In this WrestleTalk News, Brock Lesnar has seemingly been pulled from WrestleMania Backlash,
a former WWE talent joins AEW, Oli’s review of last night’s Dynamite and more.
Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos.
[SUPPORT WRESTLETALK]
It’s everyone favourite premium live event at the start of next month: it’s WrestleMania
Backlash!
Where you normally see just oh so many rematches from WrestleMania.
And heading into this year’s show was no different, as the advertising for the show
highlighted some of the biggest names such as Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair, who will
be having a rematch, Bianca Belair and Becky Lynch, and Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar,
which naturally led people to think: uh oh, are those two having a rematch as well?
Even if they weren’t planned for it, Lesnar being advertised for the show was still significant,
as it could reveal his next step after losing to Reigns at WrestleMania 38.
Dave Meltzer even originally reported that Lesnar was booked for both WrestleMania Backlash
and Money in the Bank in July.
However, Lesnar has now been removed from the advertising for WrestleMania Backlash
on wwe.com - meaning more likely than not, he won’t be appearing on the show.
I guess it makes a nice change of pace for WWE to actually remove him from the graphics
and such, rather than just insinuating he’ll be there and then he isn’t.
But what will Lesnar be doing when he does come back?
Just go right back to Roman again?
Maybe he’ll join the Money in the Bank match and win the briefcase in a match he isn’t
in again.
That was fun that last time he did it.
No complaints there at all.
There have been a huge number of massive AEW debuts over the past couple of years, but
some of the biggest don’t get the biggest fanfare, because they happen backstage.
And AEW has just scored a huge producer for their company in the form of former WWE producer
Pat Buck.
Buck worked at WrestleMania 38, and produced both Ronda Rousey vs Charlotte Flair and Brock
Lesnar vs Roman Reigns, arguably two of the biggest matches across the whole event, and
then left WWE, which he said at the time was to spend more time with his family after he
achieved his goal in WWE of producing WrestleMania main events.
However, according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, Buck was working backstage at last night’s
AEW Dynamite.
I guess those 10 days or so with his family was enough?
This is honestly a huge get for AEW, and a blow to WWE, as Buck quite transparently now,
has left WWE to join their competition.
It’s one thing for wrestlers to do it, but for backstage staff to be tempted that way
now too marks a definite change in dynamic.
But it definitely isn’t all bad news for WWE, as their UK premium live event is set
to be doing huge ticket sales.
WWE announced they were coming to the Principality Stadium in Wales on September 3 yesterday,
and according to talkSPORT’s Alex McCarthy, more than 59,000 fans have already pre-registered
for tickets for the show, which is a new company record, meaning that’s higher than any WrestleMania
in history.
Which is kind of absolutely bonkers.
The stadium itself regularly has a capacity of around 75,000, so expect to hear about
the 100,000+ fans in attendance on the night.
I jest, but that is genuinely huge for WWE, and great to hear that there’s so much interest
in UK shows.
Now just follow suit AEW, just give us an All Out in the UK, that’s all I’m asking
for.
And now hot tag to Oli!
Just before I get into my AEW review, I just want to address the trend in the comments
this week after Monday’s News episode.
Comments like: “Well done Andy.
Still in awe at the great job you did on Monday.”
“Seriously I actually really liked Andy hosting the news!
Would like to see him host wrestletalk news some more 🙂”
And “Well done Olli....
You almost did as good of a Job as Andy” I have now conducted an independent study
that has confirmed all of these posts aren’t real individuals, it’s god damn bots.
Look closely, these aren’t real people.
Now it’s time for my review of ROH Dynamite… in about 5 minutes.
As if last week’s match of the year candidates of the Bucks vs FTR II and Wheeler Yuta vs
Jon Moxley wasn’t enough last week, this had Samoa Joe vs Murder Grandpa Minoru Suzuki
for the ROH title, a tag title match of Jurassic Express vs RedDragon - Tony… you know Battle
of the Belts is on Saturday, right?
- and our opening match for the World Championship of My Heart: CM Punk vs Pentagon Jr.
Don’t make me choose, Tony.
Although the correct answer is Eddie Kingston.
The New Orleans crowd were incredibly hot for dueling Zero Miedo/CM Punk chants from
the start, and the two had a really exciting match based around Punk tweaking his knee,
but using his adrenaline to hit the GTS to win.
This was designed to keep Punk’s world title shot momentum going.
It’ll be your time soon, Penta.
That was followed up right away by another really great match of RedDragon vs Jurassic
Express for the tag team titles.
It was pacy from the start, with some great near falls, but the champions retained very
clean in about ten minutes.
It was a very fun match to watch, but zooming out, it feels like Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby
Fish aren’t actually credible title contenders.
So when in doubt, throw some ROH titles into the mix!
FTR, draped in their ROH and AAA tag title glory, came out to confront RedDragon afterwards,
seemingly finally kicking off their feud that’s been building in the background.
