00:00Triple H wanting to get a wrestler fired? Is this tag team leaving WWE? Backlash to
00:06an AEW botch? And more. I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:17Before all that though, I've just got one question for you. Who let the dogs out? Who,
00:23who, who remembers that song? No one quite does wrestling merchandise like WWE, who will
00:28turn anything into merch for you suckers to spend your hard earned money on. Case in point,
00:34WWEShop.com is selling plush toys not of CM Punk, but CM Punk's dog Larry. Not only are WWE selling
00:42merchandise of a wrestler's pet, that merchandise is outselling some other wrestlers on the WWE
00:48roster. WrestleVotes are reporting that WWE are thrilled with how well the first run of Larry
00:54plushes have sold, and they expect to sell more when Punk makes his return to TV, noting,
00:59the dog outdrew several current superstars as well as WWE legends. After this news came out,
01:05Punk took to Instagram to post a story of Larry posing next to lots of cash with the caption,
01:10King. I'm sure he then told him to go off or something. Have you bought one of the Larry
01:16plushes from WWEShop.com? Let me know in the comments down below. Speaking of wrestlers and
01:21burying hatchets, the internet really has buried its hatchet with Triple H. Given how good the WWE
01:27product is at the moment, and how much of that is down to Triple H's creative overhaul of the
01:31company in a post-Vince world, it's easy to forget that pre-PapaTrips of NXT, Triple H was one of the
01:38most hated wrestlers among the internet fanbase. He was the ultimate politicker, giving Hulk Hogan
01:44a run for his money. His longstanding backstage feud with The Rock and reported jealousy over
01:49his popularity has been well documented. Oli Davis did a big rundown of that on this very channel,
01:54and he's been accused of burying talent across his long career in WWE. There's a reason Cody
02:01Rhodes that one time brought out a golden shovel as a weapon. Much like that time he smashed that
02:05throne, it was a not-so-subtle knock at Triple H. As several wrestling historians and bookers have
02:10said about him in the past, Triple H was never the top guy, he was the guy who worked with the top
02:17guy. It's also worth remembering that he's the guy who came up with the idea of screwing Bret Hart
02:23at Survivor Series 1997. And speaking of Bret Hart, he recently told Rob Van Dam on his Whatever
02:28Kind podcast that Triple H, along with his click buddy Shawn Michaels, tried to get a WWE star
02:34fired shortly after they arrived in the company. According to Bret, when Ken Shamrock joined the
02:39WWF in 1997, Michaels and Triple H took an instant dislike to him. Bret said it's funny when they
02:46signed him, Triple H and Shawn tried to get him fired, for no reason other than they didn't like
02:51him. Hart goes on to say that Vince had been told by some of the guys that Shamrock worked too stiff
02:57in the ring, but wouldn't expand upon that point any further. According to Bret, Vince asked him
03:02for his opinion, and Hart said they shouldn't fire Shamrock, which led to him being made the
03:06special guest referee for his iconic WrestleMania match with Steve Austin. It's probably worth
03:11noting that this is coming from Bret Hart, who is probably the chairman of the We Hate Triple H
03:15Club. So maybe we should just take all of this with a pinch of bitter salt. But maybe there is
03:21a reason why Ken Shamrock never won the WWE Championship while HBK was on top. It's also
03:27not the first story where Triple H and HBK have reportedly tried to get in Vince's ear to fire
03:32wrestlers shortly after joining. Hilariously, the same thing reportedly happened with CM Punk.
03:37But that's all water under the bridge now. We all like Triple H now. After all,
03:42he's bringing in all of our favourite wrestlers from the mid-2000s and finally giving them their
03:46chance on the big WWE stage, like Alex Shelly and Chris Saban of the Motor City Machine Guns.
03:52Shelly and Saban made their WWE debut last month, and quite quickly won the WWE Tag Team
03:59Championships. It has been pointed out online that the reactions they are getting from WWE crowds are
04:05muted to say the least, but the company clearly have a lot of faith in them to get over. It's
04:10no secret on this channel that they are among my favourite tag teams of all time. And it's not just
04:15me, Shelly and Saban are probably your favourite tag team's favourite tag team. And according to
04:20WrestleVotes Radio, the pair have endeared themselves backstage in WWE and are very well
04:26liked. They add that Shelly and Saban have been very approachable in their short tenure
04:30and are very communicative. This is why they're the best. They're not causing any dramas or any
04:36issues whatsoever. There's no backstage tensions in the Smackdown tag team division.
04:45Or is there? There's been a lot of chatter about the Street Profits over the last few weeks,
04:49with Montez Ford in particular seemingly legit TO'd about the pair's lack of push since Triple
04:55H took over the creative reigns of WWE, with some even tying it to the same frustrations that
05:00the Hurt Business have revealed they had since leaving WWE. Sean Rossapp of Fightful Select
05:05reported earlier in the week that some of Ford and Angelo Dawkins' comments could just be storyline
05:10frustration, but there are those in WWE who aren't sure, and this could all be a shoot, brother.
05:18And now Dawkins has done another social post on Twitter promoting their tag match with the
05:22Motor City Machine Guns on tonight's Smackdown, saying,
05:25We have to do it this time. There ain't no excuses. Ain't nothing getting in our way.
