00:00A major change to WWE's PLEs, Wyatt Six's debut leaked, my review of Monday Night Raw
00:07and more.
00:08I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:14You know, there's too much negativity in the wrestling world at the moment, with tribalistic
00:21fans making me long for the days I was part of the Star Wars online community.
00:26So let's kick off today's news with something nice and wholesome.
00:30The young members of the wrestling club in Brooklyn, New York, who have become quite the
00:34viral sensation in recent years, were visited by a very special guest while watching the
00:39ROH Women's Championship match between Willow Nightingale and Athena.
00:43As captured in this video uploaded by the club's founder Victor Perry, none other than the TBS
00:49champ herself dropped by unannounced to surprise the students, leading to a rapturous pop inside
00:56the classroom.
01:03That, that is just oh so wonderfully wholesome.
01:16Even WWE's Bayley liked this, calling their clip beautiful on Twitter, and she is not wrong.
01:22Since taking over creative responsibilities, Triple H has sought to put his own stamp on
01:26WWE's premium live events.
01:28Gone are the overly bloated cards, running 4-5 hours in length, with most PPVs now typically
01:34featuring just 5 or 6 matches and running under 3 hours.
01:38You know, what he did with takeover shows.
01:41This meant that WWE PPVs feel well paced, with lots of breaks for the Peacock commercials and
01:47decent end times for us in the UK who have to stay up past our bedtime to watch them live.
01:51I turn 40 next year and I have a toddler.
01:53Daddy needs his sleep.
01:55So perhaps it's no surprise to hear that WWE may be seeking to continue with what they've
02:00been testing out recently.
02:02PPVs starting earlier and finishing earlier.
02:05PWInsider have reported that WWE are maintaining the experiment of beginning PPVs at 7pm Eastern,
02:13rather than the traditional time of 8pm.
02:15It comes off the back of Dana White over the weekend, saying that TKO could be changing a
02:19Nick Khan initiative, where he moved WWE PPVs to Saturdays from their traditional Sundays.
02:25White claimed that we could see TKO weekends in the same city.
02:30Power slap on a Friday, UFC on a Saturday, and WWE on a Sunday.
02:34This would be a huge change for WWE, and one that we won't see until after Bash in Berlin
02:40at the very least, as all shows until then are already booked for Saturdays.
02:44However, perhaps Mr. White was speaking out of turn, as PWInsider are reporting that Sunday
02:49nights won't be for every WWE show.
02:53Just those for those occasional TKO weekends.
02:56Speaking of PPVs, and we may have the answer as to when we will see the return of Bo Dallas,
03:01aka Uncle Howdy, and the much speculated Wyatt Six faction.
03:06Much like Bray's return back in October 2022, WWE have been flooding their programming with
03:11teases relating to the faction's debut via QR code.
03:15While most of them have been ignored by commentary, last night was mentioned by Michael Cole and
03:20Pat McAfee, perhaps suggesting that the big reveal is near.
03:24This QR code has led to a series of images, including a newspaper clipping for a missing
03:29therapist written by Wendy Lucho, an anagram of Uncle Howdy, with a teased date of May 16th,
03:35this Thursday, potentially on Twitch, going by what is written on this floppy disk.
03:40Man, floppy disk makes me feel well nostalgic, but this is how I first played Doom and Worms.
03:46Previously, it had been speculated that the full debut for the group would be at the King
03:51and Queen of the Ring on May 25th, so it'll be interesting to see what comes this Thursday.
03:56Our Monday Night War rages on over on Parts for Unknown, and we've just finished our
04:01second pay-per-view with some surprising results and terrible injuries.
04:06Here is what you need to know.
04:08Welcome to the Monday Night War!
04:09I could f*** Dan over.
04:10Go f*** yourself.
04:11What did I do?
04:13If it wasn't you, it was you.
04:16That's exactly what I wanted.
04:17You wanted to injure him?
04:18Well, I didn't want to injure him.
04:19Babyface versus babyface.
