In this WrestleTalk News, AEW draws its lowest rating for a show, ever - though with a massive
caveat - WWE make bizarre edits to their video packages, Oli’s review of Monday Night Raw
and more.
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Over the weekend at a house show in Trenton, New Jersey, Roman Reigns cut a promo where
he said, “I honestly don’t know if I’ll be back here again”.
This sparked some speculation from fans that Roman could be winding down his time with
WWE, but it was later reported by Dave Meltzer that Reigns has instead signed a new deal
with the company that would allow him to work less house show dates, or at the very least,
“much less than the number that he’s doing now”.
Sean Ross Sapp over at Fightful Select added that this means Roman would be doing less
shows in smaller towns - towns like Trenton in New Jersey.
Sorry, Trenton, guess you don’t matter anymore - but he is still factored into WWE’s creative
plans moving forward.
And we’re now seeing the effects of this new deal, as WWE have quietly pulled Roman
Reigns from house shows throughout July and August, with his last advertised date being
June 19th.
What’s interesting about this, though, is that he’s also been pulled from advertising
for the TV tapings in those same months - but is still advertised for both Money in the
Bank on July 2nd and Summerslam on July 30th.
He is then advertised for SmackDown tapings on September 9th onwards.
So why would Roman Reigns - current unified WWE Universal Champion - need to take two
months off?
The current speculation is Hollywood.
Sean Ross Sapp noted on his Fightful Backstage Report podcast that WWE “expected him to
get offers from Hollywood and stuff like that - especially after Hobbs and Shaw came out”
- and Nick Khan has said in interviews and on investor calls that they would like Reigns
to be their next crossover star, like John Cena and The Rock before him.
Roman Reigns to the MCU confirmed.
As always, plans are subject to change and there’s every chance he’ll be on those
SmackDowns.
However, if he isn’t - it will be interesting to see how this affects the show’s ratings.
Speaking of ratings, and AEW had a bit of a shocker over the weekend, as Rampage drew
its lowest rating ever of just 292,000 viewers.
But it’s not really doom and gloom - as this episode of Rampage aired at the unusual
timeslot of 5:30pm ET and 2:30pm PT as there was a schedule conflict with the NBA Playoffs.
The last 10-week average for Rampage is 488,000 viewers - which is slightly below the 500k
viewership that TNT reportedly expected it to do.
Now I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this as you all had it in your calendars,
but recently it was the 10 year anniversary of Brock Lesnar guy reacting to John Cena
returning as the Doctor of Thuganomics to cut a rap-type promo on The Rock ahead of
their WrestleMania 28 Once in a Lifetime match.
I hope you celebrated in your usual ways, I got Oli’s mum a card like I always do.
And to celebrate that anniversary, WWE edited that 10-year old reaction clip into the promo
video for Happy Corbin vs. Madcap Moss from last Sunday’s WrestleMania Backlash.
Brock Lesnar Guy comically tweeted in confusion about the old clip being used 10 years later.
If this is a trend that continues, expect to see Miz Girl make her return to video packages
in the weeks to come.
And now, HOT TAG TO OLI.
Now it’s time for my review of the Raw After Mania…
Backlash… in about 5 minutes.
Fresh off the WrestleMania Backlash momentum of losing, Randy Orton, maybe the most over
guy in the whole company, cut a promo to open the episode, calling out The Usos to unify
the Raw and SmackDown tag team titles.
Which will definitely actually happen.
I can’t think of any recent, similar promises that didn’t pay off.
Randy is going to SmackDown this Friday to issue the challenge in person.
This brought out the Street Profits for not just a tag title match right now, but also,
that smoke.
I still don’t know what it means, but I can’t deny it’s intimidating.
To which Riddle responded: You want the smoke?
Well let me just say RKBro 4:20 just smoked your asses.
Crash, bang, wallop: WHAT A CATCHPHRASE.
It’s about the marijuana.
Which is a drug.
But with the Usos storyline so obviously the direction, this match could never make you
believe a title change was going to take place right he-OH MY GOD RIDDLE HAS ACCIDENTALLY
TAKEN OUT RANDY AND MONTEZ FORD JUST HIT A FROG SPLASH ON HIM.
They had a fantastic opener which somehow made me believe the Street Profits might actually
win, which made Riddle’s spectacular RKO counter off Ford’s second Frog Splash for
the finish even more impressive.
Orton looked like the proudest older bro.
The next section of the show was neatly woven around vampire enthusiast group Judgement
Day, who came down to the ring in full force next.
There was the standard cheap heat on your local hometown, effective but kind of beneath
the awesomeness of the act, and a pretty generic ‘you people’ promo from Rhea Ripley to
explain her turn.
Complete with fans selling her autograph on Ebay line!
