Here's your wrestling news for October 18th 2021
And your headlines for today include
Miro Furious With AEW Over World Title Elimination Tournament Snub; Trends Huge After Blistering Promo On AEW Dynamite!
Drew McIntyre Seemingly Mocks WWE For Booking The Same Matches!
Former WWE Universal Champion Reportedly Meets With Impact Executive VP!
2K Not Set For New WWE Game Announcement Until 2022!
WWE Star Top Dolla Reacts After Max Caster’s Rap After AEW Dynamite!
AEW Rampage Loses To WWE SmackDown Despite Unbelievable Hype From Tony Khan!
WWE Is Heading Back To FS1!
AEW Dynamite Reportedly Will Air Live On The West Coast!
WWE Champion’s Gear Bag Stolen! And More!
We’re kicking off with AEW, who last weekend revealed their AEW World Championship Tournament Bracket, which’ll determine the next
number one contender for after Crown Jewel. The eight-man tournament will see some of the company’s top names, including Bryan
Danielson, Jon Moxley and Orange Cassidy compete, but one name who isn’t involved is Miro. Fans were shocked that the Bulgarian, who’s
been booked strong since his AEW debut, isn’t in the tournament, and on Twitter, Miro lashed out, saying AEW is mocking him, and that he should
be World Champion. That wasn’t all the former Rusev did, as on Dynamite, he cut a blistering promo on God,
and was trending on Twitter because of it. With almost 24,000 people sending out message with Miro’s name in it, in reference to that
promo from Dynamite, the former TNT Champion certainly got fans talking. Fans were amazed at Miro’s performance,
with one fan joking that they were sure the AEW wrestle was going to challenge God to a fight, 15 years after the deity competed at
Backlash 2006, teaming with Shawn Michaels in a losing effort to Vince and Shane McMahon.
That promo from Dynamite also hinted at Miro’s wife CJ Perry, aka WWE’s Lana, joining him in AEW, but he didn’t reference the former
Superstar by name. Miro’s momentum has stalled since losing the TNT Championship to Sammy Guevara,
and although the time may come when he’s AEW World Champion, and managed by his wife once more he won’t be challenging for the gold after
Full Gear.
If there’s one complaint about WWE, is that they repeat the same matches far too often, with 50/50 booking seeing wrestlers trade wins before
an inevitable Pay-Per-View match. Repetitive booking is one of the company’s biggest criticisms, and it isn’t just the fans who
are tired of seeing the same matches on a weekly basis. After it was announced that tonight’s RAW
will once-again see Big E and Drew McIntyre face the Dirty Dawgs, McIntyre took to Twitter sarcastically addressed the repeated bout,
saying he’s a sucker for first-time matches. Tonight’s match will be a repeat of the October 4th RAW, where the WWE Champion and his
challenger defeated Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler, and it appears McIntyre isn’t thrilled about doing this again.
This is all ahead of this Thursday’s Crown Jewel, where McIntyre will challenge Big E for the title in Saudi Arabia, and though the pair will soon be on
different brands when the draft comes into effect, McIntyre, as well as the fans, are tired of seeing matches get repeated week after week.
This year, WWE released Braun Strowman, as his lucrative $1.2 million contract didn’t include a no-cut clause unlike several top names.
Strowman has had just one match since then, working on EC3’s Free the Narrative 2 event, but the belief is that he’ll sign with Impact
Wrestling and debut at Bound for Glory. That report is now all but confirmed, as according o PW Insider, Strowman was spotted
meeting with Impact’s Executive Vice President Scott D’amore last weekend. The two were spotted chatting at a hotel bar
near the Motor City Comic Con in Detroit Michigan, and D’Amore apparently arrived first and waited for the former Universal
Champion to join him, meaning this hang-out was planned in advance. The two men sat for what’s described by
Insider as a “long time,” discussing matters, and their report also noted that Impact is planning on several surprises at next weekend’s Pay Per View.
All signs point to Strowman coming to Impact, where he is expected to be pushed to the top from the get-go, and we’ll have to see how
the Monster Among Men fares if he does indeed debut for the company next week.
Back to WWE, as this year, they’ll be no video game released by the company, as the constantly changing rosters meant 2K22 has been delayed
until March next year. This delayed release date was confirmed during Summerslam, and a lack of updates about
the game has previously been explained as the dev team focussing solely on making the best game possible
WWE’s relationship with 2K has been called “seriously strained,” and fans shouldn’t expect any more updates anytime soon.
