One of the
major talking points of this week was regarding Triple H’s MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT on WWE’s
2024 Preview on Thursday.
This HUGE news would ultimately be Trips just re-announcing old news, and NOT WWE were announcing
a partnership with the newly rebooted TNA; as had been rumored online.
But FEAR NOT, as some other WWE forbidden door collabs may be coming in 2024 after all.
According to Dave Meltzer in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, both Triple H & Nick
Khan are seeking out “Japanese allies”, with the first step of the plan already executed,
that being NXT star Charlie Dempsey’s recent crossover into All-Japan Pro Wrestling.
As well as AJPW, WWE are also reportedly looking at a partnership with a women’s “promotional
ally” with STARDOM reportedly considered.
The juiciest of all though, according to Meltzer there is “talk internally” in WWE of another
pursuit of a partnership with NJPW now that Hiroshi Tanahashi is President.
Something that would undoubtedly have implications on AEW’s existing relationship.
But it may not just be NJPW in the middle of this prospective WWE & AEW tug of war,
as right now the hottest free agent in the game Mercedes Mone seems to be up for the
taking.
With WWE and Mone reportedly “far apart” on the finances of a potential deal, negotiation
momentum once again shifted to AEW this week, with it being reported by many sources that
The Boss is ‘expected’ to join.
A move that, according to Meltzer again, is AEW’s “counterpunch” for WWE’s much-rumored
signing of Andrade El Idolo.
This fighting spirit was seemingly echoed by an AEW source who told PWInsider, “if
you don’t think we are in the hunt, you are crazy.”
A WWE source on the other hand told PWInsider that they’re still confident that Mone will
return.
Nothing has seemingly been signed yet in regards to a contract however, but stay tuned to Wrestletalk.com
for updates.
From one potential major WWE arrival to a major recent departure as we have an update
on Vince McMahon’s former right-hand of destruction…
Kevin Dunn.
Last week WWE President Nick Khan confirmed Dunn’s exit in an internal WWE email, where
he thanked him for his four decades of service.
How nice…
Quite refreshing to see such a wholesome split…
Oh wait.
Of course it wasn’t.
According to PWInsider’s Mike Johnson, Dunn didn’t exit the company to retire and sit
on a porch for the rest of his days, instead there is “growing belief” that he left
the company due to feeling “disrespected” for being a “Vince McMahon guy” according
to a WWE source.
Dunn reportedly isn’t even planning to retire at all, instead being open to get work in
film and TV in the future.
The relationship between Dunn and WWE reportedly deteriorated in recent weeks, with things
“getting uglier” after Dunn handed in his notice.
With Dunn reportedly not too keen to relinquish any control over production after ruling the
roost for decades AND Endeavor reportedly also looking to cut costs the split looks
to have been inevitable.
And
now it’s time for my review of SmackDown New Year’s Revolution in about 5 minutes.
I really enjoy WWE bringing back defunct PPV names for special episodes of TV, and I think
the extra hype that was brought with Raw being the Day 1 edition carried its expectations.
This episode of SmackDown…didn’t.
It was a completely fine episode of TV, but definitely didn’t feel like a big new year
reset show like Raw did, so let’s see why.
The show began with a recap of Rock’s return on Raw, along with Roman Reigns arriving at
the show and laughing at the thought of Rock challenging him for his title.
We then had the finals of the United States Championship tournament with Kevin Owens facing
Santos Escobar, and we even got a Logan Paul to join for commentary for this one!
The match itself was good, with Santos and KO bringing out their big moves.
It never seemed to reach that higher gear though, which stopped it from being a great
or excellent match.
In the end, Owens won clean with a Stunner after Humberto & Angel were driven out by
Joaquin Wilde & Cruz Del Toro.
Logan cut a promo on why a Canadian can’t win the US title for some nice heat as they
were in Vancouver, and KO knocked him out with the cast on his arm.
Looking forward to that match at the Rumble, should be a great time.
Cameron Grimes backstage said ‘glad to see you met Kevin’ to Logan Paul, Grayson Waller
and Austin Theory and they got a little shovey which set up a match between Grimes and Waller
for next week.
Bobby Lashley & The Street Profits cut an in-ring promo next where Lashley said he wants
to get back to being the All Mighty, and declares himself for the Royal Rumble match.
The Street Profits want the tag belts too, so they issue a warning to Judgement Day on
Raw.
But that’s when they’re interrupted by Karrion Kross’ titantron.
The lights go out, and Kross walks out onto the stage with Scarlett, and then walking
out behind the two is Paul Ellering.
AOP finally made their WWE return, swarming the ring and hitting a Super Collider on The
Street Profits.
Kross hit whatever his move is called on Lashley, the pumphandle swinging release DDT?
Maybe?
I think this group looks very cool.
Kross has always looked very impressive, and I’ve always been a fan of AOP’s presence.
