00:00CM Punk Merchandise Controversy WWE Accused Of Leaking Bad Press
00:05Triple H Thinks Sola Sokoa Is Bad And More I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk
00:11News.
00:16But first let's kick off today's news with that fun topic that some people take
00:20far too seriously, the PWI 500.
00:22For those of you who might be new to this wonderful pastime, the PWI 500 is a rank of
00:28the 500 best wrestlers on the planet based on a mix of kayfabe and real life stuff.
00:33So for example, being a world champion or main eventing a big show can bump you up the
00:38rankings over someone who's having banger matches day in and day out.
00:42Big shout out to Michael Oku who came 38th and Memes who came in at 500.
00:47But the real winner is the number one guy, and that number one guy for 2024 is Cody Rhodes.
00:54He beat AEW's Swerve Strickland, second place, and Will Ospreay third, Seth Rollins
00:59in fourth.
01:00New Japan's Tetsuya Naito was fifth, Damian Priest was at sixth, MJF at seventh, Jon Moxley
01:04at eighth, Gunther at ninth, and Mystico rounds out the top ten.
01:08WWE themselves put out a tweet on being the number one spot saying, from undeniable to
01:12undisputed.
01:13What a year for Cody Rhodes.
01:15Congratulations to the American Nightmare.
01:19Speaking of controversial things to post online, and there's been a lot of debate amongst
01:23wrestling fans about whether or not a blood feud between two wrestlers should be based
01:27around friendship bracelets.
01:30Now look, I'm a man who turns 40 next year, and as such it would be rather easy for me
01:35to be sniffy about friendship bracelets as it's something lame that the young'uns
01:40or Gen Z'ers do.
01:41Back in my day we gave out shag bands and they meant something.
01:44Shout out to all the UK kids who went to school in the 1990s.
01:48But then I got given some.
01:50This one was made for me by Dan's partner and she's lovely and it was such a lovely
01:54gesture and this one was made by a viewer's daughter who wanted to give them to us at
01:59All In at Wembley a few weeks back.
02:02I can't express genuinely how much this meant to me, and I've legit worn this every
02:07day since.
02:08I'm not sure if that's what I'm supposed to do with them, I don't know if you're
02:11supposed to wear them all the time, but it's what I've done.
02:13Gotta remember I'm nearly 40 and out of touch with these sorts of things.
02:17Brat Girl Summer, slay.
02:20So I get the Punk and Drew bracelet thing, and WWE clearly saw an opportunity to monetise
02:24it by releasing a version of Punk's Friendship Bracelet on WWEShop.com.
02:29But that Friendship Bracelet, much like this one, was made for Punk by a fan.
02:34And that fan, called Victoria, posted on Twitter, a heads up would have been nice lol.
02:39She later followed up adding, I won't be asking for compensation from WWE since they
02:43have every right to make bracelets.
02:45All I kind of was hoping for was maybe a mention in the description of the product.
02:49For those replying to my initial post about me not getting a heads up and saying WWE didn't
02:54need to, I 100% agree they didn't need to.
02:58Legally, they had no obligation to reach out to me regarding this, but it just would have
03:02been nice to have heard about it from them beforehand.
03:05WWE did reach out to me last week as a thank you from Punk and invited me to a show next
03:10month but, to my knowledge, that invitation had no correlation to them selling bracelets
03:15and wasn't offered as compensation.
03:17But I am still grateful for them contacting me at all.
03:21Responding to the backlash, WWE have pulled the merchandise from WWEShop.com.
03:26But it looks like all's well that ends well, as those now directly involved are having
03:31fun with the situation.
03:32Drew McIntyre, the man who has been the ire of CM Punk and Friendship Bracelets around
03:36the world in 2024, tweeted,
03:38All this bitching and moaning and crying, no wonder CM Punk is your hero.
03:42To which Victoria replied,
03:43All my bitching and moaning and crying and still not as much whining as you've done.
03:48You're twice my age and acting half of it, crying with laughter emoji.
03:52What do you make of this situation?
03:53Do you think WWE should have given Victoria the heads up?
03:56Should they put the bracelets back up on WWEShop.com?
03:59Let me know in the comments below.
04:01Speaking of controversy, and there's been a bizarre situation unfolding around AEW and
04:06their long gestating TV deal announcement.
04:09AEW's TV deal with Warner Bros. Discovery is up this year, but reports are that they've
04:14basically figured out a new deal with WBD which will be announced in the next few weeks.
04:19Tony Khan himself has more or less confirmed this.
04:21But in an intriguing twist, it was reported by Andrew Zarian that AEW have also had conversations
04:27with FOX, the former home of WWE Smackdown.
04:31The report was that FOX were keen to keep pro wrestling on their networks as it's
04:35easy to sell advertising for it, but it wasn't working out with WWE because Smackdown was
04:41too expensive and therefore lost the station money.
04:44Eboo of WrestlePurist noted on their Raw Review podcast that the rumour among AEW talent backstage
04:50is that Shockwave, which AEW recently trademarked, will be a one-hour show that will air on FS1.
04:57And in all of this reporting, a tweet from Andrew Chapados started getting attention
05:01online.
05:02Chapados had never tweeted about AEW before September 9th, but put out a tweet claiming
05:07that the WBD deal was now on the back foot.