According to a report by Sports Gamers Online, fans won’t be getting any updates or announcements regarding the upcoming
video game until next year, according to a statement from 2K’s Senior Manager of Global Communication Al Stavola.
It’s also reported that not only won’t there be any updates, but there won’t be any more reveals or trailers for the rest of the year with
plan for a proper revealed, complete with athlete and gameplay details in January. After the terrible reception of WWE 2K20,
the developers are taking their time to get things right with their next game, and that means no more public updates about development for
the rest of 2021.
More from AEW, as after last week’s Dynamite, Max Caster appeared, taking aim at WWE’s Top Dolla.
In his latest freestyle performance, in which he also referenced Dynamite beating NXT in the Wednesday Night Wars, Caster claimed
he raps better than Dolla, a line that caught the attention of the Hit Row star. In a series of tweets, Top Dolla made it clear
that he was unimpressed by what Caster had to say, in the latest back and forth between him and an AEW star.
Last week, Dolla had online beef with the Young Bucks over who is the bigger sneaker fan, culminating with the Hit Row member
creating a diss-track that the Bucks haven’t responded to.
Last Friday, WWE SmackDown was moved to FS1, and the company added an extra half- hour to the show, meaning that the final
30 minutes went head to head with AEW Rampage. Both companies pulled out all the stops to try
and get fans to tune in to their shows and we now have the figures to see who reigned supreme.
Showbuzz Daily reports that SmackDown got just 793,000 viewers tuning in, a dramatic fall, considering that when they air on FOX,
the blue brand usually hits around 2 million viewers. Even after losing over half it’s average v iewership, SmackDown comfortably beat AEW
Rampage despite the unbelievable hype from Tony Khan, which drew 549,000 viewers on average over its two hours.
Given that AEW Rampage hit a record low of 502,000 last week, this is a definite step in the right direction, and with these numbers
being the Fast Nationals, there’s a slight chance they could change ever so slightly tomorrow.
For now, last Friday’s war was a clear win for SmackDown, and would’ve been far more comfortable had they been on FOX,
as Tony Khan may be regretting that infamous tweet where he promised to beat WWE’s main show.
WWE SmackDown and AEW Rampage went head to head last week, and both shows will be back this week too.
With the MLB Playoffs coverage On Fox still going on, SmackDown will return to FS1 this Friday, but they won’t be getting any extra time.
Instead, an hour-long episode of Talking Smack will air immediately after SmackDown, and it’ll be that which goes up against AEW Rampage.
It’s hard to say how many fans a special episode of Talking Smack will attract, but perhaps Rampage will have better luck when they go
head to head with the blue brand’s post-show rather than a two-and-a-half-hour episode of SmackDown itself
For much of AEW’s run, Dynamite has aired live on the east coast, and has aired on a delay in the west coast, but this is reportedly set to change.
On the latest Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said that AEW will soon be airing live on the west coast, and that this change
will happen on October 27th. This past summer, the USA Network began airing episodes on RAW on the east coast
and west coast feeds at the same time, but since this change was made due to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, there’s no clear
indication how this has affected RAW’s ratings. The October 27th Dynamite will be AEW’s flagship show’s return to Wednesday night after
being moved to Saturday due to the MLB Playoffs, and time will tell how the ratings fair when shows are aired live on both the east and west coasts
And we’re ending today with Rhea Ripley, who had a terrible weekend, as she took to Twitter to reveal that her wrestling travel bag has
gone missing. Not only did Ripley’s travel bag, which contained her wrestling gear go missing, but it also held
her WWE Women’s Tag Team Championship. Details are still scarce for what exactly has happened, but in her tweet, Ripley said that it’s a
black travel suitcase, last seen around Office Bulevard and Montana Road in Aberqueque, and pleaded with fans to hold onto it and
let her know if they find it. Ripley isn’t the first champion to lose a title this week, as former NXT UK Champion Walter had
his title stolen in 201, when someone broke into his rental car and stole the title as well as his passport.
This isn’t a problem exclusive to WWE either, as mere hours after becoming the very first AEW World Champion, Chris Jericho lost the title before
before it was later recovered. Although WWE has given it’s Superstars replica titles for press appearances,
the billon-dollar company has a set of champion belts exclusively for TV, and we can only hope that Ripley Is reunited with her title and gear
before she and her tag-partner Nikki A.S.H are next in action.