In this WrestleTalk News, Triple H shoots on AEW and Chris Jericho responds, and update
on Becky Lynch returning to WWE, my review of SmackDown and Tempest’s review of Rampage.
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Triple H has been riding high since taking control of WWE’s creative, surfing that
wave of momentum and garnering a lot of fan support while doing it.
Prior to him taking that role however, things weren’t looking so great.
NXT had essentially conceded the Wednesday Night War, moving to Tuesdays, and eventually
being rebranded as NXT 2.0, admitting defeat to AEW.
For a long time, WWE, and Triple H in particular, had referred to NXT as their third brand,
not developmental, even having NXT compete in, and win, at Survivor Series 2019, besting
both Raw and SmackDown in the process.
But in an interview with Ariel Helwani, Triple H had some curious thoughts about that, as
Ariel asked him if he was punished for losing to AEW in the Wednesday Night War to which
Trips responded: “No, no.
People put so much pressure on this ‘competitive war.’
It never was that.
First of all, they beat our developmental system.
Good for them.
It was never that.
There was never pressure of, ‘You have to beat them.’
It was never that.”
Just going to remind you that Triple H said that it was a marathon, not a sprint and that
NXT was their third brand.
It’s a classic case of moving the goalposts, and AEW star Chris Jericho didn’t take kindly
to it, responding in an interview with Alex McCarthy of Inside The Ropes:
“Once again it is just changing the narrative and changing the history, which makes me laugh.
Because when it started, it was not developmental, it was a third brand, it’s not a sprint,
it’s a marathon, and all the other bulls*** that they said”
“It’s such old news, and the show sucks, NXT sucks, it’s not a good show, and they
know it.
Whether they were punished or not, they probably were punished.
That’s probably why Triple H said those things because he is angry that we beat them,
and he is probably angry that we exist.”
What do you think about these comments?
Let us know in our comments!
Someone who’s been out of action since SummerSlam, and looked like they were going to be out
for a while is Becky Lynch.
Lynch suffered a separated shoulder in her match with Bianca Belair on July 30, and while
a story was set up in the post-match with Becky turning face and standing alongside
Bianca to face the new group of Bayley, Dakota Kai and IYO SKY, she then had to take time
off to heal.
In a positive update though, reliable Reddit source kermitt125 has noted that Lynch is
expected back in WWE “this month”.
Lynch had also recently taken to Instagram to give an update herself, where she also
seemed positive, noting that she expected to have a lengthy absence from the ring, but
the recovery process is going well and she could be back sooner rather than later.
This is all great stuff, and fingers crossed she can recover soon.
It’s unfortunate that she’ll be missing Clash at the Castle, but maybe she can be
back in time for the next show, whatever that is.
Extreme Rules?
Let’s go with that.
And now it’s time for my review of SmackDown, in about 5 minutes.
This show began with a Viking Rules match between The Viking Raiders and New Day - where
there were no rules and it’s Falls Count Anywhere.
So a Falls Count Anywhere match then?
They were really trying with the setup of this match - they had the end of a viking
longboat attached to the end of the ring, the tron throughout the match was just the
sea, and the ring was lined with Viking shields, and I’m sure some people liked it, and I
didn’t hate it but it didn’t quite work for me.
But at the end of the day, none of that matters because this match was awesome.
It got a ton of time, had some fantastic spots and nearfalls, and built to a dramatic climax
of the Raiders hitting their finisher that they’re now calling Ragnarok, thumbs up
for the name, on Xavier Woods through two tables off the boat.
The Raiders looked great coming out of this, and now hopefully this feud is done and both
teams can go do something else of substance.
Also a friendly reminder that Xavier Woods is such a fantastic wrestler and should be
given all the championships all the time.
Okay thanks bye.
Shayna Baszler backstage said she was going to destroy Liv Morgan, and Liv Morgan retorted
that she was going to rip Baszler’s arm off.
This was solid enough, but definitely didn’t feel like a go-home angle, where I maybe would
have liked to have seen a bit more physicality or Baszler destroying someone else perhaps.
Karrion Kross had his ‘in-ring debut’ next, mhm, that’s right, debut, he never
wrestled on the main roster before, no, it didn’t happen, shut up.
He squashed Drew Gulak in a fun enough match, got over to an audience who hadn’t seen
him before what he’s about, and he left Gulak tied up in the ropes on the outside
hanging by his arms which was a pretty cool visual.
