In this WrestleTalk News, Sasha Banks has had her car broken into, WWE have reached
out to AEW talent to return to the company, are we seeing the end of NXT UK.
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this weird little story about Vince McMahon making someone hold in their pee during Monday
Night Raw.
Renee Paquette - formerly Renee Young in WWE - not only has a very good podcast where she
interviews folks from the wrestling world who then share amazing stories about their
time in the business - like Bryan Danielson recently revealing on the show that is behaviour
on Talking Smack was him trying to get himself fired from WWE - she also reveals some bizarre
tidbits from her time in the company as well.
And on a recent episode of The Sessions, Paquette told a story about how she really needed to
pee during the broadcast of an episode of Monday Night Raw - but wasn’t allowed to
go until after the show was done.
In her own words, “My teeth are floating, I had to pee so bad.”
Apparently this situation was exacerbated by Michael Cole and Corey Graves who kept
passing water back and forth while talking about lakes and rivers.
Vince’s reaction when the show was over - according to Paquette - was to laugh a lot.
She said, “He loved that I was holding it in all this time.”
I’m sure it is hilarious, but I've heard that if you hold it you could damage the prostate
gland, making it very difficult to get an erection, or even become aroused!
And that has to be true because Jim Carey said it in Liar Liar and he’s not allowed
to lie in that movie.
Speaking of California - the state in which Hollywood is in and those are the ones who
make the movies - Sasha Banks parked her car there and it got broken into.
Banks posted on her Instagram Stories that she had left her parked car in Oakland for
just five minutes, only to return to it to find the back window had been smashed in and
her possessions had been stolen.
Going by her other Instagram Stories, it would seem that thankfully it was only hair products
that had been stolen, but still seemed very annoyed by this.
As anyone would.
Don’t break into cars and steal stuff, folks.
It’s not cool.
Speaking of things that are cool, though, and it looks like we have now found ourselves
in a very, very interesting wrestling landscape.
Back in 2019, All Elite Wrestling launched and instantly became the talk of the town
- with big former WWE names like Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley deciding to sign with them
rather than take WWE offers.
Over the last few years we’ve seen many, many other former WWE talent also make the
jump - like Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Keith Lee, Athena, Ruby Soho, Kyle O’Reilly and
more.
But aside from Cody Rhodes going back to WWE for WrestleMania this year, it has been mostly
one-way traffic.
But then, Vince McMahon stepped down and retired from WWE during an on-going investigation
over allegations made against him by former female employees, and his son-in-law Triple
H took over as the head of creative.
And suddenly that one-way traffic now has a lane going the other way.
In just a handful of weeks, Triple H has brought back several names that his father-in-law
had previously released as part of their quarterly “budget cuts” - like Dakota Kai, Karrion
Kross and Scarlet, Dexter Lumis and three quarters of Hit Row.
Sean Ross Sapp over at Fightful Select reported that Trips wasn’t going to pump the breaks
on re-signing other released talent, and Fightful spoke to some talent within AEW that said
they would consider going back to WWE once their contracts are up with All Elite Wrestling.
And it looks like Papa H is already putting those chess pieces into place.
Fightful Select are reporting that a notable AEW talent was contacted by WWE about them
coming back into the company.
Fightful was first told this by someone within AEW, but then confirmed it with the talent
themselves who wished to remain anonymous for now.
The talent in question is under AEW contract and WWE would have been aware of that when
they made the call.
That talent referred WWE to their representation, then informed AEW management that WWE contacted
them saying that, “they didn't have a desire to leave All Elite Wrestling.”
If you listen carefully, you can hear Max Caster frantically googling words that rhyme
with ‘contract tampering’.
But this isn’t really contract tampering, as far as I’m aware - and SRS certainly
isn’t claiming that it is in his report.
As far as we can tell, this was just a conversation between WWE and a wrestler from another company
that just wants to see what their options are looking like when their contract comes
to an end - they weren’t actively negotiating with that talent to come back.
But again, that’s as far as we’re aware.
SRS writes in his report, “while we can verify the claim was made, we've learned nothing
more about the alleged contact.”
Triple H is clearly looking to make some form of impact in the wrestling world, however,
as Fightful end the story with: “Sources familiar with the situation had told Fightful
there was no mistake this performer was already under a full-time contract.”
Perhaps apropos of nothing, SRS also posted this picture of AEW wrestler under full-time
contract Bryan Danielson.
Before we slam into speculation station, however, this is like SRS trolling us.
