Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 Hello there my very good friends, on today's Wrestling News is AEW's video game in trouble.
00:05 Tessa Blanchard has a brand new controversy.
00:08 WWE interested in Top Impact star question mark.
00:12 And who was Mawadlo's mystery opponent on Dynamite question mark.
00:16 I'm Andy Murray.
00:17 And I'm Phil.
00:18 And this is the News.
00:20 Higgledy biggledy, we're all over the place these days.
00:23 All over the place, things are happening.
00:24 Yeah, stuff is occurring.
00:25 Tomorrow presenting the news is The Fiend and a crocodile.
00:29 Weird.
00:30 But today we're going to kick things off by talking about AEW's video game.
00:32 Go to Amazon to buy Fiend and crocodile costumes to make you do this.
00:35 I mean we promised it now, we've got to pay it off.
00:37 Does Prime do same day delivery here?
00:39 We'll figure it out later.
00:40 As sure as Fiend talks.
00:41 Expenses.
00:42 Yeah, we have those now.
00:43 We do.
00:44 It's lovely.
00:45 Right, Fight Forever, the AEW video game.
00:49 Some stuff's going on here.
00:50 So it's been a busy week for this game.
00:52 They had a reveal thing yesterday.
00:54 They showed off some new footage, some new character models.
00:57 There was a Fightful report saying, hey, a bunch of people are going to be in the game.
01:01 Body Slam reported that Owen Hart was going to be in the game.
01:04 Now we've got this report here from Sports Gamers Online.
01:07 It's Michael Straw who's been bang on the money with lots of game related stuff as of
01:11 late and probably in the past as well.
01:14 It's just that I have the memory of a block of Swiss cheese.
01:16 It's full of holes and when it gets too hot it just melts.
01:19 So it kind of paints not a great picture of the development process here.
01:25 So he's talking about how there's a bit of a strained relationship between Yuke's, who
01:29 are the developers, and AEW Games, which is obviously AEW's gaming division.
01:35 Kenny Omega specifically reportedly hates working alongside Yuke's or is hating working
01:42 alongside them.
01:43 One source noting that the studio has maybe tried to take advantage of Kenny because he's
01:47 obviously very passionate about video games, but he's an amateur when it comes to developing
01:51 them and he's very heavily involved in this project.
01:54 Now Fight Forever's direction and development constraints have apparently caused a few arguments
01:58 between the two parties.
02:00 Meanwhile, the game is now believed to be way over budget as well.
02:05 And this has led to a number of planned features either being kind of stripped back or just
02:09 cut from the game entirely.
02:10 Now one casualty of this is the game's roster.
02:14 Fightful reported yesterday that despite AEW having like 120, 130 people under contract,
02:21 only 50 people, the roster at the start of the game, is only going to be about 50 people.
02:25 Now AEW might want to increase that by DLC, post-release content, try and get the numbers
02:32 up a little bit.
02:33 But Yuke's want to kind of ink a long-term agreement with AEW, presumably for future
02:38 products or projects, before agreeing to a DLC plan.
02:42 At this stage, AEW doesn't want to do that, leading to talk that Fight Forever could be
02:46 a one-and-done deal as far as the partnership goes.
02:50 Now Tony Khan's promotion has apparently become nervous about signing a long-term deal after
02:55 these experiences and may end up looking for a new gaming partner in the end after all
03:00 of this.
03:01 So we don't have a release date yet.
03:02 I think September was previously reported by Fightful as something they were aiming
03:06 for.
03:08 But it sounds like the development of this has been a bit of a pain in the ass.
03:11 And that's a shame because all I want is a fun game.
03:14 Yeah, absolutely.
03:15 There's a lot of pressure put on this game immediately from when they first announced
03:18 it, the way they were talking about it, and especially getting Yuke's involved.
03:21 Like obviously they did all the SmackDown games originally and it's like the sort of
03:25 nostalgia value of Yuke's back doing wrestling games and the sort of passion that lies within
03:30 AEW, not only in its fandom but in the company itself for video games and how much they wanted
03:35 to make this right.