Ronda Rousey came out next to address her arrest a couple weeks ago, where she had a
nice back and forth with Adam Pearce.
I thought Ronda was really good in this segment, having Adam read the letter aloud and inserting
snide comments and sarcastic quips here and there.
It doesn’t sound like Ronda’s forté, but she pulled it off quite well.
The board of directors reinstated Ronda as a wrestler, and Adam Pearce snapped, feeling
undermined by his decision and laying into Ronda as the scapegoat for the frustrations
he’d been feeling, nobody thanks him for this job, he’s always having to babysit
people like Ronda, and she’s the biggest bitch he’s ever met.
You can’t be saying that these days Adam.
Ronda then put him in an armbar, and this was a very effective segment I thought.
Hit Row faced Maximum Male Models next in a quick match, where Hit Row won.
I don’t really have too much else to say here, the Models had a couple of fun spots,
but aside from that this was pretty formulaic.
The Street Profits saved Hit Row from a post-match beatdown.
Happy Corbin issued an open challenge to try and get a win, but it was answered by Shinsuke
Nakamura.
Great, I haven’t seen enough of these two wrestling.
At least it’s not for the custody of a crown this time.
Shinsuke won pretty quickly, sucks to be Corbin I guess.
The more intriguing part of this however came afterwards when a limo pulled up and through
the back window someone unseen says to Corbin ‘what happened to you, get in’, and Corbin
enters the limo.
I wonder who it could be-it’s JBL.
It had the horns on the front of the limo.
It’s JBL.
It’s character progression and I’m all for that, just mildly curious where this one’s
going.
—AD BREAK— Butch then faced Ludwig Kaiser next and while
he was still called Butch, he had Pete Dunne wrestling gear, he wrestled like Pete Dunne
and he won like Pete Dunne, snapping the fingers and hitting the Bitter End on Kaiser after
a very fun match.
Kaiser stopped Sheamus and Gunther brawling after the match, and this was a fun if fairly
inconsequential match.
But it’s to see Butch Dunne on our screens at least.
Throughout the show were 5, count them, 5, video packages highlighting Roman Reigns’
historic 2 year title reign.
Each one highlighted a different part of the reign, such as the amount of main events he’d
been in, how many opponents he’d faced, the stipulations he’d been in, etc.
They were good enough, and well edited, but felt maybe a little too repetitive and could
have been condensed into one awesome video package.
There were also a handful of backstage segments with Sami Zayn organising this party for Roman.
He’s had his hair done, he’s got dressed up, he’s got plans for this party and Jey
still isn’t happy with him, saying he’s been getting awfully comfortable around here.
Sami pleads with Jimmy, asking him to calm Jey down, and Jimmy leads Jey away, saying
that Sami has the party on lock, to which Sami responds with ‘yeet’.
Sami is an absolute treasure and I cannot put over how great he is in these backstage
segments.
In another, Karrion Kross had sent flowers to their locker room, but the flowers smelt
bad, and were bad, and the little note that says who they’re from simply said Tick Tock.
Ooh, spooky.
And in one more backstage segment, Sami is finalising plans for the celebration and Jey
still doesn’t like him, but Jimmy eases tensions saying it’s not about them, let’s
go out together and put the spotlight where it belongs: on Roman.
In the celebration itself, Sami asks Jimmy if it’s okay if he hosts it as he got dressed
up for it, and he wouldn’t want anyone to accuse him of getting too comfortable as he
shoots a look at Jey.
Scathing.
Jey interrupts Sami’s speech though and talks about Roman has been dominant for two
years, where after each sentence Sami adds a comment like ‘yeet’, ‘one-hundred’,
or ‘preach’.
I must once again remind you that Sami is an absolute treasure.
They introduce Roman Reigns, but as he arrives and gets out of his car, great timing on that
one Roman, Drew McIntyre attacks him, hitting a Claymore into the car.
Drew then stormed to the ring and took out everyone there, hitting a Claymore off Sami
through a chair, suplexing one Uso through the announce table and Spearing the other
through the barricade.
After a quick promo saying how he was going to beat Roman on Saturday, I am hyped for
this match.
This was all very good stuff, I’m into it, and I do truly believe that Drew has a good
chance of winning at the show tonight.
I hope this doesn’t age poorly.
Overall, this was another good show.
