00:00We have an update on some new AEW titles, plus the top AEW star is returning sooner than expected,
00:09and WWE make a major change to money in the bank.
00:13It's all in the Cultaholic Wrestling News right now.
00:16Last night...
00:17Fright Night, baby. Next week. Not now, but it is now as well.
00:24Fright Night, AEW. Things are going to happen, aren't they, Tom?
00:27Something already did happen, sorry.
00:30Oh, brown trousers today? Sensible choice.
00:33That's where we started.
00:34Yeah, Fright Night, Dynamite, and trousers are full of show.
00:39You won't believe what we're going to be seeing.
00:41So we're going to have the beginning of the tournament to determine the first ever AEW Women's World Tag Team Champions.
00:50It begins at Fright Night, probably will conclude at full gear.
00:54You would imagine so, wouldn't you?
00:55Yeah, I don't think I'll stretch it further than that.
00:57Let's take a look at the bracketologies, how are we wrong?
01:00All right, Tom, let's get our calculator out and work out who's going to win.
01:05Jamie Hayter and Queen Aminata versus Julia Hart and Sky Blue.
01:08I would put the favourites as the babyfaces there.
01:11Yeah, I would probably lean towards Hayter and Aminata there.
01:15Mind you, the Triangle of Terror could do with a little bit of a re-up since Tekla lost on the PIP of, yeah.
01:24So actually, I'm going to go against that.
01:25I'm going to say Triangle.
01:26God, that's madness, Tom.
01:27I know.
01:28In a Triangle of fashion.
01:29Next up, we've got Mercedes-Monnaie and Athena of Ring of Honor, of course, slash AEW, versus Willa Nightingale and Harley Cameron.
01:35Oh, but how will Monet and Athena coexist?
01:38Because we joked about when they announced the tag team titles.
01:41Is there a chance that Mercedes-Monnaie gets her hands on another title?
01:44Hell yeah.
01:45I don't think she's got enough.
01:48Regardless to what many are saying, I think she needs another 10.
01:52Give her more titles.
01:53Wouldn't this make it unlucky 13, though?
01:55Hell yeah.
01:56And that's where the story...
01:57It's a good story!
01:59And then she dies.
02:00When's 13, whoop, that's unlucky.
02:03She finished...
02:04That is her unfinished business, and she goes on to the next life.
02:07Sorry, we watched Casper last night.
02:09Yeah, I think Monet and Athena.
02:11Yeah, yeah.
02:12Those two, I'm afraid.
02:13Riho and Alex wins versus Tony Storm and Mina Shirakawa.
02:16Interesting one, because Tony and Mina are going through a bit of a crisis after WrestleDream.
02:20At the weekend, they've lost everything, so they have.
02:23But I'd still put Emma's favourites in that one.
02:24I would say Tony and Mina over Rio and Windsor.
02:28On that one, because I feel like...
02:30I mean, I don't want to spoil...
02:31I'll give my thoughts on the next match anyway, but surely a Storm, Mina, Monet, Athena final
02:36tastes quite nice.
02:38And it rhymes.
02:39You said that with some vigour, goodness me.
02:42And then rounding things off, we have Anna Jay and Tay Mello.
02:44Fight!
02:45Sorry, Tay Mello.
02:46It's been a while since I've said a name.
02:49Versus Penelope, Ford and Megan Bain.
02:53I think Penelope and Megan.
02:54Listen, I'm going to...
02:55So if I've written this down correctly, so the top two matches are on the left bracket.
03:00The bottom two matches are on the right bracket.
03:02So I think we have Monet and Athena and Jamie and Queen Aminata in the semi-final, despite
03:09what I said about Triangle of Terror.
03:10Shut up.
03:11Storm and Mina and Penelope and Megan in the semi.
03:16And then it's Tony and Mina, Mercedes and Athena in the final.
03:20And Mercedes wins.
03:21And Mercedes wins all the belts.
03:23CEO, CEO, go and win more titles.
03:27I love it.
03:28So we'll keep an eye on that one as we go.
03:30Meanwhile, a missing AEW star could be back sooner rather than later.
03:34Yeah, Swerve Strickland's been gone for two months since his beatdown from Wardlow, who
03:39returned and got injured in the same beatdown.