03:36 There's a lot of pressure on getting this right.
03:37 It's the first big game that they'll ever release.
03:39 They've done a bunch of mobile things obviously, but this is very different to all of that.
03:43 So there's a lot of pressure to get it right.
03:45 And it sounds like it's not going well.
03:47 Yeah, and especially as this year's 2K.
03:49 I've not played it personally, but apparently it's really great.
03:52 Yes, a big step up from what it was last year.
03:55 So yeah, look, if the game sucks, that would suck.
03:58 At the end of the day, like I say, I'm a discerning consumer.
04:03 I'm not going to buy this thing personally if it comes out and it gets bad reviews and
04:07 my trusted colleagues in the gaming department here at WhatCulture tell me it's not great.
04:10 So just make it good.
04:12 That's all we care about.
04:13 Yeah, no matter how much it costs, just keep spending until it's good.
04:17 Keep it going.
04:18 You only get one chance at this first game.
04:19 Go bankrupt just to make it good.
04:21 Do it, Tony.
04:22 Tony's not going to go bankrupt.
04:23 He's a billionaire, it's fine.
04:24 Oh yeah, we'll have to wait and see what happens with this, but it's interesting news.
04:27 It all seemed very rosy at the beginning of this deal and maybe not so much anymore.
04:32 More gym than rosy now, isn't it?
04:34 Yes, indeed.
04:35 Or just sinking on the boat.
04:36 Anyway, moving over to controversies in wrestling and who else's name pops up with controversies
04:42 in wrestling, but Tessa Blanchard, obviously.
04:45 So this is coming from Fightful Select and it appears that she has fallen out with WOW
04:50 or Women of Wrestling, obviously the promotion that she's been with since October in 2021
04:56 after being out of wrestling for quite a while, heading down to Mexico.
05:00 And then, yeah, she got released from Impact a while ago because of allegations of racial
05:04 abuse and things like that.
05:05 So anyway, bad stuff.
05:07 So we should point out that this is sort of unconfirmed right now.
05:10 It's been strange reports coming out from it.
05:12 But Fightful are reporting that allegations of issues have happened between them.
05:17 And no word if she's going to be there for their TV tapings later this week.
05:21 Women of Wrestling personnel have apparently signed an NDA about it because they were fearful
05:25 about getting in trouble either with Tessa Blanchard herself or with the promotion and
05:30 sort of like the backlash that that might cause.
05:33 One of the allegations apparently is about Tessa Blanchard cutting a promo that saw her
05:38 just tear into Samantha Americana Sage during one of the acting classes that they were doing
05:44 in training, which prompted several trainees to speak up about it.
05:49 Apparently, these classes have now since been cancelled after this as well.
05:53 Again, it's not fully confirmed, but one trainee stated that they were told that Blanchard
05:58 wouldn't be heavily involved in the future of WOW and suggested that she has been removed
06:03 from her head coach's position there as well.
06:06 Again, not confirmed, but one wrestler member says she may be done entirely with that promotion.
06:13 So yeah, this is coming from a history of allegations against Tessa Blanchard, a history
06:18 of controversies about her, and it just seems to be never ending right now.
06:22 It's been a while, hasn't it?
06:23 Yeah, it's been quiet for a while.
06:25 Like, I remember, it's an interesting relationship this because she signed with WOW.
06:33 It's hard to think of those initials without just exploding, isn't it?
06:37 WOW!
06:38 And it seemed like a bit of a rehabilitation deal where it's like, let's rebuild your reputation.
06:43 And then like a couple of weeks later, they released a t-shirt that was like, "Nuclear
06:46 Heat!"
06:47 And it was like, oh no, this is not going to go well.
06:51 And lo and behold, it has not gone well going by this report.
06:56 Tessa Blanchard's stance is the same as it's ever been for me personally.
07:01 Phenomenally talented performer, but that doesn't really matter when you cause so many
07:05 problems behind the scenes.
