00:00An ex-WWE star sent back to jail.
00:02An update on Brock Lesnar's possible WWE return.
00:06WWE 2K25 modes revealed.
00:09And more!
00:10I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:20Buff Bagwell was one of the more infamous characters in WCW, joining the New World Order,
00:25wearing a big fluffy hat, and once wrestling for his own mum Judy Bagwell on a pole.
00:31And in 2001, he became even more notorious in WWE.
00:36Because as legend has it, Vince McMahon was all ready to relaunch WCW as its own brand
00:42under the WWE banner.
00:44But he saw Bagwell vs Booker T wrestle on Raw and found it so boring, he scrapped the
00:48entire project.
00:49I actually worked with him on a TV taping back in the early 2010s, and he was a really
00:53nice, humble guy.
00:55In August 2020, though, he was involved in a car crash.
01:00According to Cobb County Police, he had been driving impaired due to prescription medication.
01:04Buff has now posted a video on his YouTube channel entitled I'm Going Back to Jail
01:09Today.
01:10In the pre-recorded video, Buff says he's two and a half years sober, but he's heading
01:14to jail for three days from January 27th.
01:17He says this is because he's in a very strong, strict rehabilitation program, and that he
01:22got a recent sanction because he didn't document an out-of-state trip properly.
01:26For some, getting a sanction could mean a fine, or doing community service, but under
01:31his program, it means he has to spend time in jail.
01:35The reason he posted a video in advance explaining this is because whenever he gets a violation
01:39in the DUI court program, it lists his original offence from 2020, making it seem like a new
01:45DUI when it isn't, so people shouldn't worry as he's in a good place right now.
01:50It's now been over a year since Janelle Grant filed her lawsuit accusing Vince McMahon
01:54of sexual misconduct and trafficking, allegations which he denies.
01:57It led to Vince resigning from WWE the day before last year's Royal Rumble, and it
02:02also scuppered creative plans for the return of Brock Lesnar.
02:06Grant's lawsuit also alleged that Vince requested her to send sexual content to a
02:10UFC fighter and WWE talent the company was trying to re-sign.
02:15The Wall Street Journal later reported this name to be Lesnar.
02:18As a result, WWE pulled him from all their Rumble and Road to WrestleMania plans, where
02:22he was apparently meant to have matches against Gunther and Dominic Mysterio, removed him
02:27as a playable character from the WWE 2K24 game, and edited around him in video packages.
02:33But since August, WWE has started to reference The Beast in promos on TV.
02:38He's been such a big part of modern WWE history, there's an argument that it's
02:43hard not to.
02:44Especially when characters are discussing the really big stars they've beaten in the
02:47past.
02:48Just on this Monday's Raw, Drew McIntyre referenced Slayin' The Beast at WrestleMania
02:5339, which led to Paul Heyman joining forces with Roman Reigns and kicking off the whole
02:58Bloodline saga.
02:59But there is another interpretation.
03:02WWE are subtly testing the waters for an eventual Lesnar return.
03:07The main crux of McMahon's legal defence against Grant is that this shouldn't be
03:11a public hearing.
03:12It should first go to private arbitration, as laid out in the NDA that Grant signed years
03:17ago.
03:18Grant's lawyers have until Friday 31st January to submit their arguments as to why the case
03:23should stay public, which is arguably in their best interests.
03:27With this in mind, the Wrestling Observer has reported that there is no movement on
03:30Lesnar returning to WWE, as the legal department has to sign off on it first.
03:35And that likely won't happen until they're confident the Grant lawsuit is being resolved.
03:41a Rumble return on Saturday, and, most probably, for the rest of the road to WrestleMania.
03:46Sportskeeda's Chris Featherstone has reported there have been no internal conversations
03:50within WWE about Lesnar's return as a result.
03:53Brock remains on WWE.com's active roster page.
03:56But that's not the only curious thing about WWE.com.
04:00Jordan Grace finished up with TNA at their Genesis PLE on the 19th.
04:04Fightful Select, PWInsider and the Wrestling Observer all reported that she was now on
04:10her way to join WWE, after appearing in last year's Women's Royal Rumble and frequently
04:15turning up on NXT TV.
04:17The speculation is she'll fully debut at this Saturday's Royal Rumble.
04:20And now the news has officially been confirmed by WWE's web development team.
04:28If you type in the URL wwe.com forward slash superstars forward slash jordan hyphen grace
04:35which would be her page if she was an active roster member, you are greeted with an access
04:41denied message that reads, you are not authorized to access this page.
04:46This means that WWE have added Grace to their official online roster, but it just isn't
04:51publicly viewable yet.
04:52Now, this was where I was going to make a joke about who else can we try this for.
04:56Where I'd type a stupid name in the web address, but it wouldn't come back with
05:00any proper results.
05:01And the name I put in was David Arquette.
05:11And it also said you are not authorized to access this page.
05:15Yeah, he wrestled once for Raw in 2010, but so did Floyd Mayweather, and that just redirects
05:21you to the main roster page.
05:23Kenny Omega redirects you to the main roster page.
05:26Rey Fenix redirects you to the main roster page.
05:29Arquette, what are you telling us?
05:32In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Grace didn't talk about going to WWE, but she
05:36did explain what happened with her TNA contract, where she'd been since 2018.
05:41Apparently her deal originally ran out in October 2025, but TNA management agreed to
05:46let her out ten months earlier in January, potentially because of the working relationship
05:50agreed with WWE.
05:52Which sounds like a much better situation than what happened to PCO.
05:56On the same evening that Grace was finishing up her TNA run at Genesis, the promotion's
06:00then current digital media champion PCO was shooting on the company and trying to destroy
06:05its belt at a GCW show.
