A wrestlers union has long been considered an impossible, industry-disrupting venture.
Trying to coordinate ten or so wrestlers on one show is hard enough, let alone organizing
them into a workers union with shared rules and criteria.
An impossible task until…
WWE took away their video games.
Following WWE taking control of their talent’s 3rd party accounts like Twitch and Cameo,
especially when those have made up for income lost without live events and decreasing merch
sales, several WWE stars have publicly revived the idea of a wrestlers union.
Paige, who has built up a very successful Twitch channel over the last year, has tweeted:
“Learned a lot about unionism today.”
Fellow WWE star and frequent Twitch streamer Zelina Vega responded to that tweet with a
THINKING FACE EMOJI and “hmm..”
While Paige’s tweet could just mean she enjoyed a day of reading Wikipedia purely
out of curiosity, it is very coincidental she’s looking into unionisation a few days
after WWE took control of their ‘independent contractors’ Twitch accounts.
Sean Ross Sapp has tweeted about Paige and Vega’s potential efforts to start a union
“Pretty sure they can't legally fire anyone for it.”
WWE: challenge accepted.
Because as you can see with one of the main storylines on SmackDown, they don’t mind
just dropping stuff like it’s hot.
Mr Rogers Bray Wyatt appeared on a Kevin Owens show segment on last night’s Raw via the
Firefly Fun House, which ended when Aleister Black attacked KO.
While that did a good job of spinning two different feuds Owens currently has on, it’s
come at the expense of a rivalry WWE has been plotting for over a year.
It was previously reported that Roman Reigns vs The Fiend was being built up for a huge
WrestleMania 36 match.
But then Goldberg happened.
WWE restarted those plans following Roman’s return at SummerSlam, with Bray even introducing
a Wobbly Walrus puppet in the Funhouse, which is a shot at Reigns’ manager Paul Heyman.
But since last Friday’s SmackDown, the Fiend has seemingly dropped any Roman beef to feud
with KO - which possibly signals Owens being drafted to SmackDown in this week’s Draft…
or potentially the Fiend to Raw.
And those aren’t the only Draft moves being speculated on.
Dave Meltzer pointed out on Wrestling Observer Radio that “guys who do jobs” in a more
decisive way than usual ahead of a Draft, like them pretty much being squashed, usually
signifies they’re going to be jumping brands - in that old ‘put ‘em over on the way
out’ mentality.
A mentality that worked great in the territory days of the 80s, because that audience then
wouldn’t see those people who lost for months or years after.
But doesn’t work so well in WWE, when they just turn up on the other show.
And looking at last Friday’s SmackDown, two of those oddly quick losses are AJ Styles
and John Morrison.
Styles lost to Jey Uso to further the Universal Championship feud, while Morrison was squashed
by Otis in less than a minute.
Who do you think will be the top moves in this weekend’s Draft?
Let me know in the comments because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA NOWHERE SAYING
AJ JUST WANTS TO GET AWAY FROM PAUL HEYMAN.
And now it’s time for a review of last night’s episode of Raw in about 5 minutes!
Randy Orton opened the show sitting backwards on a chair like a boyband member, sadly not
wearing his cool night vision goggles, while he described in great detail what it was like
to beat up each member of OldTribution.
A reveal of his masterplan, which makes him sneaking off in disguise last week even more
redundant than it already was.
He challenged Drew McIntyre to a Hell in a Cell match at Hell in a Cell - sponsored by
Skittles, taste the rainbow.
Drew later accepted, in what will hopefully become a Hell in a Spinter Cell, where they
both wrestle in the dark with the night vision goggles on.
Asuka, Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke beat Zelina Vega and NatalyLana.
Where, showing that there is absolutely no ill will about Rusev turning up in AEW, Lana
was mostly beaten up by Asuka.
Clobbered by Rose for the pinfall loss.
And then put through the announcer’s table by a returning Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler,
sponsored by Bang Energy.
R-Truth lost the 24/7 title to Drew Gulak while he was trying to do a mock draft, and
then won it back in a dumpster three way with Akira Tozawa later on.
Seth Rollins and Murphy took on Dominik Mysterio and the ghost of Dominik Mysterio’s future,
Humberto Carillo.
But the match actually turned out to be Buddy vs Seth.
Murphy wanted Rollins to apologise to Aleyah about exposing their messages last week, when
Seth countered with, no, you should apologise to me!
It’s a flawless argument.
In a neat piece of character development, Murphy got a rare pinfall victory all by himself
over Carillo, breaking Seth’s spell that he needs Rollins to get ahead.
