In this WrestleTalk News, the latest on Mandy Rose and her release from WWE, Triple H underwhelmed
with re-hirings, and Oli’s review of Winter Is Coming Dynamite.
Is this 2020?
Is Vince McMahon still in charge?
Have I been dreaming this whole time?
Has he already come back?
Because yes, out of the blue last night there was a Vince-era news headline of a prominent
WWE talent being released out of the blue, That of course being former NXT Women’s
Champion Mandy Rose.
Following Rose’s shocking title loss to Roxanne Perez on this week’s NXT, news broke
of Mandy’s release by Fightful Select yesterday evening, leaving the wrestling community reeling.
The controversy surrounding the release, which is believed to have been made as a result
of Rose’s FanTime page and the explicit nature of the content she had been posting
on it falling outside the parameters of her WWE contract according to Sean Ross Sapp.
However, according to the Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez, WWE were in fact aware of Rose’s
site, and seemingly for a while it was not an issue.
Speaking on the latest Wrestling Observer Live Bryan Alvarez has provided some further
details on the news, stating there are multiple different sides of the story to the whole
situation, leaving the facts unclear in the process.
One side is saying that Rose was “totally caught off guard and didn’t know Tuesday’s
match was her last”.
While another side states that the release was a “mutual agreement” between Rose
and WWE.
Alvarez said it’s very much “they said, she said'' at this point, but there are rumors
that Rose may have been unwilling to stop posting to her site, as it reportedly was
making her more money than her current WWE deal.
Matt Bloom reportedly informed Shawn Michaels of some of the content she’d been posting,
and Shawn’s immediate response was “We’ve got to get the title off of her immediately”,
so he switched around the whole episode of NXT to have Roxanne Perez win the belt.
Despite the sudden nature of it all, reportedly the destination of having Perez win the NXT
women’s title was always planned to happen according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer
Radio, with the title change originally set to happen either on January 10th’s New Year’s
Evil show or February 4th Vengeance Day.
Meltzer expanded on this, saying Rose’s FanTime page “got popular and lucrative”,
and after she “went further and further”, she “way, way, way crossed the line”,
with the belief being they had no choice but to fire her.
As with any breaking news story, more is guaranteed to come out over the next few days so stay
locked to Wrestletalk.com for updates.
Sticking with WWE now, and while Triple H has been everyone’s favorite gift giver
since taking the creative reigns of WWE in the summer, gifting us with week after week
of returning wrestlers, perhaps he is beginning to regret just a few of those decisions according
to WrestleVotes.
“I’m told a handful of talent brought back in the “rehiring wave” over the summer
have underperformed and severely underwhelmed Triple H & others since returning to the company.”
While the report doesn’t specify who in particular is the cause of Trips’ disappointment,
it’s safe to say some returns have been more successful than others.
However, there is always time for those individuals to turn things around, don’t do anything
drastic now Hunter, I can’t handle any more releases please.
Perhaps Trips was so keen to leave his mark on the company and tell fans that he’s in
control now that he jumped the gun a little bit, and he was so preoccupied with whether
or not he could, that he didn’t stop to think if he should.
Which in all fairness if Vince is indeed coming back to the company, he had to do everything
he could in his limited time.
There’s tons more news today including a whole thing with Sasha Banks, New Japan, AEW,
Saraya, all sorts, so check out wrestletalk.com for the latest.
Now hot tag
to Oli!
Now it’s time for my review of the AEW Dynamite Winter is Coming special… in about… in
about, I don’t know.
How long does Winter take to come?
Is it like a Veer length duration?
Does it just happen like that time Sting shock debuted?
Is it like Scrypts, where Winter wants me to watch it come?
I really enjoyed the episode, but did Winter come at the end of it?
Bryan Danielson came… in about 5 minutes.
The show opened in the middle of the Trios Championship best of seven series, on match
4 with the score already at 2-1 to Death Triangle.
Not content with the match score disadvantage, The Elite put themselves a man down early
on too.
Nick Jackson expertly sold tweaking his ankle, subtly at first, but then needing to be helped
to the back.
And when Penta hit a Package Piledriver on Matt Jackson on the ring apron, it was Kenny
Omega vs all three opponents solo.
Omega worked an already excellent Dallas crowd perfectly, as did Nick’s triumphant babyface
return, fighting through injury.
He could not, however, fight through a hammer.
The feud’s weapon of choice has now infected all three corners of the Triangle, with Penta
smashing Nick’s ankle with it, and Fenix capitalizing by making him tap in a heel hook.
Death Triangle go up 3-1, with Nick presumably having to wrestle through injury for the remaining
matches - adding extra peril to the usually predictable babyface comeback to go the full
seven matches.
