In this WrestleTalk News, Bray Wyatt’s WWE return has been a huge success, is there a
Wyatt 6 faction coming in, another big update on Jon Moxley’s AEW contract and more.
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In case you missed it - which would seem insane as we posted not one, not two, not four, but
three videos about it yesterday as well as a full review on the WrestleTalk Podcast channel,
which I guess does make it four videos - but Bray Wyatt made his long-awaited return to
WWE at this past Saturday’s Extreme Rules.
Wyatt had been released by WWE in July of last year as part of their ‘budget cuts’
- despite being one of the most popular and over acts in the company.
It came out following his release that a potential reason he was given his marching orders was
because he would call out bad creative if he saw it as bad.
As Fightful Select put it, if he thought something was s**t, he would say it was s**t, and Vince
McMahon found that “difficult to deal with”.
However once Vince was out and Triple H was in, the conversation began to change.
There had been plenty of reports of where Wyatt would end up once he left WWE, and even
claims that he had left wrestling altogether - especially after it was revealed he was
working on a movie with Jason Baker which was described as “Ichi The Killer Meets
Xanadu”.
One report said that Impact Wrestling could have been a new home for him, there were reports
that conversations had taken place between Wyatt and AEW, and there was even talk that
Freddie Prinze Jr’s start-up wrestling company had made him a serious offer to join their
ranks.
But a new report from Fightful Select is now saying that just one week after Vince McMahon
retired, those within WWE “felt optimistic” that Wyatt would end up back in the company.
One month later, and one WWE source told Fightful they were “completely convinced that Wyatt
was back with WWE.”
The report also says that WWE sources they spoke to felt that Wyatt’s return at Extreme
Rules was “very well received” and “were very happy with the buzz created in the weeks
leading up to WWE Extreme Rules with the QR codes and cryptic videos.”
‘Very well received’ is quite the understatement.
At the time of this recording, the two videos of Bray’s return have a combined 3.3 million
views.
When comparing it to other videos posted from the event, only Edge kicking Dom in his Mysterios
comes close in terms of clicks, with the other clips of the matches doing around 200-250k
views each.
Wyatt’s return videos aren’t close to breaking any sort of records, but to give
some context, it’s only really videos involving Roman Reigns that draws those sorts of numbers
in recent times.
A lot of the credit for this success has been given to Wyatt, and the newly hired Director
of Longterm Creative Rob Fee, who is a former writer for Marvel comics.
Fee reportedly has a “good relationship” with Wyatt, and he pitched a movie based on
The Fiend directly to Nick Khan last year which was well received, but Wyatt’s release
canceled any plans for it to be made.
According to Fightful Select, “Several that are usually in the know [in terms of creative]
were kept out of the loop about the context of the White Rabbit videos until this past
week”, and this is because the usual WWE creative team were “largely hands off”
on the White Rabbit storyline and Wyatt’s return.
Sean Ross Sapp notes that some of the references within the videos had to be approved, but
for the most part WWE creative were not involved.
And it looks like the creative is just getting started - as the teases of Wyatt 6 have begun.
Welcome aboard this 1pm WrestleTalk News train service, our next stop is Speculation Station.
One of the big talking points of Bray’s return has been his Twitter handle of Wyatt
6, which fans have speculated to mean he’s launching a new faction.
His debut featured human versions of his Funhouse puppets - Huskus The Pig Boy, Rambling Rabbit,
Sister Abigail, and Mercy The Buzzard - as well as The Fiend himself.
With Wyatt holding the lantern, that makes six people.
Among the top trends on Twitter yesterday - which included “he’s back”, “Bray
Wyatt” and “White Rabbit” - was the term “Wyatt 6” which was fans speculating
on who could join this new group.
And seemingly feuling that speculation is current NXT stars Grayson Waller and Joe Gacy.
Some fans had speculated that Gacy himself was The White Rabbit - especially after the
last QR Code video on Raw spelt out the word Gacy in binary, and the man himself shared
a photo of the Philadelphia skyline as if to say he was going to be on the Extreme Rules
show - and his recent tweet of two smiley face emojis, one of which being the upside
down smiley emoji - has sparked further discussion about his connections to Wyatt.
Gacy already has a cult leader gimmick and faction in NXT, which includes the former
Grizzled Young Veterans.
Waller’s tweets are far more overt.
His first was tweeting out a bald eagle emoji, which is basically the closest emoji you can
have to a buzzard, perhaps because fans speculated that the buttoned down shirt style that Human
Mercy had in the Wyatt return is a lot like Waller’s look in NXT.
And in a new video posted to hype his feud with Apollo Crews, he said that following
Crews gouging out his eyes on NXT he had to go on a date with a ‘6 out of 10’ girl.
Geddit, six?
But it was the background detail that fans noticed more.
Because at the 27 second mark, he lends forward to reveal The Fiend’s old lantern sat behind
him.
More likely, this is just Waller leaning - both figuratively and literally - into the idea
that fans think he might join this rumoured faction to create some buzz around him.