05:30Because to be real with you, I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off.
05:35Sorry, can anyone else smell that? Is it my coffee?
05:39No, it smells like a work, brother.
05:41But maybe not. SRS even inquired about the contract status of the Street Profits,
05:46but could not get a concrete answer. Noting that they both signed deals in 2019 but is not sure
05:52of how long those contracts were for. If they were a standard length, giggity,
05:56they would be five years and that would be coming up soon. Or it's all a work, I don't know.
06:02What I do know is that we've got a stacked amount of video content coming your way this weekend.
06:07On Saturday, myself, Tempest and Sullivan will have a parts-fun known invasion here on WrestleTalk
06:12as we bring over our worst match ever series, seeing just how bad John Cena vs. John Laurinaitis
06:19really was. And then on Sunday, myself and Oli Davis will be giving our predictions for
06:24this year's Survivor Series in three words or less slash fewer in the latest episode
06:29of Three Count. That's coming up this weekend on WrestleTalk, but already over on Cutscene,
06:33I take a deep dive into the history of Spider-Man 3 and the original death scene for Venom,
06:39with exclusive comments by the film's editor revealing what really happened on the Spider-Man
06:45set, and also features a little cameo from Matt McMuscles.
06:48This week's AEW Dynamite took place in Bridgeport, Connecticut. But tell that to
06:53Swerve Strickland, who during a promo segment on the show said they were in
06:57Stamford, Connecticut. The online scuttlebutt is that he was not thinking about Scott Stamford,
07:02but instead the home base of WWE. This is like that one time that Oli said a place in Canada
07:07was in the US because they have a similar name. The Bridgeport crowd booed babyface Swerve
07:13Strickland and it led to the wrong kind of heat when the Hurt Syndicate beat him down,
07:17cheering the heels because they're beating up the guy who got their town name wrong.
07:21Wrestling is weird, ain't it? According to Bryan Alvarez, who did say that the gaffe was a poor
07:26mistake to be made given that he is one of the company's top babyfaces, but there could be a
07:31reason why he might have gotten the name wrong. Alvarez said, I will say this to defend Swerve
07:36Strickland, the hotel that the wrestlers were booked to stay in was in Stamford. It wasn't
07:42like he thought he was in WWE. What do you think? Do you think that's a plausible excuse? Let me
07:46know in the comments down below. And there might be a new signing joining the ranks of AEW to see
07:51mistakes like that in first person. On the Wednesday edition of the WrestleTalk News,
07:55I talked about an update from Fightful Select about the contract status of Speedball Mike
08:00Bayley. There had been some online speculation and reports that Bayley was done with TNA and
08:05would be heading to All Elite Wrestling. Sean Ross Sapp however noted that Bayley was still
08:10under contract with TNA. But what a difference 48 hours can make. Because in an update to the
08:16update, it would appear that Mike Bayley is done with TNA with his contract expiring on November
08:231st. PWInsider also report that same date. SRS adds in his report that Bayley gave his goodbyes
08:30to the TNA locker room in Detroit and is expected to be All Elite Wrestling bound. His profile on
08:35the TNA website has since been removed. Speedball recently lost his X-Division Championship to Moose
08:40in a decision that many TNA fans found… odd. But that was reportedly done because Bayley himself
08:46was done with the company. For those asking if he could be WWE bound instead of AEW,
08:52one TNA source told Fightful Select they wouldn't have needed to write Bayley off TNA TV
08:57if he were headed to NXT or WWE due to their current partnership. In some other good news for
09:02AEW, with NXT not running against them this week, their ratings were up. Because if you're 5-5-5,
09:08then AEW drew 6-6-6 hundred thousand viewers. Not only were they up, it's the highest ratings for
09:14the show since the start of October. The show finished 5th on cable only being beaten by sports
09:19and news, and it's .22 in the 18-49 demo is the best number the company has had since September.
09:25As mentioned earlier, my latest episode of Cutscene is out now with a look at the making
09:30of Spider-Man 3 with exclusive comments from the film's editor. Not only that,
09:34but if you head over to Patreon.com forward slash Cutscene, there's a 5 hour review of the movie
09:39done by myself and Oli Davis. Here's a clip to get you ready.
09:43The making of Spider-Man 3 in of itself is fascinating. At one point it was split into
09:48two parts, at another point had a different villain line-up, and it was supposed to set
09:52up a fourth outing for Raimi as director and Tobey Maguire as the friendly neighbourhood webslinger.
09:58But it would end up being the end of the road for Raimi, and the final outing as the
10:03character for Tobey Maguire until the MCU Multiverse Experiment.
10:10Spider-Man 3 saw a creative war between Raimi and producer Avi Arad, and most of that frustration
10:16came over the inclusion of one of Spider-Man's most iconic villains,
10:20Venom. One party wanted it, and the other one didn't. In the end, the party that wanted it
10:25got their way, because they felt that fans wanted to see Venom more than any other classic
10:30Spider-Man rogue, but the party that didn't want it, by his own admittance, did not give the
10:35character his all. And because of that, those fans that wanted to see Venom on the big screen
10:41left dissatisfied with the character's portrayal.
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