Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
Wrestling news lately has been a little doom and gloom hasn’t it, whether it be about
Vince McMahon’s last minute changes on WWE programming, or CM Punk and The Elite, so
let’s start with something nice today.
People in WWE are happy!
I know, isn’t it nice.
The Judgment Day seems to be the source of the happiness, what with Rhea Ripley being
Women’s World Champ, Finn Balor challenging for the Men’s World Title at Money in the
Bank, Dominik Mysterio occasionally getting the most heat in the entire company, and Damian
Priest…well he’s been doing good stuff hasn’t he?
According to Fighful Select, a WWE higher up told them that they are “ecstatic”
with how The Judgment Day are performing, with Edge even reportedly mentioning that
Judgment Day are better suited now than they ever would have been with the original plans
they had outlined when he created the stable.
The higher up reportedly spoke on each of the members, saying that Balor had been “very
easy” to work with in each of the various roles he’d been given within the stable,
Ripley had been praised for working through her knee injuries, her ability to get other
people over, and her willingness to improve the others around her through being a manager
as well as giving her opponents more offense than originally scheduled when she had been
pencilled in to dominate a match.
Damian Priest’s work ethic was reportedly praised, and especially his work with Bad
Bunny, and Dominik was put over for working his advanced schedule, including a lot of
extra media work with the success of his character.
On top of that, WWE have reportedly been putting Dom Dom against a variety of opponents and
into a variety of roles to give him the most experience against a plethora of styles and
situations.
I’m glad Judgment Day’s booking had them falling upwards to success.
Because after those first couple of months, it wasn’t looking too hot for them.
So that’s nice and positive in the land of WWE.
So now let’s talk about Vince.
Look, I only said I’d start with something positive.
It’s becoming more and more frequent that Vince has been making increasingly bigger
changes to TV shows as of late, and that trend is set to continue.
Yay.
According to PWInsider, while Vince has only been making remote changes to the shows, the
belief inside WWE is that his creative influence is likely to grow in the coming weeks and
months as the Endeavour deal and merger with UFC becomes a reality.
This comes off the back of a report yesterday that others in WWE are actively looking for
ways to stop Vince making those last minute changes, which may be in vain if Vince is
set to just do it more.
When we start getting Vince actually appearing backstage at each of the shows, that’s when
you know you’ve got the big red flag.
Now over to Luke.
LUKE: Here with another contender for Match of the Year, it’s analyst and British Citizen,
Mark Markerson.
MARK: Hello Luke, it’s your pleasure to be here.
This week’s Match of the Year comes from the beloved and underappreciated BritWres
scene - that’s short for British Wrestling - and it’s from RevPro’s Live in Sheffield
event.
Incidentally I spent a lovely weekend up there a few months back visiting Sebastian Coe’s
star on the Sheffield Walk of Fame.
But this match took place between two athletes you’ll know nothing about.
Will Ospreay and the Prince of Pace Callum Newman.
LUKE: Oh, Cal!
That’s great, we love him here on the channel!
MARK: Honestly, it’s just disrespectful when you pretend to know these wrestlers.
LUKE: Who’s pretending, we’ve always been behind him.
In fact– MARK: You’re eating into my time.
What made this match extra special was the fact that Ospreay has been something of a
mentor to Newman.
So this match was as much a training session as it was a contest.
Ospreay is one of the best in the world and he could have butchered the young upstart,
but instead he wanted to take the opportunity to bring him to the next level.
The Prince of Pace lived up to his nickname, with lightning quick speed and sharp, aggressive
strikes.
The two sparred for a while, with Ospreay clearly in the driver’s seat, but Newman
was up for the fight.
A beautiful tiger suplex and a hard sunset flip bomb showed that.
But Ospreay always had the upper hand, and won through sheer experience.
It was a game of cat and mouse, the master baiting the student, a lesson with every counter.
And it was this that made this content so special.
More than any high spot or single move, from a storytelling perspective, this match was
actually quite beautiful, in the way only wrestling can be, and it marked Newman out
as one to watch.
I think he’s going to be a star.
LUKE: Speaking of stars, last week we were on eight, so…
MARK: Oh, a match like this?
It’s just one of those rare gems where you see the torch get lit before it’s passed.
It’s got to be ten.
LUKE: Ten??
We’re skipping nine entirely?
D’you know what?
When Callum’s involved, it’s hard to disagree.
I’m just so glad to see him get his flowers.
MARK: You’re such a glory hunter.
LUKE: Off you go, Mark.
So now it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka the ‘Vince McMahon Fingerprints’
episode - aka the ‘Vincerprints’ episode of Monday Night Raw… in about 5 minutes.
The show opened with a hot crowd booing Dominik Mysterio out the building, not letting him
cut his promo on Cody Rhodes.
So instead Mami did it for him.
This brought out Cody, who quoted Cat in the Hat and called Dom a scared little boy.
He offered him a free shot, but Dom declined and left the ring instead.
Don’t worry, we’ll be seeing a lot more of all three here tonight.
As Pete covered in the news portion of this excellent bit of YouTube content - hope you’re
having a nice toilet break, by the way - Vince McMahon’s fingerprints were reportedly all
over this show.