05:10He added that on top of Warner's already having about 25% from the original deal, AEW
05:16likely had to give up more equity to get the new deal done, and that there was a lack of
05:20interest from other networks which hurt their negotiations, as well as recent controversial
05:24moves have hurt the product and its ratings.
05:27Those moves being presumably the ending of Swerve and Hangman at All Out, and the post-match
05:31angle with the Black Bull Combat Club and Bryan Danielson.
05:34Chapados' lack of tweets about AEW previously certainly pricked up a few ears, and Sean
05:39Ross Sapp of Fightful responded to the tweet,
05:42PLANTED AT BEST OUTRIGHT FALSE AT WORST.
05:45I can tell you in talking to people close to both sides that neither side would be making
05:49these claims themselves.
05:51What SRS means by planted is that someone, the leading candidate being TKO, fed this
05:56story to Chapados to put negative news out there about All Elite Wrestling and their
06:01future on TV.
06:02This would not be the first time that WWE have been accused of such actions, with some
06:06reporters being given the not-public-but-also-super-expensive-to-buy-Fast-National numbers for AEW Rampage to put out
06:13when the ratings are particularly bad.
06:15They may be expensive for regular journalists, but they're not if you're a billion dollar
06:19company looking to make your competition look bad.
06:22Sean Ross Sapp has spoken about this practice publicly, but has noted that the person sending
06:26him the Fast Nationals no longer works for WWE.
06:30And now someone on Reddit has claimed that they were old friends of Chapados at high
06:34school and college, and noted that he and another friend started spinning backfists
06:38which covered MMA and have connections to UFC, i.e. being on their press list.
06:44The poster claims Andrew, by tweeting that false report out of nowhere, may have just
06:48accidentally proved the people saying WWE TKO is spreading these false reports to be
06:53right, because he was clearly sent this information from his UFC TKO contacts and tweeted it.
07:00He adds in his claim,
07:01"...there is no other valid reason, in my opinion, for Andrew to be tweeting things
07:06like this, from what I know of him, other than it's something that was passed on to
07:10him and he was asked to post-slash-tweet about it."
07:14Chapados has also come under fire from wrestling fans following his tweet about the WBD deal,
07:18as he then started posting transphobic comments about AEW's Nyla Rose, and his pinned tweet
07:23is an interview with the rather controversial Val Venis.
07:26That Reddit post is, of course, conjecture. This is just one person's take on the situation,
07:31and anecdote is not proof. So what do you think is going on? Let me know in the comments
07:36down below.
07:37On to much more provable things now, and this is the thing that definitely did happen because
07:40I saw it with my own two eyes, and last night's NXT opened with a tag match between Axiom
07:45and Nathan Frazier taking on The Street Profits. Corey Brennan of Fightful Select reported
07:49ahead of the show that the match was only scheduled to go one segment, which did lead
07:53to some speculation online that we could see the debut of the Motor City Machine Guns,
07:58which has been on the cards for a while now. But we got someone else instead. The Bloodline
08:03of Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa and Jacob Fatu ran in to cause the DQ.
08:08Now this likely isn't an NXT invasion by the Bloodline, but rather a continuation of
08:13the feud between the group and the Street Profits over the tag titles, though Nathan
08:17Frazier has officially offered his and Axiom's services to Roman Reigns in order to take
08:21on the Bloodline. What it is another sign of, however, is WWE loading up NXT with main
08:26roster stars ahead of its debut on the CW. CM Punk has been announced for the debut episode
08:31which will take place from Chicago, and will be joined by The Miz and Women's Tag Team
08:36Champions Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill. Ethan Page will defend the NXT Championship
08:40against Trick Williams, and Roxanne Perez defends the NXT Women's Championship against
08:44Julia. CM Punk has also been announced for next week's edition of NXT.
08:49Notable by his absence in that NXT angle, however, was Solo Sakoa. He will be challenging
08:53Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship in a steel cage match on the USA Network return
08:58for Smackdown, which reportedly was once a Bad Blood match but moved to TV, with a new
09:03report suggesting that Rhodes will instead face Jacob Fatu at the PPV instead. And Ibu
09:08of WrestlePurist may have noted why that is on their recent podcast. He said, with regards
09:13to Solo Sakoa, Triple H thinks he's, like, kind of bad, but it doesn't matter. He's
09:19a member of the family. He's a member of the Samoan family. They have put so much time
09:24and resources into pushing him, and so you kind of have to see it through. So you have
09:29to continue to follow it up a little bit. Plus, beyond that, Roman Reigns will not allow
09:34for them to bury his cousin. This ties into a report from WrestleVotes from a few months
09:38ago which said that WWE were holding off on the Jacob Fatu debut in fear of him overshadowing
09:44Solo Sakoa.
09:45Now, if you missed yesterday's WrestleTalk News, Pete Quinnell made the very sad announcement
09:50that he will be leaving us after 5 and a bit years, and we invite you to come and say goodbye
09:55with us on a special episode of the WrestleTalk Podcast today at 3pm BST. There's a link
10:00for it in the video description. We'll see you all then.
10:03And to say goodbye to Pete on the Monday Night Wars as we start a new series over on Patreon,
10:08you can watch the Draft Day episode for free right now over on YouTube.
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