In this WrestleTalk News, more Charlotte Flair heat, WWE’s 2022 PPV plans and my review
of last night’s Raw. Superclick that subscribe button and enable
notifications to always on to get daily wrestling news videos.
If you haven’t been following the Charlotte Flair heat stories from the last few days,
let me catch you up: nobody likes her... ...now you’re all caught up.
She reportedly went into business for herself on SmackDown’s championship exchange segment,
making Becky Lynch look bad by dropping her title on the floor. This led to a heated confrontation
backstage, which led to Flair being escorted from the building by security.
Multiple reputable sites then revealed the full extent of Charlotte’s heat in WWE,
with PWTorch claiming not a single woman on the roster wants to work with her, and that
she’s become isolated and difficult to work with over the years. Like I said to be fair
to Flair yesterday though, she has had a uniquely tough year, seeing both her fiance and father
get released, missing WrestleMania because of an incorrect pregnancy diagnosis, accusations
of backstage bullying on her, and, arguably worst of all, having to wrestle Nia Jax.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider is now reporting Becky wasn’t the only person upset with
Flair after Friday’s segment, saying Sonya Deville - who was in the ring to MC the title
switch - as “mad enough to want to fight Flair.” According to Johnson, Deville also
had an argument with Charlotte. Contrary to original reports, though, Flair
didn’t fly to Orlando to be backstage at AEW Dynamite for the following day, to be
with her fiance Andrade. PWInsider do note, however, “there were those in her circle
that were privately pushing the idea of her trying to get out of her WWE deal, but realistically,
no one expects that to actually happen as of this writing.” WrestlingNews.co claim
there are many years left on Charlotte’s WWE contract.
Twitter account The New Age Insiders claims to have a “direct source from inside WWE”
- but do take this with a pinch of salt, as they’re not a usual source themselves - and
they’ve been told Flair has reached “Paige/Del Rio territory” and has “no friends backstage”.
Speculation of Charlotte ending up in AEW is the talent part of the larger wrestling
war. But WWE have just revealed their 2022 plans of attack on the territory level.
WWE have unveiled their pay-per-view schedule for 2022, which currently includes a no events
in February and March, another two night WrestleMania, Money in the Bank and SummerSlam in the same
month of July (and both on Saturdays), and Survivor Series in Boston.
Fightful Select is reporting talent backstage were very positive about the two night Manias
continuing. Potentially most interesting, though, is the
September 3rd or 4th unnamed pay-per-view at a to be determined location - as this will
be the same Labour Day weekend as one of AEW’s biggest shows of the year All Out.
They might not run directly head-to-head, though, as this could be the SummerSlam level
pay-per-view here in England that Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT and Wrestling Daily has reported
on. Meaning WWE would be striking first in the UK, which AEW sees as their second most
important territory after the States. Now it’s time for my review of Raw… in
about 5 minutes. It’s the season premiere of Monday Night
SmackDown! I mean Monday Night Raw, now with the last few months’ worth of SmackDown
feuds. Because as the commentators said, everything changes tonight!
Because he’s a babyface WWE Champion, Big E opened the show in the Drew McIntyre/Roman
Reigns/John Cena cheerleader slash narrator role, recapping the last week’s worth of
storylines, and getting a big [ENTER LOCAL HOMETOWN HERE] pop.
He asked ‘who?’ next for him, which brought out Seth Rollins [LAUGH] to talk about his
title wins, Rey Mysterio to list all his title wins. Finn Balor to read off his championship
reigns. And finally, Kevin Owens to also count off all the belts he’s won. WWE’s script
writers have now just resorted to copy and pasting wrestlers’ Wikipedia pages.
They had a brawl and Sonya Deville booked a fatal four way No. 1 contenders ladder match
for tonight. The Dirty Dawgs beat the Street Profits and
Alpha Academy, mostly thanks to Omos taking out Montez Ford.
This set up a Dirty Dawgs vs RKBro match for later in the night, which is a bit psychologically
backwards, having the heels wrestle twice, putting them at a disadvantage.