07:06 And obviously, the allegations that were made against her in 2020 are horrendous.
07:12 And you know, the victims in all those situations, La Rosa Negra, she's the one who's lost out
07:19 the most from all of this.
07:20 She had to fall victim to the stuff that Tessa was accused of.
07:24 And she had the controversy with like, not wanting to work the taping and holding the
07:28 championship and getting released as champion.
07:31 And it's like, future in wrestling does not look great.
07:34 No, not at all.
07:35 You know who has got a good future in wrestling?
07:39 Moose.
07:40 Right?
07:41 He's doing really well at the moment.
07:43 Moose.
07:44 So it's a Fightful Select report again here talking about how WWE had interest in Moose
07:48 before he signed his last Impact contract, which was last year and was for two years.
07:53 But they've basically spoken to Moose and confirmed a previous report that WWE were
07:57 trying to sign the guy.
07:59 They were pursuing him.
08:02 And Moose was interested.
08:03 He held talks with WWE and he was actually going to go until Scott D'Amore, the Impact
08:09 executive came back and said, no, Moose, here's a better offer that was described as being
08:14 a major improvement on his previous terms and required a quick answer.
08:18 Ultimately, Moose decided to stay where he is and where he has been since coming over
08:23 after leaving Ring of Honor many years ago at this stage.
08:26 So there you go.
08:28 Pretty interesting.
08:29 Canyon Seaman, who's no longer with WWE, was the point man on all of this, but Moose decided
08:33 to stick around anyway.
08:35 I think this guy's in the form of his life at the moment.
08:37 I mean, literally just Google image filter to one year and look at the shape he's in
08:41 to start with.
08:42 But his level of performance has been incredible as well in the ring.
08:45 The match with Josh Alexander last week was sensational stuff.
08:49 I loved his match with My Guy Big Tom last year in New Japan.
08:53 And yeah, he had a great match with Mike Bailey on the Indies this year as well.
08:57 So yeah, Moose is doing great stuff.
08:59 I'm not surprised that WWE were interested in him.
09:01 Now, in the past, from some outlets, and this is something you have to talk about when you
09:06 mention Moose, he has allegations of certain forms of abuse against him.
09:10 And in the past, that has been held up as something that WWE or other companies weren't
09:16 willing to look beyond.
09:18 Perhaps that's not the case anymore.
09:20 But in the interest of balance, we have to mention those things.
09:23 But yeah, there you go.
09:25 Moose, not only his work rate in Impact has been fantastic, but his packaging in Impact
09:30 has been amazing.
09:31 The way they've treated him has been absolutely phenomenal.
09:33 They've built him up as this absolutely massive star within Impact itself.
09:38 The entrance, the promo, the character that they worked out for him, everything about
09:42 the packaging in Impact has been absolutely fantastic.
09:44 So it's a credit to them and Moose working together to create this kind of thing that
09:49 gets people like WWE interested.
09:52 But yeah, interesting that Impact went above and beyond to try and keep him, because of
09:55 course they did.
09:56 Yeah, he was champion for like half a year or something as well.
09:59 Yeah, a long time.
10:00 So they've made an investment in the guy.
10:01 They did.
10:02 Yeah, there you go.
10:03 But speaking of Impact, guys, AEW Dynamite was last night, and MJF has obviously been
10:08 putting people in front of Wardlow to try and keep him at arm's length.
10:11 He had the match against Butcher, against Lance Archer as well, shoving people as little
10:16 roadblocks in the way.
10:17 He had a mystery opponent last night, and everyone kind of knew what this was going
10:21 to be.
10:22 It was very heavily teased last week, and it was of course W. Morrissey, or the former
10:27 big Cass from WWE.
10:30 He came out and it wasn't a squash match or anything.
10:34 He definitely got quite a lot of offense in, but Wardlow beat him with one powerbomb instead
10:38 of the usual symphony, which is quite telling, I guess.
10:41 But it's a big, big dude.
10:43 It looked very impressive, Wardlow throwing him around.
