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Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk MECHA NEWS. I am Luke Owen. Give that little thumbs
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And leave a comment down below to answer our question of the day:
What was your favourite show from this past packed weekend of wrestling? And coming up
in today’s news we’ve got backstage notes from AEW’s All Out show, a potential huge
announcement for WWE, and which wrestlers from both WWE and AEW have requested their
release? Click the timestamps down below to jump to any of those news stories, but first.
Let’s kick things off by giving a shoutout to the awesome Swaft Nation members who came
to hang out with us here at WrestleTalk before New Japan’s incredible Royal Quest show
in London. It was so cool to be able to meet and chat with you all about a variety of different
topics, and have a few drinks before watching Minoru Suzuki forearm Kazuchika Okada in the
face so hard it ruptured everyone’s eardrums. A particular shout out to Sarmad Ali, who
not only made us this lovely card but also bought us this empty box.
And the results of Royal Quest have played into the announced matches for New Japan’s
three-night Destruction series - with new British Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi
defending against Zack Sabre Jr. in a rematch on night one, while Jay White challenges for
Tetsuya Naito’s IWGP Intercontinental Championship in Kobe, and Will Ospreay and Robbie Eagle’s
team Birds of Prey will get a title shot against Taiji Ishimori and El Phantasmo, after beating
the Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions at Royal Quest. The Kagoshima show will also
see new Never Openweight Champion KENTA will take on Kota Ibushi and his Right to Challenge
contract. KENTA won the Never Openweight Championship
from Tomohiro Ishii at Royal Quest due to interference from the Gorillas of Destiny,
who retained their IWGP Tag titles against Aussie Open earlier in the night. However
the bigger news from the show was the KENTA seemed to pick up an injury during the match
with Ishii, seemingly losing himself during some spots including a very late kick out
towards the end of the bout. While nothing official has been said by New
Japan in terms of what the injury was, KENTA himself took to Twitter to announce that he
was taken to hospital following the match and is fine - joking about the London crowd
booing him out the building. Just a few hours later, AEW held All Out in
Chicago, an event Tony Khan announced would now be an annual show. The superb show saw
Jimmy Havoc, Darby Allin and Joey Janela have the terrific CRACKER BARREL CLASH, Cody get
revenge on Shawn Spears with the aide of an Arn Anderson spinebuster, and The Lucha Brothers
retain their AAA Tag Team Championships against The Young Bucks in the craziest ladder match
I’ve ever seen. I mean he hit a Canadian Destroyer from the top of a ladder through
a table! The main event of the show saw Chris Jericho
become the inaugural AEW World Champion by beating Hangman Page with the still-rubbish-looking
Judas Elbow. And while many felt there could be a rematch down the line, it wasn’t Jericho
who interrupted Page’s post-match media scrum but instead the returning Pac - who
announced that contrary to some reports, he’s staying with All Elite Wrestling.
And it’s not just Pac who will be doing more dates with AEW.
Following the insane ladder match between Young Bucks and Lucha Brothers, both teams
were attacked by two wrestlers wearing masks of former American presidents, revealing themselves
to be former Impact Tag Team Champions Santana and Ortiz, better known as the second iteration
of the Latin American Xchange. It had been reported by Dave Meltzer following Impact’s
Slammiversary show that LAX would be heading to AEW once they’d finished up with them,
and the two are speculated to be the mystery tag partners of Chris Jericho when he takes
on The Elite on AEW’s first TV show on October 2nd.
And perhaps to the surprise of no-one, Mike Johnson has reported on PWInsider that Santana
and Ortiz won’t be able to use the name LAX in AEW - which they’ve been known as
for several years now - as that is owned by Impact Wrestling.
Another surprise debut came during the Casino Battle Royale which kicked off the Buy In
pre-show, when Tenille Dashwood entered the match. Dashwood, the former Emma in WWE, has
previously wrestled for ROH’s fledgling Women of Honor division, and was recently
announced to have signed with Impact Wrestling. Interestingly, Mike Johnson is also reporting
on PWInsider that AEW would like to use Dashwood more for upcoming dates, but adds that there’s
“nothing confirmed going forward.” While Dashwood working more dates with AEW certainly
seem possible, PWInsider did report following Double or Nothing that Impact Champion Brian
Cage was set to make an appearance in that show’s Casino Battle Royal, but was told
just before the show by Impact that he wasn’t allowed to due to stipulations in his contract.
