’t looking too hot across the way in AEW either right now, as last week’s
episode of Rampage drew the show’s worst ratings so far.
Back in its usual timeslot, the show drew an average of 361,000 viewers, and got an
18-49 demo rating of .08, which is a record low. Can’t wait for it start mattering again
soon, I’m sure it’ll happen any day now, right Tony? Any day now. One day. Some day.
Please. I know you’re probably sick of hearing about
CM Punk and AEW, but there is an update on the situation and so talk about it I must.
While it seems pretty cut and dry at this point as to what happened, the investigation
results and the outcome of what we’re going to see from Punk and AEW going forward, it
seems there are some still holding on to the idea of this whole thing being a work. Or
it at least being changed into one. According to Dave Meltzer on Twitter, who
was asked if CM Punk leaving AEW was a work and leading to a return, it is currently not
an angle. “Many hope it will become one, but the odds are strong that won’t happen.”
I wonder why the odds would be strong that it won’t happen. No idea myself.
Luke is unfortunately at home with Covid, get well soon Luke, so now it’s time for
my review of Raw in about 5 minutes. This show began with the pre-advertised match
of The Usos defending their Undisputed Tag Belts against Riddle and Elias, except it
wasn’t Elias as ‘earlier today’, they showed Solo Sikoa beating up Elias and writing
him out of the match. So instead after a fun promo from the Bloodline, Riddle revealed
his partner was instead going to be Kevin Owens. This is good.
The match itself was a bit of fun, with the nice subtlety we’ve come to expect from
Bloodline stories, this time with Sami Zayn saving Jey Uso from a dive from Riddle, allowing
Solo Sikoa to get in Owens’ way for some distraction shenanigans. The Usos managed
to hit the 1D on Riddle to retain, and they’ll be having another tag title match this Friday
with Sheamus & Butch, after it was revealed later in the show that Drew McIntyre was not
medically cleared to compete. Post-match, Kevin Owens chased off everyone
with a chair, and of course he hit both Usos with the chair but didn’t connect with Sami,
again, lovely little subtle detail, but unfortunately for Riddle, he didn’t chase off Solo Sikoa,
who beatdown Riddle with a Samoan Spike, then wrapped a chair around his neck and did a
hip attack in the corner. This appeared to have at the very least written Riddle off
for a little bit, so I’m curious what’s next here. Regardless, this made Solo look
pretty great with the beatdown on Elias to start the show and then this.
There were two women’s triple threat matches on this show to determine what would be the
number one contender’s match to Bianca Belair’s Raw Women’s Championship next week, which
is a very neat idea. The first of the two pitted Bayley against Asuka and Rhea Ripley,
but prior to the match, Becky Lynch came out through the crowd and reminded everyone that
she and Bayley hadn’t fought in a singles match in over 3 years, which is a great way
to make a potential matchup feel special. And speaking of feeling special, Rhea Ripley
then made her entrance and had a lengthy staredown with Becky Lynch, and if that’s going to
be the WrestleMania programme, yes please. That is a featured match that doesn’t need
the title to feel special. The triple threat itself was very fun, and
my big takeaway from it was how somehow how much Rhea Ripley has improved in the ring,
and she was already great. She just has this level of explosiveness you don’t see elsewhere
in the women’s division, aside from maybe Asuka.
And of course this match gets 5 stars because it featured the over-the-top spot of the heels
doing the ‘you…me…get her…’, which Ripley just straight up denied. What I liked
most about this match though was the fact it felt like a triple threat with all 3 people
interacting pretty frequently, and not a rotating singles match where one person rests on the
outside for a while. However, what I wasn’t a huge fan of was
Bayley winning this match. I’ve got nothing against Bayley, but we’ve seen Bayley vs
Bianca multiple times now, and the potential prospect of seeing it again is not very exciting.
I think giving Rhea or Asuka this win would have benefitted both of them a little more,
but it’s difficult to say as giving Bayley yet another loss would also have been detrimental.
It’s a tough one to book out of, but that’s what happens when you book the six top women
in two triple threats. Seth Rollins came out and looked…I’m not
going to say bad, but I’m also not going to say good either.
Bobby Lashley and Rollins will be fighting next week and whoever wins will be number
one contender to the United States title. So no matter who wins it’s something we’ve
already seen! Neat! I jest, but in order to build to this match,
Lashley came out and confronted Rollins who tried to get under his skin by reminding him
he lost to Brock Lesnar and saying he’ll never be as good as Lesnar and he wishes he
could have had the career Lesnar had, and- hold up I thought Rollins was a babyface now.
