CM Punk Merch Removed, WWE Accused, Bloodline Invade NXT

3 months ago

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00:00 - Coming up...
00:16 - Cody Rhodes Tops PWI500
01:18 - CM Punk Merchandise Removed
04:01 - WWE Accused
07:36 - Bloodline Invade NXT
08:48 - Triple H Thinks Solo Sikoa Is ‘Bad’
09:46 - Bye Pete
CM Punk Merch Removed, WWE Accused, Bloodline Invade NXT | WrestleTalk
#CMPunk #WWE #Bloodline

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Sources used for research:
https://wrestletalk.com/news/wwe-pull...
/ breaking_news_on_shockwave_potentially_hea...
/ why_that_andrew_chapadossrs_tweet_is_bigge...
https://x.com/seanrosssapp/status/183...
https://x.com/Cultaholic/status/18337...
https://www.f4wonline.com/news/nxt/ma...

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Transcript

00:00CM Punk Merchandise Controversy WWE Accused Of Leaking Bad Press

00:05Triple H Thinks Sola Sokoa Is Bad And More I'm Luke Owen and this is the WrestleTalk

00:11News.

00:16But first let's kick off today's news with that fun topic that some people take

00:20far too seriously, the PWI 500.

00:22For those of you who might be new to this wonderful pastime, the PWI 500 is a rank of

00:28the 500 best wrestlers on the planet based on a mix of kayfabe and real life stuff.

00:33So for example, being a world champion or main eventing a big show can bump you up the

00:38rankings over someone who's having banger matches day in and day out.

00:42Big shout out to Michael Oku who came 38th and Memes who came in at 500.

00:47But the real winner is the number one guy, and that number one guy for 2024 is Cody Rhodes.

00:54He beat AEW's Swerve Strickland, second place, and Will Ospreay third, Seth Rollins

00:59in fourth.

01:00New Japan's Tetsuya Naito was fifth, Damian Priest was at sixth, MJF at seventh, Jon Moxley

01:04at eighth, Gunther at ninth, and Mystico rounds out the top ten.

01:08WWE themselves put out a tweet on being the number one spot saying, from undeniable to

01:12undisputed.

01:13What a year for Cody Rhodes.

01:15Congratulations to the American Nightmare.

01:19Speaking of controversial things to post online, and there's been a lot of debate amongst

01:23wrestling fans about whether or not a blood feud between two wrestlers should be based

01:27around friendship bracelets.

01:30Now look, I'm a man who turns 40 next year, and as such it would be rather easy for me

01:35to be sniffy about friendship bracelets as it's something lame that the young'uns

01:40or Gen Z'ers do.

01:41Back in my day we gave out shag bands and they meant something.

01:44Shout out to all the UK kids who went to school in the 1990s.

01:48But then I got given some.

01:50This one was made for me by Dan's partner and she's lovely and it was such a lovely

01:54gesture and this one was made by a viewer's daughter who wanted to give them to us at

01:59All In at Wembley a few weeks back.

02:02I can't express genuinely how much this meant to me, and I've legit worn this every

02:07day since.

02:08I'm not sure if that's what I'm supposed to do with them, I don't know if you're

02:11supposed to wear them all the time, but it's what I've done.

02:13Gotta remember I'm nearly 40 and out of touch with these sorts of things.

02:17Brat Girl Summer, slay.

02:20So I get the Punk and Drew bracelet thing, and WWE clearly saw an opportunity to monetise

02:24it by releasing a version of Punk's Friendship Bracelet on WWEShop.com.

02:29But that Friendship Bracelet, much like this one, was made for Punk by a fan.

02:34And that fan, called Victoria, posted on Twitter, a heads up would have been nice lol.

02:39She later followed up adding, I won't be asking for compensation from WWE since they

02:43have every right to make bracelets.

02:45All I kind of was hoping for was maybe a mention in the description of the product.

