00:00A WWE promotion dead?
00:02The real reason two wrestlers tried to leave AEW and CM Punk screwed.
00:08Giggily.
00:09I'm Oli Davis, and I want you to acknowledge your true Jam That Jampion in the comments
00:16down below with a Jam Jar emoji.
00:18And this is the WrestleTalk News Jampion.
00:24In the week before Survivor Series, Roman Reigns' original Bloodline were down one
00:28man for their WarGames clash against the upstart New Blood faction.
00:33Seth Rollins turned them down.
00:35Brom Breaker turned them down.
00:36Bronson Reed jumped to the other side.
00:39So Paul Heyman, in his infinite wise-man-dom, called in the original Paul Heyman guy, CM
00:45Punk.
00:46But Punk wasn't there for free.
00:48He was now owed a favour at a time of his choosing from Heyman, which many believed
00:53would be an eventual shot at a World Championship.
00:57But it turns out that Punk can just get that on a random Sunday night.
01:00WWE were in Punk's hometown of Chicago last night on the 29th December as part of their
01:06holiday tour, where it was announced earlier in the day that Punk would face Gunther in
01:10a steel cage for Gunther's World Heavyweight title.
01:15There was a small chance that the belt could change hands.
01:19Punk is very protected even at house shows, and maybe they wanted to hotshot the belt
01:24onto him for the Netflix debut event.
01:26But in the end, in what live reports say was an excellent match, Dominik Mysterio of all
01:31people interfered and cost Punk the win by slamming the cage door in his face.
01:36This could kind of follow on from the Saturday night show in Florida, where Punk teamed with
01:40Dom's dad Rey Mysterio against The New Day.
01:43But it also could be part of some longer term annual tradition booking where Dom just hates
01:48Punk at Christmas.
01:49The previous year, in Punk's first in-ring match in WWE, he beat Dominik at both the
01:5426th and 30th December holiday tour dates.
01:58After only wrestling five times this year, all on pay-per-view, Punk has now almost doubled
02:03his 2024 match count at the live shows, wrestling on the 26th and 27th against Ludwig Kaiser,
02:09the tag match on the 28th, and the Gunther steel cage match on the 29th.
02:13F4WOnline was reporting that the 29th Chicago date had sold 11,484 tickets earlier in the
02:21day, which was expected to sell out completely.
02:23Which is pretty impressive compared to the 28th's show in Florida's Kia Center, which
02:27did 7,854 tickets the previous night.
02:31Punk in Chicago, even after all these years and various returns, is still a significant
02:37money draw.
02:38The Saturday date was an interesting one, though, as WWE's Miami House show went head
02:43to head with AEW's World's End pay-per-view of the edition financial arena just a 22 minute
02:50drive away.
02:51This is an old promotional tactic to harm your wrestling competition, and it seems to
02:55have been successful.
02:56While World's End did 6,978 tickets, which was nearly a sellout, WWE's House show beat
03:02them by almost 1,000 tickets more, with 7,854 in attendance.
03:08But even with all that popularity, nothing, it seems, can save NXT Europe.
03:14NXT UK debuted as a fully fledged promotion with weekly TV in October 2018, and was part
03:20of Triple H's supervillain sounding strategy of Global Localization, where WWE would open
03:26regional wrestling promotions, with NXT Japan and NXT Mexico both reportedly also in the
03:31works, as an international version of Laveck's beloved NWA in the territory days.
03:36Only, they wouldn't actually be independent promotions working together, it'd be all
03:40owned and standardised by WWE.
03:43In practice, it would be less NWA and more McWrestling.
03:48But the World Conquering Plan hit quite a few obstacles.
03:50A pandemic, Triple H losing power in WWE after his NXT lost the Wednesday Night Wars to AEW,
03:56and the fact that just not that many people ever watched NXT UK.
04:01In August 2022, it was announced that the regional promotion would be taking a brief
04:06hiatus.
04:07And we now know that brief is about forever.
04:11Forever.
04:12Forever.
04:14Instead, WWE announced NXT UK would be rebranded as NXT Europe in 2023.
04:19It was then reported that due to the TKO merger, this would be pushed back to sometime in 2024.
04:25Seeing that the date of this video is the 30th December 2024, that looks unlikely to
04:30happen.
04:31Now the Wrestling Observer is reporting NXT Europe doesn't look like it's happening
04:36anytime remotely soon, since nobody talks about it.
04:39There is always talk of establishing new NXT posts internationally, but nothing at
04:44all seems to be in the pipeline right now, so we don't hear any rumours about things
04:49starting up.
04:50The Observer speculates that NXT Europe announcement two years ago was more of a PR move to make
04:55the closure of NXT UK look more like a strategic rebrand than what it actually was.
05:00A business failure, supported by the fact that WWE fired the vast majority of those
05:05involved when NXT UK closed.
05:08I've always believed, and I'm not alone, that WWE only originally launched NXT UK because
05:13they were concerned about ITV starting their own promotion, WS Wrestling, in England.
05:18This consequently suffocated an incredibly healthy UK wrestling scene, which has only
05:22just started to revive itself this year, post the closure of NXT UK.
