Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
Last week, it was reported that Vince McMahon had essentially been taken off his creative
duties in WWE, which you’d have seen if you’d have been watching WWE with Triple
H’s fingerprints all over shows as of late, like for example Gunther vs Bronson Reed on
last night’s Raw.
Meat.
And while it had been speculated upon as to why this was the case, there’s now reports
confirming what much of the speculation pointed to.
That being Vince’s new boss, Ari Emanuel.
According to Sports Illustrated, Emanuel thinks that the company runs most effectively when
people are allowed to do their assigned roles, and as Triple H is Chief Content Officer,
Emanuel thinks he should be allowed to do his job without interference, and as such
Emanuel called for Vince to stop doing week-to-week creative in WWE.
It’s always worth noting of course that Vince has a reported “iron-clad” contract,
so he’s not going anywhere just yet and is focused on securing TV rights for Raw and
NXT currently, but there is also speculation that Vince could see this move as a loss of
leverage on his part and his reaction to this news could be telling.
But aside from the superficial reason of ‘you should let Triple H do his job Vince’, why
exactly did Ari Emanuel make the call to take Vince off creative?
Well, interestingly, when WWE announced their new deal for SmackDown to head to the USA
Network, WWE’s stock price actually dropped instead of increasing.
Despite the deal being a 40% increase on SmackDown’s deal with FOX in 2019, Wall Street reportedly
expected an even bigger increase, hence the stock price drop.
Ari Emanuel spoke at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, where he actually blamed Vince
McMahon for the stock price drop: “I think there’s three things that happened.
One, the reason the stock is down is they thought Raw was the best package…Two, the
P.F.L.
situation and three, probably Vince (McMahon) in our deal, wanted to be able to put, at
any point in time, his stock.
He’s 78 years old.
He’s been working at this for decades and decades so, I think those three back-to-back
issues…”
Vince being able to, at any point, sell all of his stock if he wanted to is apparently
what Emanuel is talking about here, meaning it would always be an unstable position for
WWE’s stock, but it is very interesting that for years and years Vince McMahon has
always tried to make a scapegoat out of someone or something as to why stock prices aren’t
as high as they should have been, or why viewership isn’t as good as it once was, and now the
shoe is on the other foot.
In other news, speculation is still rife with who Roman Reigns could be facing when next
year’s WrestleMania rolls around.
Straight after this year’s Mania, after Cody Rhodes…lost…in the main event…against
Roman Reigns…which I’m still totally fine with, it was reported that Rhodes was planned
for the main event of Mania 40 in a rematch with Reigns.
However, as we know in WWE, plans can always change.
And with the meteoric rise of LA Knight, and a potential Rock floating around, is there
a chance that Rhodes’ position could be taken?
Rock even mentioned recently on the Pat McAfee show that at one point him vs Roman was locked
in, but didn’t materialise in the end, so would WWE pull out all the stops for one of
the big decade milestones of the show of shows?
No, not according to Sports Illustrated anyway, who say that after speaking with multiple
sources close to WWE, the decision about WrestleMania will not be Rock’s to make, and that there
are currently no plans for this match to happen.
They also mention that unless something drastically changes in the next few months, that spot
is reserved for Cody Rhodes.
Even with LA Knight being thrust up the card, Sports Illustrated reports that he’d need
a Becky Lynch or Daniel Bryan level of groundswell support in order for those plans to change,
as right now he’s a stepping stone for Roman to get to WrestleMania.
So the new plan…is the old plan.
Good to know.
And now a special message from Turbo Jack.
Do you think they’re still open to the contract thing?
Oh I didn’t say contract tampering, those were your words.
I dunno, but Steve said he’s going to come to a pub and spill a pint on me.
I don’t think Larson is too into the idea, but his arms are massive right now and scare
me.
I don’t really want to start a war with them, so let’s talk about contracts.
Again, tampering is your word not mine.
Sorry, my producer is talking to me.
We’re what?
Oh.
Ahem, it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka the ‘get a better crowd,
Oklahoma’ edition of Monday Night Raw in about 5 minutes.
Yes I’ll call you back.
The show opened with the now solo Sami Zayn who came out for a promo with mixed emotions.
He’s happy for Kevin Owens getting a chance on SmackDown, but it does mean that he can’t
work with him to get back those titles - the titles being held by the man he originally
won them off, Jey Uso.
He also laid out aspirations of becoming World Heavyweight Champion.
As a season opener of Raw, this was a strong one.
