Aside from the larger headlines of Sting debuting in AEW, their partnership with Impact Wrestling
and Kenny Omega & Don Callis’ partnership, the other big news story regarding AEW recently
has been controversy surrounding AEW commentator Jim Ross.
JR has openly criticized certain things about AEW on his podcast, including in particular
the spot where multiple people gather into a group so they can catch someone diving onto
them in an obviously contrived manner.
Unsurprisingly, according to a report earlier this week from WrestlingNews.co, AEW talent
didn’t much care for these comments as “the guy who is supposed to help put us over is
going out there and publicly burying us.”
Brandon Cutler then mockingly used Ross’ criticism to promote the Inner Circle multi-man
tag match from this week’s episode of Dynamite, tweeting “We’re gonna go outside, cluster
up like coils, stand there in a huddle, friends and foes together, side-by-side to catch some
leaping idiot going over the top.”
JR does have his supporters within AEW though, as both Dax Harwood and Darby Allin have publicly
agreed with his comments.
And now on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer has expanded upon this, saying that
the situation has caused “controversy” backstage in the company.
Bryan Alvarez then mentioned that some wrestlers were “yelled at” backstage recently for
performing a spot similar to what JR had criticized on his podcast.
...dive.
But perhaps JR is on to something, as despite an appearance from Sting, AEW’s viewership
dropped dramatically this week, managing an average of 806,000 viewers with a .32 rating
in the 18-49 demographic, which is down 189,000 viewers from last week’s show.
With last week’s Dynamite actually managing to outdraw this week’s Raw in the 18-49
demographic, fans were curious to see if they could do it again this week, but unfortunately
they didn’t come close.
Meanwhile, NXT managed an average of 766,000 viewers with a .19 rating in the 18-49 demographic,
which was up by 107,000 viewers.
This is perhaps NXT’s most impressive viewership figure since the Halloween Havoc special,
which featured top quality matches of Kyle O’Reilly vs Pete Dunne and Rhea Ripley vs
Toni Storm.
Which technically means that the total viewership for Wednesday nights was 1.572 million viewers,
which is higher than Raw’s record low viewership from this week.
Let’s go Wednesdays.
Clap clap clapclapclap.
One of the other major talking points from this week was Vince McMahon’s reported tantrum
backstage, where he sent a bunch of big guys, such as Keith Lee, Otis, Mace, Omos, Dabba
Kato and others, back to the Performance Center to get more training as he felt they were
unsafe workers.
Following the frank bewilderment that most people displayed at the news that Keith Lee
needed more in-ring polishing, Otis spoke to Ryan Satin of Fox Sports about this report
from the Wrestling Observer, where he refuted that this was a big tantrum from Vince and
that the option to go and train more has always been open:
“It's always been there.
It wasn't like we [were] told this and that.
The Performance Center is a tool for us to get better.
If someone wants to come up to me and work on stuff or vice versa -- we're always working.
That report was kind of funny.
We're never not working, especially not when we don't have live events so we can't really
get our stuff out, it's just bottled inside.
We're not getting that stuff out there, so we'll find more and more ways to get in the
ring.
There hasn't been set dates or anything, it's just when you want to come in.
It's always been there, I don't know why it became a big report gimmick.”
Otis then went on to say that he found out about the report from his father and called
it a “misinterpretation”.
However, Fightful Select gathered more information on the report, and found that Otis is “well-liked
backstage, but we were told a couple of spots in recent months that got the attention of
people at gorilla position that believed Otis could also be safer in the ring.
There wasn’t said to be heat in association with that.”
What do you think?
Did Vince McMahon have a tantrum, or did he calmly and politely tell everyone the option
to train more at the Performance Center was there for them?
Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE saying
he definitely threw a tantrum didn’t he?
Following Raw’s record low viewership from this week’s episode, it was reported by
WrestleVotes that “reactionary decisions” were going to be made on the Monday show,
which filled fans with dread based on WWE’s track record.
In recent times alone when WWE have felt like their back was against the wall, we’ve experienced
such things as The Wildcard Rule, the ‘dark’ third hour of Raw, Raw Underground, Corey
Graves’ Electric Chair, Cross-Brand Invitationals, no more authority figures, YOU are the authority
now, no commercials during matches, also known as the 2-out-of-3-falls overabundance, The
Superstar Shakeup, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Not to mention all the backstage changes like the hiring and subsequent firing of Paul Heyman
and Eric Bischoff as Executive Directors of Raw and SmackDown respectively.
But maybe, just maybe, this time will be the time they finally pay attention.
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said “Everyone I know in WWE was stunned
and everyone I know in WWE got the message too.
It’s just what you do with the message.”
And despite reports stating that much of this week’s show was written specifically for
Vince and wasn’t torn up and re-written right before and during the show for once,
according to a report from WrestlingNews.co, “the blame for the declining ratings is
being put on the creative staff.”
