Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News - I’m Oli Davis. Where after last Thursday’s
success, we’re getting another SUPER NEWS.
That’s right, it’s 10 minutes of me yelling wrestling news at you - so press the thumbs
up and leave a comment down below because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE
when this episode goes live! And we’ve got a show more packed than Finn
Balor’s tiny trunks [BALOR SIDE SCREEN] - with the massively controversial plans that
appear to have been leaked for it, WWE’s continuing ratings crisis and backstage news
on how Roman Reigns vacating his Universal championship has changed the landscape of
the promotion.
Reigns shocked the wrestling world at the start of Monday’s Raw by announcing he’d
be relinquishing WWE’s top title because he’s suffering from leukemia - a disease
he was first diagnosed with 11 years previously when he was just 22.
PWInsider have since revealed that 99% of people in the company - from backstage officials
to the wrestlers themselves - had no idea what Reigns was going to announce before he
went out to the ring. The only ones who had any idea were WWE’s upper-level officials
- likely the McMahon family, their inner circle and talent relations, implying that when Seth
Rollins and Dean Ambrose embraced Roman at the top of the ramp after the announcement,
that was the first they’d heard of him having cancer.
Which I definitely didn’t cry at. I was just sweating. Sweating from my eyeball-it’s
really hot in here isn’t i-? Roman’s first tweet since his announcement
reads: “Thank you to everyone who’s reached out...I
can’t put into words what it means to me. Your energy and positivity motivate me to
get better quickly to get back in the ring, but for now I’m going to spend time with
my family and focus on health. Thank you - Joe/Roman” Luke, come on, man, get me a towel for my
sweaty eyes. Support from fans and fellow wrestlers alike
has continued to pour in, with Enzo Amore tweeting:
“Leukemia ... there is only 1 word to describe you. And I’m gunna spell it out for ya S
A W F T #SAWFT! Tough times don’t last, tough people do. ✊🏼 u got it dog.”
18 year wrestling veteran, NXT’s Aleister Black posted a heartwarming story on Facebook
about how he used to tidy the main roster locker rooms after live events out of respect,
when he got chatting to Reigns: “At a certain point during that conversation
Roman looked at me and said "I don't want you cleaning the lockerrooms anymore." "I
want you to understand that you belong here and I want for you to kill it every night
and be part of the team, that's all I care about." "you've been wrestling long enough
to understand how this works, so please, relax." I would've never stopped doing that until
a lockerroom leader like Roman, Seth, Bray or Finn would've told me to stop, because
that's how I was taught. Earn your keep, earn your place, earn respect. Every time after
that when I would see him he would greet me with a big hug and ask me how I was doing
in his calm and composed demeanor.” And Corey Graves, who was visibly crying on
commentary following Roman’s announcement on Monday, has broken down again, tweeting:
“My daughter just now: “Daddy, what’s leukemia? Is Joe gonna be ok?” It broke
my heart all over again, but also allowed me to tell her that @WWERomanReigns is the
toughest guy I know. And I said “yes baby, Joe is gonna be just fine.” #YouGotThisUce”
And showing how much good will a previously hostile audience now have for Roman, fan Ross
Adams replied to Corey’s tweet: My son has a superhero themed party on Saturday
and was gonna be Superman but he now wants to go as @WWERomanReigns
I love the sentiment, Ross, but that costume is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately, the sad news for Roman’s family doesn’t stop there, as his cousin
and former WWF wrestler Samu Anoa’i has now revealed on Facebook he’s also suffering
from cancer: “My cousins news has struck the world and
we are all devastated at this time. What many of you may or may not know is I am also dealing
with stage 4 liver cancer and am currently waiting for God’s grace to help me get a
transplant… I want to use our name in order to help doctors and researchers find ways
to cure this evil sickness. Until you can stand in the shoes we stand
in you will never know the pain and the struggle we endure daily. Respectfully Samu Anoa'i”
That’s quite a lot of intense real-life feelings there, so let’s segway into something
I’m far more comfortable with - wrestling storylines and heel/babyface turns!
With Roman suddenly having to relinquish his Universal title, a star vacuum has been created
at the top of WWE. Vince McMahon has spent the last five years building his promotion
around Reigns, with him reportedly set to be the face of the company for the foreseeable
future. But with him taken out with illness, WWE will have had to adjust who their top
guy is. Or maybe even - and this is an out-the-box idea - make several top guys like you built
the Attitude Era around. But in the immediate term, after previously
finding themselves with too few heels - necessitating the recent and sudden bad guy turns of Braun
Strowman and Bobby Lashley - losing Roman has now created a lack of babyfaces on Raw.