04:22Piss!
04:23It's a marathon, not a sprint.
04:26You've at least got to start running in a marathon, otherwise you're never going to
04:29finish it.
04:30Oh!
04:31Uh oh!
04:32Uh oh!
04:33There you go.
04:34I'm going to play the one-minute power cut on you, mate, so you've got six minutes
04:36to book your show.
04:37Your roster's hurting, mate.
04:38What?
04:39I know, Pete.
04:40That's why my last two shows have sucked.
04:41Because everyone hurts.
04:42Cindy Fluff.
04:43Cindy Fluff.
04:44I'm telling you Trixie Gambit.
04:45She's your MVP.
04:46Yeah.
04:47You just have to know what you're doing.
04:48Where's Bately again?
04:49I'm still not feeling great about this show, but I'm feeling okay in life.
04:54Head on over to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk to check out episodes one week early
05:01and ad-free, and an exclusive booking podcast where we talk about all the behind-the-scenes thoughts
05:07on the show.
05:08Thank you to everyone who has made this one of our most successful Patreon stretches in
05:12WrestleTalk's history.
05:14We could not do this without you.
05:16And now it's time for my review of Monday Night Raw aka Pat Barks-A-Lot edition of Monday
05:21Night Raw in about five minutes.
05:23The show opened with Drew McIntyre arriving at the building and heading straight to the
05:27ring to bury CM Punk for looking like a drug addict without taking any drugs.
05:31Ouch.
05:32Jey Uso for constantly choking in title matches.
05:35Ouch.
05:36The King of the Ring tournament for sucking because he's not in it.
05:38Ouch.
05:39And Damian Priest for being a paper champion who doesn't deserve to be the champion.
05:43Ouch.
05:44Drew opened up Savage Season, and it was awesome.
05:47And it brought out Damian Priest to address that Drew is nothing more than a hypocrite, and
05:51recapped how he won the title at Mania because Drew is too obsessed with CM Punk.
05:55Even though Drew is currently injured, when he is cleared, Damian Priest said he will get
06:00a title shot.
06:01It was a very good opening segment, particularly when Drew was talking and shutting down the
06:06crowd's What's chants.
06:07And putting him in a title program does elevate that championship to the main event scene again.
06:13In what was easily the match of the night, Eosky beat Shayna Baszler in a King of the
06:17Ring quarterfinal, which even got a reference to stardom on commentary, and featured some
06:22awesome reversals and counters from pins into submissions and back again, finishing with
06:27Sky hitting the over the moonsault for the win.
06:30An awesome match, and further proof that, get this everyone, you can get wrestlers over
06:36by having them do wrestling.
06:38Who'd have thought that would work?
06:40Not only that, it's proof that having wrestling on your wrestling show makes the wrestling show
06:44better.
06:45On stage, Chad Gable ran down his Alpha Academy members, and set up matches for Otis to take
06:50on Sami Zayn, and Akira Tozawa to face Brunton Reed.
06:53He then ran down Maxine for failing in a Queen of the Ring tournament she wasn't originally
06:56booked for.
06:57Making her Raw debut, Kiana James told Adam Pearce that she doesn't hesitate, she adjudicates.
07:02F**k does that mean?
07:05What does that mean?
07:06Dictionary.com, definitions for adjudicate.
07:11Make a formal judgement on a disputed matter.
07:13The committee adjudicates on all betting disputes.
07:16Acting as a judge in a competition.
07:18In a lovely surprise, Lillian Garcia returned to WWE to introduce Kofi Kingston, oddly not
07:30Gunther, for their King of the Ring quarter-final match, which was about as awesome as you would
07:37think it was.
07:37Kofi attacked Gunther before the bell and beat him up around ringside, getting his revenge
07:42for Xavier Woods, but Gunther responded by murdering Kofi Kingston.
07:46Kofi made his comeback, hitting Trouble in Paradise on the floor for a close count-out
07:50victory, but Gunther got back in, ducked another Trouble in Paradise, hit a powerbomb and locked
07:54in the Boston Crab for the win.
