Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk MECHA NEWS! I am Luke Owen. Press the thumbs up
and hit the subscribe button, and leave a comment down below to answer our question
of the day: Who do you think was the best wrestler in the world in 2018? We’ve got
a packed show for you today with the latest news from WrestleMania 35, a new member of
the Shield, and return updates on Bray Wyatt and Lars Sullivan. But first we need to address
the rumour and innuendo about Destroy WrestleTalk. I’ve been keeping my eye very closely on
the situation, and I went right to the source of the matter El Fakidor to ask him. And here’s
what he had to tell me:
That was taken from ScreenStalker’s video reaction to the brand new trailer for Avengers:
Endgame, which you can check out by clicking the i above my head. I’d like it if you
did watch this whole news episode first, though. And then go check out that reaction video,
if you want to see three white dudes have a joint nerdgasm.
Speaking of people wanting to improve things, and Becky Lynch wants to improve the quality
of your hair. Well, I think Head and Shoulders want to do that really, but Becky Lynch has
starred in their new advert which means I guess she’s also on board with their ideas.
The Man posted on Facebook recently that she was shooting the commercial, and Twitter user
Aubrey has shared the finished product which you can see here is quite poor quality.
And All Elite Wrestling’s Kenny Omega is also cleaning up - but rather than focus on
his hair, The Cleaner has picked up several end of year awards in the Wrestling Observer.
The 40th Observer Awards were voted for by wrestlers, insiders, experts and wrestling
historians - who voted for Omega to not only pick up the Lou Thez/Ric Flair Wrestler of
the Year Award, but also Most Outstanding Wrestler, Japanese MVP, Best Wrestling Maneuver
for the One Winged Angel and match of the year for his Dominion bout against Kazuchika
Okada. Other notable winners include NXT picking up Best Weekly TV show, Daniel Bryan won Best
Interview, Zack Sabre Jr picked up the Bryan Danielson Award for Best Technical Wrestler,
AJ Styles was awarded the United States MVP, Becky Lynch was the Women’s Wrestling MVP,
and Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa was awarded Feud of the Year.
And speaking of Omega’s Match of the Year co-winner Kazuchika Okada and he has been
speculated as the possible winner of the New Japan Cup which is currently running. The
winner of the tournament will earn a shot against Jay White in the main event of their
enormous Madison Square Garden show over WrestleMania weekend, and Dave Meltzer has written in the
latest Observer that he, “can’t see anyone but Okada or [Kota] Ibushi winning.”
Speaking of Mania weekend, and last week WWE unveiled the location and logo for WrestleMania
36 next year - which will take place in Florida in the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But
it’s now being revealed that WWE handed out very odd requests to the real-world press
who were in attendance for the announcement. Now remember, these are real and serious journalists
who are reporting on sports, these aren’t YouTube channels who talk about wrestling
on a daily basis. And WWE asked that press only refer to talent as WWE Superstars, and
to not use the words “wrestling”, only referring to it as Sports Entertainment. Now
these words are common to us wrestling fans - not that anyone has ever referred to wrestling
as sports entertainment despite WWE trying to make that a thing for the last 35 years
- so can you imagine what a real journalist made of all this?
Last week it was reported that among others, Impact Wrestling had re-signed Moose, Sami
Callihan and Rosemary to new multi-year deals, and this week the company also announced they
had re-signed oVe’s Jake and Dave Crist to new deals. Speaking with WrestlingInc,
Jake Crist said, “IMPACT has always been home to us. They always gave us a platform
and were the first ones to give us a chance so why not stay loyal? I know this business
isn't a loyal business, but we're loyal people. We were always deadset on staying loyal to
IMPACT. They took a chance on my brother and I, so why not keep rocking and rolling?"
And former Impact head honcho Dixie Carter found herself being name-dropped this week
on Smackdown Live in a Randy Orton promo. Orton was running down AJ’s career - saying
that he was wrestling in bingo halls while Orton was working for WWE, and AJ was tanning
with Dixie Carter in Florida while he was winning World Championships and headlining
WrestleMania. It was a fun comment for hardcore fans, who will know the relationship between
Styles and former Impact Wrestling president Carter - and who could forget the tangled
web between them and Claire Lynch.
And now Carter has responded to Orton’s claims of she and AJ getting tans together
- tweeting: “AJ Styles & I never had to tan as we were always golden. My historical
recollection is different than yours RandyOrton.”
It was officially announced yesterday that AJ Styles and Randy Orton will clash at WrestleMania,
but what will be next for Finn Balor as Mania draws closer? Balor picked up the Intercontinental
Championship a few weeks ago at Elimination Chamber in a handicap match against Bobby
Lashley and Lio Rush, but dropped the belt back to Lashley on this past Monday’s Raw.
It felt like a real bump in the road for Balor, who has struggled to get a solid push in the
company since relinquishing the Universal Championship following an injury.
However according to WrestleVotes, Balor dropping the IC title to Lashley might have been done
to set up WrestleMania. WrestleVotes tweeted: “Chatting w/ a source this morning. One
notable quote: ‘I’m figuring they took the IC off of Finn for a reason, I think they
have something for him at Mania’”.
