A new WWE Championship announced! CM Punk’s Vince McMahon promo line reaction
revealed. My review of AEW Dynamite.
And, finally, at the end of this episode, I will announce the winner of our poll to
objectively decide the Best Promo of All Time - between CM Punk’s Pipebomb and Steiner
Maths. I’m Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk
News. Do you ever watch all these great wrestling
matches you get on TV, free, multiple times a week and think: pffft, bit long though,
innit? Just like every big movie is three hours these days, all the matches are 15 minutes
plus. Why can’t more things be superficially digestible to fit my increasingly deteriorating
attention span? WWE has the answer. Take Speed. Their new
online wrestling show. Not amphetamine. Last month, the promotion announced a new
experimental wrestling show called WWE Speed - which would stream exclusively on the social
media platform X. Or Twitter, to you, grandad. When the project was first revealed, Michael
Cole described the matches as being “up to five minutes in length.” That’s quick,
but could still just about tell an insanely fast-paced story. But they’ve since realised
that’s tooooooo sloooooow. So matches will now be competed under a strict three minute
time limit. The announcement also revealed the 3rd April
start date for the show, which is next week, and that the matches will be for the promotion’s
newest title: The Speed Championship. The inaugural champion will be crowned via a tournament.
Do you think 3 minute matches will work? Let me know in the comments down below.
This week’s episode of Raw is being hailed as one of the greatest wrestling shows ever
- and a big part of that is the looser, more improvisational approach to some of its segments.
Fightful Select already confirmed that the CM Punk, Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre had
an outline, which was produced by Adam Pearce, but the wrestlers were allowed to go off script
to see where improvisation would take them. Which is a brave thing to do with CM Punk
and a live mic. He could start putting over Mindy’s Muffins again.
Punk swore, catching the production team by surprise, and referenced listening to Jim
Cornette’s podcast. But the biggest moment came when Drew referred to himself as The
Chosen One - for Punk to dare him to say the name of the person who called him that.
Not he who shall not be named! According to PWInsider Elite, Punk’s Voldermort
McMahon reference was met with a “hush” backstage in production. However, this was
reportedly as far as it went, with no repercussions for Punk afterwards, and the segment overall
was well received backstage. WWE’s executive Sphincters might tighten
even more though, with the news that Punk is set for his first shoot interview since
joining the company in November. Airing on the 1st April, Ariel Helwani has
promised there will be “no restrictions” with nothing being “taboo” in their conversation.
Although you’d expect certain things to very much have restrictions, if there are
legal NDAs in place following his AEW exit. Now over to Turbo Jack, with a message for
all our incredible Patreons. Now it’s Thursday, you know what that means…
my review of AEW Dynamite, in about 5 minutes. There’s an old story that when Eric Bischoff
was revamping WCW, he looked at everything his main competitor was doing, the WWF, and
just did the opposite. They’re taped, so we’ll be live. They’re family friendly,
we’ll be edgy. They had a sustainable business model, we’ll lock ourselves into guaranteed
contracts that’ll become an increasing burden. Of course, that didn’t end well. But the
initial strategy was sound. Don’t fight your competitor on their home turf. Emphasise
what makes your product special and distinct. So in a Road to WrestleMania, where Raw is
increasingly filled with awesome in-ring talking segments, perhaps Tony had a similar thought.
Because this episode of Dynamite was wall-to-wall great wrestling matches, with not a single
in-ring promo. Like the opening bout, just a casual dream
match between Will Ospreay and Shibata seven years in the making. They are two very different
men since they last fought. Shibata suffered a head injury, and has had to totally change
his wrestling style to compete. And Ospreay is now the best wrestler in the world.
Which meant he could adapt to cover any of Shibata’s limitations. Technical mat wrestling
sequence, yeah, Ospreay can do that. Strikes to the head that are hopefully actually safe,
yeah, Ospreay can do that. Making Shibata look awesome with kick outs at one - yep,
Ospreay’s got you covered too. Will ultimately won with a Hidden Blade, and
they bowed to each other in a show of respect afterwards.
We then got a video package of Bryan Danielson, who will face Ospreay at You Say Dynasty,
I Say Dynasty, Let’s Call The Whole Thing… um, what’s another word for Dynasty. Gasp!