02:49For those replying to my initial post about me not getting a heads up and saying WWE didn't

02:54need to, I 100% agree they didn't need to.

02:58Legally, they had no obligation to reach out to me regarding this, but it just would have

03:02been nice to have heard about it from them beforehand.

03:05WWE did reach out to me last week as a thank you from Punk and invited me to a show next

03:10month but, to my knowledge, that invitation had no correlation to them selling bracelets

03:15and wasn't offered as compensation.

03:17But I am still grateful for them contacting me at all.

03:21Responding to the backlash, WWE have pulled the merchandise from WWEShop.com.

03:26But it looks like all's well that ends well, as those now directly involved are having

03:31fun with the situation.

03:32Drew McIntyre, the man who has been the ire of CM Punk and Friendship Bracelets around

03:36the world in 2024, tweeted,

03:38All this bitching and moaning and crying, no wonder CM Punk is your hero.

03:42To which Victoria replied,

03:43All my bitching and moaning and crying and still not as much whining as you've done.

03:48You're twice my age and acting half of it, crying with laughter emoji.

03:52What do you make of this situation?

03:53Do you think WWE should have given Victoria the heads up?

03:56Should they put the bracelets back up on WWEShop.com?

03:59Let me know in the comments below.

04:01Speaking of controversy, and there's been a bizarre situation unfolding around AEW and

04:06their long gestating TV deal announcement.

04:09AEW's TV deal with Warner Bros. Discovery is up this year, but reports are that they've

04:14basically figured out a new deal with WBD which will be announced in the next few weeks.

04:19Tony Khan himself has more or less confirmed this.

04:21But in an intriguing twist, it was reported by Andrew Zarian that AEW have also had conversations

04:27with FOX, the former home of WWE Smackdown.

04:31The report was that FOX were keen to keep pro wrestling on their networks as it's

04:35easy to sell advertising for it, but it wasn't working out with WWE because Smackdown was

04:41too expensive and therefore lost the station money.

04:44Eboo of WrestlePurist noted on their Raw Review podcast that the rumour among AEW talent backstage

04:50is that Shockwave, which AEW recently trademarked, will be a one-hour show that will air on FS1.

04:57And in all of this reporting, a tweet from Andrew Chapados started getting attention

05:01online.

05:02Chapados had never tweeted about AEW before September 9th, but put out a tweet claiming

05:07that the WBD deal was now on the back foot.

05:10He added that on top of Warner's already having about 25% from the original deal, AEW

05:16likely had to give up more equity to get the new deal done, and that there was a lack of

05:20interest from other networks which hurt their negotiations, as well as recent controversial

05:24moves have hurt the product and its ratings.

05:27Those moves being presumably the ending of Swerve and Hangman at All Out, and the post-match

05:31angle with the Black Bull Combat Club and Bryan Danielson.

05:34Chapados' lack of tweets about AEW previously certainly pricked up a few ears, and Sean

05:39Ross Sapp of Fightful responded to the tweet,

05:42PLANTED AT BEST OUTRIGHT FALSE AT WORST.

05:45I can tell you in talking to people close to both sides that neither side would be making

05:49these claims themselves.

05:51What SRS means by planted is that someone, the leading candidate being TKO, fed this

05:56story to Chapados to put negative news out there about All Elite Wrestling and their

06:01future on TV.

06:02This would not be the first time that WWE have been accused of such actions, with some

06:06reporters being given the not-public-but-also-super-expensive-to-buy-Fast-National numbers for AEW Rampage to put out

06:13when the ratings are particularly bad.

06:15They may be expensive for regular journalists, but they're not if you're a billion dollar

06:19company looking to make your competition look bad.

06:22Sean Ross Sapp has spoken about this practice publicly, but has noted that the person sending

06:26him the Fast Nationals no longer works for WWE.

