In this WrestleTalk News, could Bray Wyatt return to WWE this week?
Malakai Black wanted to return to WWE, could Sting be the next leader of the House of Black,
and Luke reviews last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw.
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Triple H has brought back a lot of things since he took over WWE’s creative team following
the retirement of his father-in-law Vince McMahon.
He’s brought back Johnny Gargano, Dakota Kai, Karrion Kross, Hit Row, Braun Strowman
and Dexter Lumis.
He even brought back everyone’s favourite main eventer, watchable weekly TV.
Someone he is yet to bring back is Bray Wyatt, who was one of the most shocking releases
of Vince McMahon’s reign of errors, and is someone who hasn’t wrestled a single
match since departing the company back in July 2021.
Bray being Bray, he’s tweeted a lot of random crap, and each time we’ve said to ourselves,
“ah yes, this picture of a goat means he’s back on Raw next week”, but THIS TIME, he’s
definitely coming back…maybe.
If you’ve been watching Raw and SmackDown over the past few weeks, you will have seen
red lights and heard the song “white rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane played at random points.
Unsurprisingly some have taken the red light as a sign Wyatt is back, and judging by something
that happened on last night’s Raw, he actually really might be this time.
During a segment with Austin Theory, a QR code could be seen in the background, and
if you scanned that code, you’d be sent to a screen featuring an animation of a game
of hangman with a white rabbit.
Hangman Page to WWE confirmed.
The clue for the game of Hangman is “who killed the world” with the answer being
“you did”, and that’s exactly the sort of random bollocks Bray Wyatt would say.
Not only that, but the Rabbit’s first five guesses were D, E, M, O and N, which the smartest
viewers will have noticed spells out “Bray Wyatt”, sorry I mean Demon.
And the final clue that he’s not only returning, but returning this Friday on SmackDown, is
that the numbers 9.23 kept popping up.
If we’re going by American dates, which are written backwards, that’s September
23rd, which is this Friday.
It’s all very spooky, and it’s all very Bray Wyatt.
And speaking of Spooky, it seems that one of AEW’s biggest spooky boys recently wanted
to return to WWE.
Malakai Black is currently taking some very well earned time away from the world of pro-wrestling
to focus on much more important things, like life.
Black posted a long statement explaining his decision to take time off, and in that statement
he revealed he did indeed request his release from AEW, and that he didn’t feel as though
creative promises were being fulfilled.
Speaking during the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer revealed that not only
did Black request his release, he also very much wanted to return to WWE.
Black, who has only wrestled two singles matches for AEW in all of 2022, still had a very long
time on his AEW contract when he asked for his release, and Dave emphasized how hard
it would have been for AEW to keep someone under contract for several years while they
were keen to leave.
But what does Black’s AEW departure mean for the House of Black?
Well, it might have a new leader already.
According to the ever reliable reporter, Twitter Speculation, Sting might be positioned as
the new leader of the House of Black.
Sting and Darby Allin take on the House of Black on tomorrow night’s episode of AEW
Dynamite, and with Tony Khan copyrighting The House of Black last week, it seems the
group will be used despite Malakai Black’s departure.
It could be that AEW is planning on having the two teams wrestle, and then for Sting
to be revealed as the new overlord, but we’ll have to just wait and see.
And now it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka check out the big heat on
Dom edition of Monday Night Raw… in about five minutes.
I don’t quite know what to make of this week’s Raw, which emanated from the Bay
Area of California.
The crowd were really hot on some occasions, but dead for the most part, but then insanly
hot for one particular moment.
And as for the show itself, well it didn’t really further a lot of much at all.
But it did feature a lot of wrestling.
However the majority of that wrestling was just… fine.
A good example of that was this opening match between Bobby Lashley and Seth Rollins for
the United States Championship.
It was given a lot of time - taking up nearly the first half hour of the show including
entrances - but it didn’t really get going until the final third.
The first bits of the match, which went through two commercial breaks, was just stuff.
Seth did some moves, Bobby did some moves, Seth reversed some moves, Bobby reversed some
others.
But then all of a sudden, Seth hit a Pedigree out of nowhere when Lashley went for the Spear
and the crowd exploded.
It was a tremendous spot and a great nearfall.
After a ref bump and lowblow, Seth set up for the Stomp but Matt Riddle came out for
a distraction and Bobbles hit the Spear for the win.
A neat continuation of Rollins and Riddle - which had two more segments in this show
- but it also asks the question: what is Bobby Lashley?
When was the last time Lashley actually had a story?
Since Trips has taken over he’s just defended the belt in other people’s feuds.
It’s been great seeing the US Champ be dominant - and dominant over established names which
is more than Wardlow can say - but it’s also a bit empty.
Damage CTRL had a championship celebration where the commentators made sure we all tried
to forget the misstep of not having them win the finals of the tag tournament by only mentioning
all the matches that the group have won since Summerslam.
