00:00For real reason, WWE let Baron Corbin go, a Royal Rumble surprise blocked by AEW, and
00:06TNA lives again.
00:09It lives.
00:10Oh, no, sorry, I meant live.
00:14TNA was broadcast live last night.
00:18Because it will never die.
00:20I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:27Let's start off with a nice, heartwarming story for a change.
00:41The bittersweet end to a wrestling legend's career, Christopher Daniels.
00:45For anyone of a certain vintage, which is to say lap-statitude era fans who got into
00:50TNA in the mid-noughties, the fallen angel Christopher Daniels was one of the best wrestlers
00:55on the planet.
00:56When his unbreakable three-way with AJ Styles and Samoa Joe for the X-Division title happened
01:00in 2005, you could actually feel the art of wrestling step into a new phase.
01:07To this day, it's still Will Ospreay's favourite ever match.
01:10Apart from some enhancement matches for early-noughties WWE and WCW, Daniels was always in your favourite
01:16non-WWE promotion.
01:18His run in TNA was legendary.
01:20He wrestled in the main event of Ring of Honor's first ever show with Bryan Danielson and Loki.
01:25He wrestled the very decent opening match on All In against Arrow's Stephen Amell
01:30at a time when celebrity matches were not very decent.
01:33And he was a day one member of AEW, as part of the wrestling faction SCU, and backstage
01:40as the head of Talent Relations.
01:42But the best thing he ever did was portray the Japanese wrestling character Curry Man.
01:47He's hot, he's spicy, he tastes great.
01:51I'm not even being ironic there, he's awesome.
01:54Anyway, on the 18th January episode of AEW Collision, he lost a Texas Deathmatch against
02:00Hangman Page.
02:01AEW didn't make a big deal of this match, apparently at Daniels' request.
02:05Because that was actually his in-ring retirement.
02:08On AEW Dynamite, and now posting on X confirming the reports, he says,
02:13I'm sad that it's over, but so very happy that it happened.
02:17Thank you all.
02:18And he also shared photos of what his family had made for him when he got home from the
02:21airport.
02:22A mural of memorabilia honouring his 32 year career, with a banner that read THE LEGEND
02:29HAS RETIRED.
02:30Let's have a thank you Daniels chant in the comments down below.
02:33Thank you Daniels.
02:36Thank you Daniels.
02:39Curry Man in the Royal Rumble confirmed.
02:40Because we sure won't be getting Malakai Black.
02:43Over the last two weeks, Malakai's House of Black faction mates have appeared to move
02:46on from him on AEW TV.
02:49Daniel Ospreay told Buddy Matthews that he should pursue a singles path, and Cope Adam
02:53Cope Copeland told Brodie King to take the reins and run of the faction.
02:57King would later file for the trademark for the Hounds of Hell, which could be his and
03:01Buddy's new tag team post-House of Black.
03:04Because their leader, Malakai, is reportedly done with the promotion.
03:08Multiple sites claimed that Malakai was done with AEW, but there was some disagreement
03:12over whether time should be added to his contract.
03:15AEW Insider is now reporting, though, that Black is fully finished up with AEW, and he
03:20will not be making a final appearance to send him off.
03:24The report also notes that due to Black's contract, he will not become a free agent
03:28in time for next Saturday's Royal Rumble, meaning he can't be a surprise entrant in
03:32that match.
03:33Instead, he is expected to become available later in February or March.
03:37Then again, that's what we all thought when Black was released by WWE back in 2021.
03:41But he turned up in AEW shortly after because WWE apparently forgot to ever update his contract
03:47to a main roster one, so he was still on NXT's 30 day non-compete clause.
03:51Now here's a word from this video's sponsor.
06:06I remember it like it was yesterday.
06:16The January 4th, 2010 episode of TNA Impact.
06:19It was a new era for the best wrestling promotion in the world, I thought at the time.
06:24Hulk Hogan was in, we didn't know about the racist stuff yet.
06:27Eric Bischoff was in, he didn't have a podcast back then.
06:30Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Mr Anderson, Ric Flair, they all debuted on TNA's special
06:35live episode on that date.
06:38Because for the first time ever, TNA had moved to Monday nights to go head-to-head with Raw.
06:44I legitimately thought, as an idealistic 23 year old, that TNA would topple WWE and become
06:51the number one promotion in the world.
06:53It ultimately lasted about two months, and they moved back to Thursdays.
06:56But here we are, 15 years later, and TNA ran another live episode of Impact.
07:01Hot off the announcement of their official partnership with WWE and the really good
07:05Genesis PLA at the weekend, the live show saw Fraxion successfully defend their NXT
07:10tag team titles against the Rascals.
07:12NXT's Ariana Grace, funnily the daughter of TNA Director of Authority Santino Marella,
07:17was on commentary for that match.
07:19And NXT's Wes Lee interfered, costing his former Rascals teammates the win.
07:24And NXT's Cora Jade had an angle with TNA Knockouts champion Masha Slamovich.
07:28In terms of non-WWE angles, Mustafa Ali returned to TNA to announce that he's officially
07:33signed a new contract.
07:35Matt Cardona was the surprise challenger for Joe Hendry's freshly won TNA World Championship,
07:40which JBL weirdly helped him retain again.
07:43TNA will definitely make JBL their top champion in the next few months, it's the most TNA
07:47thing they could do.
