WrestleTalk News | December 2024 by WrestleTalk - Dailymotion

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00:00A WWE promotion dead?

00:02The real reason two wrestlers tried to leave AEW and CM Punk screwed.

00:08Giggily.

00:09I'm Oli Davis, and I want you to acknowledge your true Jam That Jampion in the comments

00:16down below with a Jam Jar emoji.

00:18And this is the WrestleTalk News Jampion.

00:24In the week before Survivor Series, Roman Reigns' original Bloodline were down one

00:28man for their WarGames clash against the upstart New Blood faction.

00:33Seth Rollins turned them down.

00:35Brom Breaker turned them down.

00:36Bronson Reed jumped to the other side.

00:39So Paul Heyman, in his infinite wise-man-dom, called in the original Paul Heyman guy, CM

00:45Punk.

00:46But Punk wasn't there for free.

00:48He was now owed a favour at a time of his choosing from Heyman, which many believed

00:53would be an eventual shot at a World Championship.

00:57But it turns out that Punk can just get that on a random Sunday night.

01:00WWE were in Punk's hometown of Chicago last night on the 29th December as part of their

01:06holiday tour, where it was announced earlier in the day that Punk would face Gunther in

01:10a steel cage for Gunther's World Heavyweight title.

01:15There was a small chance that the belt could change hands.

01:19Punk is very protected even at house shows, and maybe they wanted to hotshot the belt

01:24onto him for the Netflix debut event.

01:26But in the end, in what live reports say was an excellent match, Dominik Mysterio of all

01:31people interfered and cost Punk the win by slamming the cage door in his face.

01:36This could kind of follow on from the Saturday night show in Florida, where Punk teamed with

01:40Dom's dad Rey Mysterio against The New Day.

01:43But it also could be part of some longer term annual tradition booking where Dom just hates

01:48Punk at Christmas.

01:49The previous year, in Punk's first in-ring match in WWE, he beat Dominik at both the

01:5426th and 30th December holiday tour dates.

01:58After only wrestling five times this year, all on pay-per-view, Punk has now almost doubled

02:03his 2024 match count at the live shows, wrestling on the 26th and 27th against Ludwig Kaiser,

02:09the tag match on the 28th, and the Gunther steel cage match on the 29th.

02:13F4WOnline was reporting that the 29th Chicago date had sold 11,484 tickets earlier in the

02:21day, which was expected to sell out completely.

02:23Which is pretty impressive compared to the 28th's show in Florida's Kia Center, which

02:27did 7,854 tickets the previous night.

02:31Punk in Chicago, even after all these years and various returns, is still a significant

02:37money draw.

02:38The Saturday date was an interesting one, though, as WWE's Miami House show went head

02:43to head with AEW's World's End pay-per-view of the edition financial arena just a 22 minute

02:50drive away.

02:51This is an old promotional tactic to harm your wrestling competition, and it seems to

02:55have been successful.

02:56While World's End did 6,978 tickets, which was nearly a sellout, WWE's House show beat

03:02them by almost 1,000 tickets more, with 7,854 in attendance.

03:08But even with all that popularity, nothing, it seems, can save NXT Europe.

03:14NXT UK debuted as a fully fledged promotion with weekly TV in October 2018, and was part

03:20of Triple H's supervillain sounding strategy of Global Localization, where WWE would open

03:26regional wrestling promotions, with NXT Japan and NXT Mexico both reportedly also in the

03:31works, as an international version of Laveck's beloved NWA in the territory days.

03:36Only, they wouldn't actually be independent promotions working together, it'd be all

03:40owned and standardised by WWE.

03:43In practice, it would be less NWA and more McWrestling.

03:48But the World Conquering Plan hit quite a few obstacles.

03:50A pandemic, Triple H losing power in WWE after his NXT lost the Wednesday Night Wars to AEW,

03:56and the fact that just not that many people ever watched NXT UK.

04:01In August 2022, it was announced that the regional promotion would be taking a brief

04:06hiatus.

04:07And we now know that brief is about forever.

04:11Forever.

04:12Forever.

04:14Instead, WWE announced NXT UK would be rebranded as NXT Europe in 2023.

04:19It was then reported that due to the TKO merger, this would be pushed back to sometime in 2024.

04:25Seeing that the date of this video is the 30th December 2024, that looks unlikely to

04:30happen.

04:31Now the Wrestling Observer is reporting NXT Europe doesn't look like it's happening

04:36anytime remotely soon, since nobody talks about it.

04:39There is always talk of establishing new NXT posts internationally, but nothing at

04:44all seems to be in the pipeline right now, so we don't hear any rumours about things

04:49starting up.

04:50The Observer speculates that NXT Europe announcement two years ago was more of a PR move to make

04:55the closure of NXT UK look more like a strategic rebrand than what it actually was.

05:00A business failure, supported by the fact that WWE fired the vast majority of those

05:05involved when NXT UK closed.

05:08I've always believed, and I'm not alone, that WWE only originally launched NXT UK because

05:13they were concerned about ITV starting their own promotion, WS Wrestling, in England.

05:18This consequently suffocated an incredibly healthy UK wrestling scene, which has only

05:22just started to revive itself this year, post the closure of NXT UK.

