Happy Halloween! Ooooh, spooky. Scary skeletons. Creepy crawlies.
But that’s nothing compared to the horrors that lurk beneath the Trap Door, for there is always something down there, in the dark, waiting to come out.
Don’t you open that Trap Door, as you may get some news!
It’s been a pretty crazy week for news in this even crazier world that we call wrestling with all the fallout from Charlotte Flair going against the script, IMPACT Wrestling’s Bound For Glory, Luke Owen exploding over Ghostbusters references on Dynamite, and the sad news of Ring of Honor releasing their entire roster with little word on what the future holds for them.
And because of all that, there have been some news stories that will have slipped through your cracks and you totally missed them – like all those lads on NXT missing MSK and Impreium in the tag team match.
DO BETTER. DON’T PART LIKE THE RED SEA. CATCH THEM!
Here are 10 news stories you may have missed from this past week.
10. Chad Gable Leaving WWE?
We get a lot of messages from fans here at WrestleTalk in the news and on the podcast – humble brag we get a lot of messages – but one of the more common themes is: “[blank] is being wasted and should go to [blank].”
There’s a lot of names in WWE that come up in that phrase like beautiful boy Keith Lee or Captain of the Star-Flip Enterprise Ricochet, however the most common name we get is Chad Gable.
The man who probably should have been Kurt Angle’s son was part of the amazing tag team American Alpha, then… I mean what else is there? Shorty G? Hardly a stellar WWE career.
And apparently, it’s not just our fans that want Chad The Lad to get out of WWE, as Dave Meltzer mentioned on Wrestling Observer Radio that:
“he’s definitely has had friends telling him [to leave WWE], and I know it’s been one of those things that’s under consideration.”
Before you jump on the Chad Gable to AEW confirmed or, what’s Gad Chable doing in the IMPACT Zone gimmicks, Meltzer added: “I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
Despite all that, there has been chatter backstage that AEW are interested in Gable. So in the words of Lloyd Christmas, you’re telling me there’s a chance.
9. MSK Part of an NXT Conspiracy?
No one’s favorite tag team MSK has been getting booed at pretty much every taping of NXT 2.0 shortly after they debuted.
Although pushed as a babyface team to appeal to kids and their TikToks and Venmo, us old men have been booing them and yelling for those whippersnappers to get off our lawn.
As Zack Gibson once so eloquently put it, they’re the biggest knobheads he’s ever met.
What’s interesting here though is that this isn’t just old blokes complaining on Twitter that they don’t understand these kids, it’s reportedly a concerted effort by a group of fans to make sure everyone boos them.
And according to super sleuth Dave Meltzer, the leaders of this revolt against MSK are none other than the parents of Izzy.
You know Izzy, right? The Bayley superfan who Sasha Banks once made cry that has since become an awesome member of the wrestling media in her own right?
Well back in 2018, she took a chokeslam at an event by Effy, which was denounced by several in the industry including Lance Storm, Chelsea Green – and Nash Carter of MSK.
So, allegedly, in retaliation, Izzy’s parents have convinced enough people to join them in their crusade to boo MSK.
There isn’t a whole lot of evidence to prove this is real. It certainly wouldn’t hold up in court. Not even a Phoenix Wright court.
8. Braun Strowman’s Wrestling Future?
It was heavily speculated that the former Monster in the Bank, Braun Strowman would be appearing at IMPACT’s Bound For Glory this past weekend, which never ended up happening.
And if you thought it might happen at some point soon, it’s been announced that Strowman – under his real name Adam Scheer – will be at the December 4 GLCW Blizzard Brawl, and apparently, this will be his only wrestling appearance for the rest of the year.
On a similar note, Taylor Rotunda, the former Bo Dallas, will appear at WrestleCade Revenge from November 26 through the 28th.
7. Original Rampage Plans?
AEW Rampage has given us some classic moments already in its short history like the debut of CM Punk, Christian Cage winning the IMPACT Championship, Danielson vs. Nick Jackson, Andrade El Idolo vs. PAC 2, and by all accounts Danielson vs. Kingston was also pretty great but I’m recording this before that’s aired.
However, it was nearly a different show.
According to Tony Khan himself, he’d been pitched to make Rampage more like WWE’s ill-fated Backstage show on Fox – you know the show that actually saw the wrestling return of CM Punk.
TK said:
“I don’t think wrestling fans want to see that format. Wrestling fans when they tune in to watch their wrestling show, they want to watch wrestlers wrestle and Backstage, to me, should be like a lower-budget streaming type show… want to watch CM Punk wrestle. I want to watch Christian Cage wrestle. To me, that is the bread and butter… For Rampage, it was part of the format that I turned down and refused to do. They said, ‘Would you do this as part of the third hour?’ And I said, ‘No, it’s going to be wrestling.’”