He came across like a massive dick here and hey ho if that’s what you want to go for
in your no babyfaces/no heels company then sure, just didn’t vibe with me.
They then brawled, where Lashley inadvertently Speared Petey Williams. I know Luke isn’t
here, but Petey Williams was on the show, so I assume this gets 5 stars.
Austin Theory was then interviewed backstage to ask his thoughts about the previous segment,
where he said Rollins and Lashley were the past and he was the now, which…yeah he’s
right. He was then interrupted by Mustafa Ali who said he wants a shot at the title,
and Theory says yeah alright. During the entrances for their match, the
commentary mentioned how despite Mustafa Ali being born in the States and being a former
police officer, he never felt good enough or like he belonged and the United States
title was another step to belonging, which is actually quite the compelling character
motivation. Sure is a shame we didn’t get Ali telling us that or cutting an impassioned
promo about it and instead was mentioned as an aside.
This match was going pretty well, aside from one scary botch where the pair fell off the
middle rope together, but then Dolph Ziggler decided to ruin everything by attacking Austin
Theory to cause a DQ. Ali was understandably, quite annoyed about Ziggler ruining his title
opportunity for basically no reason, but then Theory laid them both out. Not the best of
finishes. Now I guess I should take about JBL’s Poker
Invitational as it influenced a couple of matches here.
There were several segments throughout the show of JBL’s Poker Invitational. JBL said
he wanted it to be as grand a spectacle as WrestleMania, so naturally he invited Tamina,
Dana Brooke, Alpha Academy and Akira Tozawa. Dexter Lumis and Johnny Gargano weren’t
invited but Dexter had a big bag of money so he was then allowed. Comedy, I think.
In segment number two, Chad Gable and Luke Gallows got into a shouting match to see who
could shout Shoosh or Nerd louder respectively. Comedy, I think. Dexter Lumis bet his axe
that he carries with him, and Dominik Mysterio tried to steal chips from Akira Tozawa.
In segment number three, The Miz appeared outside the room and tried to enter despite
not receiving an invitation but JBL said it’s a $50 buy-in and Miz said he doesn’t have
the cash right now and tried to give JBL his Rolex instead. JBL then told him his Rolex
was fake and Miz made this face at him, and then walked off. [MIZ REACTION SCREEN]
Comedy, I think. And in the fourth and final segment, Baron
Corbin was caught cheating in Poker and he gets into it with the rest of The OC. Everyone
walks off to fight and then Dexter Lumis and Johnny Gargano take the rest of the money,
which…looks an awful lot like the exact amount they walked in with.
That didn’t stop Candice LeRae nearly swearing in another backstage segment after seeing
the money though, and she, Gargano and Dexter Lumis walked off to do…money things. Comedy,
I think. This then led into The OC vs Alpha Academy
& Baron Corbin, where Chad Gable and Luke Gallows had a shouting match to see who could
shout Shoosh or Nerd louder respectively, and it worked so well the first time.
Chad Gable is such a good wrestler, please give him a proper singles run at some point.
The OC won with the Magic Killer and JBL complained about it loudly on commentary.
Dominik Mysterio then beat Akira Tozawa quite quickly, and hey Akira’s wrestling! And
he’s quite good! He should wrestle more! The Street Profits protected Tozawa from a
post-match beatdown. And then we had the main event of Alexa Bliss
vs Becky Lynch vs Nikki Cross to see who would face Bayley next week, and after Becky and
Bayley’s interaction earlier in the night, it makes sense that…Alexa Bliss won. Oh.
Damage CTRL came out and beat up Becky when it looked like she was going to win, allowing
Alexa to hit the Twisted Bliss on Nikki for the win. It’s a much needed win for Alexa,
and she’ll face Bayley next week, where you’d expect Bayley to win. Unless!
Alexa teased hitting the Sister Abigail in this match, which honestly was the most interesting
part, so what if she turns heel next week and goes nuts and joins Bray Wyatt, leading
to an Alexa vs Bianca title match with newly heel Alexa? I wouldn’t hate it.
Overall this was a solid night of wrestling, but story progression was generally lacking.
The women’s triple threats were nice but with questionable finishes, the Bloodline
stuff was nice, but JBL’s Poker Invitational can f*** off. This was a ⅗ show.
Thankfully the scary botch on this show didn’t result in any injuries, but we sure have seen
some crazy ones this year in wrestling, check out our list on partsFUNknown of the scariest
injuries we’ve seen this year now!