Bloodline! Rock, Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, Solo Sikoa
and Jimmy Uso to AEW confirmed. There were a lot of hype videos building up
specific wrestlers on this show, making the episode feel really focused on either matches
on the night, or at the pay-per-view. After suggesting to Renee Paquette that she
smile more, Matthew and Nicholas Jackson took on Private Party in an incredibly fun Tag
Team Tournament quarter final. Because Private Party famously beat the Bucks
on the second ever episode of Dynamite, also in a tournament, it felt like they could get
an upset win at any point here too. Context which only added to both teams’ chemistry
and athleticism. After a bunch of title shots and dick kicks
- Title Shots and Dick Kicks, title of your next indie wrestling show - the Bucks won
with half an EVP Trigger. I say half, because Nicholas hilariously slipped and didn’t
really hit his part. Because Darby Allin has broken his foot, his
raising money for Tony Hawk’s skate park charity instead. Pussy.
Chris Jericho’s proposal to Hook was… he’ll give him some advice. Not quite the
big reveal it felt like they were building. Hook accepted, but with his eyes wide open
on how often Jericho betrays people. Mercedes Mone joined commentary for the next
match at the top of the hour - likely a scheduling ploy to catch more viewers changing the channel.
It was for Willow Nightingale vs Anna Jay vs Kris Statlander vs Skye Blue to decide
the TBS title’s number 1 contender. I liked that it had stakes, that Mone was
able to further her Willow tension on commentary, and Nightingale winning the decent match was
the right result. Even though it’s only one full women’s segment or match on the
episode, the division feels the most important it has in ages. Quality over quantity.
But speaking of substance, I feel like Mercedes should’ve done something of it by now.
Julia Hart attacked Willow afterwards, and stared down Mone.
Dustin Rhodes set up a match against the Butcher for Rampage. We got another fun Toni Storm
skit on Turner Classic Movies. The Best Friends’ Cassidy and Trent took
on Undisputed Kingdom’s Taven and Bennet in the second Tag Team Tournament quarter
final next in a good match. I really, really like Taven and Bennet. Always have done.
But my god, what is AEW doing with the Undisputed Kingdom.
I get Cassidy and Trent advancing, because that puts them against the Bucks in the semis.
That’s the better dynamic of Faces vs Heels. But giving the Undisputed Kingdom another
loss, after Wardlow just lost clean to Samoa Joe after being built up for months, is really
damaging this faction. Roderick Strong tried to interfere, but an injured Chuck Taylor
stopped him - making Strong, the TNT champion, look totally ineffectual. That’s when the
UK could’ve had Wardlow come in to actually pose some threat.
Another significant loss for the Undisputed Kingdom. Their first quarter of 2024, after
2023 set them up as the biggest heels in the company, has been atrocious.
Just one more thing. The Bucks came out to staredown the Best Friends afterwards. They
then exited via the descending Codyvator, but seemed to squat to go down quicker. Which
was visually hilarious. Kyle O’Reilly told Renee he’s very happy
to have beaten Bryan Keith, and he doesn’t feel like he needs the Undisputed Kingdom.
Bruv, nobody needs the Undisputed Kingdom. Not even members of the Undisputed Kingdom.
We got a very good video package of Edge announcing the return of the Cope Open Challenge for
Saturday’s Collision. And the main event was an awesome 20 minute
match to determine Samoa Joe’s World championship No. 1 contender - Swerve Strickland vs Takeshita.
They wrestled a terrific match, that somehow managed to be very back and forth while Takeshita
felt in complete control. He had hit a Brainbuster early on, which Swerve sold like he’d lost
all strength in his left arm. It meant that while Strickland kept throwing moves at Takeshita,
they didn’t have the same power behind them. It was one of those matches were both guys
come out looking better, even though one of them lost. Takeshita kicked out of a Last
Call and Swerve Stomp combo - which I thought was setting up Swerve’s submission win he
debuted from last week - but I’m guessing AEW wanted to protect Takeshita by not having
him tap, so he got pinned of a sick JML Driver. This week’s Dynamite is 75%.
But the percentage the wrestling world is far more interested in… is the results of
Pipebomb vs Math. After Luke’s incredibly bad take, where
he chose Steiner Maths as the best promo ever on TLC, and a lot of people trolling me because
I think the CM Punk’s Pipebomb is better, I put a poll out yesterday to objectively
find the truth. Nearly 5,000 of you voted and the result is… it’s a given… I’ll
just cast my deciding vote for the Pipebomb to find out…
…Math. The public has chosen Math. The Pipebomb only got 36%, which is very close to 33 ⅓%.
What is happening? It must be bots. There’s bots. There’s
definitely bots at play. Big Math is funding an agenda against me. Redo. We’re gonna
do another poll. Erm…it’s live now, on our YouTube community tab. Go over and vote
there. Do the right thing. Do the right thing. And also, while you’re there, I’ll include
a link to my essay video on how the Rock has taken over WWE behind-the-scenes. Please watch
that and share it around too. I need you to. I need this.