I’m Oli Davis, this is the WrestleTalk News - and welcome to SummerFest week!
Yes I still haven’t forgotten that time Jeremy Piven got SummerSlam’s name wrong.
It’s been 14 years.
Why can I remember that, but not the reason I came into this room?
Oh yeah, Roman Reigns SummerSlam plans.
I’m doing the News.
Saturday 5th August won’t just mark the next chapter in the years long Roman vs Jey
Uso Bloodline epic.
It’ll also be a year since Triple H fully took over creative control of WWE, following
Vince McMahon gracefully stepping down after a long career of service to professional wrestling
/ was forced out due to mounting allegations of sexual misconduct.
And that’s how everything stayed.
He never came back to control things from the shadows after that.
Vince interference aside, Vinceterference, Triple H has overseen arguably WWE’s greatest
run of Premium Liv Pay Per View Events in the promotion’s history - with great matches,
awesome angles, and even B-level shows feeling unmissable.
Just like he did in NXT.
And a central part of that has been the epic Bloodline Saga.
So what will happen at this Saturday’s main event, the Tribal Combat match for both the
Undisputed WWE Universal Championship and the recognition of the Tribal Chief between
Jey and Reigns?
Obviously… lights cut out.
Sunglasses on, dance sequence with Too Cool.
Because Rikishi is teasing involvement on social media again.
Rikishi, who is the Usos real-life father, Roman Reigns’ first cousin, but not related
to Samoa Joe, has been posting cryptic messages since the faction first imploded at May’s
Night of Champions - tweeting: “Enough…” and a gif of the Godfather
movie with the caption “I’m gonna make him an offer”
He more recently said in an interview: “I would have to go silent on that one” about
whether he’d be involved in the storyline.
And he’s now shared fan art from Kingraphics12 on his Instagram story of Jey Uso wearing
the Tribal Chief lei necklace, with Rikishi amongst the family members of Jimmy, Roman
and Solo behind him - with the caption “run it blood drop emoji”.
Which led to this excellent Reddit response from DirtyBrd:
“The Tribal Cheeks has spoken.
☝️” Yes.
That is top punning.
Give me your best Rikishi Bloodline puns in the comments.
Or should I say ‘Rikishi Bloodline bums…’
So how could this possibly influence the match?
Reigns was awarded the lei back at Hell in a Cell 2020 after beating Jey in an I Quit
match.
It was presented to him by his father, Sika Anoa’i, and uncle Afa, who were formerly
the Wild Samoans tag team.
This was the contextual underpinning of the Bloodline faction, one based on Samoan tradition,
family and alpha male dominance.
If Jey beats Roman to become the new tribal chief, perhaps he will be awarded the lei
by his own father elder, Rikishi.
The Tribal Combat stipulation requires permission from the family elders - which have been established
as Afa, Sika and potentially Rikishi - so they have already condoned Jey’s challenge
against Roman.
Jey even said it was their idea.
And the stipulation is No DQ, meaning outside interference can happen from Jimmy, Solo,
Paul Heyman, the elders of Afa, Sika and Rikishi too, and maybe even Rock ‘The Dwayne’
Johnson, who’s been rumoured for a SummerSlam appearance over the last two weeks.
But not you, Samoa Joe.
You are the only Samoan wrestler not to be related to anyone.
Rather than feeling like the end of this years-long story, it’s such an exciting storyline because
it kind of feels like it’s just getting started.
There are so many possibilities to go down, with multi-layered characters and inner-faction
relationships.
If you haven’t listened to it already, because I only started over the weekend, I can’t
recommend Paul Heyman’s appearance on the Rick Rubin podcast enough.
The link’s in the video description below.
I didn’t realise how few genuine interviews I’ve listened to with Heyman.
Sure, I’ve seen him conduct in character worked shoot ones, like his Inside the Ropes
tour, but this confessional and candid chat with Rubin gives you a glimpse into the man
behind the Advocate.
About half way in, he goes really in depth about the creative process of the Bloodline
saga, and his relationship with Roman.
It’s one of the best wrestling interviews I’ve ever listened to, up there with the
Punk and Mox shoot podcasts, just a nice chat as opposed to burying WWE.
Anyway, there’s so many possibilities you can go with the Bloodline saga, here’s my
pitch.
Roman beats Jey at SummerSlam through really dodgy means, choosing retaining his Universal
title over the dignity of the Tribal Chief role.
The Elders decide to strip Roman from the Head of the Table because of that, and bestowing
it on Jey - meaning you can run back Universal Champion Reigns vs Tribal Chief Jey at Payback.
How would you book the Tribal Combat match?
Let me know in the comments, where I’ll be acknowledging people FROM OUTTA GENERATIONS
OF TRIBAL TRADITION.