It’s a shame the preceding loss doesn’t make RedDragon feel like a threat, though,
and Jurassic Express continue to feel like the fourth or fifth most important team in
AEW, despite being the tag champions.
Because the number one guys are Moxley and Danielson, who’ll be teaming with their
new violent friend forever Wheeler Yuta against the Gunn Club this Friday.
We’ll be getting Toni Storm vs Jamie Hayter in the first round of the Owen Hart Tournament.
And in the best angle of the night, we then got the excellent next installment of MJF
vs Wardlow, via MJF vs Shawn Dean.
Trying to avenge one of the only AEW losses on his record, Max beat up The Captain, but
was immediately interrupted by a cameraman on the tron showing three taken out security
guards backstage, who looked more like it was the night after a heavy sesh.
Security guys like to party.
In a fantastic bit of misdirection considering that and the last few weeks, we didn’t get
another backstage shot of Wardlow, he just unveiled himself behind MJF in the crowd.
Wardlow chased him, but Spears hit him with a chair, and loads of security restrained
him.
But, brilliantly, this stopped Max getting back in the ring before the ten count - which
Bryce Remsburg made despite MJF’s protests!
Shawn Dean got another win over MJF!
Wardlow assaulted more security backstage and screamed for Max to release him from his
contract, and MJF later replied saying he’s going to start booking him in matches.
First up, The Butcher.
This is a fantastic next direction for their feud, and Wardlow is getting so organically
over.
Darby Allin set up a coffin match against Andrade next week, and Malakai Black is still
feuding with Fuego Del Sol of all people.
I feel like that’s a bit of a waste of the House of Black.
Then after footage from earlier in the day, where LAX attacked JAS on sight at an airport,
they wrestled JAS while mostly respecting the rules of a six man tag.
Eddie Kingston, Santana and Ortiz’s intensity was excellent, but their On Sight promo building
this match from last week suggested a wild brawl.
Instead, it was 90% legal tags, which Daniel Garcia won when Jericho hit Kingston with
the bat.
The match felt out of place with the feud’s intensity, and would have been better served
with Jericho demanding sports entertainment rules be put in place to protect them.
Marina Shafir vs Sky Blue was more about all the people watching Marina Shafir vs Sky Blue.
The Baddies section, which is still cringey, now included Red Velvet - potentially signaling
a heel turn after she keeps getting booed - and Jade Cargill was ignoring the monitor
backstage.
Sadly, the crowd kind of where too, and were deathly silent despite being insanely hot
all night.
They were right back alive for their hometown boy Ricky Starks next, as he tagged with Powerhouse
Hobbs against Keith Lee and Swerve Strickland.
It’s a difficult position for the babyfaces to be in, wrestling against the popular hometown
heel, but they were so good - including a Swerve moonsault to the outside off Keith
Lee’s chest!
- that the crowd just cheered everyone.
But just like their Rampage match, I feel like it was Hobbs that stood out most again.
Taz tripped Lee for Powerhouse to get the pin, making it one win apiece for the hosses.
The big go home angle for Thunder Rosa vs Nyla Rose was…
Nyla getting cake in her face.
Tony Khan will make a huge announcement next week.
God dammit he’s probably bought TNA too.
And with 20 minutes left of the show, plus preadvertised overrun - which was probably
in place for Suzuki’s full entrance - we got another one of the best matches of the
year: Samoa Joe vs Minoru Suzuki.
I say ‘match’, but I actually mean, ‘two men preparing chest ham’.
Joe and Suzuki spent about 90% of the match chopping each other’s chests with increasing
intensity and maniacal grins.
There’s not much else to recap.
But it was still incredible.
You could see people in the crowd actively hulking up off the violence.
Joe eventually hit a Muscle Buster to become the new ROH World TV Champion.
And I wish that was where the show ended.
Because despite being an AEW/ROH co-production, it sure did feel like a WWE finish.
Joe didn’t get any time to properly celebrate, as Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt revealed their
big surprise - a lights cut out spot, for a very tall man to stand behind him and take
Joe out.
Excalibur then told us this was the 7 foot 2 inches former basketball player Satnam Singh,
who proceeded to squeeze Joe’s head for the remaining few minutes of beatdown.
It’s the first time I’ve ever thought, huh, Vince McMahon would probably enjoy this
bit.
And that’s not what I want from AEW.
The crowd were also said to be a mixture of annoyed and laughing at the reveal.
What did you think of AEW Dynamite?
Let me know in the comments!
In-ring wrestling wise, this was on its way to being one of the better episodes of the
year.
But it’s how you leave them, folks, and unfortunately my final image is Satnam Singh,
not Joe winning the ROH title.
This is a 90% show that ended up being at 82%.
Now find out about the anger backstage in WWE over a controversial firing…