In this WrestleTalk News, WWE releases coming? Vince McMahon’s net worth revealed, Jay
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Disappointing Raw After Manias isn’t the only annual WWE tradition in April. There’s
also the even more depressing spring cleaning of talent onscreen and behind-the-scenes in
the company. And with Vince McMahon reportedly back in full control of everything - producing
TV, running creative, and overseeing the whole WWE half of their newly formed company with
the UFC - staff and roster cuts are reportedly impending.
Speaking on Wrestling Observer Live Bryan Alvarez has noted that within WWE, “It’s
a countdown now to people being axed”.
Alvarez adds that these cuts are most likely to be in relation to office staff. This is
corporate mergers 101 - where a lot of the initial cost saving comes in merging duplicate
roles across the two organisations. See The Office Season 2. Rather than WWE and UFC both
having their own TV sales and sponsorship departments, for instance, they can merge
their existing ones. This often leads to layoffs to stop roles being doubled up. There’s
also the prospect of the WWE/UFC parent company Endeavor putting their own people into key
roles as part of the new structure.
But with Vince back in charge, it’s speculated many wrestlers will also be concerned with
their status in the company. McMahon oversaw the release of numerous wrestlers over the
last several years, including Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman and Karrion Kross. Triple H
brought 18 of them back while he was running creative in the last nine months. They will
likely be fearful of getting Samoa Joe’d - which means being cut for a second time.
Following their most successful event ever in WrestleMania 39 and the company’s purchase
by Endeavour and merger with UFC, WWE’s stock is at a four year high of $97.23 on
April 4th, an 8.88% increase from closing on April 3rd.
Not only is the company riding high but Vince himself has now seen his own personal net
worth jump astronomically to a staggering $3.1 Billion according to Forbes, making $198
million on Tuesday April 4th alone. This allows Vinny to finally crack the top 1000 richest
people in the world list.
Move aside, Raw after Mania. You haven’t really been a thing for half a decade anyway.
It’s all about the Dynamite After Mania now!
Despite WWE being reportedly very interested in former New Japan star Jay White back in
January - I wonder what changed since then? - he did not debut on Monday’s episode of
Raw.
Instead, he attacked Ricky Stars just before the opening match of AEW Dynamite, joining
up with fellow Bullet Club member Juice Robinson - revealing that he is now All Elite.
This one of three talent acquisitions AEW have made since the wrestling landscape changed
with Vince McMahon’s full return to WWE on Monday - with AEW also announcing former
NXT commentator Nigel McGuiness as All Elite, and PWInsider reporting WWE’s former Vice
President of Communications Adam Hopkins has also joined the company.
Hopkins worked for WWE for 25 years, and was a key part of building NXT during the Triple
H years. Hopkins left WWE back in January.
Oli isn’t here to do the Dynamite review today, because there was apparently a ‘jacket-related
incident’. Hm. Which means it’s time for my review of Dynamite, in about 5 minutes.
This episode started off quick, as we were under the impression it was going to be Ricky
Starks vs Juice Robinson. But during Ricky’s entrance, the Bullet Club music hit, and suddenly,
here’s Jay White! He and Juice laid out Starks, and that’s that, Jay White is All
Elite. Do I think this is the best possible use of Jay White’s re-debut? Not necessarily,
no. But was this a very fun way to kick off the show? Yes, yes it was. It set the pace
for the show, which maintained it for quite a while.
After a recap of Adam Cole’s return to the ring last week, Chris Jericho backstage said
that Cole disrespected Garcia with his overlong celebration after his win, but he was confronted
by Keith Lee, WHO LOOKS AWESOME WITH GREY HAIR I’M SO GLAD THIS LOOK MADE IT TO TV.
Lee intimidated Jericho and said next week they’re gonna fight. Keith Lee vs Chris
Jericho? Yes please. Keith Lee is so cool, I got giddy and squealed just with him leaning
over Jericho when he did his promo, he’s so good, have I mentioned Keith Lee is good?
Keith Lee is good. Great even. Amazing, wonderful, incredible- [JUMP CUT]
This continued right into House of Black vs Orange Cassidy and Best Friends for the AEW
Trios Titles, which was a fun, fast-paced match filled with great spots, including Trent
hitting a Piledriver onto Brody King, that was fun, but in the end Buddy Matthews picked
up the win with The Stomp. I really like how each of the members of House of Black are
presented as great wrestlers in their own right, it’s not just Malakai Black and his
two lackeys. Matthews hasn’t been presented as strong as Black and King, but wins like
this are definitely going to help. Big fan. Luchasaurus joined Christian Cage backstage
by walking out of the door of RED. And then we had Jamie Hayter vs Riho, which
funnily enough, was also excellent. Both of them are fantastic wrestlers, and they worked
really well together, with great, smooth wrestling. Jamie Hayter won clean, but both of them looked
great here. Fun stuff. Renee Paquette then interviewed The Outcasts
backstage where they said they want to dethrone Jamie Hayter.
