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Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk MECHA NEWS! I am Luke Owen. Have yourself a Superclick
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to answer our question of the day:
Who would you like to see grace the cover of WWE2K20? We’ve got a packed show of news
for you today, including the latest on that cover star, a huge match made for New Japan’s
Dominion show, and a top indie wrestler telling WrestleTalk that he’s turned down WWE offers.
But first.
AJ Styles is one of the biggest success stories in WWE of a guy who came from TNA/Impact Wrestling.
EC3 has been missing from TV screens for the majority of the time he’s been called up,
Samoa Joe has had a decent run, but it’s far from his TNA and ROH days, Eric Young’s
group was recently split up and he’s also missing, and while you could make arguments
for Bobby Lashley and Drew McIntyre, they both were WWE guys before they were TNA guys.
AJ Styles on the other hand has had lengthy reigns as the WWE Champion, has been in the
main event scene since he walked through the door, and has had featured matches at every
WrestleMania so far.
But AJ didn’t always have the smoothest of rides in TNA - from his laughably bad angle
with Claire Lynch - check out Brian Zane of Wrestling With Wregret’s recap of that if
you’ve never heard of it before - to being a cheap Ric Flair knock off in a feud with
Abyss over Hulk Hogan’s WWE Hall of Fame ring. No, I’m not kidding. And recently
Twitter user NastyMoose shared a picture of an AJ Styles TNA t-shirt in a thread of awful
wrestling merchandise, which he quite matter-of-factly calls the Jizz Shirt. Well, at least we know
how what the J stands for. AJizz Styles then decided to respond - neigh, shoot - on his
former employer and the merch saying, “I wish I could tell u this was the worst thing
TNA has ever come up with.”
AJ Styles claimed that Smackdown - I’ve just realised that “shoot” was needlessly
sexual in that last story… oh well - AJ Styles claimed that Smackdown was the house
that he built, but Shane McMahon currently has the keys to the blue kingdom. And WWE’s
Twitter account are now saying that The BEST IN THE WOOOOOOOOOOORLD, Shane McMahon will
crown new Smackdown Tag Team Champions after The Hardy Boyz vacated the titles last week.
But given that WWE’s Twitter account says a lot of things that never actually come to
pass, take this one with a giant pinch of CARD SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
What could also be Card Subject to Change is a report from Fox Sports Asia, who have
leaked information about 2K Games’ latest entry in their WWE series of video games,
WWE2K20 - including its cover star, pre-order bonus and the return of a fan favourite mode.
Previous cover stars for WWE2K games have been The Rock, John Cena, Steve Austin, Brock
Lesnar, Seth Rollins and AJ Styles, and this leaked document from Fox Sports Asia says
that current Raw and Smackdown Women’s Champion Becky Lynch will be the cover star for WWE2K20
- with the document adding that “The Women’s Revolution will also takeover the game, with
a WWE2K Showcase of the best women’s matches in WWE.”
Sticking with that theme, it’s being reported via the document that Chyna will be the game’s
pre-order bonus - which in the past has been The Ultimate Warrior, Ronda Rousey, Sting,
and, uh, The Terminator. This will be the first time Chyna has been featured in a WWE
game since Smackdown 2: Know Your Role back in 2000.
The document says that the trailer reveal for the game and Chyna will be on July 29th,
with another trailer on August 7th revealing the return of GM Mode, where players take
control of Raw, Smackdown or NXT, where you will draft the stars you want, compete against
the other brands and even deal with the annual Superstar Shake-Up. Which I’m sure will
paint a realistic picture of what it’s like trying to write for these shows, where you
spend seven days putting together a plan only for Vince McMahon to change it 2 hours before
it’s supposed to air.
So Chyna is reportedly going to be in WWE2K20, but there is a former WWE star who will unlikely
be in the game.
Back in January this year, All Elite Wrestling held their first rally in Jacksonville, Florida
- the home of this guy - where they announced their first batch of signed wrestlers - including
former WWE star Chris Jericho - as well as their first show Double or Nothing, which
will take place on May 25th from Las Vegas. At their second rally in Vegas, So Cal Uncensored
challenged CIMA to bring two of the best from Oriental Wrestling Entertainment to tag with
him in six-man action.
And on Twitter recently, CIMA revealed who he’ll be teaming with.
That six-man will join PAC vs. Hangman Page, The
Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Brothers, Dustin Rhodes vs. Cody, Britt Baker vs. Nyla Rose
vs. Kylie Ray and Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho…
...And that means Chris Jericho is set for a busy couple of weeks, as after Kazuchika
Okada successfully defended the IWGP Heavyweight Championship against SANADA at Wrestling Dontaku,
a video played of the former Y2J challenging Okada to a match for the title at Dominion
on June 9th.
Jericho
has been very vocal about still wanting to work with New Japan when he signed with All
Elite Wrestling, saying he wanted to have matches with the likes of Hiroshi Tanahashi
and Okada.
And that match will also be joined by a rematch from the G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden,
as Kota Ibushi defends his IWGP Intercontinental Championship against Tetsuya Naito. The two
have been feuding since the New Japan Cup in March, and Naito will be looking to live
up to his promise that he’ll be the first man to hold both the IWGP Heavyweight and
Intercontinental Championships.