It sets out a new stall for Sami.
Something fresh and different for him - oh, nope, wait here comes The Judgement Day.
Yeah it’s the same Raw as last week.
And the week before that.
They did their usual Judgement Day promo, and Jey Uso ran down to make the save.
Sami looked at Jey conflicted, and walked away.
He later confronted Jey about this and said that he appreciates the help, but it should
have been Kev standing by his side.
And he’s no longer here, because of Jey.
Jey walked away, but Sami chased after him to apologise.
A Season Premier episode of Raw brought us new and fresh matchups like…
Ricochet vs. Shinsuke Nakamura.
I’m being glib for the sake of comedy, as this was an excellently fun Falls Count Anywhere
match, and probably the best thing on the whole show that didn’t involve Gunther.
The two brawled everywhere - including Gorilla Position - and saw Ricochet do an insane Shooting
Star Press off the balcony onto Nakamura.
It was a very indie-show spot and the crowd loved it.
Nakamura finally put Ric through a table, and hit the Kinshasa for the win.
A very good match.
All The Raw Women Stood In A Row to remind us that Tegan is friends with Natalaya, who
then lost to Piper Niven in a short and totally fine match.
The heels beat Nattie down for a bit, and Tegan made the save.
Seth Rollins - dressed like Scott Summers if he was an even bigger prick than he usually
is - had a promo segment with Drew McIntyre to ask why he was conversing with Rhea Ripley
last week in a backstage shot I totally missed until it was pointed out to me by Dan Layton
on the WrestleTalk Podcast, and Seth theorized that Drew is so afraid of failure, that he’s
turning to the Judgement Day so he doesn’t have to fail again.
Drew brought up losing his last title match because of The Bloodline, to which Seth told
him: get over the Bloodline.
Drew fired up and said that he beat Brock Lesnar in front of no one, and carried the
company when no one was there to see it.
The first chance he got to carry this company again - this time in front of fans - was taken
away from him because of The Bloodline.
So, yeah, I don’t think he’ll be getting over that any time soon.
Seth responded by saying he worked for 4 years to claw back to the top and he made it, but
Drew can’t do that because he’s too busy pointing fingers and blaming others.
But when Rollins beats Drew at Crown Jewel, he’ll have no one to blame but himself.
This was excellent.
A really effective promo segment to hype up a title match that lays out everyone’s character
motivations, as well as furthering that slow build Drew turn.
Cannot say enough good things about this segment.
And it was the last good thing on the show for a while.
Because the crowd totally died out for Ludvig Kaiser vs. Johnny Gargano, not helped by a
duff finish.
Kaiser and Vinci had a small argument, which led to Gargano hitting his slingshot DDT for
the win, but Vinci raked the eyes of Gargano while he was in the pin right in front of
the ref staring at him.
This was somehow not a DQ, and then Gargano distracted himself into Kaiser winning the
match.
A bad finish to an okay match with a dead crowd.
The crowd were also dead for Ripley taking on Shayna Baszler, which is surprising and
also a shame.
Nia Jax came down, but Raquel Rodriguez brawled with her.
Zoey Stark then appeared from nowhere and brawled with Nia.
She then got in the ring and gave Rhea the dinkiest little kick for a super lame DQ.
Absolutely f***ing rubbish.
They all brawled afterwards, and Stark stood tall.
Adam Pearce later made a fatal 5-way for Crown Jewel, and Ripley had a staredown with Jade
Cargill who got a big pop.
Making her look like a star from the outset is already paying off.
Thankfully, Bronson Reed and Gunther brought us back on track and woke the crowd up.
This was another tremendous Gunther title defense, and he won with a powerbomb.
The crowd really picked up by the end.
Jackie tried to interview The Miz, but he got Baron Corbin’d when Nia Jax stole his
interview time, and Alpha Academy set up a tag match with New Day for next week.
And the main event saw The Judgement Day recapture the tag titles when Jimmy Uso stopped Jey
Uso from a one-man comeback.
With not a lot of time left on the show, they basically just did the final third of a match
for the whole match, including Dom putting Priest’s foot on the ropes - again right
in front of the ref - and Priest took Cody out by giving him the Razor’s Edge through
the announcers table.
It’s a lovely bit of dramatic irony.
Because Cody got KO drafted, he wasn’t there to back them up against Judgement Day, and
now they hold all the gold again.
And this was another good edition of Raw, with a lousy half hour spell in that second
hour.
Still, this week’s Raw scores 4 out of 5.