03:41Yes.
03:42Very unfortunate.
03:42What a beatdown.
03:43Because Swerve was famously, infamously, heading into the match that he had on that night
03:47with an injury that he had.
03:48And he was just going to get through the match, lose the match, and then go on and get it
03:52sorted out.
03:52But obviously then Wardlow, he gets injured as well.
03:55Those plans just sort of fell apart.
03:56Yes, they did indeed.
03:57Swerve Strickland disappearing to undergo surgery on a torn meniscus.
04:01This is an injury that he's had since 2019, back in his NXT days.
04:05And he's just kind of worked through it.
04:06And he's found himself at a point in his career where he's gone, you know what?
04:09I can just take a little bit of time here.
04:11Get this sorted.
04:11Come back better than ever.
04:12And Fightful Selector reporting there is optimistic hope that he will be back in the ring by the
04:18end of the year, possibly December, providing there's no setbacks.
04:21No rush.
04:22Take your time.
04:23I'm not saying that AEW is not missing Swerve Strickland because he can always use the
04:26star power of a Swerve Strickland.
04:28But until you're fully fit, just get healthy.
04:31The card's fine as it is at the moment.
04:34A star power.
04:35My favorite star power is Star Power.
04:38She is a contortionist that does bow and arrows during Renaissance Fest.
04:42Fair enough.
04:42There she is there.
04:43I follow her on Insta and she's great.
04:45So you mentioned star power and my brain went to her.
04:48Big fan.
04:50Wardlow, still in doubt for his return.
04:52He's suffered a pectoral muscle tear, as you say.
04:54It's going to keep him out of action for much longer.
04:56No confirmed date for a return for him.
04:58What an unfortunate situation that the guy that attacked Swerve is probably going to be out longer than Swerve for doing the attacking.
05:04Yeah, it's just, it's classic.
05:05I was not going to say it's classic Wardlow, but it has just been stopped at his AEW career.
05:08We spoke about this on numerous occasions.
05:10Looks like he's getting going and then something gets in the way and derails everything, whether it be aeroplanes or injuries or anything in between.
05:15I blame Shreddy.
05:17Yeah, he was one of the security guards he beat up with Shreddy.
05:21And isn't it funny that Shreddy's in there with Wardlow and all of a sudden Wardlow's out forever?
05:25Are you saying it's Shreddy, sandbag, Wardlow?
05:27No, I think Wardlow's running scared from Shreddy.
05:30You're running scared, Wardlow!
05:33TNA-flavoured news.
05:35Mustafa Ali has really made a name for himself once more as a big match guy in TNA.
05:42And we've seen him start to flirt once more with WWE.
05:46And this bit of news regarding his TNA contract, it all kind of comes together in an interesting way.
05:51Yeah, Fightful Select is saying, and I quote,
05:52he is keeping his options open as of now.
05:56Dun, dun, dun.
05:57Where could he go?
05:58I mean, there's not many choices now because one promotion owns all of them, Nelly.
06:04There's only one game in town again.
06:06It's like 2002.
06:07Yeah, Ali's recent NXT run got a lot of positive praise.
06:10Fightful Select said he was very much welcome back.
06:13Shawn Michaels has been a strong advocate for Mustafa Ali for a long time.
06:17I feel like this leans into a potential WWE return.
06:21Potentially, yeah.
06:22It's a weird one for him because obviously we know how talented he is
06:24and how talented he was the last time he was with the company before he left
06:27because he wasn't being utilised properly.
06:29So could it be just the thought process of like, could that happen again?
06:32Would the money soften the blow?
06:33Are AEW interested?
06:34Do AEW need him?
06:35So many questions.
06:36So many questions.
06:37So many.
06:38Here's a question for you.
06:39What are WWE thinking?
06:41Moving money in the bank.
06:42So this is a big change to the plan for a normal WWE calendar year
06:48because obviously money in the bank used to be part of WrestleMania.
06:51Then it moved away and got its own show that happened
06:53sort of between WrestleMania and SummerSlam around May time.
06:57And then it gave you some storyline impetus for a good year
07:01heading into the next WrestleMania.
07:02Not the case this time round.
07:05Yeah.