It built Clash at the Castle somewhat effectively, though some feuds were forgotten about, had
some great wrestling, and there’s character progression a-plenty, and that makes me happy.
This SmackDown gets a 4/5.
We’ll be doing live reactions for Clash at the Castle tonight, live from our watch
party where the whole crew will be getting involved, so subscribe to the WrestleTalk
Podcast channel for that show tonight.
Now hot tag to Tempest!
We open Rampage with our semi-final match in the Trios tournament between Dark Order
and Best Friends and right off the bat I gotta say it is very neat that even after three
years of AEW we’re still capable of getting fresh combinations of guys like Hangman Page
and Orange Cassidy, who opened up this match by wrestling to a stalemate while Orange was
being Orange.
This was a really fun opener with tons of nearfalls as Best Friends hit the Ant Hill
and took out Hangman Page before John Silver rolled up Chuck Taylor for the win.
I really liked that Hangman didn’t get the pin here, makes this seem like even more of
a group effort with Dark Order still capable of holding their own which is important to
firmly establish since they have been a comedy group for the better part of their run in
AEW.
This means The Elite will indeed face the Dark Order in the tournament finals at All
Out, once again illustrating that things being predictable isn’t a bad thing as long as
the story makes sense.
4/5
Eddie Kingston said he has learned more since Tomohiro Ishii beat him and he has continued
to walk the King’s Road.
Thems fighting words y’all!
Okay cause you see the still in New Japan is often referred to as Strong Style while
in New Japan rival promotion All Japan the style is called King’s Road and *get dragged
off screen by Pete* NO I HAVE MORE
Rey Fenix then squashed Blake Christian to give him some momentum heading into All Out.
I mean the work here was better than you’ll see in most squash matches but if this match
took place just about anywhere else this would have torn the house down.
I get that’s not the purpose of this match on this show, but Blake Christian is excellent,
getting to hit a twisting moonsault, but if these two wrestle again on like a PWG or GCW
show I will absolutely watch it.
This was fine and Fenix won with the Fenix Driver.
2/5
2point0 make Hook angry and he walks away, then we had just a straight up rematch as
Sammy Guevara and Tay Melo faced Ortiz and Ruby Soho.
Not often you just see the same match two weeks in a row from AEW.
Ruby Soho managed to roll up Tay Melo and get the win before picking up the AAA Mixed
Tag Titles and it was then announced that this match will happen a third time on the
All Out pre-show for the titles.
Gee whiz a fifteenth match on All Out?
THANKS MOM YOU SHOULDNT HAVE.
3/5
Don Callis sewed some descent into Hangman Page backstage and then we got a backstage
faaceoff between the Acclaimed and Swerve in our Glory.
On one hand I think having this be the only segment for the world tag team championship
match the week of the pay per view is a very poor choice, this segment actually kinda slapped.
Bowens called Swerve and Keith Timone and Pumba and Swerve said the Acclaimed has been
here for three years making stupid rap jokes and getting injured while they are the mountain
of the tag team division made of rock stone and gravel and everyone knows Rock beats Scissors.
Cold ass line.
FTR and Wardlow come out for a promo as Dax says every match adds to their legacy and
you don’t mess with a man’s family, money and friends but they get interrupted by Lethal’s
crew and the Motor City Machine Guns finally making their AEW debuts.
Fits like a glove.
Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley cut heel promos saying Detroit is the best city in the world
and saying they have the respect of the AEW locker room for defining a generation of tag
team wrestling.
Sonjay Dutt asks Dax if he’s gonna fight like his 8 year old brat and Dax charges him
and has to be held back.
I would have liked a little bit more out of this segment, maybe some physicality to cap
it off but as it stands things just sort of ended with Dax in a huff.
He better come out of the gates firing on Sunday.
3/5
And then I am once again completely baffled by the choice of main event for Rampage as
Ricky Starks took on QT Marshall.
Ricky locked the Factory in their locker room and then he and QT brawled to the ring from
the back.
This eventually got in the ring and QT got the heat until Ricky hit a Spear and the Roshambo
for the win before brawling with Powerhouse Hobbs to take the show off the air.
I love Ricky Starks but I have no idea why the match order for Rampage is so routinely
off its nut.
Makes a lot more sense to me to have this as the opener and then the Trios match as
the main event but what do I know.
This match gets a 3/5 to cap off another largely forgettable show.
The Trios match was fun but nothing else here was terribly memorable.
Rampage gets a 3/5 this week.