07:56Awesome, awesome scenes.
07:58He really should win this whole thing.
08:00Later Kofi Kingston seemingly started a feud with Karrion Kross, because New Day are the
08:05latest victims of the Karrion Kross mid-card vortex.
08:08In a wacky little backstage segment, Becky Lynch thanked Lyra Valkyrie for having her back,
08:12then exited left off-screen.
08:15Liv Morgan then entered in to the right of screen and called Becky a bitch, and Lynch then
08:19apparently night-crawled herself behind Morgan to punch her in the face.
08:23How did she get here?
08:24Did she walk around the camera, and if that's so, how come Liv didn't see that?
08:28And I don't care, because I laughed.
08:30This was a lot of fun.
08:32Bronson Reed quickly beat Akira Dezauer, and Ludwig Kaiser cut a hell of a promo on Sheamus
08:36to set up a future match between them.
08:38New Catch Republic promised Tekkers in their fatal four-way tag match to crown new number
08:42one contenders to the tag belt, and Brombreaker is still a sad boy because he wasn't booked
08:46in the King of the Ring tournament.
08:48This led to Pat McAfee barking like a dog for what felt like a f***ing eternity, and the
08:53more he did it, the more I disliked him.
08:55Lyra Valkyria beat Zoey Stark in a fine match to advance to the semi-finals of the Queen of
08:59the Ring tournament, and Sami Zayn beat Otis in a short match that was all built around
09:02Chad Gable telling his number one guy to not do the worm, as our second Worms reference
09:08of the day.
09:09Incoming!
09:10Otis did it anyway, but then took advice from Gable, and it led to him getting a halluva kick
09:14in the face from Sami Zayn, which was his only offensive move in the entire match.
09:17Not a great way to put over your IC champion, but a cool continuation of this Alpha Academy
09:22story, as the crowd lapped up and went crazy for the idea of Otis possibly fighting back
09:28against his abusive coach.
09:29Chad will take on Sami next week, which has DQ finish written all over it.
09:34And speaking of lame finishes, Becky Lynch and Dakota Kai's match lamely ended in DQ when
09:38Damage Control jumped Becky before the finish.
09:41Too many DQs on this show for my liking there Triple H!
09:44Lyra made the save again, but couldn't stop Liv from posting Lynch.
09:47Earlier in the night, Judgment Day were hanging out in their Judgment Den, and Damian Priest
09:50was uneasy about Carlito being in their ranks, but Mr. Caribbean Cool hoped that one day
09:55they could all be friends.
09:57And then he helped Finn Balor and JD McDumass get the win in a Fatal 4-Way tag match that
10:01also included New Catch Republic, AOP and The Creed.
10:04This was about as fun as you would expect it to be, and the final stretch in particular
10:08was fan-flipping-tastic, with Tyler Bate doing his big strong boy shtick on the much larger
10:13AOP.
10:14Backstage Priest told Carlito that what he did was cool.
10:17Which you see, was Carlito's old gimmick.
10:19And the main event saw main event Jey Uso get a main event win over should-be main eventer
10:24Ilya Dragunov in the other King of the Ring quarter-final match.
10:27They had a really good outing with the usual intensity of a Dragunov match, and holy hell
10:32is Jey Uso's entrance over.
10:34Jey getting the win, while upsetting to some who just wanted to see Ilya and Gunther in
10:38the semi-finals, makes sense to me, as I think there's more mileage in waiting to
10:43get to that match.
10:45Make the fans want to see it.
10:47And I'm not just talking about the five of us that watched NXT UK, but the whole WWE audience.
10:53This was another great edition of Monday Night Raw, carried by the really good in-ring wrestling
10:58for the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments.
11:00This week's Raw is 4 out of 5.
11:02Now go and watch our latest episode of the Monday Night War, where our heroes book Summerfest!
11:06the King of the Ring
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