Welcome to the WrestleTalk News, I’m Pete Quinnell.
Since CM Punk’s firing from AEW a few days ago, chatter in the wrestling world has been
focused mainly in his direction.
Speculation on what he might say, where he might go and what he might do next, including
of course, a potential return to WWE.
There’s a lot of factors that would need to be worked out before that can happen of
course, but this wouldn’t be the first time a WWE return could be on the cards for Pepsi
Phil.
After Brawl Out last year, while Punk was at home recovering from an injury and things
were still a little dicey between him and TK, Punk reportedly wanted to return to WWE.
This comes from Fightful Select, who mention that around December 2022, according to those
close to Punk, he was open to the idea of leaving AEW, heading back to WWE, and specifically,
coming back in the Royal Rumble match of this year.
One of the rumoured ideas for Punk - and take note of that, rumoured, none of this confirmed
with Punk or anyone close to him - regardless, one of the rumoured ideas that WWE talent
had heard about was that Punk would return in the Rumble match, and face the person who
eventually eliminated him at WrestleMania.
That person being Kevin Owens.
Considering that Owens faced Roman Reigns at that show and went on to main event Night
1 of WrestleMania 39 anyway, I think he did alright.
It’s worth noting though that Fightful Select also says that they’ve not heard of any
traction to WWE being interested in this return, or if AEW were considering letting him go
either.
But now of course, they have.
And while public opinion has fallen down on multiple sides, various people continue to
have their own take on the situation, for example AEW’s own Mark Henry, who mentioned
on Busted Open Radio that “the problem is solved” now that Punk is gone.
This came as a response to Henry being asked if he thinks AEW will be better off without
Punk, to which he first said: yes.
On Raw last night, which Luke will have a review of here shortly, Gunther defended his
Intercontinental Championship once again against Chad Gable.
And it was…good.
Shocking news.
Many people, me included, expected the match to be in a featured spot on the Payback PLE,
but instead it was on Raw.
Now, the reason for this has been revealed.
According to Fightful Select, the primary reasons why the Intercontinental match wasn’t
on Payback was to keep the running time for Payback in check - WWE have had an increased
focus on making sure their big shows don’t ‘overstay their welcome’ - and to get
Gunther closer to breaking the record.
He’s now sitting on a 452 day reign, with Honky Tonk Man’s record being at 454.
So instead of him retaining at Payback and there being question marks over whether something
could happen on Raw to have him lose it, they decided to have the decisive win on Raw to
remove all doubt, which I guess makes sense.
I just wanted the match without ad breaks, selfish old me.
Now over to Luke.
LUKE: Now it’s time to hear about another Match of the Year from British Man Mark Markerson.
Mark, what an incredible few weeks it’s been for wrestling, have you enjoyed it?
MARK: Hi, Luke!
What an exciting few weeks it’s been in the wrestling world.
LUKE: Hasn’t it just?
I’ve had such a great time.
MARK: Course you have.
Oh, the American Carpetbaggers finally came over and did a big show at Wembley.
If you were paying attention, you’d have seen the REAL outstanding contest was between
Luke Jacobs and Tomohiro Ishii at the Copperbox Arena for RevPro’s 11th Anniversary Show.
LUKE: Oh, it was amazing!
I was there, I absolutely loved it!
MARK: You were there?
I didn’t see you.
LUKE: Yeah, it was electric!
We were sat in the upper bowl by the stage.
MARK: The upper bowl?
So you weren’t REALLY there.
Real fans buy floor seats.
The match was a masterclass in strong style, just two behemoths built in tradition British
and Japanese styles, absolutely beating the tar out of each other.
Strikes, chops, suplexes, forearms, headbutts, and neither man was willing to back down.
They just wanted to get the win and they were going to throw everything at each other in
order to make it happen.
I want to single out Luke Jacobs for praise here, because since Ishii has shown up a few
times for THAT company, people claim to know his stuff, but Jacobs deserves equal credit
for selling this match to a crowd who were ready and willing to eat it up.
Multiple times we rose to our feet in appreciation for the brutal spectacle, but in the end.
It was an Ishii brainbuster that made the difference and finally put away the Manchester
lad for the 1-2-3.
Luke, what can I say?
I love British Wrestling and this whole show was such a celebration of it.
And with my reverence for the icons of Japan, how could I possibly give anything other than
15 stars?
LUKE: FIFTEEN??
Do the maths.
Go on, i insist you do the maths.
MARK: Well, the work got four stars, but it was at RevPro’s 11th Anniversary and I think
seeing them still go strong after all this time?
Each year deserves a star.
LUKE: …I hate that I’m starting to understand your logic.
That’s enough from Mark because now’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka
the ‘see this is funny isn’t it because you can’t see me’ edition of Monday Night
Raw… in about five minutes.
It’s okay guys, I’m still here.
The showed opened with a big video recap of Payback, highlighting The Judgement Day winning
all sorts of titles, and Main Event Jey Uso being drafted to Monday Night Raw.
And Jey opened the live show itself by announcing that Cody Rhodes is the man who brought him
back to WWE after being away for - checks notes - just three weeks.
Although given how much happened between All In and All Out, maybe three weeks feels like
a lifetime at this point.