Which is very smart as, well, he’s in this episode of the WrestleTalk News so clearly
it’s working.
Another name being banded around by fans is Liv Morgan, who lost her SmackDown Women’s
Championship to Ronda Rousey at Extreme Rules.
While she was passing out to Rousey’s submission, she had a smile on her face and laughed as
Ronda left the ring, which was highlighted by commentary.
WrestlingNews.co claimed that a “darker version” of her character was possibly incoming,
and WWE’s YouTube channel posted an interview video with her titled “Liv Morgan is in
a dark place” which is the fourth most watched video from the Extreme Rules coverage behind
the two Wyatt return videos and Edge kicking Dom in the bread basket.
Many of the comments left on the video are fans speculating that she could also be joining
the faction, furthered by her blacking out her social media profile.
Seth Rollins also blacked out his social media profile, but there is less speculation from
fans that he will be joining the group, with some assuming that this is just a simple tribute
to Sara Lee who passed away last week.
Bayley wore tape in her match against Bianca Belair on Extreme Rules with Sara written
on it as a tribute, and Bray Wyatt also posted a link to Lee’s memorial gofundme page.
However, there is one name that is appertantly returning to WWE and is directly linked to
Wyatt.
According to Bryan Alverez of Figure Four, Bo Dallas is expected to be back in WWE “very
soon”.
Dallas, the real life brother of Bray Wyatt, was released by WWE in April 2021, having
not had a match in the company since a house show in November 2019.
There had always been rumours and speculation that Dallas would join his brother in one
of his various factions - be that the cult leader Bray or Firefly Funhouse Bray.
Who do you think is joining Wyatt 6?
Or do you think there’s even a faction at all?
Let me know in the comments down below.
Wyatt wasn’t the only return to WWE recently either, as Zelina Vega returned to SmackDown
as a new member of Legado Del Fantasma.
But that also means, a member of that group
was missing.
Legardo Del Fantasma made their main roster debuts on this past Friday’s SmackDown taking
out Hit Row.
The group of Santos Escobar, Joaquin Wilde and Cruz Del Toro were also joined by Zelina
Vega, who has not been on WWE TV since April.
Vega joining the group raised the question of where was Elektra Lopez, who was with Legardo
Del Fantasma while in NXT, and it seems like we weren’t the only ones asking the question.
Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio noted that Elektra Lopez herself thought she was
being called up with the rest of the group, and that “everyone was under the impression”
she’d be on SmackDown as part of the act.
However, even with Trips in charge the more things change the more they stay the same,
as the reported reason she wasn’t called up is because “[WWE] changed their minds
and she wasn’t”.
Moving over to AEW news now and there’s been an update on the status of Jon Moxley
and GCW following Mox dropping the GCW Championship to Nick Gage over the weekend.
The update is: he’s done with GCW.
At least for now.
There’s a lot of moving parts to this story.
Firstly, GCW announced that their champ at the time Moxley would defend the GCW Championship
against the hero of the promotion Nick Gage, with Gage’s career on the line.
This match and stipulation was made in August when Mox was the interim AEW World Champion,
and although he unified the belts on Dynamite, he lost the title to CM Punk in the main event
of All Out.
This meant that him losing his GCW title to Gage wouldn’t have been a political issue,
as Tony Khan is protective of his champions being pinned on other people’s shows - which
makes a lot of sense when you’re the promoter of a wrestling company and want to present
your top stars as top stars.
But then Brawl Out happened, and CM Punk was suspended by AEW along with The Elite, and
was stripped of his AEW World Championship.
Moxley then won a tournament of champions to again be crowned the AEW World Champion,
which meant that he would now be defending his GCW Championship while also being the
AEW Champion and that creates political issues.
As it turns out, Gage won the GCW World Championship when MJF’s faction on retainer The Firm
interfered in the match and W. Morrisey cost Moxley the title.
It certainly is the simplest way out of the situation, but according to Sean Ross Sapp
over at Fightful Select, it was not one made by GCW.
The night before Moxley defended his title against Gage, AEW announced that he had signed
a new extension on his All Elite Wrestling contract which would keep him with the company
until 2027 on an exclusive basis allowing him to wrestle with their international partners
like New Japan.
Companies like GCW and Revolver were not named in the press release.
Fightful note that GCW were unaware of the contract extension and what it meant for them
until the press release was out - and even then they didn’t know what it meant for
Mox’s relationship with GCW.
And now GCW sources have told Fightful that “AEW didn't want Moxley to do the match”,
and that they “have asked their talent to not work GCW dates for months”.
However, Mox being a man of his word “insisted” that he finish up his run with GCW.
He is no longer listed for dates with the company.
As for the finish of the Gage title win, “GCW reps claim that they had no say over the end
of the match or how that would play out.”
Fightful reached out to AEW for comment, but did not get “committal answers”.
Fightful add that those they spoke to believe that Moxley is still allowed to work independent
dates, but it will be surprise appearances rather than advertised ahead
of time.