In this WrestleTalk News, WWE trolls AEW following AEW Dynamite, the locker room’s reaction
to Satnam Singh’s polarizing debut from Dynamite, plans for Roman Reigns and more.
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[SUPPORT WRESTLETALK] The
talk of the wrestling world this week was Satnam Singh’s ill-advised debut from this
week’s episode of Dynamite, where he closed the show with his spooky lights down lights
up debut and beat up Samoa Joe, who had just won the ROH TV title from Minoru Suzuki.
Singh aligned himself with Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt, and while this isn’t necessarily
the worst idea on paper, it taking place in an overrun for Dynamite, after an awesome
title match, without giving Joe the chance to celebrate, with an anticlimactic reveal
of someone the audience doesn’t know, added up to not the most well received segment.
It was bad, basically.
The morning after, WWE put out a Top 10 video.
Top 10 most dominant in-ring debuts.
Seems innocent enough.
It featured debuts such as Bobby Lashley, Yokozuna, Kane, Ronda Rousey, oh and what’s
this little one in the number one spot oh The Great Khali.
WWE put The Great Khali’s debut at the number one spot, which surely can’t be a coincidence
after Dynamite’s reveal the night before of another tall man who also uses the head
vice grip thing, which side note, might be my least favourite move in wrestling?
Maybe?
That or the Mella-Go-Round, I can’t decide.
Regardless, nice little dig from WWE there.
But as most fans had speculated upon the debut, this wasn’t just a debuting new character
that AEW wanted to push because he’s a great wrestler, there was an ulterior motive too.
Grapsody’s Will Washington reporting on Fightful Select said that Singh’s debut
“was done intentionally after the Discovery-Warnermedia merger as a big angle for Eurosport.
Discovery owns Eurosport, which is also All Elite Wrestling's India TV partner.”
Furthermore, the report goes on to say that “AEW is expecting huge social media traffic
as a result of the angle, which will see Satnam Singh and Sonjay doing promos for the Indian
market, and helping bridge a gap between AEW, Eurosport and Discovery.”
So while we’ve seen a few attempts from the likes of WWE trying to capture the Indian
market, most notably with Jinder Mahal a few years back - christ - this move wasn’t just
for the Indian market, but also to try and appease their new owners in the merger of
WarnerMedia and Discovery.
You can see the logic behind it, but also, as someone messaged in to say on yesterday’s
AEW Dynamite review on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel, if you want to try and capture the
Indian market, why not portray your Indian wrestler as a babyface?
But while fans were pretty universal in thinking this debut was either not good or straight
up bad, how did the AEW locker room react to it?
Fightful Select reportedly spoke to many members of the AEW locker room, “none of which thought
the debut was executed well, but many of which believed that the business side of the decision
was a good one.”
It was also reported that many of the wrestlers they spoke to echoed the sentiments from fans,
in that the debut fell flat due to circumstances “from the positioning on the show to the
"lights off, lights on" appearance”, with one wrestler mentioning that doing a lights
out entrance for an unknown talent “isn't optimal”.
However, it wasn’t all negativity, as “there was some optimism from some” with regard
to the business move and expanding the Indian market, with one wrestler mentioning that
“if accelerating the market in India would help out their salary come contract renewal
time, they're willing to accept a bad debut.”
In terms of what we can expect from Singh in AEW as well, one wrestler who has been
training with him mentioned “he's been doing good so far and has been training every day
for the last 8 months, and has some tricks up his sleeve that will surprise some people.”
It was also noted that everyone they spoke to mentioned that Singh has a “good attitude
and a willingness to learn, and has been working hard.”
Of course these views represent the people Fightful specifically spoke to, and not the
locker room as a whole, however when every wrestler they spoke to seems to echo the same
sentiment as the fans, it seems fairly unanimous.
And now hot tag
to Oli real quick!
So with all the hype surrounding the overrun, a pretty stacked show featuring Minoru Suzuki
& Samoa Joe, CM Punk and Penta, Keith Lee & Swerve Strickland and Ricky Starks & Powerhouse
Hobbs - did it all help the viewership and ratings for Dynamite?
No.
Not really.
This week’s episode drew an average of 977,000 viewers according to Showbuzz Daily.
This is down slightly from last week’s episode at 989,000.
The rating for the 18-49 demo was a .37, down from last week’s .38.
This was the lowest total viewership in just over a month for AEW, since the post-Revolution
Dynamite, and the lowest demo rating since the week before that on the Revolution go-home
show.
This is down quite significantly year on year for Dynamite, though last year’s episode
was an exceptional one as it was first episode after NXT moved to Tuesday nights, so naturally
would have had more people checking out the product.
Meanwhile, over in WWE, I still don’t think we know what Roman Reigns is doing with his
UwU Championship.
Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, that is.
He said on Raw, wait until SmackDown, on SmackDown he said I don’t know what I’m doing, but
Usos, go unify the tag titles on Raw, and then he wasn’t there on Raw, so…who knows.
There might be a match with Shinsuke Nakamura at Backlash, but regardless, he reportedly
won’t be dropping his UwU Championship anytime soon.