07:05So we got the announcement yesterday that the Smoothie King Centre in New Orleans
07:08will get money in the bank and it'll happen on September the 6th.
07:12It's a bit cooler then, Tom.
07:14Yeah.
07:14A little bit cooler.
07:15Yeah, exactly.
07:16So whilst you're right that Ross is indeed nicknamed the Smoothie King.
07:20Oh, I love a banana milkshake.
07:23But you're right in the sense that this really does change up the calendar for WWE
07:27because now we're not going to get a new Money in the Bank winner until late next year.
07:31And there was some speculation that Paul, you don't want me in the photograph, Levesque,
07:37wasn't massively a fan of the Money in the Bank story and gimmick anyway.
07:42You know, I've always been a fan of it.
07:46Obviously now every promotion under the sun apes the idea of a match any time, any place, anywhere.
07:51But I really like the concept.
07:53Yeah, it's still a fantastic concept.
07:54But then on the other hand, we're 20 years in now, aren't we?
07:56So we've lived through, we've done it all.
07:58How many new things can we do with it?
08:00I guess that's the issue when you have a thing for 20 years.
08:02What is different that you can do with the briefcase?
08:05You've done the, oh, I'm injured and I can't wrestle.
08:07Ha ha, not really.
08:09Oh, you're hurt after a big title match.
08:11Here I come.
08:11I'm going to announce my shot ahead of time.
08:13Yeah, I'm going to do it here.
08:15We're best friends.
08:16Ha ha, no, we're not.
08:17Yeah.
08:17I think that's everything.
08:19I think that's all of the things.
08:20Yeah, just, I don't know, just put something in the briefcase that hasn't been in there before.
08:23Yeah.
08:24My mind went to explosives, but that probably would be in bad taste.
08:26I think it might be.
08:28If they've cashed in on the night, they've won it, they've cashed in like a year into they run it.
08:33You know, I think it's a good storyline tool if you use it the right way.
08:37But as you say, probably wouldn't hurt to rest it for a year to give some breathing room.
08:41And then maybe you've got to let us miss it a little bit.
08:43Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
08:45It does indeed.
08:46How can you miss something even though it goes away?
08:47That's exactly right.
08:49That's why I took two days off just now.
08:51Because I know how much you miss me.
08:52A really special podcast went on to the Cultaholic Wrestling Podcast feed just this morning as we talk about the legacy of Sir Moe, Bobby Horn, who passed away just a few days ago.
09:05Now, everybody knows him from Men on a Mission, from a tag team champion, the mighty Sir Moe in the WWF.
09:12But he was a real driving force for grassroots wrestling.
09:14He was the founding father of the OIWA, which is an affiliation of wrestling promotions across the world that supports wrestling and building wrestlers through.
09:24And I wanted to make sure that that part of his story was told here at Cultaholic.
09:30So I've spoken to Jessica and Lindsay.
09:32They are respectively the OIWA vice president and the CEO of the European division of OIWA.
09:40And they share their memories of Bobby, a wonderful day out he had in Newcastle, which I'm happy to share with you as well.
09:47But also how much he meant to the wrestling landscape that he worked within and just a real statement and a real tribute to the kind of man that he was.
09:55It's an emotional one, but I think it's a really, really important thing to listen to if you want to know more about what Sammo was all about.
10:02It's on the podcast feed this morning.
10:03My thanks to Jessica and my thanks to Lindsay for joining me on the podcast.
10:08New WTR.
10:08Yeah, two episodes live on the Patreon now for WrestleDream and for Crown Jewel, which was a bit late because of illness and stuff like that.
10:14And also coming up tonight on the channel, myself and Sam have been dicking about with AI because we've been asking the question last week when the news came out.
10:21What would happen if they sacked all the creative team members and replaced it with AI?
10:24So we took the vision storyline and it's quite terrifying what AI produced.
10:28Oh, really?
10:29Yeah, not so much in a funny way this time, just in like our bollocks.
10:32In a couple of years time, everything's going to be AI.
10:33So that's going to be a sobering watch for everybody.
10:36So that's coming up here.
10:37Let's do that later.
10:39Can't wait.
10:40And for the very latest wrestling news at any time, you can check out Cultaholic.com.
10:45Stay safe.
10:46AI.
