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00:00 On today's wrestling news, we've got the real reason behind the latest WWE releases,
00:04 are more releases on the main roster coming soon, we've got a top WWE star who is ready
00:09 to return and more.
00:12 Are you ready?
00:13 Are you ready for the news time?
00:15 Yes, my name is Phil Chambers and I'm joined by no one because Gareth has bloody taken
00:19 the day off.
00:20 But before we get into it, make sure you like the video, comment down below what you think
00:22 of all of today's stories.
00:24 Links to each story are in the description below as well, so click the time stamps and
00:27 off you go.
00:28 So, first up, we've got the real reason behind the latest WWE releases and guess what it
00:35 is, drum roll please, it's budget cuts.
00:38 Of course it is.
00:39 So this is coming from Fightful Select, they reported that John Laurinaitis was at it again.
00:43 He was the one who was making the cuts and he sent an email to all WWE personnel confirming
00:48 them just saying that due to budgetary cuts and with immediate effect as of today, we
00:52 have come to the terms of the release of the following.
00:55 And he went on to list eight wrestlers, a manager and a referee who are Dakota Kai,
01:01 Malcolm Bivens, Paige Prinzevalli, Sanjana George, Draco Anthony, Harland, Persia Pirotta,
01:08 Reylon Divine, Mila Milani and Dexter Lumis.
01:12 So we've got a bit of an update on a bunch of these.
01:15 So first up, we'll go with Malcolm Bivens.
01:18 He rejected to sign a new contract back in February.
01:23 He just signed a short term extension because of the Diamond Mine stuff.
01:28 So no word on whether that short term extension has just run out, in which case he'd be free
01:32 to go wherever he wants right now or whether the short term extension was for like six
01:36 months and they just cut it down or something like that.
01:38 So we'll have to wait and see on that one.
01:40 But he was a guy who wanted his release.
01:43 And so this is good.
01:45 He's off, he can go do other things wherever he wants.
01:48 Dakota Kai is in a kind of similar position.
01:49 She just informed them that she would not be re-signing when her contract expired.
01:55 And again, no word yet on if this is the end of the contract or whether they've just cut
01:59 it short recently.
02:01 So we'll have to wait and see where she goes.
02:04 But surely, surely, surely Dakota Kai gets snapped up by a certain company very, very
02:10 quickly as she is a very talented person and can do well wherever she goes.
02:14 Harland is another interesting one.
02:16 He was being put over massively as the sort of next Brock Lesnar kind of thing, which
02:22 probably ended up hurting him in the long run since he'd never actually wrestled before
02:25 and was completely green.
02:28 And this has led to people within the company believing that his in-ring abilities have
02:33 not progressed fast enough with his time in NXT.
02:38 And that has led to him being released, which is mad because he's really not been doing
02:43 this for very long.
02:44 So we've got to give these people a bit of time to actually learn how to wrestle.
02:47 Otherwise, what is the point?
02:51 So Fightful went on to say that an NXT official has also shown frustration at several current
02:58 on-screen angles and storylines being impacted with absolutely zero notice because of this.
03:04 Because a bunch of those, along with Dexter Loomis, obviously, and Draco Anthony and Persia
03:08 Pirata, they're all regulars on NXT TV and some right in the middle of storylines that
03:15 have just completely been cut.
03:16 And now they're just going to have to move on without them, I guess.
03:21 And Meltzer also chimed in on this, saying reasons for some of the other releases was
03:26 that Vince just didn't see a fit for them on the main roster.
03:30 So yeah, like we say, a little bit of different stories depending on the people.
03:34 Dakota Kai, again, she'd had dark matches on SmackDown.
03:38 She'd had a match on Main Event.
03:41 She seemingly was ready to move on to the main roster sooner rather than later.
03:46 She's got all the skills you could possibly want, but absolutely nothing.
03:52 And yeah, we're just going to have to wait and see what happens with all of these.
03:56 It's a shame, obviously, whenever this happens.
03:59 It's just sad news.
04:00 WWE doing what WWE does these days, and it is a possibility of this happening more in
04:07 the future.
04:08 Because Meltzer went on to say on the Wrestling Observer Radio that there is a possibility
04:14 of some main roster cuts coming soon.
04:18 He said that he had heard that WWE are not done with these budget cuts, as they call
04:23 them.
04:24 He specifically said that there is people in the company who think that that's not it.
04:29 I've heard rumblings about more.
04:31 I guess the idea is to do it before the investors call.
04:34 I don't know.
04:35 That seems like the idea.
04:36 So he did talk about typically how they do these cuts just before the big investor calls
04:41 to show that they're moving forward and changing up the budget, making changes.
04:48 And that, yeah, this could be just the start of another big round.
04:52 There's a lot of people on the main roster, obviously, who aren't really doing a lot recently.
04:58 That you could possibly see this happening to the investor calls in a couple of weeks,
05:04 I think.
05:05 So watch this space within the next few weeks.
05:07 There could be a lot more of this happening just on the main roster as well.
05:13 But moving on to some a little bit better news, I guess there is a WWE star, a top WWE
05:19 star who is ready to return at a moment's notice.