However according to Britt Baker, Dashwood isn’t officially under contract with Impact
Wrestling. She told the media scrum after the show, “I know she’s working with Impact,
but she’s not officially contracted.” WrestleZone reported recently that Dashwood
with Impact until Bound For Glory in October, which has since been backed up by Sean Ross
Sap of Fightful, who says that Dashwood is only working with Impact on a nightly deal.
Someone who will be doing more dates for All Elite Wrestling is referee Aubrey Edwards,
who officiated the main event match between Page and Jericho for the AEW Championship.
Bleacher Report noted that Edwards was the first female to ref a PPV world championship
main event - sorry, Lacey Evans you don’t count apparently - and she announced on Twitter
the day after All Out that she was now officially signed with All Elite Wrestling full-time.
She posted: “Today I'm officially a full-time referee for @AEWrestling. This was a long
time coming, but I needed to close the doors on my previous job before saying anything.
Now I yell at people to pay my bills... I can't thank @AEWrestling enough for the opportunities
they've already given me. I have never been happier. Matt, Nick, Cody, Brandi, Kenny,
Tony, everybody...they are all the most wonderful people! See you in DC on October 2nd on @AEWonTNT.”
The same cannot be said however for Kylie Rae.
Along with Britt Baker and Nyla Rose, Kylie Rae was the first of AEW’s women’s division
to be announced, and she wrestled on the Double or Nothing card in a four-way match that also
featured the surprise debut of Awesome Kong. However nothing has been heard from her since,
with Rae even deleting her social media accounts shortly after Double or Nothing.
And during the post-All Out media scrum, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful asked Tony Khan what
her status was, with Khan revealing that Kylie Rae asked for her release from the company
which was granted. Sapp then later posted a clip of the interview, where Khan says Rae
parting ways with All Elite Wrestling was amicable.
And Kylie Rea isn’t the only wrestler who asked for their release over the weekend.
Casey Michaels of Square Circle Sirens is reporting that Kacey Catenzaro has requested
her release from WWE, saying that a back injury she suffered has made her decide to quit wrestling
completely. WWE were clearly quite high on Catenzaro,
who was the first woman to qualify for the finals of American Ninja Warrior - which still
sounds like the title of a Chuck Norris Cannon movie in the 80s - and she was part of the
second Mae Young Classic, appeared several times on NXT television, and even competed
in the 2019 Royal Rumble where she was given the Kofi Kingston highlight spot. Her last
match was on July 19th, where she teamed with Lacey Lane to defeat Marina Shafir and Taynara
Conti, and her last TV appearance was in a losing effort to Io Shirai in July.
At the time of this recording, WWE have not confirmed if Catenzaro’s request has been
accepted. Which means that Catenzaro won’t be around
for a reported big announcement coming from WWE. Bryan Alvarez reported via Wrestling
Observer Live that something big is coming from WWE, but didn’t give any details on
what the announcement would be connected to - but did say that it would on a similar level
of “big” to NXT going to USA Network. Alvarez says that WWE were expecting the story
to get out over the weekend as something happened in the company, and were surprised that it
didn’t. According to Alvarez, we can expect to hear this news drop this week.
And maybe that big news could tie into a Dave Meltzer report, that WWE are currently planning
a major NXT show for October 2nd to counter All Elite Wrestling’s first show on TNT.
This of course was to be expected. When TNA announced they were going to air an episode
of Impact on Spike against Raw in 2010, WWE quickly hashed out a deal to bring back Bret
Hart back into the company so he could have his first in-ring face-to-face meeting with
Shawn Michaels since the Montreal Screwjob in 1997.
Meltzer doesn’t say what the show could feature, just that it will be “a major NXT
show”. It had been previously reported that Vince McMahon had talked about the idea of
using more main roster wrestlers on NXT in order to bring in viewers, and there is some
speculation that this show could be loaded with main roster names to make it unmissable
against AEW. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the
premiere of WrestleTalk Showcase, which aired just after our All Out WrestleRamble review!
The show is designed to highlight the amazing independent wrestling around the world, and
the first episode will feature highlights of Rampage Brown vs. Joe Doering in WrestleGate
Pro’s Grand Prix to crown their first champion, Will Ospreay vs. Robbie X from NGW, and a
full match between Addicted to Adrenaline against The OJMO and WrestleTalk Scholarship
winner Callum Newman. Click the video on screen to check out WrestleTalk
Showcase if you didn’t get to see it earlier! And if you did see it earlier, why not watch
it again! And what have the reactions been to the new Joker movie? Click the ScreenStalker
video to watch Oli Davis and Pete Quinnell dive into that. I’ve been Luke Owen, and
that was wrestling.