Someone else who could be on that show is the newest member of Bullet Club, El Phantasmo.
ELP made his in-ring debut for the promotion at Wrestling Dontaku Day Two, teaming with
fellow Bullet Club member Taiji Ishimori to defeat Will Ospreay and IWGP Junior Heavyweight
Champion Dragon Lee.
With that debut, ELP has been announced as the final entrant in the 2019 Best of the
Super Juniors, a tournament that will also see Ospreay, Ishimori, Taka Michanoku, Flip
Gordan, Marty Scurll, Bandido and more. El Phantasmo will surely be looking to capture
the same success he had in the 2018 British J Cup which took place at Wrestling Media
Con last year.
If you’ve not heard the name before, El Phantasmo is one of the best high flying wrestlers
on the British Independent scene currently, and his work for New Japan makes sense given
their relationship with Revolution Pro Wrestling - and there’s another wrestler on that scene
who isn’t keeping his feelings about WWE quiet.
When this video is released, the finals of Progress’ Super Strong Style 16 will likely
be coming to a close. We’re about to give away some of the results of the tournament
and matches around it, so if you’re looking to avoid spoilers please skip to the time
stamp provided by editor Simon. Here we go into the Spoiler Room Brawl in 3...2...1
Kyle O’Reilly, Jordan Devlin and Ilja Draganov all made it through to the Semi-Finals, with
David Starr and Travis Banks going to a no contest to make one of the Semi-Finals a triple
threat. Kyle O’Reilly defeated Paul Robinson, who was then challenged by Jimmy Havoc for
one last death match before he leaves for All Elite Wrestling, Ilja Draganov quickly
dispatched of NXT’s Trevor Lee, and Jordan Devlin tore down the house with Aussie Arrow
Kyle Fletcher in what was easily the best match of the day. Session Moth also beat Jinny
to advance to the Women’s Four Way, where Jordaynne Grace also defends her PROGRESS
Women’s Championship against Millie McKenzie and Nina Samuels.
But the big news coming from the show was in the main event where WALTER and Trent Seven
went toe-to-toe for the PROGRESS World and Atlas Championships. Despite having the crowd
solidly behind him, Seven was unable to fight through a WALTER Sleeper Hold, passing out
to crown the WWE United Kingdom Champion another title round his waist. It was a breath-taking
match at times, with WALTER and Seven showing why they are two of the best at this game.
We had a blast meeting members of the Swaft Nation at the event, and WrestleTyke Louis
Dangoor also had the chance to sit down with some of the wrestlers for the event. When
he asked WALTER about the possibility of going to the WWE roster from NXT UK, the champ said:
“It's going to be step by step, I guess, I just arrived so I need to get work done.
I focus on what I do now, if I do good, things will be fine.”
But the most revealing interview came from British Cruiserweight Champion and the man
with more catchphrases than I have hair follicles David Starr. Really it should come as no surprise
that Starr was vocal about the wrestling scene - given his promo against Sinclair and Ring
of Honor with regards to his match in Israel, and his anti-WWE promo he cut after his wXw
match over WrestleMania weekend.
And with wXw being affiliated with WWE, some fans speculated that this could be a way to
bring Starr into the promotion, however he told WrestleTalk: “I've been contacted by
them before and I've turned it down a couple of times. The thing that doesn't hit home
with the European audience is the health care thing. Because [you're] very fortunate to
just go to the hospital. That's one of the reasons I moved to the UK. Being a professional
wrestler, it's hard to afford healthcare, the things you need. My point is, similar
to John Oliver's stuff and things I've talked about in private, but never been given the
opportunity to say it, so I decided to take it on a WWE show, a WWE-lite platform, so
I decided f**k it, I'm gonna do it. I just want wrestlers to realise the power we have,
and understand that we don't have to accept whatever is given to us. We have our own terms
and our own conditions and I want wrestlers to understand that it's cool to say "no",
it's fine. Don't give in just because it's got three letters and it seems like it would
be cool. Just think about yourself and don't cave into a corporate power just because they
tell you, "look at all this exposure you get'. Well how about you treat us right? How about
a billion dollar corporation that is able to provide healthcare to it's wrestlers. Clearly
they don't care. So yeah that bothers me.”
Those full interviews, as well as comments from PROGRESS and NXT UK promoter Jim Smallman,
Mark and Vicky Haskins, Trent Seven and Paul Robinson will be available as a special bonus
WrestleRamble podcast later this week.
Thank you to everyone who came up to us at PROGRESS yesterday, and you’re more than
welcome to do that again when WrestleTalk is Live in London tomorrow night! We’ll
be screening the cinematic classic Ready To Rumble at the Prince Charles Cinema and then
doing a live podcast record afterwards, tickets are available from the link in the video description
below.
Thank you for watching and a special thank you to our Patreon Pledge Hammers, some of
which you can see scrolling their way into my stomach. Watch Laurie, Simon and myself
play Captain America and The Avengers on the Mega Drive in the latest video from ScreenStalker,
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the videos over there. I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.