What surprises do you see in store for WrestleMania 40? Let us know in the comments!
The Rock: Backstage Politics In WWE, Movies & Beyond https://youtu.be/09KwOz0kXMU
More wrestling news on https://wrestletalk.com/
0:00 - Coming up...
0:22 - Rhea Ripley Deploys Ass-Based Offence
1:58 - Top Stars Become Free Agents
4:07 - TNA Stars Become Free Agents
6:13 - The Rock Angry With Reports
10:14 - Huge WrestleMania XL Surprises Coming?
Top Stars Become Free Agents, The Rock Angry, WWE WrestleMania 40 Surprises | WrestleTalk
#TheRock #WWE #WrestleMania
Subscribe to WrestleTalk Podcasts https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu
Subscribe to partsFUNknown for lists, fantasy booking & more https://bit.ly/32JJsCv
Subscribe to NoRollsBarred https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UQPZe-8v4_UP1uxi4Mv6A
Subscribe to WrestleTalk https://bit.ly/3gKdNK3
SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!
Watch the latest wrestling news: https://shorturl.at/pAIV3
Buy WrestleTalk Merch here! https://wrestleshop.com/
Follow WrestleTalk:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_WrestleTalk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WrestleTalk.Official
Patreon: https://goo.gl/2yuJpo
WrestleTalk Podcast on iTunes: https://goo.gl/7advjX
WrestleTalk Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3uKx6HD
Written by: Oli Davis
Presented by: Oli Davis
Thumbnail by: Brandon Syres
Image Sourcing by: Brandon Syres
About WrestleTalk:
Welcome to the official WrestleTalk YouTube channel! WrestleTalk covers the sport of professional wrestling - including WWE TV shows (both WWE Raw & WWE SmackDown LIVE), PPVs (such as Royal Rumble, WrestleMania & SummerSlam), AEW All Elite Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, ROH, New Japan, and more. Subscribe and enable ALL notifications for the latest wrestling WWE reviews and wrestling news.
Sources used for research:
Youtube Channel Comments Policy
We appreciate the comments and opinions our viewers provide. Do note that all comments are subject to YouTube auto-moderation and manual moderation review. We encourage opinions and discussion, but harassment, hate speech, bullying and other abusive posts will not be tolerated. Decisions on comment removal are made by the Community Manager. Please email us at support@wrestletalk.com with any questions or concerns.
The Rock: Backstage Politics In WWE, Movies & Beyond https://youtu.be/09KwOz0kXMU
More wrestling news on https://wrestletalk.com/
0:00 - Coming up...
0:22 - Rhea Ripley Deploys Ass-Based Offence
1:58 - Top Stars Become Free Agents
4:07 - TNA Stars Become Free Agents
6:13 - The Rock Angry With Reports
10:14 - Huge WrestleMania XL Surprises Coming?
Top Stars Become Free Agents, The Rock Angry, WWE WrestleMania 40 Surprises | WrestleTalk
#TheRock #WWE #WrestleMania
Subscribe to WrestleTalk Podcasts https://bit.ly/3pEAEIu
Subscribe to partsFUNknown for lists, fantasy booking & more https://bit.ly/32JJsCv
Subscribe to NoRollsBarred https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UQPZe-8v4_UP1uxi4Mv6A
Subscribe to WrestleTalk https://bit.ly/3gKdNK3
SUBSCRIBE TO THEM ALL! Make sure to enable ALL push notifications!
Watch the latest wrestling news: https://shorturl.at/pAIV3
Buy WrestleTalk Merch here! https://wrestleshop.com/
Follow WrestleTalk:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/_WrestleTalk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WrestleTalk.Official
Patreon: https://goo.gl/2yuJpo
WrestleTalk Podcast on iTunes: https://goo.gl/7advjX
WrestleTalk Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3uKx6HD
Written by: Oli Davis
Presented by: Oli Davis
Thumbnail by: Brandon Syres
Image Sourcing by: Brandon Syres
About WrestleTalk:
Welcome to the official WrestleTalk YouTube channel! WrestleTalk covers the sport of professional wrestling - including WWE TV shows (both WWE Raw & WWE SmackDown LIVE), PPVs (such as Royal Rumble, WrestleMania & SummerSlam), AEW All Elite Wrestling, Impact Wrestling, ROH, New Japan, and more. Subscribe and enable ALL notifications for the latest wrestling WWE reviews and wrestling news.
Sources used for research:
Youtube Channel Comments Policy
We appreciate the comments and opinions our viewers provide. Do note that all comments are subject to YouTube auto-moderation and manual moderation review. We encourage opinions and discussion, but harassment, hate speech, bullying and other abusive posts will not be tolerated. Decisions on comment removal are made by the Community Manager. Please email us at support@wrestletalk.com with any questions or concerns.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Top Wrestling Agents Officially Become Free Agents!