It’s hard to complain though when RKBro are so good right now, though. Happy Orton
is one long hot tag piece of fire at the moment, and in a neat inversion of him usually getting
the win, it was Riddle who got the better of Dolph Ziggler after an excellent final
minute of nearfalls. This was one of the best things on the show,
but I can’t help but feel gutted they’re not doing Adam Albright’s comment on my
news yesterday: “I'd really enjoy a storyline where Riddle
brought the [Crown Jewel] camel home to be his pet. He tells Randy it's hard to find
camel food in the US and so on.” Zelina Vega then got a coronation segment
to become Queen Zelina, where she said she’ll be a loved, ruthless and respected Queen.
She missed out charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. It’s unfortunately a bit of
a two dimensional heel gimmick, as the role actually has no kayfabe status. This would
be much better if winning the tournament gave her some actual authority-like powers.
Instead, she’s just sometimes got an English accent now. In the same way that Ray Winstone
has a Russian accent in Black Widow. Doudrop then came out for a match against
her , but she stupidly ran into Vega’s sceptre behind the referee’s back for a Zelina win.
This was the only pre-Draft Raw vs SmackDown match on the entire show
Huh… so Becky Lynch is a babyface now. The Raw women’s champion is showing some
heel traits, but they are far reduced from the weeks following her return. She even got
a cheap pop for the [INSERT YOUR HOMETOWN HERE].
But this is the Raw season premiere - Everything’s changed! Because the Lynch vs Belair feud
now has a red belt instead of a blue one. Bianca Belair interrupted with a decent promo,
explaining she technically beat the Raw Women’s champion Charlotte last week, so she’s due
a title shot against Lynch. I’m surprised too, but legally it’s watertight.
Becky said get to the back of the line bitch. She said the naughty word! They had a kendo
stick brawl, which had Belair standing tall again - prompting Lynch to agree to a title
match next week, and presumably Bianca’s 18th consecutive DQ finish.
Unfortunately the Draft didn’t give T-Bag the gimmick overhaul he desperately needs.
Because he still has the face paint on, and is still called T-Bag. Instead, WWE have used
the season premiere to slightly adjust Damien Priest’s character.
Their match barely went a minute before T-Bag threw a giant commentary chair at Priest,
which made Damien snap Hulk style, causing him to go on a rampage. I thought this was
the most badass Priest has looked for a long time, who’s been mostly limited with the
‘I’m just happy to be here’ approach. Everything continued to change with the fresh
new Raw match… Carmella vs Liv Morgan. It was decent for the few minutes they got, and
Carmella won when Liv kind of got distracted by Corey Graves.
Keith Bearcat Lee squashed Cedric Alexander. I’m not immediately into Lee’s new character,
nor the sudden Goldberg-style blerghs before he hits a move. But at least he’s being
pushed. For now. Austin Theory beat Dominic Mysterio after
wanting to take a selfie with Rey Mysterio backstage. Theory will presumably just carry
on what he was doing with Jeff Hardy with the Mysterios now.
And the main event saw Rey, Seth, Finn and Kevin Owens remind us all that NXT 1.0 lives
on in our hearts, with a great four way ladder match.
Owens going through a ladder, Rey’s pole vault outside and Finn’s incredible selling
of Seth’s Stomp were all fun spots, but it was KO’s desperation to win the title
shot that put over the emotion for me. But with Big E hilariously watching a monitor
backstage practically over his shoulder, Rollins climbed the ladder to win. The two had a staredown
on the ramp, and Seth got a mini promo in Gorilla position afterwards, where it felt
like they’d underrun on time and were just filling.
What did you think of Raw? Let me know in the comments. 77% of you voted for NXT 1.0
ladder match main event in our poll on a pole match on the community tab.
This was a decent episode, with a great main event, decent wrestling, and no actively bad
booking. But for a season premiere opener, I would’ve liked a lot more mixing it up
of the new and old Raw talent. This week’s Raw is three out of five.
Do you like the wrestling trivia sensation, QuizzleMania? Then you’ll love our fan version
of the show where you can compete against us and other players!
Go over to Patreon.com/WrestleTalk and join at the $10 tier, which will give you access
to Fan QuizzleMania tonight - where you can compete against the returning Luke Owen D.A.D.
You’ll also get loads of other perks like mine and Luke’s classic pay-per-view review
podcast, our drunk podcasts, and right now you can submit music video punishment choices
for me next month.