In this WrestleTalk News, Matt Riddle has been suspended by WWE, a former AEW star debuts
for WWE, Luke’s review of Raw and more.
On last week’s episode of Raw, Matt Riddle was written off TV by being brutally attacked
by Solo Sikoa, being stretchered out of the arena.
Speculation following that angle was that Riddle was having some time off, but new reports
have emerged stating that that is not the case.
According to Cassidy Haynes of Bodyslam.net, the reason Riddle was written off TV was because
he has actually been suspended by WWE because of a failed drug test.
However, there’s a lot more to this story, as this is also reportedly Riddle’s second
failed drug test, with the previous infraction coming shortly before SummerSlam, forcing
WWE to scrap the scheduled Riddle vs Rollins match and delay it to Clash at the Castle
instead.
At the time, this change was put down to a change in creative direction, and while I
guess that is still technically true, the reason for that change in creative is something
it seems they were forced into.
According to the report, Riddle was informed when he failed his first drug test that if
he received a second failure, he would be subject to a “rehab or fired” consequence.
Riddle reportedly has been suspended for six weeks, and has been sent to rehab, where he
has either already started treatment or will be undergoing it shortly
Now before anyone makes any weed 4/20 jokes in the comments, it’s worth noting that
WWE no longer tests for marijuana as part of their wellness policy, so this will have
been something different.
Meanwhile in AEW, the company may have hired one of the lowkey biggest names they could
have.
On the surface, a backstage AEW hire doesn’t seem all that noteworthy, but the hiring of
Michael Mansury could prove to be monumental.
Mansury is a former WWE Vice President of Global Television Production, and has been
hired by AEW to start work as of this week’s Dynamite.
His new title within AEW is Senior Vice President & Co-Executive Producer.
Aside from the obvious ‘he’s an ex-WWE guy’, why would this hire be particularly
noteworthy?
Well according to Fightful Select’s WWE sources, Mansury was the guy who was poised
to take over from Kevin Dunn, and despite leaving WWE, after Triple H took over from
Vince McMahon, he was “keen” to bring Mansury back to the company, but now Mansury
has joined AEW instead.
Interestingly, one particularly anti-AEW source has called this hire the “biggest hiring
this year” for AEW, so even anti-AEW guys are acknowledging what a get this is for the
company.
And even taking aside the WWE element, Mansury’s contributions to AEW are no doubt going to
come through, as production has been a sore spot for AEW since its inception.
But it’s not just former WWE people debuting for AEW, as a former AEW wrestler debuted
for WWE yesterday too.
Kylie Rae worked the Main Event tapings last night under her new name Briana Ray, which
interestingly enough is her actual name.
This comes off the back of her WWE tryout last week.
She reportedly faced Dana Brooke in her match.
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Now hot tag to Luke.
And now it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka yes I would buy Bluey Bling
edition of Monday Night Raw… in about 5 minutes.
The show kicked off with the culmination of a mini tournament to crown a new number one
contender to Bianca Belar, as Alexa Bliss and Bayley went head to head in direct competition.
Despite the teases of a return to Spooky Alexa last week, Bliss wrestled this match like
her usual self.
Damage CTRL were taken out early by Becky Lynch, and Bayley arguing with Belair at ringside
after taking off a turnbuckle pad led to Bliss hitting Twisted Bliss for the win.
It’ll be Alexa vs. Belair for the Raw Women’s Championship at some point down the line.
After the match, Bliss went in for a hug with Belair - and a flash of Bray Wyatt’s logo
appeared on screen and the pull in for a hug turned into an attempted Sister Abigail.
Bliss - realising what she just did - stopped the move and apologized for what transpired.
Walking away very, very confused.
This was a brilliant moment, and a nice step forward in this Alexa storyline.
The match itself was decent stuff, but the post-match was excellent.
Becky brawling with Damage CTRL was also a neat way to further that storyline too.
And storylines are currently what’s missing for The OC, who set up a match between AJ
Styles and Chad Gable after they laughed at Alpha Academy getting milked last Friday.
The match itself was the very good quality you’d expect for Styles and Gable having
a 9-minute match, and AJ won with the Styles Clash.
Lots of technically reversals, submission attempts, and WREEESTLING.
It was all good, just a little…
empty?
The Judgement Day beat Street Profits and Akira Tozawa in a very fun six-man tag, which
featured a brilliant hot tag by Angelo Dawkins, and an even better one by Tozawa.
It’s so nice to see Tozawa actually wrestle again - begs the question why he was doing
24/7 comedy schtick for so long under the Vince era.
The finish, though, was the best part of the proceedings.
