In this WrestleTalk News, WWE talent released, WWE beats AEW, our review of NXT Halloween
Havoc and more. Subscribe and enable notifications to always
on for daily wrestling news videos. After going a whole two months without firing
anyone, WWE have released their latest talent: long time SmackDown ring announcer Greg Hamilton.
The story came out when people noticed Hamilton had removed references to WWE from his Twitter
account and had made his profile private. When PWInsider looked into why this had happened,
they found out WWE had let him go earlier this week.
Hamilton, real name Greg Hutson, first joined the company back in 2015. After a year of
working on NXT and Tough Enough, he was brought up to the main roster, where he quickly became
the main ring announcer for SmackDown - where it was him who declared Shane McMahon as the
best in
the woooooooooooooooooooooooorld. No other talent appears to have been released,
which is peculiar for a company who have mostly conducted mass firings over the last year
and a half. So why was Hamilton specifically let go?
PWInsider don’t know specifically, but they have pointed to some weird activity from Hamilton
on social media over the last week. In a since deleted Instagram post, Greg took
issue with the new song from rapper Westside Gunn and his song Undertaker Vs Goldberg - where
Hamilton alleges his voice was used without his permission.
“Well @westsidegunn @buffalokidsgallery let’s hope that since you STOLE my voice
for your incoherent kindergarten fables….that you saved up enough delivering for Door Dash….because….You….are….🤬’d.
You’ll be paying me for years….apologize and I’ll think about not collecting every
dime for the rest of your life….or I can just get WWE lawyers….that’s ok too.
Settle with my lawyer. And don’t EVER use my voice again….so wrong.”
Now I’m no legal expert, but I assume in WWE there’s a best practice of internal
steps you need to go through before publicly threatening they’ll sue someone for the
rest of their life. Hamilton has tweeted and deleted before. Back
in June this year, Greg effectively tweeted he didn’t give a swear word about Lio Rush’s
retirement: “Wow… unreal… if we all didn’t have
our own lives and families to take care of I just might pretend I give a RED FACED EMOJI.
On behalf of the wrestling family and community who work for a living. On to the gym.”
Hamilton quickly apologised for the post, explaining that him and Rush didn’t see
eye to eye backstage, but he respects him as a father and a wrestling talent.
But showing a more human and sensitive side to Twitter, back in January this year he heartbreakingly
explained why his hands were shaking so much on an episode of SmackDown. His longtime girlfriend
was sick with covid and he wasn’t there with her. Thankfully, she recovered, Hamilton
proposed in February and the two were married by April.
We’re now almost two weeks out from the bloody Battle of Friday Night. The 30 minute
crossover clash. The great Ruby Soho victory over Brock Lesnar. Because AEW Rampage, in
some very specific, but very important metrics, beat WWE SmackDown in the ratings head-to-head.
Tony Khan has since revealed that AEW’s network TNT were “over the moon and very
excited about what we did… [WWE] lost. I think it was great for us.”
But one battle does not win the war, because this week, a repeat of SmackDown beat Dynamite
on its first airing. Because of the baseball schedule, FOX found
themselves with nothing to air on Saturday night, so they just replayed the previous
night’s episode of SmackDown. Read into that scheduling decision what you will.
The Friday airing of SmackDown drew 2.25 million with a big .58 in the 18-49 demographic. And
then the same episode played the following night still drew 632,000 people - which is
over 50,000 more than the first run of AEW Dynamite’s 575,000.
Despite big time matches with Bryan Danielson, Cody Rhodes and Malachi Black, Dynamite was
down by almost a third from the previous week, and was its lowest number since June.
Dynamite did score a victory in the 18-49 demographic, with a .22 to the SmackDown repeat’s
.16 - indicating a greater quality over quantity of viewers. But too much focus on that metric
can make you forget - the episode of SmackDown was a repeat.
AEW will hope to rebound their plunging viewership from the last two weeks. After being on their
hottest ratings run since CM Punk’s return in August, which was followed up with the
All In debuts of Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, Dynamite has been bumped to Saturdays,
and Rampage has recorded its lowest figures of the show’s run. Dynamite returns to Wednesdays
tonight, and Luke and I cannot wait to get back to reviewing it on our WrestleTalk Podcast
channel tomorrow. Do you think AEW’s viewership will rebound
to their September figures this week? Or have they lost too much Wednesday night momentum?
Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people for the first 30 minutes
after this video goes live FROM OUTTA NOWHERE. If you ask Eric Bischoff about AEW’s falling
ratings, he’ll say ‘Did you know I made the nWo and I beat the WWF for 83 weeks in
a row, look at my motorcycle.’ And then when you repeat the question, he’ll
blame it on CM Punk. Talking on his 83 Weeks Podcast, Bischoff
has said: “Punk hasn’t delivered… Punk, you came
in and s*** the bed in terms of ratings. It ain’t there, and there’s nothing, in reality,
to suggest otherwise.” Bischoff seems to have taken offence by saying
AEW’s latest talent signings are more significant than Bischoff bringing Scott Hall and Nevin
Nash to WCW in the 90s. Which is definitely an arguable point. But Bischoff also appears
to be misreading the ratings, focusing on Rampage and the Saturday night Dynamites,
rather than the flagship Wednesday night slots. You might have seen my music video punishment
of Fozzy go live on this channel last Friday. In which case, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
But that was only my first punishment for losing the WrestleMania predictions. I’ve
got to do another one next month for losing at SummerSlam in WrestleLeague too. I am bad
at this wrestling stuff. Our Patreons have selected the shortlist,
so now it’s up to you to vote on our Community tab from R-Truth’s What’s Up, William
Regal’s Real Man’s Man, Minoru Suzuki’s Kaze Ni Nare, which I will have to learn another
language for. And Jungle Boy’s Tarzan Boy. Think it over, what will make me look the
worst. While you enjoy Tempest’s review of NXT Halloween Havoc…