In this WrestleTalk News, WWE accused! A major AEW leak, AJ Styles leaving and more…
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Hey, guys, hey, come close. A little closer. I’m starting to think AEW and WWE don’t
like each other. Once almost defeated by WCW in the 90s, Vince
McMahon has made sure never to let a rival professional wrestling company get even slightly
big enough to compete with WWE. He brought back Bret Hart to counter program TNA’s
first Monday night episode of IMPACT. He started NXT UK to suffocate the British indie scene
and ITV’s WOS Wrestling promotion. And just a few weeks before AEW launched their weekly
wrestling show Dynamite on TNT in 2019, NXT suddenly got put on the USA Network in the
exact same time slot. But AEW won that first battle, beating them
so bad, NXT got moved to Tuesday nights, had a midlife crisis and started wearing tie-dye.
Now, with the huge signings of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole Bay Bay over the last
two months, AEW have now found themselves in competition against the main WWE roster
- frequently beating Raw in key ratings demos. In retaliation, still haunted by the ghost
of 90s WCW, McMahon has hot shotted the last month of Raw, and has increased SmackDown
by 30 commercial free minutes this Friday to directly take a chunk out of AEW Rampage’s
viewership. But that’s not the only way WWE is allegedly
undermining AEW, because according to Voices of Wrestling - who have had several scoops
in the past - WWE is leaking AEW information to make them look bad.
“Here's the scoop. WWE is leaking the Rampage fast nationals. This was tipped off to us
and then confirmed by at least one of the outlets that has been reporting them. Come
up with your own motivations, but that's who is feeding it to the news sites.”
Rampage Fast Nationals, name of your 00s backyard wrestling faction. But also the name given
to a type of TV rating. As Rampage airs on a Friday and Nielson don’t work weekends
- they’re the company who report on TV viewership - the ‘Fast Nationals’ figures is a quickly
compiled, not 100% accurate number which is generally lower the the final rating.
These are numbers you have to pay $1,000s to have access to, and Voices of Wrestling
is claiming it’s WWE’s nice little way of saying f*** you Tony.
“My theory is that their strategy is to present Rampage as AEW being weak. Smackdown
airs on the same night, so it's great P.R. to compare the numbers, especially since the
general public has no understanding of what a good number is at Friday 10pm”
And these ‘leaks’ didn’t start happening until they were favourable to WWE...
“It's also notable that these leaks weren't happening until Rampage began to level off.
Find me a fast nationals headline for the Punk return or Rampage being #1 on cable.
WWE can only claim AEW isn't competition for so long. P.R. leaks and 2.5 hour Smackdowns
were inevitable.” That’s pretty petty though, right, WWE wouldn’t
do something like th-oh yeah they fired CM Punk on his wedding day.
For balance though, Rampage has done pretty badly on Friday nights recently, over halving
its highest viewership last week. What do you think about WWE leaking AEW data?
Let me know in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to people for the first
30 minutes after this video goes live FROM OUTTA NOWHERE.
And in a genius counter move to WWE’s information leak… Tony Khan has just gone and accidentally
leaked a load of AEW information himself. He’s playing god damn 4D Command and Conquer:
Red Alert. After Tony Khan revealed in an interview that
the Casino Ladder Match winner Hangman Page will cash in his chip to face Kenny Omega
for the AEW World Championship at next month’s Full Gear, he accidentally leaked the rest
of the secret pay-per-view card. Potential spoilers ahead, so proceed with
caution in 3… 2… CM Punk returned. Oh wait, that’s already happened. 1…
@surya_KL_ on Twitter has posted a recent photo taken of Khan at a Jacksonville Jaguars
game - where he’s holding a notepad. And if you zoom in on that notepad, you can see
what looks like this year’s Full Gear card. Trying to decipher his handwriting, @Hugo_Nexxion
reckons the matches are: “Kenny vs Hangman
Bryan vs Mox - in what you’d think is a No. 1 contenders match.
Inner Circle vs American Top Team MJF vs Darby
Punk vs Wardlow - potentially foreshadowing the dream Punk vs MJF match. The promos are
going to be so mean. Britt vs a blank space on the page. Great
to see AEW’s always planning ahead for their women’s champion!
Thunder Rosa vs Jade Cargill Christian vs Cole
Young Bucks vs Jurassic Express Cody vs Malakai Black OR Andrade OR Miro - so
then Cody can beat them all! Luchas vs "PTA"
The Parent Teacher Association? I am in for a new Right to Censor style faction.