Man, Tony really likes wrestling huh?
6. MJF Swerve
Speaking of Rampage, and in the lead up to CM Punk’s debut, there was a lot of internet chatter who all had a similar idea: what if Cult of Personality hits and MJF walks out instead for such nuclear heat it would create and awaken Godzilla.
And as it turns out, Punk also had the same idea.
Telling Josh Martinez on Z100, Punk said: “That, of course, did cross my mind. Once I realized that was the thought on everybody’s mind, to me, it wasn’t the right thing to do yet. Not yet.”
There you go folks, it’s YOU PEOPLE’s fault we didn’t get the spot.
5. Ciampa vs. Breakker Feud Continuing?
Toxic Attraction won the Women’s Tag Titles and the Women’s Championship, Carmello Hayes won the North American Championship, Imperium won the Tag Team gold – it seemed like a slam dunk that Bron Breakker was going to with the NXT Championship from Tommy Champs but it wasn’t to be!
Even though WrestleVotes had tweeted that this would crown the Breakker era of NXT 2.0, he lost and Ciampa is still Ciampa-ion.
However, it looks like the feud must continue, as Breakker and Ciampa will be fighting over the NXT Championship on the upcoming UK houseshow loop in triple threats with Sami Zayn.
Continuing a match on house shows means that the company still has plans for this feud – which means a rematch might be round the corner.
4. FTR AAA Plans
FTR won the AAA Tag Team Championships from The Lucha Bros earlier this month on Dynamite, and we now know what the team has in store for them when they head down to Mexico this coming week.
Oddly, Dave Meltzer reported that FTR won’t be managed by Tully Blanchard in AAA as they are in AEW, but instead will have Vickie Gurrero in their corner. Why? No idea!
Meltzer also adds that the current plan for TripleMania Regia on December 4 is a three-way dance with FTR, Lucha Bros and Dragon Lee & Dralistico – however that isn’t confirmed yet.
3. Sami Callihan Injury Update
Sami Callihan is bloody brilliant and we here at WrestleTalk think he’s ace, so it was heartbreaking to hear that he was out with an injury – one so bad that he wouldn’t be back in the ring until some time in 2022.
In his own words, Sami didn’t just break his ankle – he – and this is a direct quote – “straight-up Sid Viscious’d” himself. Gross!
Speaking with Battleground Podcast, Sami has said that he is currently in recovery but is still a ways of yet.
“I’m like four weeks into recovery right now, finally got the stitches out from surgery and able to do a little bit of range of motion. Not going to be able to put any pressure on it for another four or five weeks and then I’ll start rehab. You can’t get rid of me that easy. Trust me, when I come back, there will be hell to pay and you’ll see an entirely new Death Machine.”
We cannot wait.
2. Original Elite Plans
In an angle that was seemingly written just to make Luke Owen mark out, The Elite came out dressed as Ghostbusters on this past week’s Dynamite in a Trick or Street Fight against Dark Order.
They even did a spot where they slammed their Proton Packs into them like they were the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the second film during the Vanilla Ice concert.
Seriously, just to make Luke Owen mark out.
However according to Fightful Select, The Elite weren’t going to be Ghostbusters, and instead were supposed to be in costumes based on the hit Netflix show Squid Game – which I haven’t seen but feel like I have seen because Twitter talks about it a lot.
What’s interesting here is that these plans weren’t stopped by Tony Khan, The Elite or Cody Rhodes – but TNT and WarnerMedia themselves.
Fightful note there is no heat between AEW and the network, and it’s probably just a case that TNT didn’t realize how much of a parody the costumes would be.
Given that the Ghostbusters costumes were super last minute – it’s impressive they got it all together and gave us this wonderful Stay Puft reveal. Stay Puft S**t! Stay Puft S**t!
1. Jim Ross Starting A Weed Farm
And you thought CM Punk coming back to wrestling would be the weirdest story of 2021. Go home 2021, you’re high! Probably from Good Ol’ JR’s cannabis that he’s now growing on his own cannabis farm.
Ross said:
“My youngest daughter and her husband and I, and another guy, a lawyer, a specialty in the field, are getting ready to start a cannabis farm. And we’re looking at the working title of ‘Black Hat Farms.’ I bought some land in Oklahoma recently for the grow houses and all the things. That’s gonna be their life, that’s gonna be a big deal. She’s got a great job in marketing, she’s not gonna quit that. I wouldn’t even let her consider that. So, I’m excited about that for my kids.”
Put some BBQ sauce on that.
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