He was interrupted by Sami Zayn, who wanted to let him know that because of The Bloodline’s
actions, Jey Uso is not a popular guy backstage and there are a lot of dudes who won’t be
happy to see him there.
It’s okay, Jay, Punk will be here soon and that should take some of the heat off you.
Sami isn’t sad to see him here, though, and he offered his hand for a shake.
Jay didn’t shake.
And when Sami went to leave, Jey revealed that wasn’t very Ucey and wanted to shake
his hand.
Sami hugged him and this was all lovely.
I’ve really gone off the boil with The Bloodline story in recent weeks, but hopefully Jey being
far away from Jimmy, Roman and Solo should help keep some interest in seeing them face
each other down the line.
Reportedly they want to hold off on Jey vs. Jimmy until WrestleMania, so moving Jey to
Raw and keeping Jimmy on Smackers should aide that delay.
And to show just how upset some people are with Jey being on Raw, he passed an angry
Drew McIntyre and Matt Riddle making their entrances for their tag match against Viking
Raiders, with Sami playing peacekeeper.
It was a great bit of visual storytelling and staging.
Viking Raiders beat The Glas-Bros - a name I hate as neither man is from Glasgow - Ayreheads
is right there - when Kofi Kingston ran down to help Riddle but accidentally gave him the
Trouble in Paradise.
Raiders beat them all up and put Riddle through a table to score the win.
A fun and chaotic tag match, with a creative finish to further the feud with Ayreheads
- I’ll use it even if they won’t - and the New Day.
Later in the show, Drew argued with Kofi about ‘accidents’, and said that if Jey steps
out of line he’s going to go after Cody Rhodes, the man who brought Jey to the show.
So, let’s talk about this then, because also later in the show, Adam Pearce revealed
that Jey being drafted to Raw comes with a price - and that price is someone from Raw
being sent to SmackDown.
Drew seemed to set himself up a feud with Cody, but Rhodes going to SmackDown is a choice
that really makes sense.
It would - in kayfabe - upset a lot of the Raw locker room, it’s an equal trade of
main event talent, and it would put Cody back on the same show as Roman so he can finish
a certain story that he’d like to finish.
Or, you know, it will be Akira Tozawa or something.
Who do you think it’ll be?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Let’s hope it doesn’t not make sense.
Speaking of not making sense.
Seth Rollins called out Shinsuke Nakamura for a title match right here and right now,
despite Pearce telling Rollins that he can’t have a match because of his sad back.
And Nakamura - who wants a rematch for the World Heavyweight Championship - said no.
Fair enough.
He instead beat Ricochet and brawled with Seth afterwards.
I don’t know either.
Judgement Day bragged about their titles, and JD McDonaugh - trying to appeal to Damian
Priest - got him a new bit of hardware.
No it wasn’t new tag titles to replace those ghastly and ugly rubbish penny belts with
their gaudy straps, but a new Money in the Bank briefcase.
Sami came out to banter with them for a bit, and JD made a match with him for later on.
Shayna Baszler beat Zoey Stark in a hard hitting match and showed respect to her afterwards
- so a potential new tag partnership on the cards - and Raquel Rodriguez quickly beat
Chelsea Green to give her some momentum for her title rematch with Ripley next week.
Green also announced backstage that Piper Niven currently isn’t cleared to wrestle
because those tag titles are f***ing cursed.
Sigh.
Right.
Well let’s talk about this next segment.
Miz came out for MizTV with his special guest: John Cena.
But you see, you can’t see him.
So Miz interviewed an empty chair and then had a brawl with him and stood tall with the
Skull Crushing Finale.
I don’t think I have the words to describe this, so I’m going to throw it to comedy
expert Galvatron to give his verdict.
You are not wrong, there, Galvatron.
Look, I am nearly 40 years old, as you can probably tell by me using a pop culture reference
from a movie that came out nearly 40 years ago, and this was beyond cringe.
It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t big, and it wasn’t clever.
And then he did the usual ‘I’m now serious Miz’ to cut a promo on LA Knight.
Absolute f***ing garbage segment.
JD McDonaugh picked up a win over Sami Zayn thanks to distraction and interference from
Dom Mysterio, who then offered Jey Uso a spot in their group as he understands what it’s
like to come from a broken family with a deadbeat Hall of Fame father.
Jey’s first feud being with Judgement Day is a very good idea.
And the main event saw Gunther retain his Intercontinental Championship over Chad Gable
in an excellent match.
It’s a shame that so much of it was spent in ad breaks.
They wrestled for 2 minutes and we got a 3 minute ad break.
They wrestled for another 3 minutes, and we got another 3 minute ad break.
It’s lucky that Gunther and Gable are good enough to overcome this in the final few minutes,
but it really ruined the first 2/3s of this match.
But it was also a match that saved what was a pretty average show.
It was a fine episode of Raw with a handful of news worthy bits, but also a lot of things
we’ve seen before.
Rollins continuing his feud with Nakamura, Miz continuing his feud with LA Knight, Raquel
Rodriguez continuing her feud with Rhea Ripley and Sami Zayn continuing to feud with Judgement
Day meant that a lot of Payback just didn’t matter at all.
I’m scoring this 3 out of 5.