In this WrestleTalk News, Jeff Hardy to AEW, Sami Zayn’s WWE future, more AEW signings
a done deal and more… Give a YouTuber like me the greatest gift
you can this Christmas… subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling
news videos. Johnny Gargano, Kyle O’Reilly, Brody King,
not Kevin Owens - the last few weeks has felt like everyone, apart from Kevin Owens, will
be showing up in AEW imminently. And now we have news of possibly the biggest debut the
company has ever done. Trent’s mum Sue!
Following Trent’s return to AEW two weeks ago, and after Rocky Romero confirmed that
Sue is an official member of the New Japan faction CHAOS - a stable founded by Shinsuke
Nakamura, where she was personally invited to join by Kazuchika Okada. They’re a weird
faction - she has now posted a video on Twitter of her
training for an in-ring debut, lifting a trap bar, where she’s interrupted by her son
Trent. Did she just say she’s getting ready for
fu-, the Bucks, right, makes more sense. Damn stepmother videos warping my mind.
The Bucks themselves answered, tweeting: “We’ll end your career in the blink of an eye, sue.”
But before then, the Bucks are also teasing another AEW signing: the recently released
by WWE, Jeff Hardy. The Bucks have changed their Twitter header
photo to a picture of Jeff. Now, their bio also lists their location as ‘Your Head,
Rent Free’, so this could just be them going troll lol lol lol lol.
But their post was retweeted by Jeff’s brother, current AEW star Matt Hardy, saying:
“I love the @youngbucks constantly changing Twitter BIOS. They’re too good.” with
the picture that includes Jeff. Just this week, Matt announced he will no
longer tweet in character - which makes his Bucks/Jeff post even more interesting. Unless
his announcement that he’ll no longer tweet in character was also him tweeting in character
for the troll lol lol lol lol. Jeff was released by WWE just over a week
ago, after footage emerged the previous weekend of him appearing ‘sluggish’ at a house
show match, before he bizarrely tried to leave through the crowd while the match was still
going on. Fightful later reported that WWE had offered Jeff rehab, but he turned it down
- giving the company no other option but to let him go.
Jeff has had a chequered past with addiction, going to jail in 2011, and most recently,
being arrested twice in 2019 for public intoxication and driving while impaired. Which WWE turned
into a storyline the following year, where Sheamus got a urine sample thrown over him!
The immediate reaction on anyone leaving WWE right now is ‘Enter Wrestler Name to AEW
Confirmed, apart from Kevin Owens’. But the idea that Jeff could walk right into All
Elite given the nature of his departure, and AEW’s so far exemplary and sensitive handling
of personnel issues, felt a little jarring. Unless those personnel issues have been greatly
exaggerated. Matt hinted on his Twitch channel this week
that the incident that led to Jeff’s release wasn’t drug related:
“Before anyone rushes to judgment, obviously they drug tested him after all this stuff,
wait until you hear the results of that and when that comes back clean then hopefully
people will feel better about it, because I feel very good about Jeff, I feel confident
about Jeff. And WWE, I understand their stance too. They felt like they were backed into
a corner because of his history. Even though they may have jumped the gun with this a little
bit, they made a decision and it is what it is. Jeff did say he wasn’t going to go to
rehabilitation because he didn’t feel he needed to. And I don’t think he did either.
That’s the honest to God truth.” Jeff has since appeared in the background
of one of Matt’s streams since, where he said he was listening to a song called ‘Release
Me’, and said “without [Matt], there is no Poetry in Motion” - further teasing a
Hardy Boyz reunion. The more conspiracy theory minded might look
at this and see a grand Machiavellian plot. Not so, according to Sean Ross Sapp, who’s
tweeted: “It seems silly to address this at all,
but according to those close with him I spoke to -- Jeff Hardy wasn't trying to get fired
from WWE. He wasn't "working to get out of his deal." The exact phrase I was given was
that it was an "absurd take." As is the way with practically all conspiracy
theories, the truth is likely a lot more mundane and random. Going by Matt’s comments, that
he understood WWE’s actions based on Jeff’s behaviour, and that Jeff himself was only
talking about all the things he wanted to do in WWE in interviews just a few weeks prior,
is that his release wasn’t just a way to jump ship.
But now that he is free, do you want to see him in AEW? I think for pretty much everyone
it’ll be 100% yes, but it does depend on whether he’s in the right place health-wise
to do so. Let me know in the comments down below because I’ll be replying to as many
people as I can for the first 30 minutes after this video goes live FROM OUTTA NOWHERE!
While the only shock debut we might have gotten at AEW’s Winter is Coming special on Wednesday
was just… Sting again, more signs are pointing towards the recent NXT departures of Kyle
O’Reilly and Johnny Gargano, turning up imminently.
Andrew Zarian has echoed Tony Khan’s comments this week, saying that AEW are spreading out
the surprises over the next four weeks’ worth of big shows - which include their holiday
specials, the last Dynamite on TNT, the first Dynamite on TBS, and the Battle of the Belts
event. He reported “debuts are happening… people are showing up [in AEW over] the next
couple of weeks”. One person in WWE has apparently told him either Gargano or O’Reilly
joining AEW is already a “done deal”. But it’s not always one way traffic. And
more details have come out about Kevin Owens not to AEW confirmed.
If you didn’t watch Wednesday’s Big Fat QuizzleMania of the Year, in which case, go
subscribe to partsFUNknown and watch it now, here is the shoot moment I found out KO had
decided to stay with WWE. It’s hard not to take things like this personally,
even though I’ve never met the guy. Kevin Steen / Owens is one of my favourite wrestlers
of my adult life, and it’s frustrating to watch him year after year not be booked to
the extent of what I believe his potential to be. If he doesn’t care about WWE’s
misuse of him, why should I even bother? But at the same time, it’s totally his decision.
And he’s put forward a very compelling case for staying with WWE in his interview with
Pat Laprade in le Francais. “The decision was pretty easy because it
really was the best thing for my family. When it comes to that, it’s always a pretty easy
decision. WWE has been my home for seven years, so I have a sense of belonging. Basically,
I spent most of my career there. When you look at all the wrestling companies I’ve
wrestled in, in WWE, that’s where I’ve been the longest, that’s where I need to
be for the next few years. That’s how I felt and that’s the decision I made.”
Owens said his new contract expires on the 31st January, just not in 2022. Dave Meltzer
and Fightful have since confirmed his new deal is for 3 years, taking him up to the
start of 2025, when he’ll be in his 40s, and his contract makes him one of the highest
paid people in the company, earning between $2-3 million a year.
Fightful add that KO staying with WWE was received incredibly positive backstage, as
he’s “well respected and liked within the locker room, with one wrestler referring
to him as a ‘good moral compass’ who cares about the safety and well-being of others.”
One reported example of this is that Owens is one of the few wrestlers who refuses to
appear on shows in Saudi Arabia. Apparently WWE knew three weeks ago that KO
was likely to re-sign. Zarian reports that AEW made “a very nice offer”, but WWE
countered it. As for his friends in AEW, who all wanted
him to come over - with Owens even making references to his PWG faction with the Bucks
and Adam Cole on Raw - “Most everyone was happy for him and believed that AEW would
be on the table whenever his deal was up.” He continues to maintain good relations with
everyone there. Interestingly, there’s been speculation
that Owens re-signing with WWE makes it more likely Sami Zayn will also choose to stay
with the company, pointing towards his increased TV time recently as a way for them to keep
him. Now go and watch Luke’s spoiler-free review
of Spider-Man: No Way Home with me
on Cineworld.