00:00Hello there, my very good friends. On today's wrestling news, NJF is not bald.
00:05AW Double or Nothing 2026 ends on a massive heel turn.
00:10Restrictions were imposed on AW during the stadium stampede on this show.
00:15And Tony Khan talks potentially countering WrestleMania 43.
00:20I'm Andy H. Murray here with a little bit of solo Monday news.
00:23Stealing Andrew Pollard's gimmick here. It's a public holiday in the UK.
00:26That's why it's a bit weird today, but it's okay. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow.
00:30The H today, by the way, stands for hair.
00:33Because our opening story is that NJF has chosen to shun the warm, smooth, glistening, shiny embrace of the bald
00:43community
00:44to keep his hair and win the AW World Champion.
00:47That's right. This man has chosen championship glory over being bald.
00:51What a disgusting move. So, obviously, he beat Darby Allin at Double or Nothing last night
00:58in the main event of the show, which was, it wasn't a hair versus hair match because Darby's hair wasn't
01:03on the line.
01:03But the stipulation was that if NJF was to lose, he would have to shave off that wonderfully restored Turkish
01:09hair of his.
01:14It's bringing back, I mean, it's a classic wrestling stipulation, hair matches.
01:19And it's a shame that in some ways online it was kind of portrayed as this weird comedy thing.
01:24It's not that at all. It's very, very high stakes and personal and all that stuff.
01:29NJF and Darby Allin, they're smart guys. They understand all this.
01:32Anyway, the match was mental, as you'd expect.
01:35This Darby Allin title reign has been all about mental stuff.
01:38There was one moment where Darby climbed to the top of the freaking set, which was a lot smaller than
01:43usual
01:43and perhaps enabled something like this.
01:46Hit a Mick Foley Cactus Jack, bang, bang, and then leapt off with a coffin drop,
01:50putting NJF through a table. He got back into the ring.
01:52Darby's bleeding badly from this because he's Darby Allin.
01:57Takes NJF back to the ring, hits a coffin drop proper, but NJF kicked out again.
02:01Darby went for a Scorpion Death Drop, but as was the case in his recent match with Sammy Guevara,
02:05he collapsed. He had to be checked on. He got rid of Bryce Remsburg.
02:11Get out of the way, said NJF.
02:14But he went for a tombstone. Darby went into another Scorpion Death Drop,
02:18but all of this slowly started unraveling when Darby went up for another coffin drop.
02:23NJF, he got all the way up. He crotched him on the top rope, basically.
02:28Joined him up there, spun him around, hit the Avalanche Tombstone,
02:31and then put him away with the side-headlock takeover.
02:36Sorry, side-lock? What on earth is that?
02:38For the victory, which is thematically very pure for the rivalry between these two gentlemen.
02:46Avoiding the shears did NJF in this match, which is interesting because I think, like,
02:51with how heavily it was teased and how heavily it was, like, NJF's desperation to avoid joining the bald life,
02:58was put over during this show, before this show, sorry.
03:01I think a lot of people really expected the opposite result here.
03:04But, for me, personally, I think this is for the best.
03:08I think that the short weekly title defence reign of Darby Allin was unbelievable.
03:12I think it made a lot of sense for him to have that, and the match quality was really high.
03:16Obviously, very high effort performances. You're never going to get anything less from Darby.
03:20But, if you're talking about what's in the future, well, Wembley Stadium's coming right up.
03:25And, to me, the idea of NJF versus Will Ospreay is the most enticing main event for that show
03:31because I know a lot of people really wanted Ospreay versus Kenny Omega,
03:35and maybe you'll still get that. I don't know.
03:37It would require a bit of flip-flopping on the title, obviously, but, hey, maybe.
03:41I know a lot of people were super into that match,
03:43but, personally, I like NJF versus Will a little bit better.
03:45It's a much more clearly defined face-heel dynamic, right?
03:49The home country hero and the alpha supervillain guy.
03:53Doesn't get much bigger than that in terms of face versus heel,
03:56and that's more what I'm into these days.