06:30And now someone on Reddit has claimed that they were old friends of Chapados at high

06:34school and college, and noted that he and another friend started spinning backfists

06:38which covered MMA and have connections to UFC, i.e. being on their press list.

06:44The poster claims Andrew, by tweeting that false report out of nowhere, may have just

06:48accidentally proved the people saying WWE TKO is spreading these false reports to be

06:53right, because he was clearly sent this information from his UFC TKO contacts and tweeted it.

07:00He adds in his claim,

07:01"...there is no other valid reason, in my opinion, for Andrew to be tweeting things

07:06like this, from what I know of him, other than it's something that was passed on to

07:10him and he was asked to post-slash-tweet about it."

07:14Chapados has also come under fire from wrestling fans following his tweet about the WBD deal,

07:18as he then started posting transphobic comments about AEW's Nyla Rose, and his pinned tweet

07:23is an interview with the rather controversial Val Venis.

07:26That Reddit post is, of course, conjecture. This is just one person's take on the situation,

07:31and anecdote is not proof. So what do you think is going on? Let me know in the comments

07:36down below.

07:37On to much more provable things now, and this is the thing that definitely did happen because

07:40I saw it with my own two eyes, and last night's NXT opened with a tag match between Axiom

07:45and Nathan Frazier taking on The Street Profits. Corey Brennan of Fightful Select reported

07:49ahead of the show that the match was only scheduled to go one segment, which did lead

07:53to some speculation online that we could see the debut of the Motor City Machine Guns,

07:58which has been on the cards for a while now. But we got someone else instead. The Bloodline

08:03of Tama Tonga, Tonga Loa and Jacob Fatu ran in to cause the DQ.

08:08Now this likely isn't an NXT invasion by the Bloodline, but rather a continuation of

08:13the feud between the group and the Street Profits over the tag titles, though Nathan

08:17Frazier has officially offered his and Axiom's services to Roman Reigns in order to take

08:21on the Bloodline. What it is another sign of, however, is WWE loading up NXT with main

08:26roster stars ahead of its debut on the CW. CM Punk has been announced for the debut episode

08:31which will take place from Chicago, and will be joined by The Miz and Women's Tag Team

08:36Champions Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill. Ethan Page will defend the NXT Championship

08:40against Trick Williams, and Roxanne Perez defends the NXT Women's Championship against

08:44Julia. CM Punk has also been announced for next week's edition of NXT.

08:49Notable by his absence in that NXT angle, however, was Solo Sakoa. He will be challenging

08:53Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship in a steel cage match on the USA Network return

08:58for Smackdown, which reportedly was once a Bad Blood match but moved to TV, with a new

09:03report suggesting that Rhodes will instead face Jacob Fatu at the PPV instead. And Ibu

09:08of WrestlePurist may have noted why that is on their recent podcast. He said, with regards

09:13to Solo Sakoa, Triple H thinks he's, like, kind of bad, but it doesn't matter. He's

09:19a member of the family. He's a member of the Samoan family. They have put so much time

09:24and resources into pushing him, and so you kind of have to see it through. So you have

09:29to continue to follow it up a little bit. Plus, beyond that, Roman Reigns will not allow

09:34for them to bury his cousin. This ties into a report from WrestleVotes from a few months

09:38ago which said that WWE were holding off on the Jacob Fatu debut in fear of him overshadowing

09:44Solo Sakoa.

09:45Now, if you missed yesterday's WrestleTalk News, Pete Quinnell made the very sad announcement

09:50that he will be leaving us after 5 and a bit years, and we invite you to come and say goodbye

09:55with us on a special episode of the WrestleTalk Podcast today at 3pm BST. There's a link

10:00for it in the video description. We'll see you all then.

10:03And to say goodbye to Pete on the Monday Night Wars as we start a new series over on Patreon,

10:08you can watch the Draft Day episode for free right now over on YouTube.

CM Punk Merch Removed, WWE Accused, Bloodline Invade NXT | WrestleTalk

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