And perhaps this could tie into a new advertisement for the WWE Network’s presentation of the
show, which doesn’t feature regular old Finn Balor, but instead the undefeated Demon
Balor - who was last seen beating Baron Corbin at Summerslam last year. Because apparently
he only becomes the demon for real threats like Corbin, and not Universal Championship
matches against Brock Lesnar. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
Someone else who could factor into big plans for WrestleMania is Braun Strowman - who recently
started a feud with Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che. But once Mania
is done and dusted he has some even bigger shoes to fill.
It was first reported after the Royal Rumble that Dean Ambrose would be leaving WWE when
his contract expires at the end of April. WWE even took the unprecedented act of announcing
this on their website, and referenced him leaving in The Shield’s reported final ever
match at Fastlane against Bobby Lashley, Drew McIntyre and Baron Corbin. However there were
question marks over Ambrose’s position when Bryan Alvarez of the Wrestling Observer reported
there is talk backstage that Dean is now staying, and he was advertised for WWE’s European
tour which will take place after in May.
However that advertising has now changed, with Dean Ambrose no longer being listed for
WWE’s European Tour - instead promoting that Braun Strowman will be an “honorary
Shield member” for the shows with Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins as they take on Corbin’s
Midcard of Evil who will still be a team for some reason.
But what about Braun Strowman’s former mentor Bray Wyatt?
Bray Wyatt hasn’t been seen on WWE TV since September 15th last year, when he was still
teaming with Matt Hardy as the Deletors of Worlds. He did return to in-ring action at
WWE’s Starrcade house show event, and has appeared at a few other house shows too, but
there has been no word on when he’ll return to TV. It was reported that he could fill
in for the injured Braun Strowman in his TLC match with Baron Corbin - but that never came
to fruition - and there was one report that said he could face Daniel Bryan for the WWE
Championship at WrestleMania 35 - but the company now looks to be going with Bryan vs.
Kofi Kingston instead.
Tom Colohue of Pro Wrestling Torch recently posted on Twitter of Wyatt’s return to TV,
saying it’s, “probably the most closely guarded secret in #WWE. I don't even know
if he'll be on #Raw or #SDLive. I've been told both but also different potential storylines.To
my knowledge he's still in creative hiatus.”
Someone else who hasn’t been mentioned on WWE TV for a while is Lars Sullivan. Promos
for the Lurking One began back at Survivor Series last year and played through to TLC
before Lars was announced as part of the On Their Way To WWE group of NXT call-ups that
also included EC3, Heavy Machinery, Nikki Cross and Lacey Evans. However it was then
reported by Dave Meltzer that Sullivan suffered an anxiety attack before an episode of Raw,
where he was set to start a big program with John Cena that would have culminated at WrestleMania.
Several other reports claimed that Lars also no showed other Raw tapings and a few house
show appearances, with Sullivan’s Twitter and Triple H confirming Meltzer’s initial
report saying that Lars would be welcome back when he is ready.
And according to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet, Lars is now “in a good place” adding
he, “immediately began seeking help from mental health professionals and WWE has been
incredibly accommodating the whole time”. Satin adds, “We’re told Lars is feeling
better now after being out of the spotlight and happy for the other NXT call ups, but
it’s still unclear if he’ll return to WWE at any point.”
Speaking of those NXT call-ups, and they were joined a few weeks ago by Tommaso Ciampa,
Johnny Gargano, Aleister Black and Ricochet, with Black and Ricochet forming a tag team
even competing for the Raw tag titles at Fastlane. Unlike previous NXT call-ups however, this
group of 10 wrestlers were assigned to both Raw and Smackdown, and in the case of Ciampa,
Gargano, Black and Ricochet - still on NXT as well.
It’s since been reported by Ring Side News that this was Vince McMahon’s idea to give
the talent as much TV time as they could because he“wanted as many people to see the new
call-ups as possible.”
Interestingly, Ricochet recently did an interview with WPSD Channel 6 where he said that he
would still be wrestling for both brands even after WrestleMania 35 where he then “assumes”
he’ll be officially drafted to either Raw or Smackdown. Both Aleister Black and Ricochet
told the Full Sail crowd at the latest NXT tapings that this would be their final appearance
in the building as they were heading to the main roster full-time, but there is still
a question mark over Johnny Gargano.
Gargano was paired with Tommaso Ciampa on the main roster despite their heated rivalry
down in NXT. Sadly the team only last one week after it was revealed that Ciampa’s
injury that he was planning on getting looked at after NXT TakeOver: New York was much worse
than anticipated - with the NXT Champion going in for surgery and vacating his title. We
won’t go into NXT spoilers here - as Oli Davis covered those in his Super News Yesterday
- but Dave Meltzer has written in the Observer that, “Gargano’s [main roster] situation
is uncertain”. He also adds that post WrestleMania, we could also see the main roster debuts of
current United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne, NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler and
former Women’s Champion Kairi Sane.