Today’s top story is WWE was notably absent from both FOX & NBC’s TV upfronts.
The upfronts are a place where TV networks typically highlight their content going forward
and let everyone know what shows to look out for, and in previous years WWE has had a fairly
strong presence across these sorts of events.
NBCUniversal is of course the home of Monday Night Raw and NXT, while FOX is the home of
SmackDown.
Interestingly though, WWE was barely featured in this year’s upfronts, as according to
PWInsider, there were only WWE highlights used as part of a video package of shows on
Peacock, and that’s about it.
There were no wrestlers present, which there have been in previous years as well, and the
report also states that WWE weren’t mentioned as part of the FOX press release ahead of
the event too.
Now it’s worth noting that this could be because WWE is viewed as ‘sports content’
rather than traditional TV content, which could be a factor, but it still doesn’t
quite explain the entire absence.
The logical next step when thinking about why this could be is because WWE may be looking
to open up their negotiations for their TV rights soon, as PWInsider is reporting that
the window for exclusive negotiations with both networks either is up soon or has expired,
so if we get our speculation hats on, this could be why networks aren’t hyping up their
WWE content right now as they don’t know whether they’ll actually be showing WWE
content or not going forward.
It’s a curious situation, and definitely one we don’t quite have all the info for,
so stay tuned to wrestletalk.com for any updates.
Speaking of not having all the info, let’s talk about Bray Wyatt.
There’s seemingly been some confusion over Wyatt recently, both backstage and not, and
that’s not even talking about his booking since he’s been back, amirite lads.
A PWInsider report noted that “Bray Wyatt is not currently listed in any fashion internally
on the WWE roster”.
Now while we could ramp up the overhyping wagon and jump to the conclusion that this
must mean he’s been released from WWE again, Fightful Select have clarified that he was
left off the roster list due his ongoing illness, and both he and Bo Dallas, who portrays Uncle
Howdy, are still with the company.
Which is reassuring, glad we’ve got that confusion settled.
However, on a separate but linked note, there was recently talk of WWE hiring a new writer
specifically to work with Wyatt on his creative.
That came courtesy of Road Dogg, and now Fightful Select is reporting that Mr. Dogg stating
that has led to its own confusion backstage in WWE.
Why this is wasn’t reported, but one would assume that this would be because they…haven’t
done that.
It’s not like Road Dogg would lie would he, he seems wholly reliable.
re-LIE-able more like.
re-LIE-able And lastly before I hand over to Luke for
the Raw review, there was a report from PWInsider that Triple H was absent from last week’s
SmackDown, meaning he was not able to run the show.
Now luckily, it seems this wasn’t the cue for Vinny Mac to come waltzing right in and
take his place, but instead Bruce Prichard was the one heading up the show in Trips’
place.
The reason for Papa H’s absence wasn’t given, so fingers crossed it’s nothing too
serious.
There haven’t been any reports about him missing last night’s Raw, so hopefully he
was back behind the wheel before long.
And now over to Luke for Raw!
And now it’s time for my review of Monday Night Raw - aka ‘does anyone else feel like
Night of Champions is just another admin show’ edition of Monday Night Raw… in about five
minutes.
By the way there will be a fun way to enjoy Night of Champions - more on that in a moment.
The show kicked off with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn to cut a promo that was… yeah we thought
we weren’t in the Bloodline story anymore but it turns out we are… so we’re going
to beat Roman and Solo at Night of Champions.
This brought out The Judgement Day who were here to set up the show-long storyline - and
one that I really like - Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens have gone from the hunters for the tag
titles to the hunted.
They’re defending the belts against Bloodline next Saturday, Judgement Day are lined up
as future challengers, and Imperium later in the show re-spun the plate to line themselves
up as other challengers.
Shinsuke Nakamura beat The Miz in a decent little TV match, and we got two sitdown interview
segments in the show to highlight the WWE career of Seth Rollins, ahead of him inevitably
winning the World Heavyweight Championship next week.
They did a great job of using their NXT history to put over Rollins' accomplishments in the
company, as well as edit out Jon Moxley as much as they could from his time in The Shield.
Later in the show he talked about how this was the best version of Seth Rollins - and
again continued the tease of a future champ v champ showdown against Roman Reigns.
This was all good stuff, and there’s more of it next week.
The greatest thing in WWE Gunther he’s just the best and I would die for him came out
to witness a battle royale to crown a new number one contender for the Intercontinental
Championship at Night of Champions, which saw the Raw debuts or re-debuts in some cases
of the NXT call-ups in the Draft like JD McDonugh, Apollo Crews, Von Wagner and Xyon Quinn.