Yes, that’s a full house on my WWE heel turn bingo card!
Cliches aside, this promo did contain substance.
The crowd actually standing up when Priest told them to - his voice is legit scary - Edge
explaining he told Ripley to turn on Liv Morgan, breaking up your favourite four week old tag
team - and that this isn’t a faction, it’s a movement, and he’s not done recruiting.
Come on Purple Ciampa.
This brought out Liv Morgan smiling and high fiving fans, to quickly transition into mean
Liv for her serious blood feud climax.
Her and Ripley had a decent match, but the whole feud was rather quickly blown off by
having Morgan tap in a standing cloverleaf.
If these two continue to feud over the next month, which I reckon they will, do not book
the finish first.
Judgement Day beat up Morgan in the post match, but don’t worry, here’s Finn Balor and
AJ Styles to… do their full entrances, separately, and then just pose on the ramp.
Liv’s getting her legs broken guys, way to babyface.
This turned into Priest vs Balor, which ended pretty quickly when Judgement Day caused the
DQ and beat up both the former Bullet Club leaders.
They did a great job of booking Ripley throughout here, making her actually look like the most
physically intimidating member of the group.
What do you do when your big Nigerian Giant can’t actually wrestle?
Get Cedric Alexander down there to take all Bobby Lashley’s offence for him!
Lashley crashed MVP and Omos’ VIP segment, beat up Alexander, and set up a steel cage
rubber match between him and Omos for next week.
Adam Pearce revealed the review is complete, Sonya Deville is no longer a WWE official.
But she is still a superstar, who will have to face a returning Alexa Bliss right now!
Classing Raw after Mania…
Backlash surprise return.
Lily doll aside, Bliss has interestingly dropped every other part of her Fiend gimmick, coming
out to her old music, wearing her old gear, and hitting a Twisted Bliss to win instantly.
Considering her last return, expect to not see her again for three months.
Kevin Owens came out dressed as his older brother Ken Owens next, in his latest attempt
to expose Ezekiel’s identity fraud.
Ezekiel no sold it, so KO and Alpha Academy beat him down.
Veer squashed his biggest opponent yet in Frank Lowman.
Also making this feel like the Raw After Mania, WWE debuted a new part of the set: an elevated
platform on the stage for superstar interviews.
Screw you, weird backstage wrestling ring area.
You’re a lockdown thing.
[IMAGE SCREEN] Theory was interviewed there by a slightly
squatting Kevin Patrick - his thighs must be so powerful - about his US title defence
against Cody Rhodes.
While Cody told Patrick later on that he considers his chapter with Seth Rollins closed.
God dammit, it was staring me right in the face.
I’m an idiot, so I didn’t pick up on that very obvious piece of crappy WWE foreshadowing,
and I actually got super into Cody vs Theory - Cody’s first title shot since returning
to WWE.
Cody got all the pyro, they set up Checkov’s announcers table, they wrestled the really
good kind of match Cody excels at - competitively getting over younger talent.
I was so into this having an actual finish, and then Rollins god damn attacked Cody for
a crappy DQ.
Genuinely annoying me on a ‘I hate WWE’ level, not the intended ‘ooo, Seth’s such
a heel’ way.
Seth stomped Cody on the commentary table, probably setting up Cody vs Seth 3 in Hell
in a Cell.
Nikki A.S.H.
got cocky and cost her new team with Doudrop a match against Sasha Banks and Naomi.
Then The Miz came down in a referee shirt, which was very confusing, as I thought he
was going to ref an impromptu Doudrop vs Nikki match.
When in fact, it was something that made only marginally more sense: him special guest refereeing
Ali vs Ciampa - a feud that has hardly been referenced by anyone beyond Ciampa’s quick
attacks at the end of other people’s segments.
Ciampa looked great here, wrestling really viciously.
Miz slow counted Ali, and fast counted Ciampa for him to win.
At least Ciampa won, even though he is a total background player here.
R-Truth served Reggie with divorce papers, and Tozawa ran away before the same could
happen to him.
And the main event was a championship contenders match between Asuka and Bianca Belair, where
we all know the rules mean Asuka needs to lose this match to get a title shot later.
Lucky, then, that Becky caused her DQ defeat when Lynch, dressed as a Cylon from OG Battlestar
Galactica, attacked Belair.
This was the third lame DQ finish on the show, and a very weak closing angle.
I imagine we’re getting a three way feud between them all for Bianca’s title.
What did you think of Raw?
Let me know in the comments.
What a great two hour show, with the opening tag match, Judgement Day segments, Bliss return,
and everything up to the Cody vs Theory finish.
The final hour was Raw at its DQ finish booking worst.
This was on track to be one of the best episodes of
the year, but it’s ended up at 67%.