00:00Has a big Royal Rumble debut been leaked? AJ Styles is seriously injured. My review
00:05of Monday Night Raw and more. I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk
00:12News. If you told me 9 years ago when I was driving
00:22a sleeping Zack Sabre Jr on a 10 hour round trip to Hull and back that he would one day
00:26be the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, I would've replied YES I KNOW HE'S AMAZING, HE'S
00:32MY FAVOURITE WRESTLER. And he sleeps so beautifully.
00:36And now that prophecy has been fulfilled, as after winning the G1 Climax tournament,
00:40he chose Monday's King of Pro Wrestling show for his title shot, rather than the customary
00:45WrestleKingdom on January 4th, where he beat Tetsuya Naito.
00:49Congratulations Sabre Jr, F the Tories, and I hope it's you vs Will Ospreay at London's
00:54Forbidden Door 2025. But with the beginning of a new era, a previous
00:59one must come to an end. As, on that same show, Hiroshi Tanahashi announced he will
01:05be retiring in 2026, wanting his last match to happen at WrestleKingdom 20.
01:12It's not a good time for your favourite wrestlers from the late noughties, because
01:15with Tanahashi potentially retiring at the start of 2026, just weeks after the conclusion
01:21of John Cena's farewell tour in WWE, the other top guy from that period, AJ Styles
01:27in TNA, has revealed his injury is far worse than originally feared.
01:33Styles only just returned from a hiatus on the October 4th episode of SmackDown, where
01:37he wrestled a match against Carmelo Hayes. That match had to be stopped when AJ suffered
01:42an injury that WWE later announced was a midfoot ligament sprain.
01:47Responding to a Twitter user who thought it was all a work brother MuchLoveHH Kiss, AJ
01:52himself has revealed. It's called a Lisfranc injury. Look it up,
01:56it sucks. I thought when I took off my boot, I would have a bone sticking out of my foot.
02:01When someone else pointed out that's the same injury that can end running back seasons
02:05in the NFL, AJ confirmed. Bingo. As the kids say, I'm cooked.
02:11No cap, Gen Z. No rising cap. In more wrestlers replying to people on Twitter
02:16news, Joe Hendry replied to this person's pos-OH MY GOD HE'S HERE.
02:34Kinda crazy how fast Joe Hendry fell off the radar. For context, Joe Hendry is wrestling
02:38for the TNA World Championship at their biggest show of the year Bound for Glory in two weeks.
02:43But Hendry was looking ahead even further into the future with his reply.
02:47Kinda crazy how poorly that tweet will age in about four months.
02:52Many have pointed out that about four months' time is WWE's Royal Rumble, fuelling speculation
02:57that Hendry will be a surprise entrant in the men's match.
03:01According to Fightful Select, however, a Hendry main roster appearance will still have to
03:04go through the TNA to WWE prohibitive portal, as Joe is under contract with TNA until at
03:10least late 2025. He's expected to be a focal point of the show next year, with many
03:16pushing for him to win the world title at Bound for Glory.
03:19But can Luke Owen also fulfil his promise to finally beat Pete at Monday Night War?
03:24The 6th episode of Monday Night War is live exclusively right now on Patreon.com forward
03:54Slash WrestleTalk now to watch the full exclusive Monday Night War series.
04:24And now it's time for my review of last Monday Night's Raw… it's a pre-tape…
04:29in about 5 minutes. Rhea Bloody Ripley opened the show, calling
04:33out Liv Morgan, Raquel Rodriguez and Dominic Mysterio because this feud will never end.
04:38Instead, out came Nia Jax's Silver Surfer Tiffany Stratton with a message. Stay out
04:43of Nia's business, Ripley had gotten into a brawl with everyone on Friday's SmackDown,
04:47or she's going to have a big problem. They were both jumped by Liv and Raquel in
04:52the ring, prompting Adam Pearce to make a tag team match players for the main event.
04:57But before that, I'm seeing double here. Four women's tag matches.
05:02After over a month of build, Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair defended their women's
05:07tag team championships against Damage Control's Io Sky and Kairi Sane. They established the
05:12story early of power vs speed and athleticism. Bianca would carry Io around the ring with
05:17ease. Strength. But then Kairi would launch herself over the top rope outside. Speed.