The Acclaimed did a rap dissing the Jericho Appreciation Society, so Cool Had Ange said
it sounds like you want to fight…together! So on Rampage it’ll be the four of them
teaming together. This was silly and fun. Then it was MJF Day. MJF in Long Island is
always magic, and he came out with a full brass band, sang a song, and was handed the
key to his hometown. This was all incredibly fun. MJF cut a promo on a teacher he had in
8th grade called Mrs Benedict, who used to laugh at him when he couldn’t answer questions
because of his ADD. She told him his chances of becoming a professional wrestler were slim
to none, but the moral of the story is to not be like Mrs. Benedict. In other words
don’t be a stupid bitch. MJF went for an encore, but Jungle Boy revealed himself to
be part of the band and brawled with MJF, Sammy Guevara came out and held up the belt
before heading into his match with Komander. MJF & Long Island is a magical combination
and will always be super fun, this was just wonderful pro wrestling nonsense.
And speaking of nonsense, Komander does things in a ring that don’t make sense. His match
with Guevara here was a ton of fun, some great high spots, and a solid finish of a cutter
off the top rope into the GTH for the win for Guevara. And after the match, Guevara
cut what I thought was one of the better promos of his career, saying he pours his heart and
soul into AEW, and if he, Jungle Boy, Darby Allin and MJF are supposed to be the Four
Pillars of AEW, MJF’s pillar wasn’t built by him, it was built by everyone around him.
He was with Cody until he wasn’t, he was Inner Circle until he wasn’t, he was Pinnacle
until he wasn’t, he was The Firm until he wasn’t, whereas Guevara’s pillar has been
built by him and him alone, with match after match, moment after moment. This was honestly
a really effective promo, and while Guevara isn’t known for his great promos, I thought
this one was really good. Hook then took on Ethan Page where shock horror,
Matt Hardy turned on Ethan Page and Hook choked him out. Okay.
The newest member of AEW’s commentary team Nigel McGuinness was backstage with Tony Khan
for his latest huge announcement, where TK paid homage to All In, saying The Young Bucks,
Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes put on an amazing, industry-revolutionising show, so now they’re
going to put on All In: London on August 27th this year. And best of all - it’ll be in
Wembley Stadium. I am pumped for this, for those who don’t know, Wembley is a 90,000
capacity stadium, it’ll be by far the largest audience AEW will have ever had up to that
point. I wouldn’t be surprised if AEW get close to selling out or even sell out Wembley
honestly, and that’s incredible. This genuinely was a huge announcement that lived up to the
billing of huge. Blackpool Combat Club beat up some people,
I don’t know who they were, and Bryan Danielson did a promo calling everyone else in AEW amateurs
while they’re professionals. Hangman Page came out and attacked them, and Bryan Danielson
called him an amateur too. Of course it was 4v1 so Hangman was easily outgunned, and then
Danielson attacked him with a screwdriver. Normal BCC stuff really. This was very effective,
and I love BCC as heels. More of this please. Danielson also said he loves everyone in the
Blackpool Combat Club, but nobody loves Hangman, and no one is coming out to save him. And
no one did. Again, wonderful. And then it was time for the main event of
The Gunns vs FTR, titles vs careers. Specifically the stipulation was that FTR had to win the
belts here, not the match, which is a very crucial element of this one. It was a solid
enough match, and had some clever booking with The Gunns intentionally cheating in front
of the referee, trying to get themselves disqualified so FTR would win the match, but not the belts
and would still have to leave the company. The ref used his discretion though and didn’t
DQ them initially, but after they continued with some more, it looked like he had no choice
but to DQ them, but Cash jumped in and stopped him DQ’ing them, so the match continued.
After some incredibly convincing nearfalls, including one where Austin Gunn hit Dax with
a title belt off a diving headbutt, FTR managed to roll both of them up for a double pinfall
and to win the tag titles, becoming the second team to be two-time AEW Tag Champions after
The Young Bucks. This was a nice, feel-good end to the show,
and it sent the crowd home happy. It’s nice to send the crowd home happy isn’t it. Not
saying anybody else should take notes or anything. Just saying. That sending the crowd home happy
is good. That’s all. This was a really good episode of Dynamite.
It didn’t quite have the level of storytelling progression of the previous week when it had
ALL THE STORIES, but what was here was very good. More than anything, this show was just
really fun. Great matches, great segments, great professional wrestling. This is a ⅘
show. It’s lucky Oli had his jacket-related incident,
because this means I can try and find Laurie and speak to him about all this Wrestle Mania
stuff.