In this WrestleTalk News, Tony Khan shoots on WWE! Roman Reigns panic! Laurie’s review
of NXT 2.0 and more. Subscribe and enable notifications to always
on for daily wrestling news videos! Yesterday I said I’d dress up as Blue Miz if we passed
815,000 subscribers this week and… we actually lost a few yesterday. I think we’ve all
learnt a valuable lesson. Never go full Blue Miz.
Remember those joke paid ads Tony Khan would have on IMPACT Wrestling to hype up AEW and
he played the role of a crazy wrestling promoter whose money and power has gone to their head?
Well dust off the douchebag sunglasses, because that gimmick just got called up to the main
roster! After practically two years of interviews
not talking the smack about WWE, instead taking the moral high ground to focus on making AEW
the best it possibly can be, Tony Khan just did a shoot promo on how bad Raw is.
Speaking to Barstool Sports’ Robbie Fox, Khan talked about his feelings on SmackDown
going long this Friday to cut into Rampage’s timeslot.
“They’re literally going to do a half hour head-to-head with us? That’s fine,
ok. We’ll see what happens. I’m not saying for sure we’ll win, and maybe the odds are
against us in some ways,But we’re going to do the better show. I know. If you don’t
believe me, watch the go-home show they did last night, because it sucked.”
Robbie, what are you doing talking about Scream? The man was just cutting a shoot promo on
WWE and you’re distracting him with the genre redefining 90s horror movie directed
by Wes Craven where they took the brave decision to kill off the film’s biggest star Drew
Barrymore in the opening scen-OH GOD DAMMIT NOW YOU’VE DISTRACTED ME TOO!
NXT was always on the backfoot, reacting to what AEW was doing. But this is the main roster,
bucko, and Vince has struck first - extending this Friday’s SmackDown by 30minutes and
making it commercial free. This has prompted AEW to do their first overtly counterprogramming
move, something they’ve boasted not to have done until now, with Rampage putting an hour
long pre-show on YouTube that will go head to head with the second hour of SmackDown
- featuring Bobby Fish vs Lee Moriarty, and the dream match of Bryan Danielson vs Minoru
Suzuki. Personally, I think this is a genius response.
SmackDown is very much expected to beat Rampage in the TV ratings - with SmackDown the far
bigger show, and Rampage’s viewership falling dramatically over the last month.
So why not beat them elsewhere? By putting this pre-show on YouTube, which accumulates
views from all around the world, not just the United States, the Rampage pre-show could
feasibly pull in between 1-2 million viewers - which will make it look like they’ve beaten
SmackDown’s expected 1 million number on FS1. In TV ratings, that doesn’t mean anything.
But in the War of Perception - and isn’t that what wrestling is, a war based on perception
- it’s an AEW victory. Like Germany in WWII, though, - in a fighting
both the Allied forces and Russia, I’m not calling anyone a Nazi here. I’m not left-wing
Twitter - WWE is fighting a war on two fronts. And Raw appears to be spread thin.
Monday’s episode lost almost 300,000 viewers from the previous week - pulling in only 1.58
million - which is the sixth lowest audience in Raw’s history.
And it wasn’t just people at home who weren’t showing up. Monday’s episode was also the
lowest attended since WWE returned to touring. Ticket sales are also reportedly way down
for the Raw in Long Island on the 29th November - which is particularly embarrassing as AEW
have almost tripled sales for the same venue the following week. In what appears to be
a panic move to shift more tickets, WWE have announced Roman Reigns will now be on that
show - despite it being the week after brand crossovers are supposed to finish with Survivor
Series. Before we get on with the rest of the episode,
I’d just like to say a huge thank you to this episode’s sponsor… RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS!
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going to do a list ranking the spookiest champions in the game based on WWE characters… not
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Number 3: Little Miss Annie, who’s Lily’s older, even more attractive sister.
The other Big Dog Brakus is at number 2. And the number 1 spookiest Raid character
is Harvest Jack. If only because it reminds you that Finn Balor
almost once dressed up as a Pumpkin King. The character design is one of my favourite
parts of Raid: Shadow Legends, but they’re also adding new stuff all the time. This month
will see Halloween special rewards, tournaments against other players, special fragments for
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There’s never been a better time to get started, so download Raid using our links
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Time for NXT and Tempest is away this week so I’m stepping in to head up the review.
Couldn’t have gone on holiday before the 2.0 rebrand Tempest could you.
Though actually this was a pretty good episode of NXT.
The show begins with Hit Row being attacked earlier in the day and Legado del Fantasma
returning to their kidnapping ways as they bundle everyone except Swerve into the SUV
and drive off. Not the only kidnapping this episode.
We then see Joe Gacy in the ring who says some stuff about us all being his special
snowflakes and how he’s going to beat Ciampa to get into the Halloween Havoc match, yeah
right. The match sees Ciampa beat the breaks off
Gacy who doesn't get much time to shine against the Champion - which feels a little anti the
2.0 direction, but hey ho, it’s nice to Ciampa do his thing.
Joe gets in a little offence, picking Ciampa up into a powerbomb like its nothing, fluffing
a moonsault and then having his springboard countered with a sliding dropkick and a fairytale
ending to finish up. Post match Harland, who has been lurking in
the crowd lays out Ciampa and grabs Gacy by the throat, but the monster just wants to
be loved as Joe strokes his face which causes him to run off. I’m expecting the NXT crowd
to burn down Harland’s windmill at Halloween Havoc.
