In this WrestleTalk News, Xavier Woods’ WWE clash, Bray Wyatt’s future, Tempest’s
review of NXT 2.0 and more. Subscribe and enable notifications to always
on for daily wrestling news videos like… MJF calling his mum a slut. It’s great content,
you’ve gotta like and subscribe for that content, right?!
Parents can be embarrassing, I get it. One time my mum got me up onstage at a pantomime
show when I was a kid by saying it was my birthday, even though it wasn’t my birthday,
and I had a panic attack in front of the audience because I had just lied to Buttons.
So imagine my best friend MJF’s embarrassment when his mum and dad showed up on AEW Rampage
holding a sign that read: “We’re MJF’s parents and we think he SUCKS too” - with
his dad also wearing an I HATE MJF t-shirt. Well imagine no longer, because MJF has done
an interview with FITE’s Josh Shernoff. “Here’s the thing about my mum, she’s
a dumb, disgusting slut. And everything she says is pretty much complete horses***. My
father is an old irrelevant piece of s***. And that’s me putting it gently.
I do not associate with them, they are clearly very money hungry and fame hungry and it doesn't
shock me at all that they were willing to take you, a very dumb, very dumb interviewer,
and convince you into showing them to the world so they could have all these people
listen to them.” But MJF’s relationship with his parents
is still probably much healthier than WWE with their independent contractors.
Xavier Woods isn’t just a multi-time tag team champion and the 2021 King of the Ring
winner. He’s also the creator of arguably the most genuine fan-servicing content WWE
still has under their umbrella: the wrestlers play games YouTube channel UpUpDownDown.
In just over six years, Woods has grown the community to 2.3 million subscribers, bolstering
the profiles of many underused WWE superstars in the process. But recently, the amount of
videos uploaded to the channel has slowed, posting just two full length videos in the
last month. And now Fightful Select has revealed the reason why.
According to their report, and contrary to popular belief, WWE has always owned the UpUpDownDown
channel. It was a WWE project that Woods pitched and was green lighted, rather Woods starting
the channel, growing it, and then selling it to WWE. “At no point” did Xavier own
UpUpDownDown. But that hasn’t stopped almost everyone
behind-the-scenes thinking Xavier has a “raw deal.”
Apparently Woods “sees little to no additional money at all from UpUpDownDown”, along with
his hosting of video game show G4, as WWE considers it all part of the downside guarantee
in his contract. Which would be fine, you know, if he wasn’t an independent contractor.
Because he’s “not seen an extra dime” for growing the channel to well over 2 million
subscribers, Woods has now “decided to hold out from creating content” until he gets
a new deal. This shocked many people who worked with him on it, as they all presumed he had
a really good contract in place already for it.
As a result, practically everyone has sided with Woods in the dispute - even including
WWE’s Digital department, who agreed he should have been paid for growing the channel.
Other members of the UpUpDownDown roster feel “a sense of loyalty” to Woods for helping
push them on the channel, so they’ve also stopped making content “in solidarity”
with him. “They don't plan on posting new content until Woods gets a better deal.”
Somehow in a company that might suspend you if you sneeze in front of the wrong guy, there
is said to be “no heat on Woods” despite this situation - which can be seen in his
current push, winning the King of the Ring tournament and entering a program with Roman
Reigns. “Virtually everyone we spoke to within the company has taken Woods' side on
the matter.” What do you think of Xavier Woods’ situation?
Let me know in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to people for the first
30 minutes after this video goes live FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
Before we get on with the rest of the episode, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to
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After WWE released him at the end of July, Bray Wyatt’s 90 day non-compete clause expired
on Halloween weekend. But despite the perfect timing to debut a new spooky, spooky character,
Windham Rotunda to AEW or IMPACT not confirmed. Instead, he’s got a new gimmick: Hollywood
Wyatt. Jason Baker, the make-up artist extraordinaire
who helped design the Fiend mask, posted a picture of them both in the Warner Brothers
lot shortly before Wyatt’s non-compete clause expired. And now he’s told the Metro what
that was for: “We’re starting a film at the end of the
month. Two weeks to go, we’re filming in Tennessee. It’s a feature film and it’s
something really new and different. I’d say probably the best way to describe it is
Ichi the Killer meets Xanadu.” Ichi the Killer is a Japanese crime horror
movie that was banned in a bunch of countries on release for things like a torture scene
where a man is suspended from the ceiling by hooks and wires in his back and face and
gets boiling oil poured over him. And Xanadu is an Olivia Newton-John starring
80s musical about a giant roller disco rink. But how do they… I can’t see how that…
Never change Bray. GCW owner Brett Lauderdale has already said
he’s heard Bray isn’t interested in working for an indie promotion, while IMPACT talks
with him and Braun Strowman reportedly fell through. Tony Khan has said he’s interested
in Bray to AEW confirmed, but claims they haven’t had any talks. Wink.
