In this WrestleTalk News, WWE Raw is the worst mess it’s ever been, a huge update on Cody
Rhodes going back to WWE, and the latest of Scott Hall.
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We open today’s video with the tragic news surrounding wrestling legend Scott Hall, who
was placed on life support yesterday after suffering three heart attacks - thought to
be caused by a loose blood clot - during hip surgery.
Wade Keller of PWTorch was the first to report this news, and it's since been revealed by
Hall’s Outsiders and nWo brother Kevin Nash - at the time of this writing and recording
- once his family are in place, they will turn off the life support machine.
Posting on Instagram, Nash writes: “I'm going to lose the one person on this planet
I've spent more of my life with than anyone else.
My heart is broken and I'm so very f***ing sad.
I love Scott with all my heart but now I have to prepare my life without him in the present.
I've been blessed to have a friend that took me at face value and I him.
When we jumped to WCW we didn't care who liked or hated us.
We had each other and with the smooth Barry Bloom we changed wrestling both in content
and pay for those......alot that disliked us.
We were the "Outsiders " but we had each other.
Scott always felt he wasn't worthy of the afterlife.
Well God please have some gold plated toothpicks for my brother.
My life was enriched with his take on life.
He wasn't perfect but as he always said "The last perfect person to walk the planet they
nailed to a cross " As we prepare for life without him just remember there goes a great
guy you ain't going to see another one like him again.
See Ya down the road Scott.
I couldn't love a human being any more than I do you.”
Hall began his wrestling career during the 1980s, and reached new levels of fame when
he joined the WWF as Razor Ramon - having the all-time classic ladder match against
Shawn Michaels over the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania X.
Two years later he would jump ship to World Championship Wrestling with Kevin Nash, and
the two would be the founding members of the industry changing group the New World Order
alongside Hulk Hogan.
He returned to WWE in 2002 to reform the nWo with Hogan and Nash, and have a match with
Steve Austin at WrestleMania X-8.
He had sporadic appearances in TNA in the mid-2000s, returning again in 2010 to do a
new version of the nWo called The Band with Nash and Sean Waltman, before being released
and announcing his retirement from wrestling.
However, Hall’s career in the 90s and into the 2000s was plagued with alcohol and substance
abuse issues, which were even incorporated into storylines towards the end of his run
in WCW.
In 2013 - after he’d been in and out of hospital and rehab - he was taken in by Diamond
Dallas Page, where he launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for hip replacement surgery.
Their target was $80,000, but received nearly $110,000 from fans.
This was documented as part of the Resurrection of Jake the Snake documentary, who was also
being helped out by DDP at the time.
After being thought by the wrestling world to be at the end of their respective roads,
both men turned their lives around and were inducted into the 2014 WWE Hall of Fame clean
and sober - where Hall delivered his now iconic line: “hard work pays off, dreams come true,
bad times don’t last, but bad guys do”.
We here at WrestleTalk would like to pass on our condolences to Scott Hall’s family
at this tragic time, and thank Scott for his years in the ring for our entertainment.
2021 was - for me - one of the worst years creativity of WWE Raw I’ve ever been witness
to.
Each week the show seemed to find a way to reach a new low or - worse - mediocrity and
boredom.
However, since fans have been back and for most of 2022, the show has been much, much
better.
It’s certainly better than SmackDown.
However a new report from Ringside News suggests that it’s not all rosey behind the scenes.
I know, I’m as stunned as you are.
While talking about Cody Rhodes’ seemingly imminent return to WWE - more on that in a
moment - Ringside News note that they’ve been told that “Raw is the worst mess it’s
ever been”, noting that Vince McMahon makes decisions for the show and tells Bruce Prichard,
Ed Koskey and Johnny Ace, but the rest of the creative team “stays in the Dark”
until they arrive at the building to write the show on Monday.
And this ties into the latest chapter on the up-and-down story that is Cody Rhodes to WWE
confirmed.
He officially left AEW on February 15th after a new deal could not be reached between the
two parties, and it was heavily reported that he would be going back to Vince’s fold.
