In this WrestleTalk News, is AEW’s Fight Forever game secretly in serious trouble?
Has Tessa Blanchard fallen out with yet another promotion and Oli will be here reviewing AEW
Dynamite.
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Yesterday, AEW gave us another look at their upcoming wrasslin’ vidja game which was
confirmed to be called AEW Fight Forever - if you want all the new details from the live
stream yesterday, check out Pete’s news episode from yesterday where he dilutes it
into an easily digestible swill.
The game itself is said to have been in development for two years now and with a fall 2022 release
date the cracks are beginning to show.
A report from Sports Gamers Online has said that there is trouble in paradise with the
relationship between the AEW Games division and tenured wrestling game developer Yukes.
They claim their sources have said that things between the companies, and specifically with
Kenny Omega, are not in the best place at the moment, reporting that Omega is “hating”
working with Yukes, frustration have been mounting and one source even said that it
appears Yukes were trying to “take advantage” of Omega’s inexperience in a game development
position.
This is said to have caused multiple arguments over the game’s direction and put constraints
on development with features being cut or paired back.
The development Hell in Cell has also left the game reportedly “way over budget”
and it now requires extra investment - and AEW had already committed a significant sum
to the development.
Because of how the process has been sources on both sides of the fence are viewing this
as a “one and done” type deal, even though Yukes were looking for a long-term agreement
for future game development at one point - though AEW was said to not be ready to commit to
that.
With the relationship reportedly on shaky ground things look bleak for a Fight Forever
Again type sequel but one source did say that the partnership “can be repaired, but it
comes down to desire.
If either side doesn’t want to continue, then AEW will look for a new partner”.
Hopping the fence to WWE who could be putting on a second UK ppv this year!
Wrestlevotes tweeted to say: “WWE has discussed adding another Stand & Deliver event for one
of the 3 big stadium shows happening this summer.
I’ve heard the preference is UK for Clash at the Castle, but Nashville/SummerSlam seems
more likely.
All TBD still.”
And before we hop into the Dynamite review a report from Fightful Select has suggested
that the embattled Tessa Blanchard is in trouble with another promotion.
Blanchard has been working with WOW - she is a former champion in the promotion and
been training behind the scenes, but the Fightful report states that there have been allegations
of issues surrounding Blanchard and the company.
It’s alleged that during a mid-April class Blanchard cut a promo on Samantha Sage aka
Americana that was said to ‘tear apart’ Sage which led to other trainees speaking
up and getting acting classes canceled from that point forward.
It was also indicated that Blanchard was no longer a part of training WOW talent and others
even suggested she may be gone from the company entirely, though that has not been confirmed
by WOW.
One source even implied that Tessa would have to work in Mexico if she wants to wrestle
now saying “If you are a fan of Tessa, you’d better learn Spanish.”
- ay carumba.
At the minute this is unverifiable due to many WOW workers having signed non-disclosure
agreements and reportedly fearing backlash from the company.
We’ll have to wait and see how this one unfolds.
Now before we get on with the rest of the news, I’d like to say a big thank you to
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It’s Thursday, you know what that means…
my review of AEW/ROH/IMPACT/New Japan’s Dynamite in about 5 minutes.
Adam Cole joined commentary to open the show leaving Tony Schiavone hanging.
That’s what you get, Tony.
Cole was hoping Bobby Fish would be the third member of the Undisputed Elite to qualify
for the Owen Hart Cup against Jeff Hardy, and, for a moment there, I thought they might
with a great avalanche Falcon Arrow into a knee bar sequence.
But nothing can withstand the full weight of Jeff Hardy landing on you with a Swanton
Bomb.
Jeff became the sixth man qualified for the Owen Hart tournament - setting up a long teased
clash with Darby Allin, who was watching on with Sting from the rafters, and who later
cut one of the most low energy promos in company history.
“There’s not a lot to say about this Jeff.
The match kind of writes itself.
It’s going to be a special night.”
Hey Darby, the Emo stands for Emotional.
They played the excellent ‘Scars We’ve Left On You’ promo William Regal cut on
the Road To show, before Blackpool Combat Club beat Andrade’s random bunch of boys
- with Butcher and Blade tagging with Angelico, who’s still with the promotion despite his
tag partner Jack Evans finishing up with AEW last Sunday.
The Combat Club are still my favourite thing in all of wrestling, but they’re about two
weeks overdue for an actual storyline now.
It’s Dynamite’s compulsory backstage segment of Toni Storm, Ruby Soho, Jamie Hayter and
Britt Baker standing in a row.
Four of the top stars in the division, relegated to the exact same interview for a month.
Jungle Boy challenged Ricky Starks for the FTW title for next week, and then Keith Lee
and Swerve Strickland called out Team Taz.
This could be setting up a three way feud for the tag titles, which is cool, I love
everyone involved.
But with the division also having far hotter acts like Danielson and Moxley, the Bucks,
RedDragon and FTR, it makes this feel like the tag midcard.