This is one of those instances where WWE wants us to forget about a mistake they made and
I’m happy to do so.
Bianca Belair, Alexa Bliss and Asuka came out to banter back and forth, and it set up
Bayley vs. Bliss for later on in the evening.
Kevin Owens and Austin Theory’s promo segment from last week was easily the highlight of
the show, but their match-up here was only totally fine.
There just wasn’t much to it, and Owens won again when Johnny Gargano distracted Theory
by grabbing his briefcase, allowing KO to hit the Pop Up Powerbomb for the win.
So that’s two matches and one big segment on the show, and it’s all been a bit of
okay television.
A huge improvement from what we’ve had over the last few years don’t get me wrong, but
nothing has felt ‘must-see’.
And then we got a lengthy promo segment hyping up the fact that Roman Reigns is showing up
for work this Friday, and Logan Paul has challenged him for the Blueniversal Championship at Crown
Jewel and you think, ‘oh yeah - the big problem with part-time Roman having both belts
and only ever appearing on SmackDown means there’s a huge hole in Raw that hasn’t
been filled since Mania’.
Everything on this show was good, but none of it felt like it mattered a huge amount.
Which was really seen in the next match.
Smackdown’s Brawling Brutes of Butch and Ridge Holland came out for a promo - Brand
Split lol - and hyped up their match this Friday against The Usos for the Undisputed
Tag Team Championships, and were interupted by Street Profits who wanted a match right
now.
Which they had and it was pretty decent - because of course it was, look who is in the ring
- but the crowd had zero heat for it.
Like, they were totally dead for everything that the Brutes did when they were beating
down Montez Ford, then all of a sudden broke into a THIS IS AWESOME chant for five seconds
because Street Profits hit a Blockbuster.
It was the oddest thing.
What wasn’t odd, however, was Brawling Brutes picking up the win.
Simple and effective booking to give them a win and some momentum before their title
match this Friday.
Thumbs up from me.
Owens and Gargano accepted a tag match against Alpha Academy for next week, which will be
in Canada so that is guaranteed to be great fun.
But then came the most surprising thing on the show.
The Judgement Day came out for a promo, and it was the standard Judgement Day promo.
We control Raw, we run this show, we made Dominik Mysterio a man, etc etc.
It was your standard segment, but when the microphone was handed to Dom to speak - who
looked like he was about to bring me some extra breadsticks before apologising that
my main will unfortunately be another 20 minutes - the crowd exploded with this insane heat
for him.
And clearly loving what was happening, Finn Balor, Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest came
alive and worked the crowd into an even bigger frenzy that they drowned out what Dom had
to say.
Which, really, was nothing.
But the crowd reactions made it feel like the biggest promo of the night.
It was fantastic.
This crowd may not have enjoyed a lot on this show - or been into much - but they sure hated
Dom and they sure loved Rey.
California and all that.
The Judgement Day then had a match with Rey Mysterio and Matt Riddle, which saw Balor
and Priest win after some Seth Rollins interference and distraction on Riddle, and Dom distracting
his father by asking him to give him an unprotected chair shot.
He’s hardcore, he’s hardcore.
Riddle and Rollins then tried to fight each other backstage, with Riddle challenging Rollins
to a FIGHT PIT MATCH at Extreme Rules.
Raw Underground return confirmed.
Speaking of crazy fan reactions, and Dexter Lumis got a huge babyface pop when he appeared
through the mat Diglet style in the MizTV segment.
He tried to drag Miz down to Little People’s Court, but Ciampa made the save.
But like a Whack-a-Mole, Dexter popped back up to an even bigger pop.
This storyline isn’t for me, as I mentioned last week, but you cannot deny the crowd reactions
it gets.
And if its working for the crowd, then they’re doing something right.
And yes, I did say babyface pop.
Because last week I asked how Dexter Lumis - a man who invaded The Miz’s home while
his kids were asleep - was the babyface, which prompted several of our viewers to ask why
I thought he was a babyface.
After all, he invaded a man’s home while his kids were asleep.
Well, I reached out to Sean Ross Sapp over at Fightful to ask if Lumis was listed as
a babyface internally by WWE, and it turns out he is.
So, yeah, he is a babyface.
A weird one, but it’s working.
And the main event saw Bayley beat Alexa Bliss in a pretty decent match, which had lots of
interference and distraction from Dakota Kai, Iyo Sky, Asuka and Bianca Belair - and I’m
really concerned this will continue until November so they can do WAR GAMES.
They put on a video package before this match to put over Alexa Bliss, which was needed
because she hasn’t done anything since coming back in February, and then returning again
in April.
It didn’t really help, though, as Bayley’s home area crowd just wanted to chant for her
- both positively and negatively.
Bayley won with her finish, then her group beat down the other babyfaces to stand tall.
Yeah, the episode of Raw was totally fine.
Maybe less than fine, but not a terrible wrestling show by any stretch of the imagination.
It was 3 out of 5.