Toxic Attraction arrive to cut a promo with Gigi and Jacey saying they want a shot at
the tag titles and Mandy setting her sights on Raquel Gonzalez.
Xyon Quinn, named after a nasal decongestant spray, keeps to his winning ways with an easy
victory over Malik Blade. A bit of war dance and the running forearm clears this up nicely.
Ciampa is interviewed backstage but interrupted by the Grizzled Young Vets, who say they can’t
wait to watch Tommy Ciamps after 900 some days clawing his way back to the title lose
it to a rookie. Which summons Bron Breakker from the ether
to scare them off, he says that he’s got Ciampa’s back til Halloween Havoc because
he wants to beat him at his best. He’s gonna beat him at his best isn’t he.
Anyhoo, they’re tagging against GYV next week. How in the s*** are they going to co-exist?!?
Diamond Mine’s Ivy Nile, off The Rock’s steroids, sorry eggs, and tequila version
of Ninja Warrior, the Titan Games made her in-ring debut against Valentina Feroz.
Nile is straaaaang, dominating the entire affair with impressive displays of power and
ending it with some squats and a sort of torture rack thing that bends Feroz in half.
Bivens puts over Nile, the Creeds and Roddy… sorry Hachiman, no praise for you, but Ikemen
Jiro interrupts and draws the ire of Julius Creed who is ready to go.
And so they go - Creed is a beast and ragdolls Jiro around before as flash of the jacket,
weird headstand splash and asai moonsault swing things in Jiro’s favour, but not for
long as a roll over slam and sliding clothesline wrap it all up.
This felt like the show beginning to pick up some momentum and the crowd were really
behind Jiro as he made his short-lived comeback. Diamond Mine continued the assault post match
with Kushida running out to try and save, but meeting a similar fate to his countryman.
Next up, Raquel Gonzalez accepted Mandy Rose’s challenge saying she wanted to spin the wheel
and make the deal. Then we had Lashing Out with Lash Legend…
the less said about that the better. The last ride of the crinkle cut Bruiserweights
came next as Ridge Holland and his beef crisps teamed up with P Dunny one more time before
he heads to Smackdown. Fat lot of good it did them against the power
of a second generation superstar like Von Wagner, who is both tall and can hit tyres
with a hammer. This was actually a fun sprint with Kyle and
Pete carrying things with their technical back and forth building to a monster truck
rally as both Ridge and Wagner hit the ring. Twisting double underhook suplex puts Ridge
away, so much for Kyle’s singles run though eh?
Andre Chase then taught us the value of ring awareness, kicking someone out when they asked
if it was cheating. It’s the same joke again. It’s a good joke, but you’ve already told
it. Tony D’Angelo says some mafia stuff and
has someone in the trunk of his car, I like these promos.
Sir Smarm Duke Hudson then took on Grayson Waller, a former golden glove boxing champ
who swung and missed on a springboard and earned a roll-up with a handful of tights
for his troubles. Waller was spotted backstage later doling
out dating advice to Cameron Grimes, who despite making all of his money trading online stocks
apparently has never seen Tinder. Imperium then spoke both German and Italian
in a promo, the actions of heels if you ask me.
Indi Hartwell and Persia Pirotta absolutely dominated Sarray and Amari Miller after that,
it was short, lacked a little flow, but Perisa got to show off some strength while carrying
Miller, fending off Sarray with a boot, for Hartwell to hit a dive and pick up the victory.
Post-match Pirotta says why don’t they go after the tag titles which brings out Io and
Zoey, and Io don’t like anyone, good bit of comedy as she tease that she might like
Zoey, but she doesn’t. Toxic Attraction join the promo roundtable
and it devolves into a brawl, setting up a triple threat for Halloween Havoc.
We then got a brief tease for Solo Sikoa, the street champion of the island and son
of Rikishi Sefa Fatu. The North American title match between Isaiah
Swerve Scott and Santos Escobar lived up to one of their names as the pair put on an absolutely
worthy main event match, and a fitting finale for Scott before he becomes full-time Smakcdown
with the rest of Hit Row. Things start hot as Swerve meets Santos on
the outside, hits the fosbury flop. Santos hit a huge top rope rana and splash before
Legado ran down to distract, but Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams arrive to even the odds,
giving Swerve a chance to dump Santos and hit the JML Driver.
Hayes hits the ring to raise Swerves hand before nailing Swerve, cashing in his breakout
tournament contract. The crowd were hyped for this, especially
as Swerve does a last ditch kickout off a springboard elbow, but the pumpkick and legdrop
to the back of the neck put Swerve down. Carmelo Hayes is the new North American Champion.
All in all, a fun episode of NXT with a great main event and the first of that fresh crop
of talent getting their big win and title to go along with it. Hayes was the right choice,
but I’m not entirely convinced the Von Wagner’s of the world or the Joe Gacy’s have quite
made a case for why they’re in the ring with Ciampa, O’Reilly and Dunne just yet.
I’m giving this a high three out of five. Before I go, do you like Mean Girls of course
you do, you go Glen Coco, because myself, Adam, Sully and the rest of Board Game club
played the new game over on No Rolls Barred and tried not to hold back as we were very
mean girls to each other. Go check it out.