10:47 And it's just another scalp on his way to MJF.
10:50 Afterwards, he was tearing through all of the security guards again, like he does trying
10:53 to get to MJF.
10:54 And it has been announced that there will be a match between MJF and Wardlow.
10:58 But what that will actually look like, we'll find out next week on Dynamite during a contract
11:03 signing.
11:04 So exciting times we are actually getting to this MJF versus Wardlow match, I assume
11:08 at Double or Nothing.
11:09 Yeah, it's a good storyline.
11:10 I'm really into it.
11:11 Wardlow is extremely over it as well.
11:13 So that shows it's working.
11:15 And you know, like, it's really nice.
11:17 He got chance.
11:18 There was chance of we won this though.
11:20 And then the other half of the crowd were like, no, we don't, which was quite interesting.
11:24 But no, it's really nice to see W. Morrissey doing well, because he had life hit him with
11:29 a couple of sucker punches, obviously, after leaving WWE and perhaps while he was there
11:33 as well.
11:34 And he had a rough time of it.
11:36 Now he's carved out a cool niche for himself and he was in great shape as well.
11:40 He looks happy.
11:41 He looks healthy.
11:42 He's got a headspace kind of thing for it all.
11:44 Like just watching him now makes me happy.
11:46 So like, I really enjoyed him showing up.
11:49 They obviously like last week, MJF went and you can't teach that.
11:53 So we knew it was going to be.
11:56 But it was fun and I had a good time and that's what matters.
11:58 Have a good time.
11:59 Indeed.
12:00 That's what wrestling is all about.
12:01 Yeah, that's what it is in a nutshell.
12:03 Right, let's head over to our Twitter questions today.
12:06 We actually got a bunch about this storyline, which took me off guard a little bit, but
12:10 I guess people are interested in it.
12:11 So here we go.
12:12 So I've just taken this question here to kind of catch all, but just know that if you
12:16 asked about this storyline, I saw your question.
12:18 Robert Williamson the third asks, do AEW need to just drop the House of Black story with
12:23 the varsity blondes and move them onto the Blackpool Combat Club or is it too soon?
12:27 Personally, I've lost interest with the whole Julia Black, Julia Hart.
12:31 Julia Black.
12:32 Who's Julia Black?
12:33 I mean, soon to be Julia Black.
12:36 Black eye.
12:37 She's got the makeup and stuff now.
12:38 The Julia Black Hart.
12:39 Maybe that'll be your name.
12:40 Either way, I've lost interest with the whole Julia Hart corrupted thing.
12:44 Yeah, I think a lot, like for me personally, like toxic mist and corruption and stuff,
12:49 it's not what I like from pro wrestling, but are you any different?
12:53 No, not particularly.
12:54 And this one seems to have just been going on a really long time now.
12:58 I don't know how long it's actually been going for.
13:00 December, I believe.
13:01 Or November.
13:02 It's really long with very little that's actually happened.
13:07 She's put out the odd tweet, kind of like once a week maybe about it and that's basically
13:13 the entire progression is she's just been sat there looking a bit grumpy, sat on the
13:17 steps for a while.
13:18 So something needs to happen sooner rather than later.
13:21 Obviously, they teased it a bit last night on Dynamite, but she couldn't bring herself
13:25 to hit him with the chair.
13:26 So they're getting there, but let's just speed this up and move on.
13:31 Like I'm not into the House of Black stuff surrounding the character stuff in the stories,
13:35 but their match stuff.
13:36 Matches rule.
13:37 Absolutely spectacular.
13:38 So we need to be focusing on that side of it, not the weird, spooky balls.
13:44 I completely agree.
13:46 She's had a couple of dark and elevation matches and stuff, but it's stretched out over a very
13:52 long period of time.
13:53 So maybe it's time you just fast forward to the end.
13:56 Our next question comes from Eddie Zamhari, regular contributor, but he asks great questions.
14:02 That's how they end up on the news.
14:04 He asks the following.
14:05 Who do you think will be the Joker, this was announced last night, of the Owen Hart tournament?