It came down to Tozawa and Dominic Mysterio, and Tozawa had him set up to be beaten twice,
but Dom was saved on both occasions by Finn Balor and Damien Priest respectively, which
led to Dom pinning Tozawa off Priest’s Razor’s Edge.
It’s a brilliant bit of character work; this slimy, useless dork getting a big win
despite nearly losing twice and he did it off someone else’s move.
But his teammates celebrate like he did everything.
I love this act so much, and I love Dom’s role in it.
Give them all the belts.
Speaking of people giving things!
Segue.
Dexter Lumis and Johnny Gargano were trying to decide on how to spend Dexter’s money
he won from The Miz with ideas like turning themselves into Avengers, creating a money
pit like Scrooge McDuck, or - my personal favorite - Bluey Bling [IMAGE].
Which I would buy, for real life.
It led to the pair instead buying everything they could afford with their big bag of cash
from the merchandise stand - and given wrestling merch prices that’s about two t-shirts amirite?!
- and then gave that out to the live crowd while doing some bad improv comedy.
And while you may think this was just here to do something festive for the holiday period,
it was actually here to set up Dexter Lumis’ next feud.
I asked a few weeks ago - after Dexter Lumis finished his feud with The Miz which lasted
sixteen whole weeks - what could be next for the child-friendly axe murderer?
Who could he feud with next now that he’s done with The Miz?
Well we got our answer here.
Because Dexter Lumis’s next feud is with…
The Miz.
The Miz came out to steal back his money, but was stopped by Adam Pearce - who I guess
felt Spidey Sense tingle as he came out very quickly - and made him give Dexter back the
cash.
Miz wanted to win it back in a rematch, and Gargano suggested they do it in a ladder match,
double or nothing.
After some very lame comedy, it was all accepted.
So, I guess it will have been NINETEEN WEEKS by the time this storyline ends.
But even then, I feel like there will be more.
Thankfully that was the only dud thing on this week’s Raw, as Candice LaRea and Iyo
Sky had a decent little match that Sky won her her Over The Moonsault.
Sky was 100% the right winner as she’s defending her tag titles this Friday, but it sort of
sucks for LaRea seen as though her storyline was extracting revenge on Damage CTRL for
injuring her a few months ago.
Maybe she needs to find her own tag team partner [Indi Hartwell Side Screen]?
Elias held a memorial concert for Matt Riddle, which featured him singing a song about how
they’re best friends which absolutely no one buys.
They also made a weed reference here, which is hilarious when you consider why Riddle
is currently not on TV.
It led to a pretty boring match between Elias and Solo Sikoa, which the crowd only reacted
to when Sami Zayn was dancing.
Solo won with the Spinning Solo, then gave him the Samoan Spike after the match.
He set up to break Elias’s neck like he did Riddle’s last week, but Kevin Owens
ran out to make the save - also giving Elias the Stunner because he’s the only one around
here who gives s**t about the continuity.
Asuka and Rhea Ripley had a very good physical match, which saw Dom run interference and
get misted allowing Ripley to hit the Riptide for the win.
They protected Askua in her loss here by having Dom put Ripley’s foot on the ropes while
she was in the Asuka Lock, and they really played up that she wasn’t wearing her usual
make-up and referencing her social media posts of her old gimmick in Japan.
Her losing here and losing last week should be leading to something very, very cool down
the line.
Dolph Ziggler cut a promo on Austin Theory, which nicely led into a number one contender’s
match to Theory’s US title between Seth Rollins and Bobby Lashley as the main event.
Seth Rollins is perhaps the best wrestler in WWE right now to do the WWE main event
babyface style.
He’s so freaking good at it, no pun intended.
He and Bobby worked brilliantly together in this match, which saw Rollins when he reversed
Lashley’s second Spear attempt into the Pedigree.
They did protect Lashley somewhat in the finish, as he hit his first Spear but the referee
was out of position to count the pin, which gave Rollins enough time to kick out.
It was very creative, and led into the post-match where Lashley shoved down the ref.
Adam Pearce came down to shout at Lashley, and when Bobbles shoved him he fired him on
the spot.
He should have fired him last week for Spearing poor Petey Williams - where’s the respect
for Petey Williams?!
It was a cool closing angle, and I’m curious to see where it leads.
Does Pearce bring in someone for Lashley to face if and when he returns, or does Lashley
now go to SmackDown?
Or maybe even NXT.
So that was this week’s Raw and - outside of the obvious Dexter Lumis Miz stuff that
doesn’t do it for me but I appreciate that many of you watching like it - I liked everything
else.
This week is an easy 4 out of 5 for me.