03:58But let me know your thoughts in the comments section below on everything, really.
04:02Fire away.
04:04Right. Also, Double or Nothing kind of closed on a massive heel turn here from Kevin Knight.
04:09Something that has been speculated online for a little while, several months.
04:13It was actually pulled off right at the depth of this show.
04:17So, Darby was being loaded onto a stretcher to close the show.
04:23MJF did some heel asshole stuff, kicked him away, posed with a belt, all of that stuff.
04:28After that, Kevin Knight kind of came down.
04:31He ran him off. He chased MJF away.
04:33He climbed up to the top rope, and, you know, kind of a telegraph move,
04:37but in a good way. Sometimes wrestling should be a little bit telegraphed.
04:40He's looking down from the top on Darby, who's on this stretcher,
04:43and he hits the UFO.
04:48So MJF initially looked a little bit shocked,
04:51but he applauded as the commentary were like,
04:53oh, what have you done, Kevin Knight, blah, blah, blah, all that.
04:56All that classic heel turn stuff.
04:58They uploaded a short clip of Kevin kind of blowing some cameras away,
05:02you know, backstage to social media,
05:04and he's also tweeted just an ellipsis as well.
05:06So I guess we'll get some kind of explanation from Kevin Knight in the future,
05:10maybe on Dynamite this coming week.
05:13But yeah, it's been speculated for a while.
05:15Obviously, Knight has had varying success against MJF, it has to be said,
05:19and maybe that did influence his decision here.
05:21Be interesting to think what happens to speedball Mike Bailey as well,
05:24his tag team partner, who MJF has, sorry,
05:27Kevin has been very, very focused on,
05:30hey, we're going to do this stuff together as of late.
05:33Will Mike Bailey join him in the heel realm?
05:35It's interesting to think of,
05:36because I think Mike Bailey would actually make a really smug,
05:39really great, smug, unknowing,
05:41still thinks he's a baby face kind of heel.
05:42I think he'd do a great job.
05:44And I think Knight will do a great job as well.
05:45I'd have probably kept him, if it was me with a pencil,
05:48the pencil,
05:48I'd have probably kept him a face for a little bit longer,
05:50because I think he has such great instincts there.
05:52But hey, maybe this will be the absolute making of him.
05:55I do think the guy is a future world champion in AEW,
05:57and I'm very, very high on Kevin Knight.
05:59Won't be selling that stock anytime.
06:01I might sell some socks, but I won't sell that.
06:03I can't speak today.
06:05I want to sell that stock anytime soon,
06:08is what I'm trying to say to you today, viewers.
06:09Sorry, we have to get up very early for these shows.
06:11It's fine.
06:12It's fine.
06:13It just means you talk a lot of rubbish the next day,
06:15as evident from this.
06:16Right.
06:17Let's talk briefly about a restriction that was placed on AEW.
06:20If you're wondering why the Stadium Stampede match
06:22was maybe a little bit tame,
06:23I mean, it had plenty of crazy spots,
06:25but in terms of blood,
06:27and in terms of brawling in the crowd,
06:28and stuff like that,
06:29if you're wondering why that was completely absent,
06:31it's because they weren't allowed to do it, basically.
06:33So a report here from Brian Alvarez states
06:35that the New York State Athletic Commission
06:36actually wouldn't allow those things.
06:38It wouldn't allow blood,
06:39and it wouldn't allow brawling through the crowd
06:41in the Stadium Stampede.
06:42So a couple of things from my perspective here.
06:46Number one, I don't think blood's a problem
06:47not having it in the Stadium Stampede.
06:49To me, it's a bit of a more of a fun,
06:52silly, focused stipulation than anarchy in the arena,
06:54for example,
06:55and certainly a lot more so than blood and guts.
06:57But Anarchy in the Arena is the closest comparison here.
07:00And while that one has traditionally been
07:02more bitter and violent and ugly,
07:04Stadium Stampede is,
07:05I mean, it started in an empty stadium,
07:08and they're drinking pints of milk and stuff,
07:10and they're just being wacky.