14:09 That's the person facing Samoa Joe.
14:11 My guess is Claudio Castagnoli, Cesaro.
14:14 I completely agree.
14:15 Yeah, that was my first impression as well.
14:20 Cesaro would be a perfect fit for this, jumping in against Samoa Joe.
14:25 But since he's already picked Cesaro, I'll go with Miro, because that would be really
14:28 good fun as well.
14:29 Miro versus Samoa Joe would be incredible.
14:32 It would be lovely to just have that great man back on TV as well.
14:35 Tremendous shout.
14:36 Who do you guys think in the comment section?
14:37 Let us know.
14:38 Let us know.
14:39 Maybe the Fiend.
14:40 Maybe.
14:41 He's still a free agent.
14:42 Yes, it's true.
14:43 Our final question here comes from Lon Maya, who asks, who should, I love the mystery of
14:53 this part of the storyline, because I think it's a lot of fun.
14:55 Who should Kingston, Santana and Ortiz add to their group to stop them getting outnumbered
15:00 by the Jericho Appreciation Society constantly?
15:03 Of course, at the moment it's five on three.
15:04 Last night it was five on two because Eddie had the fireball in his eyeball the other
15:09 week.
15:10 My answer to this is really simple.
15:12 It's homicide.
15:13 I was going to say homicide.
15:14 God damn it.
15:15 Do I have to think of someone else now?
15:16 Sorry, Phil.
15:17 You're going to say the Fiend and the Black Crocodile.
15:24 But yeah, I mean, like they've got history with Eddie from Impact.
15:27 They've got history with Santana and Ortiz.
15:29 Obviously they were mortal enemies in Impact, but hey, we can reckon on that.
15:33 So I'm glad we've got it.
15:34 Yeah, the whole LAX thing.
15:35 It just makes sense, doesn't it?
15:36 They've already had a bit of homicide in AEW before.
15:37 Just do a bit more of it.
15:38 Just do more.
15:39 Anyone else?
15:40 I don't know.
15:41 Dakota Kai.
15:42 There we go.
15:43 Dakota Kai and Persia Peralta.
15:44 There we go.
15:45 There we go.
15:46 You also got cut the other day.
15:47 Malcolm Bivens, he wrestled before.
15:48 Why not?
15:49 Chuck McMullen.
15:50 Yeah, he's wrestled as Chuck Taylor, interestingly, back in his indie days.
15:51 Shout out to Stokely Hathaway.
15:52 Very talented man who's going to find employment no problem.
15:53 Yes.
15:54 Same for a lot of those folk.
15:55 I think it's a good thing.
15:56 Like a lot of those releases where people we've not seen on TV very often, I wish them
16:07 all the best as well.
16:09 But I think like your Dakota Kai and your Persia Peralta and your Malcolm Bivens are
16:13 our movie.
16:14 Yeah, no brainers.
16:15 Yeah, exactly.
16:16 So hey, thank you for joining us today.
16:18 On the news, you can follow us on Twitter @whatculturewwe.
16:21 You can follow Phil on Twitter @philmychambers.
16:24 And you can follow Andy @AndyHMurray.
16:28 The H stands for hey, remember what it is tomorrow.
16:30 Big dumb Friday, Fiend Friday.
16:31 We need a brand for it.
16:33 I think Fiend Friday is quite nice.
16:35 Fiend Friday works.
16:36 Yeah.
16:37 Don't want to steal Gator's Daily's gimmick and call it F Friday.
16:41 That's a different thing.
16:43 That's already a thing.
16:44 Yeah, someone else's IP that.
16:46 Follow Gator's Daily on Twitter, by the way.
16:47 Let us know what we should call our stupid Fridays in the comments below.
16:50 Yeah, that's a great shout.
16:52 Maybe we'll do a poll as well.
16:53 The one with the most amount of likes wins.
16:54 There you go.
16:55 Bye.
16:56 [LAUGHTER]
16:56 (laughing)
16:59 (laughing)