Which would explain why we got loads of crap wrestling Ricochet vs. Shinsuke Nakamura,
Sami Zayn vs. Gunther and Carmello Hayes vs. Finn Balor.
No, wait, that’s all good stuff.
Come back, Vince, put more fingerprints on the booking!
Ricochet beat Shinsuke Nakamura in an excellently fun TV match, with both men also working together
to beat up Bronson Reed and get him ejected from ringside.
It’s alright, mate, you can just come back down with no repercussions.
Ric got the win with the Shooting Star Press.
Matt Riddle challenged Gunther for the IC title this weekend, and Imperium beat him
up for his troubles.
After a recap of The Bloodline storyline, we got a video package for the Money in the
Bank Ladder Match.
Because when it comes to Money in the Bank, it really is ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS.
It was full of fun facts, but none quite as fun as FOR TWENTY LONG YEARS THE WARLORD HELD
THE RECORD.
One of the funnest facts was that 3 men have cashed in and won the belt twice.
The Miz, Edge and… oh who was the other person [CM PUNK SLIDES IN].
Oh yeah it was Stevie Richards.
Ronda Rousey quickly beat Racquel Rodriguez.
Shrug.
This was the only women's match on the 3 hour show, by the way.
What is this, Dynamite?
And then we got an excellent video promo from Finn Balor to hype his title match this weekend.
This was really well produced, and using the footage from 2016 - particularly Seth laughing
at Finn vacating the belt - really added a lot to this match.
Rollins then came out for a promo to call out Balor, who tried to sneak attack him and
succeeded for the most part - until he was stopped by NXT Champion Carmello Hayes.
This set up a match between Balor and Hayes for later on tonight.
After a video package of Tommaso Ciampa’s return, we were supposed to get a Miz vs.
Ciampa rematch, but The Miz attacked Ciampa before the bell and laid him out with a Skull
Crushing Finale.
That… is not the way.
Earlier in the night, Dom and Rhea asked Adam Pearce to book Dom Dom in a tune up match
before Money in the Bank - challenging someone who is on the same level as Dom.
So he then quickly beat Akira Tozawa - lol they’re heels.
Viking Raiders cut a promo on Alpha Academy and they cut one back later in the show, and
then we got ALL THE MONEY IN THE BANK WOMEN STANDING IN A ROW.
The SmackDown portion of the match all talked over each other, until Trish Stratus pointed
out that they’re acting like little girls before cutting a promo on Becky Lynch.
Becky, rather than talk, just laid into Trish and Zoey and a brawl broke out - with Bex
climbing the ladder and holding onto the Briefcase.
Going by internet lore, this means she for sure cannot win the briefcase now.
Just like all the odd Star Trek Movies are bad - until JJ ruined that bit of fun, of
course - you cannot refute Internet Lore.
They later teased a feud between Becky and Rhea over the title.
There was no Alpha Academy match this week and it took 90 minutes before Cathy Kelly
was on screen so this is a minus five star show, but Carmello Hayes cut a very good promo
to hype his match with Balor.
Gunther beat Sami Zayn in another excellent TV match, winning via a powerbomb through
interference by a returning Giovanni Vinci.
Owens was superb on commentary cheering on his brother, and he brawled with Imperium
after the match and chased them off with the help of Matt Riddle.
This was a great segment, and I am super stoked for Gunther vs. Riddle this weekend.
Natalya revealed that she is getting another shot at Rhea’s title next week and literally
no one cares, and Finn Balor beat Carmello Hayes in a match that was a great showcase
for the NXT Champ.
Apart from the losing bit, that didn’t do much to build his title match with Baron Corbin
for tonight.
While the action was good, I think the benefit of hindsight would tell you not to book this
match.
Corey did make a Public Enemy joke and I understood that reference, but, really, that line is
done by Flava Flav, Corey.
But if I may, wax lyrical about the mad pacing here.
So, here’s how all that went down.
We got a video promo for Carmello Hayes, Finn Balor made his entrance, we got an ad break,
Alpha Academy cut a promo on Viking Raiders, we cut back to Finn waiting in the ring, we
cut a recap of Rhea beating up Natalya last week, then Nattie cut her promo backstage,then
we got the commentators hyping Balor vs. Rollins for this weekend, and then Carmello Hayes
made his entrance for the Balor match.
That… was insane.
I legit had to double check that’s what happened as I didn’t believe the notes I
wrote down.
Cathay interviewed Cody and his dog, we got another video promo for The Bloodline, and
then Cody overcame the Judgement Day odds to survive interference from Dom and Rhea
to pin Damian Priest.
He even kicked out of his finish!
Dom got another cheap shot on Cody before running away, and that was the show.
With Money in the Bank this weekend I was hoping for something a bit bigger than this
episode of Raw, but I think the concept of the ‘go home show’ is gone from today’s
wrestling landscape.
No one really does them anymore.
This was a pretty paint by numbers episode.
Good wrestling aside, there’s nothing you need to check out here.
It’s another Triple H Gold Standard 3 out of 5 episode.