00:00WWE pushing a new Bloodline star! WWE stars hate their Death Rebel entrance music! John
00:06Cena's show cancelled. And more. I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News.
00:15Get exclusive bonus videos over at Patreon.com. While WWE has gotten behind a new star with
00:22Jey Uso winning the Royal Rumble, to an arguably divisive reaction, has lent into what the
00:27fans really want. A Jeff Jarrett World Title story in 2025!
00:33As part of this, he's also feuding with MJF, because Jarrett turned down Max's help.
00:39And on this week's episode of Dynamite, Dustin Rhodes joined in, who Jarrett had previously
00:43said was legitimately upset backstage with MJF for things he'd said in his promos.
00:48In the segment, MJF described Dustin as… the man that took 37 long, hard, arduous years
00:54of blood, sweat and tears, just to get out from underneath his daddy's shadow. You
00:58know what's so sad about the whole thing? Is that after all that hard work and sacrifice,
01:03now you live in the shadow of your little baby brother.
01:06Well, I assume he was going to say brother. Dustin punched him in the head before he could
01:11But Dustin wasn't the only one upset. Former WWE referee Jimmy Cor-der-us complained the
01:18line made AEW feel like it was in WWE's shadow. Great job, MJF, of reminding your
01:24audience about the man who is on top in the other company. To which Max explained…
01:29His brother. My mentor. A guy who helped shape me early on in my career. Your old boss brainwashed
01:34you into believing we need to treat the fans like morons and pretend other wrestling companies
01:39don't exist. You dumb, ignorant, bald, grifting f***. Respectfully."
01:43Wow, I thought that was pretty harsh until he said respectfully. Good to know that was
01:46written with respect. The Rhodes Family. The Hart Family. The Heenum
01:53Family. There's loads of families in wrestling, which isn't just great for bloodline stories,
01:58it's also great for nepotism. At just 23 years of age, NXT's Ava is the
02:05youngest onscreen General Manager in WWE history. She had only started training in 2020 at the
02:11Performance Center, and in 2022 she made her debut in Joe Gace's Shizm Faction. Back
02:16then, she had the full name Ava Reign, but her real surname is Johnson. Simone Johnson.
02:25Because Ava is the daughter of The Rock. Despite only having six matches to her name,
02:31which all took place between April and August 2023, Ava was kayfabe promoted to Shawn Michaels'
02:36onscreen assistant when Shizm disbanded. A couple of months later, she became NXT's
02:41full General Manager, and quickly started appearing on the main roster, interacting
02:46with the GMs of Raw and SmackDown. Even though WWE had a perfectly good William Regal right
02:52there. And now, a year into that position, WrestleVotes
02:56Creative has begun putting plans in motion for NXT General Manager and, of course, real
03:01life daughter of The Rock, Ava, to be featured more prominently on TV, as well as have merchandise
03:07and character ties to her father, alluding to his Final Boss persona.
03:17We are told plans could include her playing off the Final Boss character on TV as a way
03:21to raise her importance. Ava, from all accounts, is well liked, and could have a big future
03:27with the company. I personally think Ava is very green as an
03:30onscreen performer, and there are many others in NXT more deserving of this push. But Bloodline's
03:35gonna Bloodline, and I did fantasy book a Game of Thrones style storyline this year
03:39where Solo and Ava get married to unite the two sides of the dynasty against Roman Reigns.
03:44Brought this on myself. Ava's character is going to lean more into
03:48the Final Boss act, so a heel member of the Bloodline. It'll be very interesting to
03:53see if that crosses over with the main roster iterations of the faction. Or if she starts
03:57favouring her own relatives in NXT, like the signed but yet to debut Tala Tonga or the
04:02unsigned Zilla Fatu. Do you want to see WWE give Ava a major push?
04:08Tell me your thoughts in the comments down below where I'll be replying to people saying
04:12IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK. No, I'm just doing a bit there, I actually
04:17care what you think. But imagine it, after weeks of hype promos, Ava is finally going
04:24to be repackaged on the main roster. The lights go dark, lightning bolts and electricity sound
04:30effects shoot across the Tron for her brand new music to hit. Because a lot of WWE entrance
04:44music right now is ass. Jey and Charlotte winning the Rumble matches
04:48were the best thing to happen to Death Rebel this year. Because everyone focused on that
04:52rather than the real worst thing on the show, Finn Balor's incredibly lame new theme song.
04:57Here's the story so far. The WWE Music Group produces the bulk of WWE's theme songs.