07:48And the 23 mystery teasers were revealed to be PCO's kayfabe wife Steph Delanda returning
07:53from neck surgery, where she is now TNA's Digital Media Champion, holding the Definitely
07:59Not Destroyed belt.
08:00Which is pretty interesting, because we all saw PCO smash that title with a sledgehammer
08:05on Sunday night.
08:06To quickly recap, PCO was TNA's Digital Media Champion.
08:10His contract expired at the end of last year.
08:12It's reported he verbally agreed a new deal, but then TNA lowered the money.
08:16He agreed to that new one as well, and then they said… well, actually, we're not renewing
08:21you.
08:22PCO was their reigning Digital Media Champion.
08:24So PCO brought the title into the ring at a GCW show, smashed it with a sledgehammer
08:29and said how bad TNA is.
08:31He then went on Twitter and heavily criticised the new management.
08:35Unsurprisingly, PCO has now been removed from TNA's roster page.
08:38The original plan was apparently for PCO to appear at the live show and drop the belt,
08:43but they've retconned that out by having Delanda explain the title is now hers as part
08:47of her divorce from PCO.
08:50Introducing her new debuting onscreen boyfriend Mance Warner, who has wrestled for GCW and
08:55MLW.
08:56Overall, PWInsider is reporting that TNA officials were very happy with the live broadcast, and
09:01that they hope to do them at least once a month.
09:03Just when you count TNA out, they somehow bounce back in a new way.
09:07I think we all thought them getting rid of Scott D'Amour, even though he masterminded
09:11the very successful rebrand back to TNA last January, was another nail in the coffin.
09:16But TNA, it kicks out at two more than the opener on your favourite indie show.
09:21And it could all be part of WWE's master plan.
09:25Because Triple H thinks 28 steps ahead.
09:28Wrestling Observer Radio has reported that some close to the situation think this will
09:33end with WWE owning TNA, with the main reason being the wrestling industry's complicated
09:40global chessboard.
09:41With the vast majority of WWE's non-US TV rights now all belonging to Netflix, WWE have
09:47left a very valuable international territory open for the taking.
09:52India.
09:53Coincidentally, it was the Indian TV rights money that kept TNA alive during their financial
09:57woes of the 2010s.
09:59Back in 2019, a WWE official claimed 50 million Indians watch Raw and SmackDown every week
10:05on the Sony 10 One channel.
10:07If true, that's ten times larger than the Raw-Netflix debut for the entire world.
10:13WWE going to Netflix was always going to create a huge opportunity for AEW to come in and
10:19take that market for themselves.
10:21So WWE could be using TNA as a way to block that by getting Impact a bigger deal there
10:26instead, with the promise of main roster WWE stars appearing on those shows.
10:32Which could also be a way for Baron Corbin to work his way back into the company.
10:35In a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Tom Pestock, the former Baron Corbin in WWE,
10:40has revealed he was shocked when he found out WWE wasn't renewing his contract late
10:45last year.
10:46It just had another successful re-gimmick in NXT, forming the Excellent Wolfdogs team
10:51with Brom Breaker, and was called back up to the main roster in the April draft.
10:55He speaks about how he was getting some of the best reactions of the night on live shows,
10:59with only Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton and Kevin Owens being louder, but creative ultimately
11:04told him they wanted to go in a different direction, and they let his contract expire
11:09on the 31st December.
11:11He claims that a lot of people in WWE reached out to him, including Randy Orton FROM OUTTA
11:17NOWHERE.
11:18Randy's like, dude, I honestly thought you were going to be here another 10 years.
11:21I don't understand it.
11:23Do you mind if I talk to Hunter about it?
11:25I don't know if he ever did, but he's like, somebody doesn't like you.
11:29I feel like I know who it is, and that's beside the point.
11:32But they had enough power to either kill creative or whatever it is, and they gotta
11:36go to bed with that at the end of the night, and that's on them.
11:39I think the most frustrating part of me is not understanding why, really.
11:43There's an ulterior motive there, because, again, I've been a company guy through and
11:48through.
11:49I think there's one person in particular that I think was behind all of it.
11:51I mean, the fact that Randy Orton's calling me going, there's someone that doesn't
11:55like you, and again, I know who it is, and I told him, and he's like, yeah, you're
12:00probably right.
12:01But the restock doesn't think it's Triple H, as Levesque was always one of his biggest
12:04supporters going back to his early days in NXT.
12:07But then again, that's what wrestlers would always say about Vince McMahon.
12:11Thinking it wasn't Vince who made the call, it was JR, or John Laurinaitis, or whoever
12:15was in control of talent relations.
12:17When ultimately, it was Vince's, and now Triple H's, decision.
12:22An exciting announcement!
12:24Saturday 25th we'll see the first episode of our brand new series going deep, like,
12:29WAY TOO DEEP into the Rock vs John Cena feud from 2011 to 2013.
12:36Episode 1 is Luke and I reviewing everything to do with WrestleMania 27, the one Rock first
12:42returned to host, for four and a half hours.
12:45That's 45 minutes longer than WrestleMania 27 itself, and it's mostly us talking about
12:51how terrible the main event is.
12:53You can watch our Royal Rumble 2014 review to see what it's like by clicking the video
12:57down below right now.
12:58But for now, here's a clip of us doing Mania 27.
13:57Peace Slater and Justin Gabriel are the tag team champions, and Ezekiel Jackson is there.
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