And speaking of Speculation Station!
Last night’s NXT 2.0 Heatwave saw Carmello Hayes retain his North American Championship,
Cora Jade beat her former friend Roxanne Perez, and Mandy Rose retain her NXT Women’s Championship
over Zoey Stark - but there was a much bigger talking point coming out of the show.
During a segment where it looked like we were about to get the break-up of Diamond Mine,
they were attacked by Gallus of Wolfgang and Mark & Joe Coffey.
Later in the night Indi Hartwell had a picture torn up by the former Bea Priestley now Blair
Davenport, and following the main event of Bron Breakker retaining his NXT Championship
over JD McDonagh, Tyler Bate came down to the ring to set himself up as the next challenger
for the title.
All of those names are from NXT UK.
Fightful Select reported ahead of the show that, “we've heard a lot of chatter about
NXT UK talent popping up on NXT TV” and that, “Bate is one of several names we've
heard brought up in regards to NXT UK talent being integrated or featured more on NXT TV.”
While some are leading with this story as an NXT UK Invasion, it felt more like five
debuts rather than a group making a name for themselves.
The really interesting note around this is that Tyler Bate came down holding the WWE
United Kingdom Championship.
Now I know what you’re thinking - didn’t Ilja Draganov relinquish that title due to
injury and they were doing a tournament to crown a new champion?
And you’d be right.
Bate won that tournament when it was taped on July 7th, but the episode where he wins
has not aired yet on the WWE Network, BT Sport or Peacock - which means that WWE intentionally
spoiled the result of that tournament and broke their own continuity to get Bate on
NXT TV and challenge Bron Breakker.
The pair holding up their respective titles at the end of the show could also indicate
we’re getting a title unification match down the line.
So what does this mean for NXT UK?
Dave Meltzer noted in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter that, “There is a lot
of uneasiness within the NXT U.K. crew.”
This is because their next set of planned TV tapings have been cancelled.
The reason given for the cancellation was because the BT Studio - where they film episodes
of NXT UK and is literally across the road from our office - has been booked out for
coverage of the Premier League and other football now that the new season has kicked off.
Meltzer writes that, “shutting down tapings is never a good sign”, and, “Nobody really
has been told anything.”
NXT UK was supposed to be the first of WWE’s big global localization project, where they
also planned to open NXT Japan and NXT Saudi Arabia.
They signed up all of the big UK talents from the BritWres scene, and in doing so effectively
closed down several UK independent companies who couldn’t draw crowds without the names
they used to be able to book.
But NXT UK never took off, and it never drew big crowds itself.
Promotion of the show is now non-existent, even though it does get very good reviews
from the likes of Steve & Larson who I believe are the only people who still watch the show.
In 2021, WWE announced it was closing down WWE UK Holdings LTD as part of their cost-cutting
measures, and it’s been rumoured for some time that the only reason the brand hasn’t
been shut down completely is because of WWE’s broadcast deal with BT Sport - though BT Sport
prioritising football over NXT UK (which does make a lot of business sense) can’t be a
good sign.
And now taking 5 of their biggest names - including their top champion - can only spell more trouble
for the brand.
JD McDonagh, who challenged Bron Breakker for the NXT Championship - was also a call-up
from NXT UK.
PWInsider also reported that, “there are no TV tapings for that brand scheduled in
Great Britain”, but did note that they could tape NXT UK shows at the performance centre
in Orlando.
Speaking of NXT 2.0 Heatwave and one of the other results on the show was Tony D’Angelo
defeating Santos Escobar in a street fight, which means Escobar must now leave NXT.
He posted on Twitter a thank you message, and there is rampant speculation that he is
main roster bound to either Raw or SmackDown - but there are no confirmed reports as to
whether he’ll go up as a singles star or with the rest of his Legado del Fantasma faction.
As previously mentioned, Zoey Stark also lost her title match against Mandy Rose, and makes
her main roster debut this Friday on SmackDown teaming with Nikita Lyons in the Women’s
Tag Team Tournament.
And these call-ups, returns and surprises have been paying dividends for Triple H’s
run as head of creative, as this week’s rating for Raw drew 1.98 million viewers.
While only 1% up from last week, it’s 7% up from the previous year, and finished first
for the night on cable including beating the finale of Better Call Saul in the all-important
18-49 demo.
What’s also interesting is that while the third hour did have its usual drop, it wasn’t
as big of a drop as we’ve seen previously.
But what did Oli Davis think of the show?