05:23 Alexa Bliss has said that she is just waiting on a call from WWE.
05:28 She's been ready to return after not being seen on TV since February this year.
05:35 She was speaking to Adam Glynn of Adam's Apple.
05:38 And when asked when she would return, she just said, "Hopefully soon.
05:41 I'm just waiting on the call.
05:43 I've been ready to go since before Saudi Arabia."
05:47 Now when the Elimination Chamber thing happened, she obviously had all the vignettes about
05:52 Alexa Bliss making her return to Raw.
05:54 And then she came back on Raw.
05:55 And then they had the Elimination Chamber match.
05:57 And then nothing.
05:58 And that was that for Alexa Bliss.
06:00 And she did voice a bit of displeasure about WWE not having proper creative plans in place
06:05 for her after the Elimination Chamber.
06:07 But here she is.
06:08 She is ready to return whenever WWE give her the call, whenever they get their creative
06:13 ideas for what they're going to do with her, I guess.
06:15 Obviously, we saw Asuka return recently.
06:17 Alexa Bliss is ready and waiting there.
06:19 Bayley is surely going to be coming back sometime soon.
06:22 There's a lot of stars waiting for their opportunities to come back.
06:26 Just waiting on the right creative.
06:27 But we're just going to have to wait and see how long that takes.
06:31 But we've got a few other things as well since I'm on my own.
06:34 I just thought I'd go through some quickfire news things, the things I've seen this morning.
06:38 So first off, we've got the WWE show in Cardiff.
06:41 It has a name now.
06:43 It's called Clash at the Castle.
06:45 Because Wales and castles and things, I guess.
06:47 It's going to happen on September 3rd at Principality Stadium.
06:51 There's talk of Tyson Fury doing something, being involved.
06:55 Tickets are on sale on May the 20th.
06:57 But more importantly than the name, keep an eye out because we are trying to set up a
07:01 special little something surrounding this event.
07:03 Obviously, it's in the UK.
07:04 We're all very excited about it.
07:05 We're all going to be going down to take the trip down to Cardiff to watch this show.
07:09 We're going to try and set up some kind of live show around this, hopefully on Saturday
07:15 afternoon somewhere close to the stadium, just before the event.
07:18 So keep an eye on the channel.
07:21 We will let you know.
07:22 But hopefully we'll be doing some kind of live show again.
07:24 Because the last one in New York was absolutely fantastic and we absolutely loved it.
07:29 And it seems like a really good opportunity to do it again.
07:30 So keep watching this space.
07:32 Hopefully we'll have a bit of a live show and a bit of news within the next few weeks.
07:36 But more news!
07:37 WWE splitting up another tag team.
07:39 Because of course they are, because they hate tag teams.
07:42 This time it is the turn of Jinder Mahal and Shanky to be the latest WWE tag team that
07:48 they split up.
07:49 Shanky was wrestling Ricochet on Smackdown last night.
07:53 He lost to Ricochet, obviously, even after a bit of help from Jinder.
07:56 And then Jinder was mad at Shanky, yelled at him for losing at the end of it.
08:00 Pat McAfee was saying "Oh, he's done with him!" as Shanky walked off to the back, leaving
08:04 Jinder Mahal behind.
08:06 So I guess that's it for Jinder Mahal and Shanky.
08:08 Whether they turn Shanky face or what they're going to do from this, I've absolutely no
08:12 idea.
08:13 Obviously they teased breaking up Los Lotharios last week as well.
08:18 But they weren't even on the show or anything.
08:20 So God knows what's happening with that.
08:22 The biggest takeaway, just WWE hates tag teams, doesn't he?
08:25 And we've got a little bit more on that because they have some really odd news coming out
08:29 of Smackdown.
08:30 There was obviously supposed to be this big tag team unification match at WrestleMania.
08:35 Backlash.
08:36 The RK-Bro taking on the Usos to unify the tag team titles.
08:40 But that's not happening anymore for some reason.
08:44 There was going to be a contract signing on Smackdown and it obviously ended in a big
08:50 ball because of course they do, all these things always do.
08:53 And then Roman Reigns came out to kind of help the Usos and then Drew McIntyre came
08:57 out to even the odds and they all had a big fight.
08:59 But then later on Paul Heyman went to Adam Pearce backstage and got the match changed.
09:05 So it's not going to be a tag team unification match of the Usos versus RK-Bro.
09:09 It's going to be a six man tag of Drew McIntyre and RK-Bro taking on the Usos and Roman Reigns
09:15 with no titles on the line.
09:18 So absolutely no idea if this is just a random swerve on the road to WrestleMania Backlash
09:22 but I doubt it.
09:23 No idea whether they're going to do the unification match show after this or whether that's just
09:28 scrapping those plans entirely.
09:30 It's all a little bit of an odd one.
09:32 This one I don't understand where they're going with it, why they're doing this or what
09:36 they expect to happen.
09:37 So we'll have to wait and see I guess.
09:39 But last but not least we've got the announcement that Cody Rhodes is going to be on the next
09:44 Broken Skull Sessions with Stone Cold Steve Austin on May the 6th.