It was even noted the following day that there was a celebratory feel within WWE that one
of AEW’s biggest names was jumping ship to them rather than the other way round which
has been the case for the last few years.
However Sean Ross Sapp then noted on the Fightful Select Q&A podcast towards the end of February
that the news between Rhodes and WWE had gone “eerily silent”, with Cassidy Haynes of
Bodyslam then reporting on March 4th that talks between the two had “fizzled out”.
On that same day, Ringside News reported that they were told by a tenured member of creative
that Cody was still scheduled for WrestleMania against Seth Rollins and his match is “still
on the list”, noting that if that had changed, “no one has told us yet or corrected the
internal documents”.
See the previous story about Raw being a mess for further details.
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio said a couple of days later that all the creative
that had been laid out for Rhodes was “now uncertain” and that creative “don’t
know what’s going on”.
See the previous story about Raw being a mess for further details.
On March 10th, this was then changed, as Ringside News reported that his name was now off the
WrestleMania chart, with no opponent listed for Rollins.
WrestleVotes seemingly backed up this report on March 11th, saying that he was the last
domino to fall in terms of big matches for Mania “for obvious reasons”.
Which brings us to the latest from Sean Ross Sapp over at Fightful Select, who is reporting
that - at least according to an AEW EVP - The American Nightmare is “signed or was signing”
with WWE, “and would face Seth Rollins at WrestleMania”.
I mean, it’s one of these three guys, right?
Fightful Select add that they “haven’t confirmed” this news, but adds fuel to the
speculation fire that Rhodes will be on Monday Night Raw tonight which comes to you from
Jacksonville, Florida - home of All Elite Wrestling.
They also write that last week on Raw, Damien Priest took out Finn Balor using the Razor’s
Edge rather than his usual finish of The Reckoning, which is the same move as the Cody’s Cross
Rhodes - with one producer telling Fightful that it wasn’t an accident that Priest’s
finish was changed.
And those aren’t the only WrestleMania plans that are now in the air.
It was a rather eventful episode of SmackDown this past Friday, as not only did we see the
new main roster debut for Pete Dunne who is now named Butch - oh, Butch - but also the
very scary injury to Big E who was stretched out of the building.
E himself confirmed that he broke his neck, but posted more positive news a few hours
later informing fans that there is no damage to his spinal cord, no ligament damage and
no surgery will be required.
Fightful Select note that the original plan for WrestleMania 38 was to have a fully reformed
New Day - with Xavier Woods returning to in-ring action over the weekend at WWE house shows
- taking on the new team of Sheamus, Ridge Holland and Oh, Butch.
It’s now unknown what the plans for the teams are as we head towards Mania.
Speaking of Oh, Butch, and Fightful Select were told ahead of SmackDown’s airing that
“something very dumb” was going to happen on the show - which ended up being the rebranding
of Pete Dunne to Butch.
Bizzarly, they also add that the name Butch is a rib on Ridge Holland as his real name
is Luke - which is the same as Bushwacker Luke, who’s tag partner was Bushwacker Butch.
WWE is a weird company.
PWInsider are also reporting that Vince McMahon was extra hands on this past Friday’s SmackDown
and that led to a number of changes throughout the day - including removing a Kevin Owens
in-ring segment which had been reported by Fightful Select, which was replaced with them
simply airing Steve Austin’s response video to Owens instead.
And finally in this WrestleTalk News, a Twitter user has shared an image online of WWE filming
exterior shots in Texas, which may have revealed the new title design for the winner of Roman
Reigns and Brock Lesnar’s Winner Takes All Match at WrestleMania.
The report was that this will indeed unify both the WWE and Universal Championships - at
least for the time being - and could go by the name WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
The design is the same as the current WWE and Universal Championships, but with a blue
line under the WWE logo rather than a red one.
It’s the little differences, I guess.
I’d like to thank you all watching to those that checked out mine and Pete’s new series
on partsFUNknown, where we’re playing through WWE 2K22’s MyGM Mode.
Last Friday we released our Draft Picks, and today on PFK the first actual booking episode
will be on the channel.
We’ve had a lot of fun making it, and we’d love to continue doing it as a regular series.
So please check it out if you haven’t already.