Because of all your wonderful generosity, raising £20,000 for the mental health charity
CALM over WrestleMania weekend, I now have no eyebrows. Real nice of you, that. Now I
can’t display emotion properly. Like right now. I’m really, really happy.
But I’ve got a way round this. I’m not going to look like an idiot reading serious
wrestling news. Ha, ha ha. Who’s the idiot now? Having to talk about someone losing
their job. Ivelisse debuted for AEW at the first All
Out pay-per-view in 2019, and would start wrestling on Dynamite in July the following
year. She teamed with Diamante and even won the promotion’s Women’s Tag Team Cup Tournament
- which never really led to anything. But last September she appeared to be building
to a program with then NWA Women’s Champion Thunder Rosa. They had a very stiff looking
championship match, where Ivelisse suddenly appeared to stop selling for Rosa’s offence
- causing them to reportedly start shoot fighting in the ring.
Ivelisse continued to wrestle for AEW, mostly tagging with Diamante on Dark, last appearing
on the 18th February episode. But she hasn’t been seen since, while Diamante has started
to wrestle as a singles. And now we’ve found out why - that’s actually really satisfying
to do, I get why he does it now - going by Ivelisse’s own now-deleted tweet. She’s
been released by AEW. “History repeats itself unfortunately. I
speak up about mistreatment and get let go. Thats life.”
Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select is reporting that a couple of weeks ago, he reached out
to Ivelisse, who confirmed she was still with the company. However, “talent had informed
us prior to that they didn't expect Ivelisse to return to AEW as she had well-known disagreements
with agents backstage”, adding “As far back as March 20, Fightful was told by talent
that Ivelisse likely would not remain with the company.”
Ivelisse herself sent a statement to Fightful Select, which alleges:
“I spoke up about mistreatment from a Coach, even to other women too, there were witnesses
and I was the one suspended and left in limbo and just now let go, and nothing has been
done at all the entire time about (Thunder Rosa) slandering my name the entire time in
AEW and doing everything to sabotage my position there, I kept quiet, (Thunder Rosa) also has
a history of getting involved with officials in order to get ahead which there was a lawsuit
and everything in (Lucha Underground).” She then continued to post about Rosa on Twitter:
“Nope, it was her being unprofessional, she had done the same thing in LU as well,
and was unprofessional hurting my tag partner s jaw the next match and slandering my name
the entire time at aew.” Fightful Select also confirmed that “Ivelisse
was said to have been in "limbo" for quite a while, but the official release came [yesterday].”
It’s very rare for AEW to release wrestlers, especially during the pandemic - with the
only other names from the Dynamite era being Jimmy Havoc, Bea Priestly and Sadie Gibs.
What do you make of the situation? Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying
to people FROM OUTTA NO HAIR. Now I need to change my eyebrow expression
to happy for this next story... While AEW was last night, NXT took place on
Tuesday in its new weekly slot, and the ratings for that episode are now in. And, unsurprisingly,
they’re really good. It’s almost like the two shows should never have ran unopposed
for a year and a half. NXT drew an average of 805,000 viewers, which
is great, but it’s the massive increase in the 18-49 demographic, almost doubling
what they usually get. This is NXT’s best rating since Halloween Havoc last year. Remember,
you can watch our new NXT podcast review on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel.
I need to change my eyebrow expression again for my review of AEW Dynamite in about 5 minutes,
so here’s a message from me from a happier time when I had all my hair.
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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download it now. I wasn’t that into last week’s show closing
angle of the Young Bucks turning heel. I feel like we’d had this story beat already, with
the Bucks yet again appearing conflicted over their pretty toxic friendship with Kenny Omega.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for once, I didn’t want complex, psychologically
torn characters. I just wanted some bad guys. But, as always, trust in AEW: as they immediately
got me back on board right at the start of the episode. The Bucks cut a super heel promo
about bringing back the olllld Young Bucks, and then had an excellent pay-per-view calibre
20 minute match against Death Triangle where they did all the heel bits, complete with
the Invisible Handjob Don Callis as their manager.
I love the Bucks as babyfaces, but they’ve been that for so long I’ve forgotten how
their true prime state is heels. They were otherworldly here with facials, mannerisms,
tactics. They worked the camera as much as the crowd. All while somehow making the most
incredible, athletic, babyface offence obnoxiously heelish.
And their opponents were no slouches either, with PAC and Fenix frequently forgetting that
gravity is a thing, and providing an excellent Black Arrow near fall. But Nick low blowed
PAC and then tore of Fenix’s mask to get the win. The Bucks won. They’re dickheads.