06:07His rant against TNA was cut off by the production team, so he's now spoken to Fightful about
06:12what was going on behind the scenes.
06:15He said he was very upset with TNA's new management, as at July's Slammiversary show,
06:20he believes he helped sell out the biggest house in the Anthem era of TNA.
06:24He spoke about fighting to double the venue size from a 2,000 to 4,000 capacity, which
06:29he claims would've cost the same amount.
06:32He promised he'd do all he could to sell it out, and, to his credit, he did.
06:37The event's attendance figure was 4,100.
06:39He then claims he had a verbal agreement for a new contract for 2025 on a very similar
06:44salary and conditions that he was already on.
06:46But backstage at TNA's last show of the year, Final Resolution on the 13th December,
06:51he saw other wrestlers coming out of the office and quitting.
06:55He was then told that they can't honour the deal they spoke about.
06:58They changed it to less money, which he agreed on a handshake.
07:01But then he got a concussion in December, and nobody came with him to the hospital.
07:05He was told to put the expense on his credit card, and that the promotion would reimburse
07:09him.
07:10From that point, he didn't feel valued by TNA.
07:12Ultimately, he claims TNA pulled his contract offer, which is why he did what he did at
07:16the GCW show.
07:17Now here's a special word for our wonderful Patreons…
07:21Hey everyone, professional wrestler Turbo John here, the brother of Turbo Jack and our
07:27dear departed Turbo Jake.
07:29We still ain't done found my dear brother Jake.
07:32He was last seen at the Gallo Bingo in Birmingham, Alabama, but we just haven't seen him since.
07:39I've heard tale, tales of him going up on a hang glide and adventure, and just going
07:46sailing.
07:47And I will sail no more, is what he's believed to have said before he sailed off.
07:56And I'd like to thank all of y'all who've supported our request to find him.
08:02And I'd like to thank some of you fine folk who've donated to patreon.com forward slash
08:08WrestleTalk, because you've given your hard-earned money that you get from sweating and bleeding
08:16your fingers dry to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk, because it helps us not only
08:21create amazing exclusive content for all of y'all, it also helps us find our lost brother.
08:27And I want to give a special shout out to some names, because these are super special
08:33people right here in my heart.
08:35So a shout out to you, Baldin Brummy, Brett Linforth, Big Jiggy Josh Martin, Born to Do
08:42It, Evan Shelby, The Abominable Michael Abbott, The Machine Gun, Alex Anderson, Go Ace, The
08:51Ace of Spades, Adrian Santil, and lastly, The Cleaner, Kenny Shaw.
08:57Thanks for doing all the cleaning work on my dirty flat this past Friday.
09:02So I implore all of y'all to head on over to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk,
09:08because it helps us here at WrestleTalk.
09:11It helps me maintain my great and glorious career, and it helps find lost wrestlers.
09:20Patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk.
09:22Thank y'all.
09:23While the Rumble is the perfect place to debut new stars, it seems some of WWE's signed
09:28wrestlers are being saved for NXT.
09:31The 28th January episode of NXT ended with a cryptic bars and tone video with the text
09:37Vengeance Day.
09:38Vengeance Day is NXT's next big PLE, which is happening on Saturday the 15th February.
09:43There's currently no word on who this could be.
09:46Solomon Crowe NXT return confirmed.
09:48There's another name that WWE could debut soon, though.
09:51Former New Japan star and Bloodline family member Hikaleo, who has been signed with the
09:55company since July.
09:57The initial report had him set to debut in NXT first, instead of being called up to the
10:02main roster right away as the latest man in the black hoodie interfering in a Bloodline
10:05match.
10:06And now the Wrestling Observer is reporting, six months after signing him, WWE is still
10:11in no rush to debut him, as they don't want to put him on screen too early.
10:15So we'll just make him in the new WWE 2K game instead.
10:18Following the reveal of Roman Reigns as the game's cover star on Monday's Raw, and
10:21that it would be released on the 14th March, 2K announced more details for the game.
10:26There will now be intergender matches, so you can finally book Rhea Ripley vs Gunther.
10:30My GM mode is returning, hooray, which you can now play online.
10:34And the new game will see the debut of The Island, which is…
10:39An interactive world made up of a series of areas built around different WWE themes.
10:45The Island offers players the opportunity to explore and challenge other players while
10:50vying to earn a WWE contract by impressing the original Tribal Chief Roman Reigns.
10:56As you can see, the Island has a gigantic statue of Roman in solid gold.
11:01Never one to miss an opportunity to HATE Drew McIntyre posted about Sami Zayn featuring
11:08on the 2K Special Edition cover with the rest of the Bloodline, what the hell is a polar
11:12bear doing in Arlington, Texas?
11:14With Raw moving to Netflix, we don't have as many ratings and quarter hour analytics
11:18to endlessly argue about anymore.
11:20But the delayed overall global number is still coming out.
11:24According to Netflix's own site, the 20th January episode of Raw was ranked 7th globally
11:29for the week, pulling in 3 million views.
11:32This is down almost 50% from the 5.9 million views in week 1.
11:36Week 2 pulled in 3.7 million.
11:38As 3 million is the global number, the domestic US viewing figures likely aren't massively
11:43different from the 1.6 million it was getting on average on the USA Network.
11:47The second Saturday night's main event pulled in 1.5 million viewers on USA, and SmackDown
11:52drew a very strong 2.5 million viewers and a .71 demo rating last Friday night.
11:58There's a brand new episode of Worst Match Ever available to watch right now on PFK!
12:03It's 2023's Worst Match of the Year winner of LA Knight vs Bray Wyatt in a Mountain Dew
12:10pitch black match.
12:11Click the video onscreen to watch us watch that now.
Comments