Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News. I’m Luke Owen, and this is Wrestling News.
Before we get into our top story, I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing this video of
me and my wife doing our usual training routine - it’s nice to see so many of you appreciate
the hard work I put in and how insanely strong I am.
What do you mean no one is going to buy that? Yes I know you can clearly tell that’s Julius
Creed and Ivy Nile, but they might not see that. They’re watching this on their phones
while on the toilet. No, but seriously, that is insane strength.
Kudos to Julius and Ivy Nile. And kudos to WWE, who are taking an absolute
war to AEW next week. When AEW launched in 2019, WWE went into overdrive
to try and shut down their momentum quickly, and not a lot of it worked. Especially their
big plan of moving NXT off the WWE Network and onto USA Network to run directly against
All Elite Wrestling’s weekly Dynamite show. AEW won the Wednesday Night War, and NXT moved
to Tuesday nights where it has remained ever since.
But things are a bit different in 2023 than they were in 2021.
WWE is an incredibly hot product at the moment. Their PPVs are doing great numbers on Peacock,
their ratings are much stronger, and - perhaps more importantly - their attendance is way
up. WWE are regularly sending out press releases that promote their record attendance for various
areas, and how they’re breaking viewing figures on Peacock for the PPVs. To paraphrase
Mugatu, that WWE is so hot right now. AEW, on the other hand, isn’t. While their
ratings are holding steady, attendance is not where it was a year ago. Buy rates for
PPVs are also slightly down. Although All In did great numbers, All Out and Revolution
were down year-on-year, and WrestleDream got about the same as All Out, which was just
over 100,000 buys. They’re still profitable as a business - recently signing a new billion
dollar deal with Warner Bros - but, to badly paraphrase Mugatu, that AEW ain’t hot right
now. Which is going to make next Tuesday night
a very exciting one for both companies, and more importantly, wrestling fans.
Because next week, Dynamite is airing on Tuesday - and going head-to-head with NXT - due to
the MLB Playoffs - and WWE have come out swinging. Last night on NXT, WWE announced for next
week’s show: Asuka will be on the show to take on Roxanne
Perez Paul Heyman will be in the corner for Bron
Breakker for his match with Carmelo Hayes Cody Rhodes will be on the show to make a
‘major announcement’ And - if that wasn’t enough - John Cena
will be on the show to be in the corner for Carmelo Hayes in that Breakker match.
But, sure, WWE don’t consider AEW competition. Sure, Jan.
Couple all of that with Dominik Mysterio recapturing the North American Championship - which means
Judgement Day will likely be on the show - and Becky Lynch is still the NXT Women’s Champion;
WWE are stacking next week’s NXT to go against Dynamite - which only currently has advertised
the in-ring debut of Adam Copeland - the former Edge.
Lads, I think NXT might beat Dynamite next week in the ratings. I don’t even think
it’s a question, really. To be honest, they probably didn’t need
to stack it as much as they did. This past Saturday’s Collision drew just 327,000 viewers
- killed by going head-to-head with NXT No Mercy.
That WWE is so hot right now. There is of course another reason behind WWE
stacking NXT. Sean Ross Sapp noted on the Raw post-show
on Fightful that WWE are loading up NXT because they’re also in TV rights negotiation season.
NXT has done a great job of rebuilding itself after the disaster of the Wednesday Night
War, and the even more disastrous 2.0 rebrand, and following on from the excellent No Mercy
this past weekend, there is a sense in the air that the Black and Gold brand is getting
back to its Black and Gold best. That’s been reflected in the ratings - helped
by the integration of main roster talent - and featuring NXT talent on the main roster shows.
And WWE will be able to use this in their negotiations with either USA Network - or
a potential new suitor - when it comes to getting bigger rights fees. They can literally
point to AEW and say, ‘look, NXT is getting more or less the same ratings as this show
and they just got a billion dollars from Warner Bros’. WWE just got a new deal with USA
Network for SmackDown which is bigger than the record breaking one they had with Fox,
so they will be expecting the same for Raw and NXT.
It is, simply, smart business. And we’re the ones who benefit.
Because you can bet your bottom dollar that AEW will not take this stacked NXT card lightly,
and will likely announce a bonkers Dynamite line-up for next week’s broadcast.
I mean, the last time they went head-to-head with WWE they announced Minoru Suzuki vs.
Bryan Danielson. And that match ruled. It’s why I’ll never quite understand the
tribalism portion of wrestling fans. I think it’s totally fair to have a show you prefer,
but to pretend that WWE don’t consider AEW competition - or vice versa - is totally asinine.