And what a final three matches we have left, because if the brilliance of the straight
trios encounters we’ve had so far wasn’t enough, Omega challenged Death Triangle to
a No DQ match next week.
If the series continues, which is most definitely will, the sixth and seventh matches will be
Falls Count Anywhere and a Ladder Match.
This is genius booking, condensing a six month escalation of stipulations into little over
a month, while also producing some of the best matches of the year.
The Acclaimed were jumped by Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal during their entrance rap.
FTR were sacrificed for this?
Jungle Boy beat Brian Cage using the Seth Rollins school of selling.
Do all the moves you were going to do anyway, but then pause after and hold your supposedly
injured neck - ahhh.
It was all to set up a Jack Perry and the Giant Beanstalk story, with him having beaten
giants like Cage and Luchasaurus, to get his revenge on the man that powerbombed him on
the apron last week Big Bill, aka W. Morrisey.
The Firm came out to beat Perry up.
But then out came Hook for an awesome save spot.
Hook has been so underused on AEW, this felt like a main roster call-up.
Jon Moxley set up a match against Sammy Guevarra backstage.
YOU TOLD ME THE JAS FEUD WAS OVER, JON!
The House of Black got an excellent squash match against The Factory, with Julia Hart
misting Nick Commoroto, Brody and Matthews taking out Cole Carter, while Malakai Black
just sat in the corner waiting to decapitate QT Marshall.
And then just when you thought Jericho was getting stale again, he had the best thing
on the entire show.
After telling Daniel Garcia to shadow his elder Sammy Guevarra, Chris Jericho came out
for a routine squash match against a generic jobber.
The generic jobber didn’t get an entrance, and production even botched his name tag,
just showing Jericho’s name again.
A mistake I now fully believe to be intentional.
Because Jericho got the offence, hit a codebreaker, and the jobber kicked out.
That’s not what jobbers are supposed to do!
His name was really Action Andretti, and what followed was a brilliant underdog story of
him fighting back, the crowd whipped into a frenzy, for him actually eventually pinning
Chris Jericho in what might be the biggest upset in AEW history.
This was majestically done, getting a new wrestler over - who was announced as All Elite
shortly after - while also setting up Jericho’s new gimmick direction, presumably a losing
streak and crisis of confidence.
The magic was the part you couldn’t predict going in - how the crowd reacted.
The Dallas audience were as important to the success of this idea to anyone in the actual
ring.
They were awesome all night, and the hot crowd sound could be down to AEW’s new co-executive
producer, who was said to be WWE’s replacement for Kevin Dunn.
It’s quarter past the second hour, which can only mean: women!
Ruby Soho beat Tay Melo in a decent grudge match, after being injured by her before the
summer.
Anna Jay beat up Ruby afterwards, continuing this feud.
In what was low key my actual favourite moment on the show, Hangman Page spoke to Alex Marvez
in the trainer’s room, the first time we’ve heard him speak since he suffered that awful
concussion against Mox.
He cut a heartfelt, subtle promo about how he was in the hospital and they asked him
the date, which he knew, the match he got injured in, which he knew, all was looking
good.
But then they handed him his phone, which had a wallpaper image of his son.
He looks cute, the doctor said, what’s his name?
And Hangman couldn’t remember.
That is a fantastic vengeful personal motivation, and adds a wonderfully tragic layer to his
feud with Mox.
And the main event saw MJF defend both his World Championship and Diamond Ring against
Ricky Starks.
With two very good backstage promos earlier in the night, and the main event presentation,
this felt like a bigtime moment for them both - Max’s first title defence, and Starks’
rising star.
They had a very decent match, which MJF won with a low blow behind the referee’s back.
Bryan Danielson made his return afterwards, chasing Max up the arena steps.
Danielson held Ricky’s arm up afterwards, but the focus wasn’t really on Starks.
It was Danielson vs MJF.
Which is super important.
That’s your company’s biggest feud for the next few months.
It’s just a shame it ever so slightly came at Ricky’s expense.
After last week’s promo, we were all set for this to be another star making performance.
Unfortunately, because of the Andretti angle earlier in the show, and Danielson’s return,
this was just another solid performance.
I feel Ricky deserved more from the booking.
Turn it into two back-to-back matches so Starks could win the first one for the Diamond ring,
but then have MJF cheat to retain the title.
What did you think of Winter is Coming?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Overall, this was a terrific show with some fantastically innovative moments - chiefly
Andretti and Hook.
But for the one guy this show should’ve built in my opinion, he was really just storyline
fodder.
AEW Dynamite Winter is Coming is 85%.
William Regal has shockingly left AEW for WWE.
Watch Adam Blampied’s 7 fantasy booking ideas for his WWE return…