I’m quietly curious about this group and what they can achieve, but I don’t know
if this fixes the larger problem with Kross and his lack of connection with the audience
when the bell rings.
It’s nice to see AOP though, I hope they get a good showing the tag division.
Iyo Sky defended her Women’s Title against Michin next which was also a good match.
The crowd weren’t into Michin to start with but after some big moves they started to get
going a little bit - like Michin hitting a second rope Styles Clash which was rad.
However not long after, Iyo countered a Michin dive by moving out of the way - Samoa Joe
approves - and capitalised with some knees and a moonsault to retain.
A good match.
Paul Heyman cut a promo on The Rock, AJ Styles, LA Knight and Randy Orton, saying there’s
only two ways to go viral: to date Taylor Swift and to call out Roman Reigns.
The Rock wants a shortcut into the headlines, but he’s not been invited to a dinner of
relevancy yet.
It was a typically great Heyman promo.
Damage CTRL backstage celebrated Iyo Sky’s win, and Bayley continues to hype her plan,
saying next the Kabuki Warriors need to win the tag gold, and then she can win the Royal
Rumble and take the title off Rhea Ripley.
They’re interrupted by Bianca Belair though, who says Bayley won’t be winning the Rumble,
she will.
After she leaves, Iyo Sky via Dakota Kai said that Bayley needs to sort out Bianca Belair,
we don’t want her interfering with your plan.
There was a lot of stink put on the ‘your plan’ part of that sentence, I’m all for
these little subtle teases of what’s to come.
Pretty Deadly faced Butch and a mystery partner next, who turned out to be Tyler Bate!
I’m sure Luke is very excited somewhere, and I was too, it’s great to see Bate finally
on the main roster, because he’s been main roster ready since about 2017.
The crowd didn’t care though, and understandably so considering they’ve not been told who
Bate is or why they should care.
They popped a little for some of his offense, but it tells you what kind of audience it
is when they don’t react to some fantastic little chain mat wrestling, but do go crazy
for the airplane spin.
Tyler Bate got the win after a double Tyler Driver, and it was nice seeing Bate wrestle,
but I felt like this should have been made much more of a big deal than it was.
Nick Aldis backstage sat down with Ashante Thee Adonis, who said he’s been itching
for an opportunity, and Aldis said he’s got some opportunities that he’ll be excited
to hear.
I’m curious, though I suspect this will be a way to have Karrion Kross murder him
next week to qualify for the Royal Rumble or something.
And then we had our main event - a number one contender’s match to determine Roman
Reigns’ challenger at the Royal Rumble: AJ Styles vs Randy Orton vs LA Knight.
The match was predictably very good, with each person looking like they were closing
in on victory at various points.
Knight hit the BFT on Orton but Styles stopped the referee from counting the 3, Orton hit
an RKO off a springboarding Styles, but Knight returned the favour, pulling the ref out of
the ring to stop the 3 count.
Knight also got busted open from a Styles springboard 450.
But after the match was reaching that highest gear, The Bloodline entered and beat up everyone
in the match with a powerbomb to Styles, a Superman Punch and Spear to Knight and a Spear/Samoan
Spike combo to Orton.
I then wrote in my notes while I was watching: ‘this will result in a Fatal 4-Way at the
Rumble and I’m going to be pissed’.
And right on cue, Nick Aldis, who was at ringside to watch the match, told Paul Heyman off-mic
that it will be a Fatal 4-Way at the Rumble as the show went off the air.
I really don’t like this finish for several reasons.
Firstly: Roman, have you ever watched the show before?
You know that if you beat up everyone in a number one contenders match, they all get
put into the match.
Secondly, the match never ended, it’s a no DQ match, it’s still going on right now
I think.
It’s a lame cop-out way to get to the 4-Way, when if they wanted a 4-Way, they could have
done something a bit more interesting like a three-way pin, which still wouldn’t have
been perfect, but setting up a non-convoluted 4-way from a number one contenders’ match
is always tricky.
There’s also the fact that Aldis announced this 4-Way only to Heyman, and off-mic so
the cameras could pick it up but not the live crowd or Roman, which I think would have helped
the moment shine a bit more.
It was just an odd finish, like what was Roman’s plan here?
He just beat up his contenders because…he wanted to?
He wanted to make a statement?
I just can’t see a good enough reason for it, and it seems very out of character for
the quite calculated Roman.
So overall, as mentioned before, this show didn’t really live up to the hype of the
New Year’s Revolution billing.
The wrestling never reached excellent territory, always being just a step down from where it
could be, we got a new faction which is superficially exciting but I’m still concerned about Karrion
Kross Reboot Project Number 4 and how it’s ultimately different from 1 through 3, there
was a lowkey debut for Tyler Bate which was good but could have been more and that was
about it.
This SmackDown was a low 3 out of 5.
Now check out Luke and Dan talking about January’s biggest movie releases in Cineworld’s What’s
On by clicking the video on the left.