According to wrestlingnews.co, despite Drew McIntyre being advertised for matches at live
shows against Reigns through May, “there are no plans for McIntyre to win the title.”
Furthermore, they note that “the idea is to push him on the level of names like Hulk
Hogan and Bruno Sammartino…as of today, there are still no plans for him to lose the
title anytime soon.
Some in the company have speculated that he will hold the title through next year’s
WrestleMania (the hope is that The Rock will come back for one final match) and by that
point, the company would start pushing Reigns as the greatest of all-time.”
So then what?
After Reigns likely defeats The Rock at next year’s WrestleMania, if they can manage
to get Rock back for it…then what?
Who do you have left to challenge Reigns?
You’re already running out of people who can challenge him, and you have a story with
Cody Rhodes who wants the world title…are you going to hold off on Rhodes winning until
after next year’s Mania?
I do not feel optimistic about the next 12 months of WWE programming.
But maybe the women can carry the company for a while instead.
Recently there were reports of the internal listing of the top men’s babyfaces and heels
on Raw, and now according to PWInsider, we also have a list of the women’s wrestlers
too.
According to the report, Bianca Belair is the top babyface, yeah that makes sense, while
Becky Lynch is the top heel.
That also makes sense.
Carmella and Queen Zelina are listed as the other top two heels, which really paints a
stark picture of the Raw women’s division.
Perhaps a starker image though, is that the number two babyface right now is reportedly
Alexa Bliss.
You know, Alexa Bliss, the woman who was off our screens for months, came back in a bunch
of therapy segments that led nowhere, returned at Elimination Chamber having exactly the
same gimmick she had before she left, and then vanished from our screens again, which
she herself has mentioned publicly she’s frustrated with.
Number two babyface.
Number three babyface is Rhea Ripley, who will most likely be turning heel on Raw.
That is some bleak stuff for the Raw women’s division.
The reported number one heels on Raw right now are husband and wife Seth Rollins and
Becky Lynch, both known for their outlandish outfits and probably more outlandish characters.
Becky Lynch recently was interviewed by TV Insider, where she was asked if she and Rollins
ever co-ordinate or discuss their outfits ahead of TV appearances.
“We don’t really discuss it.
We show each other things, and then are like, ‘That’s freakin’ wild.
That’s awesome.
I’m jealous of that.’
He has some items in his closet that I want to alter and tailor and wear myself because
they are so badass.
He is the same way.
Although it is a lot easier for me to alter his stuff than him to alter mine.”
Honestly, Lynch re-using Rollins’ outfits but altered for her sounds really cool, and
a nice little nod to each other without pairing them on screen as they’ve done in the past.
Meanwhile, Jon Moxley showed up to a wedding in his regular clothes.
It was recently the wedding between Corey Graves and Carmella, and the guests were a
who’s who of wrestling, including Bayley, Liv Morgan, Natalya, Baron Corbin, Renee Paquette
and her husband, Jon Moxley.
However Mox has caught some flack in a viral photo that shows everyone dressed up nice
for the wedding, and Mox in his…well his Mox outfit.
But don’t worry, there’s an explanation, as Renee explained on the Throwing Down with
Renee & Miesha podcast: “he was flying in from Boston, and he had
to fly to Miami because there was no other flights to get into where their wedding was.
And then he had to take an Uber from the Miami airport to where the wedding was — after
flights already being delayed.
He was already crunching time.
Like, I showed up to the wedding with his suit, with his shoes, I had the whole thing.
I had to find one of the bartenders.
I’m like, ‘Can I hang this somewhere until my husband gets here?’
And then he’s texting me and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna be there in five minutes.’
I was like, ‘Cool, dude.
Well, guess what?
The wedding is starting.
They’re walking down the aisle, it’s happening.’
As Carmella is walking down the aisle, he’s at like the entrance with his luggage, dressed
as so.
And as everybody stood to watch the bride walk down the aisle, he was able to sneak
in beside me to watch the wedding.
So, that picture was right after the wedding actually happened.
And, yeah, he was wearing that.
He did change afterwards I will say.”
And on the subject of Renee Paquette, Celeste Bonin, formerly known as Kaitlyn in WWE, recently
appeared on Renee’s The Sessions podcast, where she opened up about her mental health
struggles, her time in WWE “f****** her up”, and learning how to process her feelings
and thoughts later down the line.
“I left wrestling because I thought I was gonna get fired, I felt less and less relevant,
I had so much shame.
I gained all this weight and my body was giving me every signal that I was just not OK, emotionally,
mentally, I just had so much hatred for myself…I had so much resentment towards myself and
that projected outwards and like, I was in self-destruct mode.
So, I just asked for my release on a day…it was just like a really s***** day.
I was so disassociated with so much from that day, because it was just so painful”
A reminder as usual to check in with your friends and family, that even if people seem
ok on the surface, they may have something else going on underneath, and to take mental
health seriously.
If you’re struggling with any sort of mental health problem, make sure to head to wrestletalk.com/supporteachother,
where you can find a list of mental health organisations globally that can try and help
you.
Support WrestleTalk, Support Each Other.