It turned out to be Murphy’s Boiling Point - Boiling Point, title of your 2009 WWE pay-per-view
- as he finally snapped at Seth later on, brawling around the ring and whacking him
with a kendo stick.
But because babyfaces are dumb, he just stopped, letting Rollins grab the kendo stick to beat
him up back.
Aleyah threw herself over Murphy, which brought out the rest of the Mysterios to her defence.
I’m really excited for the long overdue Murphy vs Seth feud, but I can’t see how
the Mysterios factor into th-Oh, can’t see…
I’m sorry Rey.
Kevin Owens cut a really good promo on how people who are touched by the Fiend find themselves
changed, which brought Bray out on the Firefly Fun House to tease another segment on SmackDown.
Aleister Black laid KO out at the end.
A lot of people are saying it’s an absolute travesty that WWE called up Keith Lee with
obviously no storyline plans in place.
I don’t understand them, Keith has one of the most consistently told feuds in the whole
company right now.
Him vs actual match finishes.
We got yet another non-finish, as an exhibition match between him and Braun Strowman was counted
out in its first minute.
They tried to distract us with some big meaty men power spots, like getting thrown into
the barricade or the LED screens, but the damage had already been done.
And then came one of the more… surprising parts of the show.
MVP offered the job squad… a literal job, telling Ricochet, Mustafa Ali and Apollo Crews
that they could join the Hurt Business by the end of the night.
Ricochet and Crews lost to Benjamin and Lashley, and then Ali got a singles match with MVP
where Retribution interrupted FROM OUTTA reported self-isolation because of the recent coronavirus
outbreak.
Ali sided with the Hurt Business to fight them off… before revealing himself as Retribution’s
leader.
I love Ali.
And it’s great to see him finally get a proper storyline push, after a concussion
lost him his spot to Kofi Kingston in 2019, and the SmackDown hacker angle was dropped
earlier this year.
But, like so many other things in WWE recently, they’ve made me too cynical to get properly
excited.
Are they a babyface group?
Why did Retribution keep changing what show they attacked?
Are they a heel group?
Who are the 90 or so other members?
Is the hacker stuff connected?
There’s a lot of questions and the likely answer is that WWE don’t know.
They’ve made it up as they’ve gone along.
But that’s not terrible.
Ali could cut a killer promo next week in a way that makes every strange inconsistency
look like masterful long term booking.
While everything about him screams babyface, a heel turn could see him taken much more
seriously in WWE.
But I’ve got no faith in this company.
I’ve learnt this painful lesson over and over again that if WWE don’t see anything
in you initially, it is very, very rare for them to suddenly change their mind and actually
book you like a star long term.
The warning signs are there.
This wasn’t the main event cliffhanger angle of the show.
It feels like it was just decided on the day.
They’re already being presented as a midcard act.
My prediction, for the unfortunate dark timeline we currently live in, is they have a month
long feud, lose to the Hurt Business at Survivor Series, and then slowly break up like the
Nexus before them.
Bianca BelAir beat everyone at board games, because board games are cool.
Subscribe to our new board game channel Phenoma-Nerds which launched yesterday!
Just when you think there’s no more CoC to take, your mum somehow crams in another
- where we got the pulled Clash of Champions Riott Squad vs Shayna Baslzer and Nia Jax
match for the Women’s tag team titles.
Which was actually my match of the night.
Shayna and Nia were amazing here, with Baszler doing the arm break spot on Ruby, and then
tapping her out while giving Liv the death stare.
I said in last week’s video, don’t get too excited about a proper push for Bobby
Roode now he’s back, because he’ll be Randy Orton’s henchman by the end of the
month.
I was wrong.
It only took a week.
Orton tagged with Roode and Dolph Ziggler against Drew McIntyre and the Street Profits
in the main event, which was all built around Randy vs Drew, which even saw Orton RKO McIntyre
for the win - Drew’s first pinfall loss since last November.
That was this week’s Raw in about 5 minutes.
What do you think about Mustafa Ali being the leader of Retribution?
Let me know in the comments, because I’ll be replying to people FROM OUTTA CYNICISM.
This was a significantly better show than the last two terrible weeks, but Raw has been
so bad recently, it’s hard to invest.
Keith Lee has no direction.
We’re getting Drew vs Randy again.
Ali is the leader of a midcard Retribution.
At least there was no Raw Underground again.
This week’s Raw, by Raw’s own low standards, is AvRAWge.
Roman Reigns is getting his own heel faction!
Find out who might be joining him by clicking the WrestleTalk News on the right!
And what are the 10 best party games out right now?
Click the video beneath that for the first video on Adam Blampied’s new board game
channel Phenoma-Nerds, and give them a subscribe!
I’ve been Mr Davis, Jam that Jam.