And clearly not true. Tony Khan has said on numerous occasions that WWE is his main competition,
and WWE - on legal record - have said that AEW has beaten them in several ratings battles
as part of their monopoly court case against MLW. Although they’ve publicly tried to
deny it, in that case, they copped to the idea that All Elite Wrestling are competition
to them. And, really, you just have to look at the
card for NXT next week to see that. But we are the ones that benefit from all
of this. Because NXT is going head-to-head with Dynamite, John Cena is appearing on NXT.
That’s insane. Cody Rhodes will be on NXT with a major announcement. We’re getting
Auska vs. Perez which will be awesome. This is nothing but great times for wrestling fans!
Just as a fun addendum to that, and I love to bring this up because it shows how weird
and odd the world of pro wrestling is; in that court case against MLW - to show that
they’re not a Monopoly - WWE provided evidence that The Bunny on AEW did a better quarter
hour rating than Brock Lesnar on WWE when they went head-to-head. Wrestling is mad.
What do you make of WWE taking the war to AEW? Let me know in the comments down below.
But it’s not just fans who reap the rewards, because the war between AEW and WWE has meant
that talent have benefited too. More money is being spent on the boys and girls in the
locker rooms of both companies, and we’re seeing talent jump back and forth.
n a seven day span we saw WWE announce the signing of AEW’s Jade Cargill,
while AEW’s WrestleDream saw the debut of Adam Copeland - the former Edge in WWE who
ended his 25-year relationship with the company to join the competition.
While we know the direction for Copeland in AEW, there are questions about Cargill in
WWE. The company has given her a hard push on both
Raw and SmackDown, touting this as a big signing, but there was no clear evidence on whether
she’ll spend some time in developmental, or bypass NXT entirely and head to the main
roster. Well, according to PWInsider, Jade Cargill
is slated to be at Fastlane this weekend. That’s not to say that she’ll be on the
show, but Mike Johnson also notes that she is “tentatively scheduled” to be at both
Raw and SmackDown next week, with the “early word” being that she will debut for the
Raw brand at some point. It’s worth noting that Cargill was tweeting
a lot during this past Monday’s Raw broadcast, even asking who her first victim on the red
brand will be. Speaking of NXT, and Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful
Select is reporting that Mustafa Ali - who was released by WWE in the wake of their Endeavour
merger - was scheduled to win the North American Championship from Dominik Mysterio at No Mercy.
Ali had already been announced for the match before being released, and Fightful report
the original plan was for him to win the title adding, “This is one of the reasons why
NXT higher ups stated to us they were frustrated by the call to cut him.” Instead, Trick
Williams was put in the Mysterio match, which he won. He dropped the belt back to Mysterio
on last night’s NXT. According to Fightful Select - the best $51
in the business - the plan was for Ali to cost Dragon Lee his North American Championship
match against Mysterio on Raw, which would have led to a triple threat at No Mercy, which
Ali would have won. There’s no word on whether Ali would have dropped the belt back to Mysterio
like Trick Williamas did, but Fightful Select report that Shawn Michaels, Ali, and NXT creative
had “plans for Ali on the brand into March of 2024.”
But now it’s time for my NXT 1 Minute 1 Take. Next week should be a dozy. Maybe we’ll
just do a full review, I don’t know. Becky Lynch set up her Halloween Havoc title
defense against Lyra Valkyeria, but was interupted by Indi Hartwell and Roxanne Perez - who got
booed by the crowd - and Lynch set up a triple threat number one contenders match, which
was won by Valkyeria. Tegan Nox also showed up. Tyler Bate and Butch beat Gallus with
the help of Ridge Holland, and we got a big interrupting game as Ilja Dragunov cut a promo
but was interrupted by Trick Williams who was interrupted by Carmelo Hayes and then
Ilya left so Dominik Mysterio interrupted both Trick and Melo. Corbin set himself up
as a new challenger for Dragunov, Gigi Dolan beat Blair Davenport, Kiana James announced
Asuka would be on NXT next week, Kelani Jordan beat Izzi Dame in the Breakout Tournament,
Thea Hail and Jacy Jane beat Elktra Lopez and Lola Vice, Hayes announced Cena would
be in his corner next week, and Dom beat Trick to win back his North American title with
lots of help from Judgement Day, and Heyman revealed he’ll be in the corner of Bron
Breakker next week. Also, they announced Cody Rhodes will be on
the show.