But before SummerFest, we had Sunday night’s NXT Great American Bash - which I’m about
to recap in 1 minute, 1 take.
After Team Babyface beat Meta-Four on the pre-show - Noam Dar, nooo! - and an opening
Cody Rhodes narrated video about Great American Bash, the show opened on The Family beat Gallus
to become the new tag team champions - finally giving D’Angelo gold in NXT.
Roxanne Perez overcame being beaten up in front of her hometown family to defeat Blair
Davenport.
This will presumably build her for a title shot.
Gable Steveson had an awfully booked in-ring debut against Baron Corbin, which ended in
a double countout because of brawling.
The crowd booed Steveson so much, chanting ‘you’re not Angle’, they actually sometimes
cheered Corbin.
Dirty Dom retained his North American title against Wes Lee and Mustafa Ali, thanks to
Rhea hitting a Riptide on Lee through the announcer’s table.
Tiffany Stratton retained the women’s title against Thea Hail when Andre Chase threw in
his towel.
And the main event was a genuine Match of the Year contender as Ilja Dragunov beat the
crap out of both himself and Carmelo Hayes.
Hayes won thanks to Trick Williams interference.
But don’t expect to see Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks joining developmental anytime
soon, as it’s looking like their longterm future is with AEW.
The Elite’s Omega, Hangman Page and The Bucks all have their AEW contracts reportedly
expiring at the end of 2023.
They have apparently been negotiating new deals for months, with no confirmation of
their long term future.
This seemed suddenly up in the air following the 19th July Blood and Guts match, after
which Kenny cut a promo saying they’ll stick together - but not saying whether that would
be in AEW.
Dave Meltzer is now reporting in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that while the Elite themselves
have stayed tight lipped on what that means, sources in WWE feel the chances of them getting
Omega “has gone cold so they do believe he’s staying with AEW.”
This has changed since several months ago, where WWE reportedly “had the impression
they had a good shot at Omega in 2024”.
Looking at the latest match announcement for this week’s special 200th episode of Dynamite,
you can see why Omega and The Bucks are likely staying with AEW - they get to face Team TNA
with Jeff Jarrett in!
Elsewhere in AEW, we covered the story of veteran women’s wrestler LuFiso angrily
tweeting about an unnamed person in the promotion stopping her from getting signed.
Speculation had Britt Baker as the “talent with too much power”, after a similar incident
with Thunder Rosa.
Sean Ross Sapp confirmed their was truth to the tweet, but couldn’t name who it was
specifically about.
PWInsider have since followed this up, clarifying Baker isn’t involved in this story.
The next major AEW show is the huge All In event at Wembley Stadium in London on the
27th August, but unless you’re one of the 77,000 who’ve bought tickets to be there
in person, nobody knows how everyone else around the world is going to watch it.
Thankfully for people outside the M25, F4WOnline have confirmed that Comcast is set to air
All In as a pay–per-view with a $50 price tag, and it’ll also be aired in movie theatres
across the States like a normal AEW PPV.
Many commentators think this is a business error for two reasons: firstly, because there
will be a second AEW pay-per-view All Out the week after, meaning fans might have to
choose which show they fork out for, unless they want to spend $100 in 8 days; and secondly,
with such an impressive crowd, there was an argument this should go on free TV to get
as many eyeballs on AEW looking like a major league promotion as possible - treating All
In more like an advert than a pay-per-view.
Not that we’re struggling for free AEW content on TV, as the Saturday episode of Collision
saw an excellent tag title match, and CM Punk finally reveal what’s in his bag:
No, not Erick Rowan’s spider.
No, not the WWE Spinner Belt.
Not Gwenth Paltrow’s head, Fight Club spoiler.
It was the AEW World Championship he never lost - which he’s referring to as the real
world championship of AEW.
He spray painted it with the new Twitter logo out of respect for Elon Musk’s branding
superpowers, or maybe it was the Straight Edge X.
Ricky Starks, who is currently a heel, became the first challenger, setting up a match for
this Saturday’s episode of Collision, to be refereed by Ricky the Dragon Steamboat!
It’ll be a very interesting episode ratings-wise, as it’s the first to go head-to-head with
a WWE premium live event of SummerSlam.
The previous month’s Money in the Bank was on earlier in the day because it was in the
UK.
MJF, meanwhile, has stuck to his recent babyface guns, not just being gracious in tag title
defeat and keeping his Adam Cole bromance going, but also by putting over FTR and AEW
in his post-match promo.
Perhaps we’re building to a face MJF vs heel Punk undisputed title match.
We’ll have a full podcast review of Collision on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel later today,
so subscribe over there to watch that.
In the meantime - Who are 10 WWE Stars Vince McMahon won’t
let Triple H push?
Watch on to find out…