Wardlow is now just a locker headbutt away from going full Goldberg in his entrance,
where he came out for MJF’s latest challenge - seven foot W Morrisey from IMPACT Wrestling,
who was in incredible shape, you can’t teach that.
Morrisey looked terrific here as the two had a wickedly paced hoss fight.
Almost as a show of respect, Wardlow put Morrisey away with just one powerbomb.
Psychology-wise, I think it would’ve been more effective to have Wardlow attempt the
Powerbomb a few times before in the match to build that finish.
A ‘We want Enzo/No we don’t’ chant aside, the other best thing here was the post-match,
where Wardlow obliterated an Avengers final act level of anonymous opponents, beating
up all of security.
MJF finally relented, agreeing to a match, but only on certain conditions - which he’ll
reveal in a contract signing segment at the most magical place in the world, Max Country,
Long Island next week.
That is going to be so much fun.
Fresh off his feud with covid last week, Hangman Page came down for his first promo since his
world title defence against CM Punk was announced.
He vowed they’ll be no handshake, no mastabatory Bret Hart tribute match.
He’ll destroy Punk.
Wow, that escalated fast.
He even picked on a fan wearing a Punk shirt in the crowd, said they’ll want a refund.
This wasn’t a heel turn by a long shot, but that didn’t stop it being heelish.
The crowd booed as Page ran down Punk.
This will be a very interesting dynamic to watch play out, and this was a hot proper
start to their feud.
Chris Jericho is calling himself ‘The Wizard’ now?
Sure, I guess.
If it wasn’t for Dante Martin vs Rey Fenix later, this was my match of the night.
Santana and Jericho wrestled as though this was a main event blood feud climax, hot on
the heels of the Inner Circle implosion.
Ortiz tried to stop JAS interfering, but the numbers narrative was too strong again.
Jericho low blowed Santana to get the win, and JAS beat them both up afterwards.
The Gunn Club got the Acclaimed some scissors as gifts, for them all to do the hand gesture.
This was very funny.
And then the show started to fall apart.
The Varsity Blondes’ promo fell flat calling out the House of Black, and when their antagonists
showed up, the drama of will Julia Hart side with them or not - she didn’t, by the way
- failed to click either.
There’s long term storytelling, and then there’s stories that take a long time to
tell.
This is definitely in the latter, and isn’t working.
Death Triangle ran down for the save and everything ended awkwardly.
The final Owen Hart Cup qualifier of Fenix vs Martin, which actually ended up being a
tag bout of them vs the concept of physics, was terrific.
They got a fight forever chant, and hit potentially one of the spots of the year when they landed
standing with Rey’s arm over Dante’s shoulder off a top rope Spanish Fly.
That doesn’t make much sense, but I’m here for it!
Fenix won, hopefully meaning he can restart his singles momentum from last year through
the tournament.
Then the show got back to falling apart again, and I take absolutely no pleasure at all in
saying it was all the women’s division stuff.
Recap of the story so far: In AEW’s first ever press conference, they promised to have
the best women’s division in the world, and to position them just as strong as the
men’s.
That hasn’t happened, and I’ve been very critical of the women’s booking ever since.
Fans have vocalised their disappointment in the actually oversimplified feedback of: give
the women more time - like that’s the magic fix.
As this episode proves, the issues run far deeper.
Almost more than longer or more matches, AEW’s women’s division needs built up stories
and characters.
Because here, AEW gave the women time, closing the show with an AEW women’s title promo
and an ROH unification match.
But the interaction between Thunder Rosa and Serena Deeb wasn’t good enough, with the
one-dimensional motivation of ‘making this the best women’s division in the world’
- unfortunately now an almost totally hollow statement - and an awkward dynamic that would
probably have been better pretaped.
And then the main event was a booking error so obvious, it’s almost like Tony Khan did
it on purpose to say: look, I gave the women a main event and you didn’t like it, so
nah, I was right all along.
To close this episode of Dynamite - which comes with a high bar of expectation - we
got Mercedes Martinez vs Deonna Purrazzo to unify
the ROH Women’s Championship.
Purrazzo has not been seen in AEW ever, not having a single video package to tell fans
who she is.
Mercedes has only wrestled on AEW TV four times before this, only debuting in December.
And the championship they were fighting over is another company’s title that they were
never known for anyway.
As RubixCubePlays perfectly summed it up on Reddit:
“That main event had the energy of doing Chavo vs Ezekiel Jackson for the WWECW World
Title on a main event of Raw.”
These two women were set up to fail, and it resulted in no reaction from the crowd beyond
polite applause.
The performers have to take some responsibility too.
How many times have we seen two unknowns come in and steal the show?
Another factor is they simply didn’t have a good enough match.
Mercedes is the new ROH Women’s Champion.
What did you think of Dynamite?
Let me know in the comments.
The Wardlow/MJF segment, as usual, was the best angle on the show, and Martin and Fenix
had a terrific match.
But other than that, it felt a bit like AEW phoned it in, and then closed the show on
two women’s segments that fell flat.
This week’s Dynamite is the lowest of the year at 65%.