But if Wyatt is about to start filming at the end of November, then that would presumably
mean no wrestling return until 2022. Perhaps he can join Malakai Black in his House
of Black which currently includes… well, just Malakai Black. And sometimes Andrade
and FTR come to visit? At least someone’s knocking for him now.
Malakai told Giant FM Real Radio he “absolutely” has plans to build himself an actual House
of Black faction with “multiple people.” “There’s definitely an idea that I have,
more so than I’ve revealed, even to Tony, with the House of Black.”
He’s said he doesn’t want to rush it though, and all will be revealed in time.
Time, however, appears to be against Monday Night Raw. As while WWE thinks their competition
is AEW, their real battle is against people’s boredom.
Monday’s episode of Raw pulled in just 1.55 million viewers, which is down over 140,000
from last week. This is the show’s third lowest figure in history, and its second lowest
number in the all-important 18-49 demographic ever.
This was due to a disastrous third hour of viewership. Both the first and second hours
were low, but steady, just over 1.6 million, but the final hour saw a quarter of a million
people just turn off - a bad sign for the show’s structure, and how the main event
match and stars of Big E, Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins were presented. Which is frustrating,
because in my opinion, that was the best thing on the show.
But as long as Raw evidently felt for a lot of viewers, it was nowhere near as long as
the reported production meeting with Vince McMahon earlier that day…
PWInsider is reporting John Laurinaitis ran Monday’s episode of Raw behind the scenes,
as Bruce Prichard wasn’t in attendance. Vince McMahon, meanwhile, “ran what was
described as a ‘Capital letters LONG’ production meeting during the afternoon, then
left and was not present for the show itself.” Capital Letters LONG Production, title of
your WWE pay-per-view. Finn Balor was also missing from action this
week, but over in the UK tour. PWInsider is reporting he was pulled from a show in Nottingham,
England as a “precautionary measure” for Balor to rest up on a minor issue. There’s
no word on what that is specifically. Balor had previously wrestled on the last week’s
worth of tour dates. What’s that? We’ve got a new segment?
Who is Taz Shooting On? Riddle me this, riddle me Taz. Who is the
FTW King shooting about? “Couple people gettin egos in this game
that shouldn’t have egos cause few of them have done nothing substantial in their careers
thus far. Even if you have done something substantial in this game, there is still no
reason to have an ego, a swagger yes… but not an ego.”
Answers in the comments below. Talking of shoots...
Jon Moxley’s autobiography MOX came out last week - check out our 10 Biggest Takeaways
list from it over on partsFUNknown that just went live! - where one of the most fun stories
was Moxley’s chapter on F*** Kevin Dunn, WWE’s longtime, widely hated Executive Producer.
Bryan Alverez has revealed the story was a moment of catharsis for many other wrestlers
who have had to deal with the Dunn: “I’m trying to think if I’ve ever heard
anybody defend Kevin Dunn, like anybody. I can’t think of one person. He is as close
as to universally disliked a person as I can even think of in this business. And when Moxley
just razor bladed this guy, boy did I hear people that were so happy to read that chapter.”
MOX is being hailed as one of the best wrestling books ever written, but not to be outdone
on the promo stakes, Jon’s best mate Eddie Kingston has just posted a brutally honest
article on the Players Tribune called ‘Eddie Kingston Got No Business F****** Being Here’.
In it, he talks about how disruptive and angry he was at school, how watching wrestling was
the only thing that could calm him down, the early dodgy days of tape trading, his journey
into wrestling, the many crises of confidence he had along the way, and how he was just
about to pack it all in, broke, having to move in with his mother during the pandemic,
when AEW happened
to him. The link for that
is in the description below.
But
now it’s time for Tempest’s review of NXT 2.0… in about 5 minutes.