05:03Jim Johnston was the original, who composed all of your childhood favourites like Stone
05:08Cold's and Mankind's. CFO Money started to take over from 2012 to 2019, and they were
05:13responsible for the brilliant NXT Black and Gold era of entrances like Bobby Roode's
05:18Glorious, Sami Zayn's Worlds Apart and Balor's Catch Your Breath.
05:23But then, in 2019, CFO Money and WWE had a dispute over pay and royalties. CFO Money
05:30were released from their recording contract and replaced by Death Rebel, which is actually
05:35a pseudonym not for an artist or a band, but for a music production company called DJD-TP.
05:42And in the years since, new WWE entrance themes, a signature of Triple H's NXT run, became
05:48increasingly bland and forgettable. And because of the dispute with CFO Money, WWE have got
05:54Death Rebel to replace many of their beloved songs too.
05:59And now, the actual wrestlers are reportedly rising up.
06:03According to Fightful Select, multiple WWE stars have tried to get their old non-Death
06:08Rebel songs back, citing, "...concerns over quality and connection with their audiences."
06:13Apparently the talent has little to no creative input on their new themes, where Death Rebel
06:19just makes them for them. While some wrestlers have retained their original theme songs,
06:23others, like Balor in the Rumble, have had theirs changed. Despite Fightful reporting
06:28the talent have "...strongly resisted these changes."
06:32Fightful adds that when new wrestlers come into the company, they try to bring in their
06:36own established music from elsewhere, rather than have Death Rebel auto-generate their
06:40themes. One example is Jordan Grace, who signed with WWE last month. She is using the
06:46same entrance music she had used elsewhere before she joined the company, which she owns.
06:52Another kind of example is the New Day's new song. After turning heel back in December,
06:57the New Day would come out to no entrance music so they could soak in the booze instead.
07:01But on the 3rd February episode of Raw, they debuted their new entrance theme, and rumours
07:06started going around that legendary WWE composer Jim Johnston had produced it. Now it's been
07:12confirmed that Johnston's name appearing on the Netflix captions during the New Day's
07:17new entrance was an error, and the song is actually by an artist called Say Z with the
07:21lovely Mega Ran on vocals. You know what though, I hate Nikki Bella's entrance music so much,
07:26I wouldn't mind Death Rebel ruining it. Nikki Bella was the big surprise No. 30 entry
07:31into the Women's Royal Rumble, where tens of thousands of fans in the stadium simultaneously
07:36went WOW, before realising it's Nikki Bella at No. 30 in the Royal Rumble, and then going
07:42ah, oh. Ok. But it sounds like it's not just a one-off, as speaking on the Nikki and
07:49Brie show, Nikki confirmed we will see another appearance from her sooner than later, that
07:54is for sure. I'm definitely doing more than what I just did on Saturday. And it's not
07:59just her, it's double trouble. Hopefully Brie Mode will be by my side soon. More on
08:06that to come. Meanwhile, former WWE ring announcer Samantha
08:09Irvin, who suddenly left the company last October, feels like she's teasing a move
08:14to AEW. First, speaking on USA Today, Irvin said,
08:18"...my wrestling career has barely even begun. I think it would be an absolute waste
08:22of everything that I've done so far to not continue the story. I gotta finish my story."
08:28PWInsider has followed this up by reporting Irvin was on Chris Jericho's Rock N Wrestling
08:32Rager at Sea Cruise, and backstage at this week's AEW Dynamite, accompanying her real-life
08:38partner Ricochet, who won in the main event. Speaking of people going back to wrestling
08:43because non-wrestling projects didn't pan out, John Cena's TBS game show Wipeout has
08:48been quietly cancelled by its network. The latest version of Wipeout, with Cena as
08:52a host, started in 2021 with good numbers, and ran on TBS, which also have AEW programming.
09:00So a John Cena show would occasionally be advertised around AEW commercial breaks.
09:05But according to a Warner Bros Discovery executive, Wipeout was too expensive to make for what
09:10ratings it was bringing in. The latest series still has a handful of episodes yet to air,
09:15but then it will finish after that. Wrestling Observer Radio has added a bit more
09:19behind the scenes context. A recent Sunday episode of Wipeout drew a TV rating that was
09:24just as bad as the February 1st episode of Collision, which was a historically low figure
09:30of just 197,000 viewers, and a .04 18-49 rating. That Collision episode was going up against
09:38the Royal Rumble, though. Wipeout didn't have an excuse, so was cancelled. So Collision
09:43better hope its ratings bounce back. There's a new Captain America movie coming
09:47out now. Watch Luke and Laurie run down the biggest films of this month by clicking the
09:51video onscreen now.
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