This is the best thing to happen to the AEW tag division since the FTR match at Full Gear.
And seeing the Super Elite all together, properly heeling it up in a car park promo later on
made you even more excited for the biggest douchebags in wrestling.
Which is the perfect antithesis to their former Elite buddy. The guy who thought he was the
problem. Hangman Page dodged Marvez’s question backstage about the Elite being evil now.
Jade Cargill had a perfect match against Red Velvet, putting over Velvet’s babyface fire
at the start, but quickly destroying her with strength. Cargill oozes charisma, and her
booking emphasises big moves at a fast pace, hiding any potential inexperience. She’s
female Goldberg. Girlberg. On the men’s side of new exciting talent,
The Governor Anthony Ogogo punched Cole Carter in the gut, leading to a referee stoppage
in ten seconds - another fantastic piece of booking to build up a relatively green wrestler
who used to be a boxer. Hide the inexperience by emphasising the strengths. It’s booking
101, but it’s so refreshing to see after watching another company that looks at a wrestler’s
strengths and then goes, yeah, but let’s undermine all that in a 15 minute match against
Elias on Raw. Britt Baker is still working her way up the
rankings. Miro cut a promo on how he hasn’t seen Kip Sabian since their Arcade Anarchy
match, building a feud there. And then we got another pay-per-view level
match to start the second hour: Chris Jericho vs Dax Harwood with Mike Tyson as the special
guest enforcer. This was the perfect first match to blow off
some of the Inner Circle vs Pinnacle steam, while still keeping so much for later. And
while Tyson didn’t really do much, he undoubtedly elevated the significance of the bout, calling
it right down the middle to further establish Jericho’s face turn.
The rest of the respective factions started warring at ringside, letting Tyson knock out
Cash Wheeler and Jericho hit a Judas Elbow - it’s Judas Effective - to win.
The right result, and both guys looked brilliant. Thunder Rosa video package saying she wants
both NWA and AEW women’s titles, which led into Kris Statlander getting a solid squash
match victory over Amber Nova. Rosa, Statlander, Shida, Conti, Cargill, Velvet, Baker - AEW
have finally built themselves an actual women’s division.
But then came my low key favourite thing on the show: Taz calling Christian Cage a s***bag.
Although it was at that point when I realised Darby Allin vs Matt Hardy in a Falls Count
Anywhere match was main eventing the show, and I started to fear for everyone’s lives.
Christian Cage got an in-ring interview with Tony Schivaone, which obviously involved the
compulsory interruption from Team Taz. Christian said he’s not going to join them, while
getting in a wonderful shot at Taz’s height - leading to Taz to say if he was standing
on his wallet he’s be 3 foot taller, and that he never liked Christian’s friend,
and that Christian shouldn’t be wearing orange and black. This was just the best possible
version of angry ranty Taz. Hobbs beat down Christian, setting up a match
between them next week - where we’ll also get Shida vs Conti, Trent vs Penta and Starks
vs Page. I doubt we’ll get another TNT title defence though. Because Darby and Hardy got
out of hand fast. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,
Darby Allin. You killed the announcer’s table. You might want to lay low for a while.
Chairs, parkour on steel steps, the Butcher chucking a bin at Allin, and then all the
faction warfare, with the Dark Order backing up Sting against the Hardy Family Office.
This was chaos in a fun, coherent way. Even when Scorpio Sky and Ethan Page suddenly tried
to beat up Sting, but Lance Archer made the save, kind of, so Sting could play baseball
bat catch with his son Allin. And underneath all this was a fun hardcore
match, with Hardy actually making me belive he’d win a midcard title in 2021 with a
leg drop off a ladder through a table. But Allin topped that to retain, hitting a
Coffin Drop off the trussing - apparently 20 feet in the air going by JR measures, coincidentally
the same measures I use to size up my penis. Allin crashed Hardy through the announcer’s
table - the first time the Dynamite desk has ever been used in a table spot!
What did you think of AEW Dynamite? Let me know in the comments below, and vote in our
poll on a pole match on the community tab, where 72% decided to mourn the AEW announce
table, May 2019 to April 2021. This was a fantastic episode, with three incredible
matches spaced evenly throughout the show, and a lot of work building up younger talent
like Hobbs, Ogogo and Cargill. This week’s Dynamite is four out of five.
A WWE star has quit! Find out who by clicking the video on the right! And watch me lose
not just my hair and my eyebrows, but a wrestling quiz too with the brand new QuizzleMania by
clicking the video below that. I’ve been Mr Davis, Jam that Jam.