The report also states that “Vince McMahon is once again looking for out of the box ideas
for the Raw after the WWE TLC pay-per-view.”
This is almost exactly two years after Vince, Steph, Triple H and Shane cut their ‘we’re
sorry the product’s been s*** lately, we promise we’ll change’ speech, before precisely
nothing changed, so expect yet another refresh, restart and reboot on Monday following TLC
that will probably seem like things are changing for maybe three weeks before they revert back
to the old ways.
However, backstage things are pretty tense, as the report from WrestlingNews.co goes on
to say that “more than ever, people are walking on eggshells after the record-low
viewership and there’s been talk about scrapping some of the plans that were discussed for
the build to the Royal Rumble pay-per-view.”
It seems like it may be difficult to come up with fresh, new ideas that are out of the
box and could save the company while also conforming to the very narrow and frequently
changing guidelines from Vince, and if you don’t get it right you could lose your job.
Sounds like a real fun time to be a WWE writer.
But you know what the solution is, don’t you?
No, not cutting back Raw to 2 hours.
No, not allowing your talent creative freedom and unscripted promos.
No, not allowing each wrestler to have unique wrestling styles and not sticking to the same
blueprint of match for every single TV bout leading to formulaic and predictable outcomes
leading to an uninvested and apathetic audience.
Put the word Firefly in front of stuff.
There’s your solution.
The Fiend Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton will be fighting in a Firefly Inferno match at
TLC on Sunday, whatever that means.
Bray Wyatt made his in-ring debut on the main roster in an Inferno match against Kane, so
while this is a nice callback for Wyatt, I have no idea what a Firefly Inferno match
is.
The Orton and Fiend feud has gone from centering around Alexa Bliss being The Fiend’s weak
point to hide-and-seek and Orton trying to murder a man with fire.
Kane return confirmed?
But Alexa Bliss hasn’t been seen on TV for a couple of weeks now, and she confirmed that
she’s not out due to injury or any other concerns, she’s just on vacation, responding
to a fan in the comments of an Instagram post that she “booked the time off months ago”.
If she did book the time off months ago though, isn’t a bit weird that WWE would transition
her into The Fiend’s partner with an entirely new character and have her be the focal point
of a feud right before she had to leave?
Hmm.
I don’t know if I buy that one.
And now it’s time for everything else in wrestling news!
WWE have officially revealed the signing of Ben Carter to NXT UK, who was part of negotiations
with AEW and WWE during the summer, even wrestling for AEW.
AEW’s Miro confirmed that Carter had signed with ‘the dark side’ months ago, but now
it has been officially announced.
Bianca Belair revealed in an interview with Inside The Ropes that she was originally supposed
to debut on the main roster the night after WrestleMania 36, but plans consistently changed
with WWE adapting to the pandemic and moving to the Performance Center, instead having
her debut alongside The Street Profits at WrestleMania.
It was reported yesterday that Melina was supposed to return to NXT to be managed by
Robert Stone, but those plans were abandoned.
Jonny Fairplay, who originally made the comments, has clarified to WrestlingInc that it was
misunderstood, and that he hadn’t heard the Melina return from Stone himself, but
from another podcast somewhere, and that Stone was anxiously waiting for WWE to put him with
someone new.
An interesting note about last year’s KofiMania has come out from former WWE producer Shawn
Daivari, who mentioned on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast that the original
plan for the WrestleMania main event was Kevin Owens vs Daniel Bryan, which is why Owens
was inserted into the Fast Lane match following Elimination Chamber.
Many fans were under the impression that the KofiMania spot was originally designed for
Mustafa Ali, however it was the connection that was felt between Kingston and Bryan being
the final two at Elimination Chamber that sealed the deal for Kofi to face Bryan at
WrestleMania.
That’s not the only plans that were scrapped for Owens though, as last year he was almost
shipped off to NXT UK.
It was revealed a few months ago that discussions had happened to have Owens appear more than
once for NXT last year, and Owens has now revealed in an interview with The Metro that
“maybe if that happens, then maybe I could show up on NXT UK and work with all these
different people.
I’d love to get to do that.”
And finally today, it was confirmed via PWInsider that Cameron Grimes successfully underwent
surgery recently and the Wrestling Observer confirmed that he will be out of action for
4-6 weeks.
Get well soon, and get back to the moon.
That rhymed.
Sting will be appearing in a WWE project despite just signing for AEW!
Find out all the details by pressing the video to the right and press the video below that
to check out CineMania IV over on CineWorld where this time it’s Christmas themed!
Can Mr. Davis retain his CineMania championship?
Don’t forget to subscribe here for daily wrestling news videos and reviews, I’ve
been Corporate Chopper.
Jam That Jam.