05:27One of the more drawn out stories of 2024 has been the contract statuses of Ricky Starks,

05:32Pentagon Jr and Rey Fenix in AEW.

05:35All three of them have disappeared from television amidst reports that they might be on their

05:39way to WWE, with Starks not having appeared on screen since March, and Pentagon and Fenix

05:45last wrestling back in July.

05:46Pentagon has now officially become UnElite, being removed from AEW's roster page earlier

05:52this month, and seemingly being teased with a zero graphic on Monday Night Raw.

05:57His real life lucha bro Fenix is still in AEW, being very vocally upset, accusing the

06:01company of inhumane treatment, as time has reportedly been added onto his contract due

06:07to time missed from injury.

06:08The Wrestling Observer has now reported why the brothers decided to leave AEW.

06:13The Penta and Fenix stuff happened because they both felt they had stagnated in AEW,

06:17and knew WWE was interested.

06:20Tony Khan thought he could keep them by offering more money, which apparently he did, but they'd

06:24already made the call to go.

06:26When Tony Khan and others wanted to talk about renewing their deal, they told the people

06:30in AEW to talk to their agent rather than them.

06:33At this point, AEW knew they were gone, and Khan made the decision not to use them on

06:38television.

06:39As for Starks, Tony Khan was asked about his status at the World's End post-show conference,

06:44where he replied in his typical never actually answering but turning it into a promotional

06:48tactic instead.

06:49I think we'll have to stay tuned to see who's going to be part of the fight for

06:53Fallen Simulcast on Wednesday 1st.

06:55It remains to be seen.

06:57But it's not like Starks is just sitting at home with nothing to do.

07:00He appeared at a GCW show, wrestled at a Glory Pro event last month, and on the 29th December

07:06last night, he made a surprise cameo at Defy.

07:10After KENTA retained his Defy World Championship in the main event, Starks interrupted, demanding

07:15a shot at the title.

07:17This could be very similar to how Jack Perry was brought back to AEW this year, with him

07:21appearing at New Japan shows first, even tearing up his AEW contract at one point where it

07:26was ultimately revealed to have been a Worky McWorkface.

07:29Or Starks is just having fun before he leaves the company, with his AEW contract reportedly

07:34expiring in the Spring or Summer, where WWE is apparently very interested in him.

07:39And they aren't the only wrestlers unhappy with AEW, because Gabe Kidd… he's got

07:45Twitter.

07:46While most eyes are on WWE's January 6th Netflix debut, AEW arguably has an even busier

07:51start to the year.

07:53Wednesday's January 1st episode of Dynamite is the first ever to be simulcast on WBD's

07:58streaming service Max.

07:59And just a week after their World's End pay-per-view, AEW will be running another

08:03big show with New Japan, WrestleDynasty, the day after New Japan's biggest show of the

08:08year WrestleKingdom.

08:10And with so much to promote, WrestleDynasty has somewhat been lost in the shuffle, despite

08:14having Kenny Omega's in-ring return, which his opponent New Japan's Gabe Kidd wasn't

08:20too happy about, posting, all in capitals, WHAT KIND OF COMPANY CO-PROMOTES A SHOW IN

08:25THE TOKYO DOME AND DOESN'T ADVERTISE OR MENTION THE MATCH OF THEIR BIGGEST STAR COMING

08:31BACK FROM THE BRINK OF DEATH ON PAY-PER-VIEW THE WEEK BEFORE?

08:35LOADS OF ALTERNATING CRYING WITH LAUGHTER EMOJIS AND STREAMING WITH LAUGHTER EMOJIS.

08:41THE ANSWER IS ONE WITH A BUTTHURT LITTLE RAT AT THE HELM.

08:44CRY MORE PUSSY.

08:46Three crying with laughter face emojis.

08:48It's also been announced that Takeshi will be putting his AEW international belt on the

08:52line against the never-openweight champion Shingo Takagi at Saturday's WrestleKingdom,

08:56with the winner getting both belts, which will be put on the line against Tomohiro Ishii

09:01on the following day's WrestleDynasty.

09:03And in classic New Japan in January fashion, amidst all of this, one of their champions'

09:08contracts is expiring.

09:10Even though this happens every year, which has in the past led to the sudden New Japan

09:14departures of AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, Okada, Will

09:19Ospreay, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, New Japan keep signing people to yearlong

09:24contracts that expire in January.

09:28Now Fightful is reporting the current IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Kevin

09:33Knight has his contract expiring in the next few days, despite being booked for Saturday's

09:38WrestleKingdom show.

09:39Apparently New Japan want to keep him, and will enter negotiations soon, like it's

09:43not a rush.

09:44But there has been interest in Knight from major American wrestling companies in recent

09:49months.

09:50We're off tomorrow for New Year's, but we'll have mine and Luke's big 2025 prediction

09:53show instead, then we'll be back for Thursday's Big Dynamite review.

09:57Because Kenny Omega has returned!

09:59Adam Copeland has returned!

10:01Could the AEW feeling be back… again?

10:06Find out by clicking my review of yesterday's World's End pay-per-view onscreen now.

CM Punk SCREWED! WWE Promotion DEAD? Real Reason AEW Stars Left! | WrestleTalk

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WrestleTalk News | December 2024

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