05:23There was a secondary, more subtle story, though. That Damage Control were the more
05:27cohesive team. Cargill once missed a move, slamming Bianca into the mat. Io followed
05:32that up immediately with an awesome team-based spot of their own, launching Kairi into the
05:37air for an improvised insane elbow. Ultimately, though, like a lot on these two
05:41hour Raws, this match didn't get enough time. Most of it was in the commercial break.
05:45The finish came suddenly when NXT's Lash Legend and Nakara Jackson punched Io outside,
05:50letting Bianca hit a KOD to retain. Finn Balor was grumpy backstage because Pearce
05:54wouldn't give him yet another match against Damian Priest. Instead, he remembered, oh
05:58yeah, your tag team champions, which should probably occasionally be defended. A number
06:03one contenders tournament was booked, which saw, don't mention the War Ra-oh, actually,
06:08you can totally now mention it, the War Raiders, with Erick and Ivar returning from injury,
06:13repackaging themselves with their much better NXT name.
06:16And they quickly squashed Akira Tozawa and Otis to advance.
06:20Ron Breaker cut a pre-taped promo explaining his heel turn on Jey Uso last week, which
06:24was surprising because he had turned babyface the week before that. Ron explained it was
06:29because when he offered Jey respect, Jey didn't offer him the same in return.
06:34Actually let me just pop that into my Pro Wrestling Translator app there. Yep, ok, he's
06:39saying Goldberg wanted a match with Gunther, so Breaker's been bumped back to the midcard.
06:43Most interesting though, considering what came later, was Breaker saying Jey's family
06:47won't save him now. The same episode where Jey's brother Jimmy turned up backstage
06:52twice to try to repair their relationship, which Jey rejected both times.
06:58Also on this episode, Ron beat Kofi Kingston pretty easily, barely an inconvenience. Xavier
07:02Woods tried to make the save afterwards, but needed Jey's help to fully scare off Breaker.
07:06Ron and Jey will have a rematch for the Intercontinental Championship next week. Feels very rushed
07:10and sudden, but there is a lot of intrigue. Will they just hotshot the title back onto
07:15Breaker, or will Jimmy help Jey to prove they're stronger together?
07:20Speaking of bronze, Pearce did a sitdown interview with Bronze and Reed, who promised to not
07:25destroy everything in his path if he just got a one-on-one match against Seth Rollins.
07:30Pearce then spoke to Seth later on, who thankfully took it seriously rather than dressing and
07:34laughing like a gimp, framing this as a young guy trying to take his spot, so he needs to
07:38put Reed down. The world title scenes are stalled for the
07:41next few weeks, while both shows build towards the champion vs champion match, which will
07:46decide the first ever super shiny crown jewel champion. Do you know how Saudi Arabia gets
07:52their championship belts so shiny? They sports wash them.
07:55Gunther interrupted Cody's in-ring promo, calling him a secondary world champion, where
08:00Rhodes argued how can a secondary world champion have beaten the most dominant reign ever Roman,
08:05with that he's dominated a beast. Which is presumably a reference to Brock Lesnar.
08:10We'll have to wait and see if that's just a nod to his feud last Summer, or an actual
08:14testing of a Lesnar return to WWE. R-Truth rolled up The Miz in seconds after
08:20the Final Testament walked down the ramp. Rather than be annoyed with Karrion Kross,
08:24The Miz accepted the Final Testament's gift of throwing Truth back into the ring to lay
08:28him out. At the start of this, the Wyatt Six logo flashed
08:31up on the screen, which means we're getting R-Truth comedy with Uncle Howdy.
08:34Damian Priest returned, agreeing with Rhea Ripley that he should move on to being a world
08:38champion again, considering that he's beaten all the Judgment Day boys multiple times.
08:43And the main event saw Ripley and Tiffany take on Liv and Raquel, the latter of whom
08:47really needs to change up her gear because I occasionally confused her with Rhea. And
08:51she doesn't do the back pose anymore. What even is her character if it's not I have
08:56a back? Ripley and Tiffany bickered early on, letting
08:59Raquel powerbomb Liv over the top rope onto them. Rhea eventually got the hot tag and
09:03practically had Morgan beat with a Riptide, but Nia Jax attacked her from out of nowhere
09:08for the DQ. Nia also laid out Liv, and had a great moment
09:11where she was gesturing to Tiffany to cash in on her. But either because Stratton was
09:15a bit slow, or maybe because she's secretly planning to cash in on Nia, she took a little
09:20too long and Dominic dragged Morgan to safety. This week's Raw is 66%.
09:25There's been another backstage altercation in WWE. Click the video now to find out more.
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