09:49 Apparently he's going to be talking about everything including leaving the WWE in the
09:53 first place and his reasons behind that.
09:56 Obviously he's running AEW and everything that happened there and then leaving AEW to
09:59 make his big return at WrestleMania to WWE.
10:05 This is going to be really interesting isn't it?
10:07 Obviously Cody Rhodes speaking with Stone Cold Steve Austin, these latest Broken Skull
10:12 things have been absolutely brilliant.
10:14 It's going to be really interesting to see how in depth into the AEW stuff they go.
10:19 Obviously he's had Chris Jericho on the show before so they're not shying away from talking
10:23 about AEW stuff.
10:24 But it's going to be very interesting to see what Cody says specifically about his run
10:28 in AEW and Tony Khan and how things ended there.
10:33 So some exciting stuff coming for WWE on that front.
10:36 But let's finish up with some Twitter questions.
10:40 The first one comes from Blackheart185th185th to the demo.
10:45 Or something like that.
10:46 Who says, "Hey Phil, first time I actually thought to ask a question.
10:49 You think the stuff with Drew Gulak is leading anywhere since they keep using him over the
10:54 usual nameless indie or performance center guy?"
10:57 He's got a picture of his dog because I always pick pictures of the dogs.
11:01 Good dog.
11:02 And I god damn hope it's leading somewhere honestly.
11:06 It's been a bit of a weird one this Drew Gulak one.
11:08 I think at least he's on TV I guess which is a good thing.
11:12 But he's already been beaten up by Charlotte twice now if you include the one last night.
11:17 Because Charlotte got angry that she couldn't beat...
11:20 I can't even remember who it was in time because they were doing a beat the clock challenge
11:25 with an I quit thing and Ronda beat Shotzi in like one and a half minutes or whatever
11:30 it was because that's how you push new stars.
11:33 Yay.
11:34 So yeah, Drew Gulak was a timekeeper is the point of this.
11:38 So yeah, he's had a bunch of different jobs.
11:40 I really hope it's going somewhere.
11:41 I've genuinely no idea where it goes whether he takes over Sonia Deville's position if
11:46 she's moving back into wrestling.
11:48 And I guess that worked out for Sonia Deville in the long run.
11:51 It got on TV for a long time and now she's finally getting back into the ring.
11:54 Whether they just do the similar thing but with Drew Gulak, absolutely no idea.
11:59 I don't know what the point of this is.
12:00 It's very, very strange.
12:01 I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for now because at least he's back on
12:04 TV and actually doing something which is better than he was a few weeks ago.
12:09 The next question comes from Dinkleberg's neighbor who says, "Good morning.
12:12 Do you think AEW will ever introduce trios titles?
12:15 And if so, who would you want to be the inaugural champions?"
12:18 I goddamn hope they do because they've been teasing this for a long ass time now.
12:23 Originally, I always wanted this to be Death Triangle.
12:27 But now that Penta's gone a little bit weird, I'd probably say get Pac away from them as
12:31 quickly as possible and let him do his own stuff because he's absolutely incredible and
12:35 you need to do a lot more with Pac.
12:37 And give this to the Blackpool Combat Club, obviously.
12:41 Daniel Bryan and Jon Moxley and Wheelie Yuta.
12:43 Give it to them and let them beat everybody up forever more.
12:47 And I would be happy with that.
12:50 And finally, Ryan Schramm says, "Do you think there's a danger of some fans turning on Hangman
12:55 if he beats Punk?"
12:57 I don't think so.
12:58 I think Punk will do this in a fashion.
13:02 I think he's really good at doing these kind of babyface battles.
13:04 I think he'll make it personal.
13:06 He'll make it interesting.
13:07 He'll make it worthwhile and make it like they actually want to kill each other.
13:12 But at the end of the day, he will congratulate Hangman Page.
13:15 He'll hold his hand up.
13:16 He'll shake his hand.
13:17 They'll hug and they'll make it worthwhile.
13:19 And that'll just be one hell of a sort of notch on Hangman Page title run to cement
13:26 him as a top guy within AEW forever more, hopefully.
13:30 So I think Punk is very, very talented at this.
13:32 I think he'll find a way of making no one turn against Hangman.
13:37 And he'd probably even maybe turn himself heel a little bit before he turns Hangman
13:41 Page heel.
13:42 Because he's not here for himself.
13:43 He's here to put over everyone else.
13:44 That is the point of this run.
13:47 So I think he'll find a way.
13:48 But that is the wrestling news for today.
13:51 Thank you very much for joining me and my solo ramblings.
13:54 If you want, you can follow me over on Twitter.
13:56 You can follow me @PhilMyChambers.
13:58 You can follow all of us @WhatCultureWWE.
14:00 Make sure you subscribe to the channel.
14:02 Like I say, like the video.
14:03 Comment down below because it's all stuff that makes YouTube like us.
14:07 Let us know what you think of all of today's news stories, including who you want to win
14:10 the trio's titles and what you think of CM Punk versus Hangman Page.
14:14 Let me know.
14:15 But most importantly, have yourselves a bloody good day.
14:20 Goodbye.