But here’s potentially the biggest spoiler. Some matches have a circle drawn round one
of the competitors, which might be shorthand for who’s winning the match. And for the
AEW World Championship match, that one goes to Hangman Page.
You’re exposing the business, Tony. If Vince McMahon leaked one of the biggest
title changes in WWE history because he took a public photo holding a sheet with all the
results on, I would criticise him for being inept. So it’s only fair I do it for my
beloved AEW too. If true, this is government official left the nuclear code papers on a
train level of embarrassing. Of course, there was no AEW Dynamite yesterday
because it’s been bumped to Saturdays for the next two weeks. Maybe someone should’ve
told that to Hangman Page, who tweeted last night.
“hey im at the building theres no one here do you want me for dynamite tonight or what
cause ill go back home” Oh Hangman, you silly goose with a drinking
problem that you really probably should get help for.
Not intent with saying WWE sucks and potentially leaking the biggest result in company history
this week, Khan has also revealed on Rasslin’ with Brandon F. Walker that AEW is in discussions
about moving their content library onto the WarnerMedia streaming service, which owns
the TNT network they air on. Khan talked up the 104 episodes of Dynamite
and ten plus pay-per-views the company have done, along with the never before seen pay-per-view
level show during the pandemic last year, The House Always Wins. Strengthening that
WarnerMedia relationship is yet another step to securing AEW’s long term future, as WWE
have seen with the $1 billion deal they agreed with Peacock earlier this year.
Khan also teased “there’s so much yet to come” for AEW, potentially setting up
yet more huge WWE star defections... Bray Wyatt is currently a free agent, although
Khan has denied having talked to him. Kevin Owens’ WWE contract is set to expire in
January, when many in the company believe he is AEW bound. But what about someone who
we all thought would never make it to Jacksonville? AJ Styles.
Styles signed a five year deal with WWE last year, taking him through to 2025, which he’s
said will be the last contract of his career. Speaking on that decision, the currently 44
year old explained he wants to retire to spend more time with his kids.
Tell that to AJ’s Bullet Club buddy Doc Gallows, though, has said in an IMPACT media
call yesterday: “​​I would be very remiss if I didn’t
say that before AJ Styles hangs up the boots, I’m highly confident we’ll see him in
an IMPACT Wrestling ring at least one more time.”
So how many rounds, I mean years, left are there?
The Young Bucks have previously revealed that AJ was meant to debut with Doc Gallows and
Karl Anderson on the very first episode of AEW Dynamite in November 2019, but all three
men opted to stay with WWE. We’ve seen multiple contract technicalities in WWE over the last
year. Perhaps there’s an option earlier in Styles’ deal that would allow him to
go elsewhere now he’s seen how much fun the AEW roster are having while he plays Omos’
valet. Or is the very media savvy Gallows just saying
something to get headlines from the IMPACT conference call? In which case, I’m worked!
What do you think of AJ’s future? Let me know in the comments.
Jerry Lawler’s future, meanwhile, doesn’t look so good.
After initially doing Raw commentary from the Performance Center during the first month
of lockdown, Lawler hasn’t been in the announcing chair for a year and a half. I guess we just
all assumed having a 71 year old who nearly died in 2012 after a heart attack doing commentary
in a pandemic wasn’t the best idea, so WWE asked him to stay at home.
Not so, according to Lawler. It’s because he was unintentionally racist!
Speaking during a virtual signing with K&S WrestleFest, Lawler reckons he was taken off
Raw commentary when he called Akira Tozawa’s cannonball of the apron a ‘ramen noodle
moonsault’. He explained he thought Byron Saxton was making up silly names like the
Spinning Dragon, so Lawler thought he’d make a joke of his own.
“What is racist about that? I thought it was funny, that’s a ridiculous name, right?
And all of a sudden, the internet blows up. ‘Oh, King’s a racist,’ and even Tozawa,
the next week, comes back [to tell him], ‘It’s nothing racist, I eat ramen noodles every
week.’ The next week I wasn’t on Raw anymore. I don’t know if that’s what happened but
anyway, you gotta be very careful.” WWE’s Crown Jewel will be taking place next
Thursday - where we’ll have live reactions with me, representing my master and Jam that
Jampion Chopper Pete, against the challenger Adam Blampied. But that’s not all that’s
on the line, as all the money we raise that stream will go to charity with the latest
SMOOTH PUNISHMENT! Here’s what happened on
last night’s QuizzleMania.