Crews was even given an entrance!
Sadly… this battle royale didn’t do much for them.
Crews and Wagner were eliminated during the ad break with no replays, and Quinn was dumped
after doing nothing of note.
JD was the only one to get something, because he’s an NXT Call-Up you know what that means!
Quick someone call Dolph Ziggler!
We need a Dolph Ziggler feud stat!
JD was eliminated by Dolph and then he attacked him around ringside.
He later cut a promo as Finn Sting-lor watched from the rafters to indicate the reports that
JD is set to join Judgement Day are correct.
The rest of the battle royale was filled with fun stuff.
It came down to Bronson Reed, Mustafa Ali and Ricochet, and Ali dropkicked Reed who
was holding Ric off the apron for the win.
A good finish to a good battle royale, and sets up Ali vs. Walter at Night of Champions
which will be a fine little squash match.
And yeah it’s inevitable that Gunther will win, but won’t it be fun to watch him chop
the life out of Ali?
And if you think that’s fun, imagine watching that in a room with over 100 like-minded other
wrestling fans?
Well you can by getting your tickets to our Watch Party for Night of Champions at The
Long Arm Pub and Brewery in London’s trendy Shoreditch!
Tickets are available in the link below and if our Clash at the Castle party last year
will be anything to go by, this will be the best way to watch the PPV.
And while, yes Ali won the match, he wasn’t set up as the actual contender for the title.
Because that’s Matt Riddle, who was not only given an entrance where he got in the
face of Gunther, he was eliminated from the match with the help of Imperium.
And with Judgement Day setting themselves up as the next contenders to Sami and KO - especially
because they beat them later in the show spoilers - it means that Romand Solo probably aren’t
winning those tag titles.
And Raw’s Seth Rollins is probably going to win the Raw exclusive world title rather
than SmackDown’s AJ Styles because he’s not on the right colour show.
It makes Night of Champions feel like an obligation rather than a PPV to be excited about.
So you’d better buy tickets for our Night of Champions party to get all the enjoyment
you can from this show!
Becky Lynch cut an excellent promo on Trish Stratus to set up a match for them at the
PPV, Rhea cut a promo on Natalya backstage, and Dominik Mysterio beat Xavier Woods due
to interference from Rhea Ripley.
Oh, sorry, my notes from last week must have made it into the prompter.
Sorry folks, sometimes we get technical hitches here in WrestleTalk HQ.
Let me just re-read those notes.
Ahem.
Dominik Mysterio beat Xavier Woods due to interference from Rhea Ripley.
*checks notes* What again?!
JD got a video package and Indus Sher beat two lads in an incredibly heatless match.
Cody Rhodes cut a promo on Brock Lesnar that, let’s be honest, could have been the same
promo he cut three weeks ago and we wouldn’t have noticed.
Next week they’ll be under the same roof and you can never quite tell what will happen
when they do that.
Unless it’s like every other time where they brawl and security break it up.
Zoey Stark set up a match with Candice LaRae next week, and Raquel Rodriguez beat Chelsea
Green with no trouble whatsoever.
This was supposed to be a tag match but Liv Morgan suffered an injury on SmackDown so
this was done in its place.
You might think that Raquel beating Green wouldn’t make the challengers look good
- and you’d be right - but they’re not really the challengers.
As Ronda Rousey and Shayna Baszler presented themselves as the actual challengers by attacking
Raquel and demanding a shot at the titles.
And yes it is funny that Ronda returned to TV and immediately fell over.
We got a video package for Apollo Crews and Corey said: “I can’t wait to see Apollo
Crews back on Raw.”
He was in the battle royale earlier in the show ya goof.
And the main event saw Judgement Day beat Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn in an excellent
match after several spots of interference from Imperium and a distraction from the ramp
from Paul Heyman.It really played up the hunter vs. hunted storyline which I quite like - even
if I don’t like the champs being pinned twice in a couple of weeks and it has made
Night of Champions feel a bit redundant.
This was another building block show from Raw.
It tried to introduce some new names, start some new storylines and gave us some okay
wrestling across the show.
The main event was excellent.
This week’s Raw is 3 out of 5.
Go and get your tickets for our Night of Champions party, and check out me, Pete and Tempest
reacting to what is often considered the worst wrestling match in history: Shelly Martinez
vs. Rebel from TNA - you know the one where Shelly yells about her vagina hurting?
- but is it really the worst match ever?
Here’s a clip.