Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk News – I’m Oli Davis, and today’s episode is sponsored by NordVPN. Go to NordVPN.com/WrestleTalk or use the coupon code WRESTLETALK for a special holiday deal. You’ll get a 3-year plan with 81% off, plus four extra months and the NordPass Password Manager app – saving you almost $200!
But what is NordVPN? Here’s the story of Oli Davis to tell you more… wait, that’s me?
LUKE: This is Oli Davis.
OLI: Dude, stop the voiceover.
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OLI: Luke, I told you not to tell any-
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WrestleTalk merchandise costume change! While all Mariah Carey wants for Christmas is you. Yes, you specifically. And all you should now want is NordVPN. All current WWE team The Revival want for Christmas… is an early release so they can go to All Elite Wrestling.
Because tis the season to go on Christmas party drinks. Just maybe not with a very high profile team from your company’s main rival.
Amidst reports, rumours and speculation fuelled by their own activity online, Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder have now made their latest tease that they will in fact be going to AEW when their WWE contracts expire in April – by posting a photo on Twitter of them meeting with top AEW team Private Party, made up of Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen, at what seems to be a coffee-inspired cocktail bar.
Which thanks to some next level detective work by yours truly – I typed the name of the bar into Google – appears to be the Brooklyn-based Italian restaurant Broccolino.
And the photo’s caption simply declares ‘Tag Team Wrestling’ – a style very close to the Revival’s hearts, and one AEW have made a focal point of their promotion.
This is just the latest instalment of the Revival’s year plus long tease of them leaving WWE – which actually dates back to before AEW was even officially a thing, with Wilder and Dawson having a long-running Twitter feud with the Young Bucks based around the initials FTR. Which to the Revival stand for ‘Forever The Revival’. And for the Bucks means ‘F-word the Revival’. But as soon as AEW was officially announced in January 2019, the often fantasy booked match between the two teams became a much more tangible possibility.
Hit by back-to-back injuries shortly after their main roster debut, WWE never used the Revival to the extent of their abilities on Raw or SmackDown, compared with their excellent championship run in NXT. Presumably seeing how AEW was going to be run by two tag team specialists themselves, with the Young Bucks both holding co-executive vice president roles, Scott and Dash reportedly requested their releases from WWE at the start of this year. They were denied, with their contracts expiring in April 2020, but that hasn’t stopped them teasing where they’ll eventually end up on Twitter – often posing with AEW-shirt wearing fans at WWE live events, and even getting Randy Orton in on the AEW bandwagon act – which WWE seemingly retaliated against by booking them in a series of undermining comedy roles, like showing them shaving each others backs in the shower on Raw earlier this year in a storyline that actually happened in 2019, and, most recently, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter writing that the plan is to book them as a comedy act on SmackDown following Wilder tripping over during his entrance last week, a la Titus Worldslide.
And shortly after posting that photo with Private Party, Dawson tweeted Randy Orton about WWE’s booking of them since their brief faction ended:
“We’re strugglin’ without ya #Help #FTRKO”
Orton and The Revival formed a faction shortly after SummerSlam to feud with the New Day, which was also around the same time Randy began posting teases that he was in talks with AEW, coincidentally around the same time he was in negotiations with WWE. While the three had a lot of potential, and clearly seemed to enjoy working together – with Fightful even reporting that Orton personally pitched a more permanent faction with them all to Vince McMahon – WWE only kept them together for a month, and then split them up in October’s Draft.
But now Randy has pledged at least the next five years to WWE, it looks like he’s going to go hard on AEW every chance he gets…
Last Wednesday’s episode of AEW Dynamite didn’t just see the show’s biggest ratings loss to NXT so far, trailing by over 100,000 viewers, it was also main evented by one of the biggest creative missteps so far: The Dark Order faction invading the ring and beating up all of AEW’s top babyfaces. Even the very forgiving live crowd booed the angle, and PWInsider is reporting that those backstage thought the segment “fell extremely flat”.
But the heat is somewhat off AEW’s creative decision, because everyone wants to talk about how bad this minion’s punches are instead.
@ItsKlondikeBill on Twitter posted a video of a Dark Order creeper throwing some terrible looking punches on Dustin Rhodes from Wednesday’s main event angle, with each one landing about a foot from the former Goldust’s face.
The clip has understandably gone viral, because it looks stupid, but it’s also prompted a few oddly enraged responses online:
Mark Henry rather harshly tweeted: Fire this person now.
Trish Stratus made a rare non-WWE tweet, simply posting a facepalm emoji.
Even AEW wrestler Dustin Rhodes himself, the person being not hit by those punches, wrote:
“It’s almost 2020, and I am embarrassed at what I just saw in the great business that I still protect to this day. Please learn how to punch. Or, better yet, come to my class that I hold weekly and I will teach you.”