07:12Transformation swimming pools in the first one
07:14with Matt Hardy and everything.
07:15So yeah, I don't mind there not being blood in it
07:18or whatever,
07:18but yeah, a little bit of crowd brawling
07:20would have been pretty sick, I think, obviously.
07:22If you want to encompass the whole stadium,
07:24if you truly want to stampede, right?
07:28Parts of that being,
07:29it's not a stampede if it's controlled,
07:31if it's restricted, right?
07:32In terms of your movement and stuff like that.
07:34When a herd of buffalo stampedes through the prairie,
07:37you don't go,
07:38no buffalo, you can't go in that direction,
07:39you've got to go in this way
07:40through this perfectly designed funnel.
07:42I'm being a bit of a jerk,
07:43but the match was a lot of fun either way.
07:48But I don't think the blood hurt it at all,
07:50the lack of it,
07:51but you could argue
07:52that maybe there should have been some crowd brawling.
07:54I don't know.
07:55Who knows?
07:55You're at the mercy of the Athletic Commission,
07:59so you can't really do much more than that.
08:00You can't criticise AEW for it.
08:02It's not like they can go,
08:03no, screw you, New York State Athletic Commission,
08:05because then they can just go,
08:06okay, screw you, no show.
08:08It's pretty simple.
08:09It's pretty straightforward.
08:10Even before they had like 15,000 people there
08:11and they sold a lot of tickets and all that stuff.
08:14Great attendance last night.
08:15Great crowd in general.
08:16New York sounded on fire.
08:17We're going to wrap this one up now
08:18by talking about some Tony Khan comments
08:20from the post-show press conference
08:23regarding the idea of maybe like,
08:25countering is a strong word,
08:26but sorry,
08:27countering WrestleMania 43
08:29by possibly holding a big AEW event
08:31in the United States
08:32while WWE is over in Saudi Arabia
08:34for WrestleMania 43.
08:36Tony was asked about this.
08:37Currently, there's no big domestic event
08:39taking place in the US.
08:40There's a gap in the market.
08:41He was asked and he said the following.
08:43I think it's potentially viable
08:44and it's a very interesting fault.
08:46We'll have to see what happens
08:47in the world landscape between now and then,
08:49but it's a very interesting possibility.
08:52So, yeah, I mean,
08:53we've been beating this drum since day one.
08:55I think he absolutely should do it.
08:56If he has identified a spot
08:59where US-based consumers
09:01are looking for a big wrestling event
09:03to attend next April,
09:04yeah, there's no reason not to do it.
09:06There really isn't in my honest opinion here.
09:09If he thinks he can pull, I don't know,
09:10even 20, 30,000 people
09:13because they build their annual year
09:17around going to WrestleMania
09:18and that's their big vacation
09:19and stuff like that
09:20and maybe they don't want to travel
09:21halfway across the world
09:22because it's expensive
09:23or whatever other reasons you might have
09:25for not wanting to travel
09:26to WrestleMania 43.
09:30Yeah, it just looks like
09:32there's a gap in the market
09:32and obviously they will have
09:35a whole ass team researching this
09:36and will know much more about it
09:37than a guy in his living room
09:39with his wacky floral wallpaper.
09:42But it'll be interesting
09:43to see if he actually pulls it off.
09:45I think they should,
09:46I really do think they should
09:47and it's not just because
09:48I want a wrestling-based American holiday
09:50next April like we have every year.
09:53Spoiled, privileged man over here.
09:55But yeah, do the thing, man.
09:58Do the thing.
09:58It'll be a lot of fun
09:59and I think there will be
10:00tens of thousands of wrestling fans
10:01in America looking to scratch
10:02that wrestling itch in April
10:04that they might not be able to do
10:05if they don't want to travel
10:06all that way for WrestleMania.
10:0943, but that's enough from me.
10:10I'll see you later tomorrow.
10:12Everything is back to normal tomorrow.
10:13Don't worry.
10:14Simon Miller's here
10:14with ups and downs later on.
10:16Have a nice day.
10:17Goodbye.
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