05:27One of the more drawn out stories of 2024 has been the contract statuses of Ricky Starks,
05:32Pentagon Jr and Rey Fenix in AEW.
05:35All three of them have disappeared from television amidst reports that they might be on their
05:39way to WWE, with Starks not having appeared on screen since March, and Pentagon and Fenix
05:45last wrestling back in July.
05:46Pentagon has now officially become UnElite, being removed from AEW's roster page earlier
05:52this month, and seemingly being teased with a zero graphic on Monday Night Raw.
05:57His real life lucha bro Fenix is still in AEW, being very vocally upset, accusing the
06:01company of inhumane treatment, as time has reportedly been added onto his contract due
06:07to time missed from injury.
06:08The Wrestling Observer has now reported why the brothers decided to leave AEW.
06:13The Penta and Fenix stuff happened because they both felt they had stagnated in AEW,
06:17and knew WWE was interested.
06:20Tony Khan thought he could keep them by offering more money, which apparently he did, but they'd
06:24already made the call to go.
06:26When Tony Khan and others wanted to talk about renewing their deal, they told the people
06:30in AEW to talk to their agent rather than them.
06:33At this point, AEW knew they were gone, and Khan made the decision not to use them on
06:38television.
06:39As for Starks, Tony Khan was asked about his status at the World's End post-show conference,
06:44where he replied in his typical never actually answering but turning it into a promotional
06:48tactic instead.
06:49I think we'll have to stay tuned to see who's going to be part of the fight for
06:53Fallen Simulcast on Wednesday 1st.
06:55It remains to be seen.
06:57But it's not like Starks is just sitting at home with nothing to do.
07:00He appeared at a GCW show, wrestled at a Glory Pro event last month, and on the 29th December
07:06last night, he made a surprise cameo at Defy.
07:10After KENTA retained his Defy World Championship in the main event, Starks interrupted, demanding
07:15a shot at the title.
07:17This could be very similar to how Jack Perry was brought back to AEW this year, with him
07:21appearing at New Japan shows first, even tearing up his AEW contract at one point where it
07:26was ultimately revealed to have been a Worky McWorkface.
07:29Or Starks is just having fun before he leaves the company, with his AEW contract reportedly
07:34expiring in the Spring or Summer, where WWE is apparently very interested in him.
07:39And they aren't the only wrestlers unhappy with AEW, because Gabe Kidd… he's got
07:45Twitter.
07:46While most eyes are on WWE's January 6th Netflix debut, AEW arguably has an even busier
07:51start to the year.
07:53Wednesday's January 1st episode of Dynamite is the first ever to be simulcast on WBD's
07:58streaming service Max.
07:59And just a week after their World's End pay-per-view, AEW will be running another
08:03big show with New Japan, WrestleDynasty, the day after New Japan's biggest show of the
08:08year WrestleKingdom.
08:10And with so much to promote, WrestleDynasty has somewhat been lost in the shuffle, despite
08:14having Kenny Omega's in-ring return, which his opponent New Japan's Gabe Kidd wasn't
08:20too happy about, posting, all in capitals, WHAT KIND OF COMPANY CO-PROMOTES A SHOW IN
08:25THE TOKYO DOME AND DOESN'T ADVERTISE OR MENTION THE MATCH OF THEIR BIGGEST STAR COMING
08:31BACK FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH ON PAY-PER-VIEW THE WEEK BEFORE?
08:35LOADS OF ALTERNATING CRYING WITH LAUGHTER EMOJIS AND STREAMING WITH LAUGHTER EMOJIS.
08:41THE ANSWER IS ONE WITH A BUTTHURT LITTLE RAT AT THE HELM.
08:44CRY MORE PUSSY.
08:46Three crying with laughter face emojis.
08:48It's also been announced that Takeshi will be putting his AEW international belt on the
08:52line against the never-openweight champion Shingo Takagi at Saturday's WrestleKingdom,
08:56with the winner getting both belts, which will be put on the line against Tomohiro Ishii
09:01on the following day's WrestleDynasty.
09:03And in classic New Japan in January fashion, amidst all of this, one of their champions'
09:08contracts is expiring.
09:10Even though this happens every year, which has in the past led to the sudden New Japan
09:14departures of AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, Okada, Will
09:19Ospreay, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, New Japan keep signing people to yearlong
09:24contracts that expire in January.
09:28Now Fightful is reporting the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Kevin
09:33Knight has his contract expiring in the next few days, despite being booked for Saturday's
09:38WrestleKingdom show.
09:39Apparently New Japan want to keep him, and will enter negotiations soon, like it's
09:43not a rush.
09:44But there has been interest in Knight from major American wrestling companies in recent
09:49months.
09:50We're off tomorrow for New Year's, but we'll have mine and Luke's big 2025 prediction
09:53show instead, then we'll be back for Thursday's Big Dynamite review.
09:57Because Kenny Omega has returned!
09:59Adam Copeland has returned!
10:01Could the AEW feeling be back… again?
10:06Find out by clicking my review of yesterday's World's End pay-per-view onscreen now.
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