A tweet that actually caused Arik Canon, the wrestler in question, to come forward and expose the business even more! You’re supposed to be a brain washed Dark Order minion, Arik, not an indie wrestler!
“You guys… It was me. @dustinrhodes is a legend, one of my all-time favorites, he was already bleeding, and I was just trying to take care of him. #AEWDynamite”
I’m pretty sure at this point Goldust does not care how much he’s bleeding.
Which led to Goldust removing his first tweet and following up with:
“I deleted that tweet because he has come forward. Thanks. Work on your frickin punches. There are always going to be those out there that try and bring others down. When you see people exposing our business, call em out. ❤️ ”
Randy Orton wasn’t so forgiving, though, who tweeted from outta nowhere about Canon’s punches:
“He apparently is a seasoned vet and is used to live tv and just assumed that the camera to his left was the one with that red dot thingy on it for those horrendous f****** punches #workonyourpunchkid”
“Or quit the buisness cuz you’re the drizzling s****”
“….or you can come to the top company and I’ll teach you one of the most important aspects of our biz. Throwing a f****** ”
A lesson Orton rudely never offered the son of his boss of that ‘top company’ Shane McMahon about his famously bad punches. That either completely miss, or completely land.
It’s that sort of Twitter controversy that would make you want to leave the platform altogether. Which two AEW co-executive vice presidents subtly did over the weekend…
Following the Dark Order angle not going down well with fans, and the arguably overblown reaction to Canon’s badly worked punches, both Matt and Nick Jackson’s Twitter accounts have disappeared. @NickJacksonYB says it no longer exists, while @MattJackson13 tweeted: “I’ve had a fun time on this app for over ten years, but it’s time to finally hit the X. I’ll see you on BTE!” – before deleting his entire tweet history.
And their father has taken to Twitter to explain why…
Matt and Nick Jason’s dad, Papa Buck Matthew Lee Massie, has tweeted:
“Thx for all the love We are getting from everyone wondering about Matt and Nick ! They are fine and just need a well deserved break from the toxicity on here ! They are the most sweetest most genuine guys ever! They don’t deserve the hate they get! Love u all”
“We suggested a hiatus to clear their minds ! They give 110% of their blood sweat and tears ! To the point of pure exhaustion they’ve got nothing else to give ! Haters gonna hate and always gonna find something!”
It seems a vocal minority of wrestling fans is harassing the very people who sacrifice their bodies for our enjoyment, putting their health on the line, night after night – or four times a year in Brock Lesnar’s case. Do critique wrestling booking and characters, but do it in a constructive, polite way. Wrestling has the best fans in the world, and it’s time we showed everyone that, rather than this outdated conception of us all being negative, basement dwelling trolls.
And seeing that it’s Christmas time, how about let’s spread some positive festive cheer right now! Tweet a wrestling personality something nice, and then tell me about it in the comments – where I’ll be replying FROM OUTTA NOWHERE wishing you a merry [ENTER LOCAL HOLIDAY HERE]!
I’ll start off – Ryback, you still have one of the best nutrition supplement adverts of all time.
Maybe soon the Young Bucks will have the Big Guy to shout at people on social media for them.
Ryback left WWE in 2016, calling out the company for exploiting their talent – linking how wrestlers are paid to how the promotion books them, accusing WWE of unfairly controlling a wrestler’s worth with their monopolisation of the industry.
Ryback has since gone onto wrestle on the independent circuit, legally change his name to Ryback to get around copyright issues, and even call out WrestleTalk.com editor Randy Andy Datson for being a human piece of scum.
But he’s always spoken very favourably of AEW on his Big Guy podcast, and now it seems he’s angling for a wrestling return to the company, tweeting a photo of him and Cody shaking hands next to a Christmas tree with the caption “2020 #FeedMeMore”
While this photo could’ve been taken very recently, with the seasonally appropriate Christmas tree background – which would imply the two sides have met in the AEW TV era – Cody appears to be missing the scar over his right eyebrow sustained at November’s Full Gear, which possibly dates this photo as old as 2017, the first year Cody had the bleached blonde hair look.
Whether this is an old or new photo of Cody and Ryback together, though, the Big Guy seems to have an AEW move on his New Year’s Revolutions list – TOP PUNNING! – where he said on his podcast:
“Once I am healthy, I am going to make the phone call to Cody Rhodes… I look at it like we can be part of a major change for the future of human beings to be treated better and I think all wrestlers have to ask themselves that question. So, I am hoping AEW continues to do well because I think it is going to force WWE to change.”
Do you think Ryback will debut in AEW next year, and if so, how? Let me know in the comments!
If you enjoyed this video, please press the thumbs up button, and give us a subscribe for daily wrestling news on YouTube. And which 10 wrestlers should quit WWE next year? Click the video on the right to find out! And who are the 10 best wrestlers of 2019! Find out out list by clicking the video below that. I’ve been Oli Davis, and that was wrestling.
4 years ago by Andy Datson
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