Especially with Dean Ambrose also turning heel on Seth Rollins after winning the tag
team titles in Monday’s main event. Dean turning on Rollins has been in WWE’s
plans ever since the two reunited at SummerSlam 2017, but even following an 8 month delay
when Ambrose was taken out with an injury back in January, both PWInsider and Wrestling
Observer Live have reported WWE were going to hold off on Ambrose going villain until
Survivor Series. This, however, was moved forward to Monday’s Raw in light of Roman’s
announcement. Additionally, PWInsider are reporting that most of the WrestleMania 35
main event plans are now “out the window”, as Reigns was expected to be in one of the
top matches. So to fix the heel/babyface imbalance, WWE
were in desperate need of some new good guys on Monday’s Raw - which is why both Braun
Strowman - mmmm MeatCastle - and Elias were suddenly turned face, and there’s speculation
that some NXT stars could be called up soon to help plug the gaps.
Speaking of Elias, it’s time for a new segment!
This week I tweeted Elias: “I love to walk with @IAmEliasWWE and my
local sports Team sucks!! Or does it now your a good guy now? ROFL crying with laughter
emoji fist bump respect emoji guitar Emoji heart emoji Please retweet much love OD”
He hasn’t… yet… sure he will, though...
Despite all those heel and face turns, neither this week’s Raw or SmackDown could get out
of their recent ratings slump. While Raw might’ve been up 150,000 viewers
from the previous week, they still only managed a terribly low 2.55 million on Monday - an
emotional episode which a resounding 70% of you agreed with my top rating of In Awe. SmackDown,
meanwhile, lost over a fifth of its audience from the previous week’s 1000th episode
special, drawing just 2.09 million viewers - a lacklustre show that 53% of you thought
was Smack Bang in the Middle. Neither show did a very good job of building
this Sunday’s Evolution pay-per-view, with SmackDown’s big go-home main event instead
being a triple threat between Jeff Hardy, Randy Orton and the limits of human attention.
Interestingly, there is some appetite for actually caring about the all-female show,
with The Road to Evolution special on the USA Network drawing an impressive 1.11 million
viewers. With the relatively inexperienced Renee Young
and Beth Phoenix announcing Sunday’s show alongside Michael Cole, the broadcast will
hopefully be rife with potential…
… out of context wrestling commentary submissions! This week’s comes from SirPrincy2.
That’s weird with or without context.
If only WWE’s controversial reported plans for Crown Jewel had the luxury of having no
context. MAINSTREAM POLITICAL NEWS SEGWAY!
The controversy surrounding WWE’s Crown Jewel pay-per-view is the story that just
keeps getting worse. To catch you up with what’s been confirmed so far, the Saudi
Arabian government have admitted to murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi,
but deny it was a premeditated attack. Pretty much everyone else, though, disagrees.
This is the background to WWE putting on their big Crown Jewel show in Saudi Arabia next
Friday, as part of a huge money contract with the country to present a positive image of
their society to the rest of the world. A positive image somewhat now punctured by the
aforementioned murder of a journalist. And in true, good-natured, progressive WWE
style - after all the mainstream pressure for them to cancel or move the event, and
reports that John Cena and Daniel Bryan were refusing to appear on the show - they’ve
confirmed it’s going ahead. As part of its Q3 earnings report published
today - business, business, business - WWE’s corporate website has confirmed:
“The Company has decided to uphold its contractual obligations to the General Sports Authority
and stage the event. Full year 2018 guidance is predicated on the staging of the Riyadh
event as scheduled." It’s almost as tone deaf to popular opinion
as the Undertaker and Kane digging graves for Triple H and Shawn Michaels on Monday’s
Raw to build a show taking place amidst a murder scandal - and WWE’s recent new slogan
for the event: An urn with DX spray painted on and the caption
“Respect is out the window.” Which one commenter agreed with, posting:
“Respect for women: ✔️ Respect for free press: ✔️ Respect for human life: ✔️
Yep, it’s all out the window.” WWE have now edited the caption to read “Are.
You. Ready? #WWECrownJewel” I don’t know why they bothered changing
it, because going by our main story, they’re just fully leaning into the controversy and
aren’t giving a Terry Funk. Because in Vince McMahon’s mind ‘When
In Rome’ also seemingly means ‘When In Riyadh’, as presumably thinking the house
is on fire already, so no-one’s going to notice if we torch the shed, WWE could be
reintroducing disgraced Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan to audiences at Crown Jewel too.
Hogan was last heard from back in July’s Extreme Rules show, where WWE reinstated him
into their Hall of Fame after a three-year suspension for racist comments he’d made
were leaked to the press. The return didn’t go down too well backstage, with several members
of the roster like Titus O’Neil and the New Day speaking out against the Hulkster
coming back. And now Hogan’s told the Orlando Sentinel:
“There are a lot of plans in the works. I’m looking forward to going to Saudi Arabia
with the WWE, looking forward to WrestleMania…” This ties into the Chairman of the General
Sports Authority Turki Al-Sheikh tweeting a picture of Hogan last month - starting speculation
that the Hulkster would be at the show. And given the Crown Prince’s reported love of
80s and 90s wrestling, an appearance from Hogan would certainly fit with the tone.
What about all the other shows WWE have done outside the United States? Click the WrestleTalk.com
link onscreen now to find out every non-US WWE Supercard ranked from worst to best! And
watch our Evolution predictions in the top left! I’ve been Oli Davis, and that was
wrestling.