00:03 Some Huge WWE Surprises Coming Soon!
00:07 The Rock Angry With A Wrestling Report!
00:09 And More!
00:10 I'm Oli Davis, and this is the WrestleTalk News!
00:23 Before we get into any of the top stories on this video, there's breaking news.
00:27 Nia Ripley Used An Ass-Based Move In A Wrestling Match!
00:31 In a triple threat against Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for her Women's World Championship
00:36 at a live event in Springfield, Illinois, Ripley hoisted up her attire, exposing the
00:41 buttock cheeks to hit Rakeesh's Stinkface move on Nia.
00:46 Upon seeing this, Shayna then also requested she also receive Ripley's Stinkface.
00:52 A clip of the move has apparently broken the Internet.
00:55 A level of virality that seems to mostly be used when it's about women's bums.
01:00 Which means thirstiness incoming in 3… 2… 1…
01:05 Here's some Twitter users in reply…
01:07 God, why couldn't I have been born in Nia Jax's body?
01:11 When's the next house show in my area?
01:14 And one going full 2018 Dolph Ziggler, it should have been me.
01:19 While Ripley's real-life fiancé AEW wrestler Buddy Matthews posted…
01:23 A weakly occurrence for me.
01:26 Whatever that emoji.
01:27 Is that like a drooling emoji?
01:30 Yeah, a drooling emoji face.
01:33 Ripley will defend her Women's Championship against Becky Lynch at WrestleMania XL, a
01:37 match both Luke and I predicted Rhea to retain in our Mania episode of Three Count, which
01:42 is up right now.
01:44 But whatever the result, the Women's Champion might have a very different roster of challengers
01:49 come Ram.
01:51 Ram there been.
01:53 Raw after Mania.
01:55 It's Luke's thing, he's trying to make it happen.
01:59 Following last week's Tokyo Sports report that four of Stardom's top stars will be
02:02 leaving the promotion, the company has officially announced it themselves.
02:08 Also confirming the long-expected departure of their toppest of top stars, Julia, who
02:13 is heavily expected to end up with WWE later this year.
02:17 In an announcement on their official website via me putting it into Google Translate, Stardom
02:22 wrote "Due to the expiry of the contracts with the following players, March 31st, 2024,
02:28 we would like to inform you that five players will be leaving Stardom.
02:33 We sincerely apologize to our customers who supported the five players for this sudden
02:38 announcement.
02:39 Julia, Mai Sakurai, Mirai, Yuzuki and…
02:43 SP3's actually written this down for me phonetically after I butchered it on Friday's
02:48 episode…
02:49 "Stardom's new founder, Hayashita, Sakurai, Mirai and Yuzuki, will all finish up their
02:52 dates on March 31st.
02:55 Whereas Hayashita and Julia will appear on the Corrican Hall tournament until April 12th.
03:00 Stardom's is a very interesting story from the past several months.
03:04 Its original founder Rossya Gawa was fired by the parent company Bushi Road, who also
03:08 owns New Japan Pro Wrestling, in February, alleging he was trying to poach talent to
03:13 start a new promotion.
03:15 He has since confirmed he will be starting a new wrestling company, and it's heavily
03:19 speculated these five wrestlers will join him there.
03:23 But this new promotion could also directly influence the talent scouting of both AEW
03:29 and WWE.
03:30 AEW has a working relationship with New Japan and, therefore, Stardom.
03:35 Gawa's new promotion, however, in opposition to his former bosses, could strike up a relationship
03:41 with WWE.
03:43 Strengthened by reports back in February that Julia will stay in Japan for a bit longer
03:48 to help Gawa launch his new company, before she signs with WWE.
03:53 But somehow Stardom isn't the only major wrestling promotion in the last few months
03:58 to get rid of its lead creative force and cause unhappiness amongst talent.
04:03 TNA are going through the exact same thing right now.
04:07 TNA's longtime head of creative Scott D'Amore was let go just three days after Stardom announced
04:13 they were firing Agawa.
04:14 Unlike Agawa allegedly wanting to create his own company, though, D'Amore was reportedly
04:19 terminated because his ambitions for TNA were too high.
04:24 It's claimed D'Amore disagreed with TNA's parent company Anthem Sports and Entertainment,
04:28 where he wanted to raise the promotion's budget following their steady rise in popularity.
04:34 January's Hard to Kill Premium live event, for instance, which saw them re-rebrand Impact
04:39 Wrestling as TNA, was their most successful show in almost two decades.
04:44 Following D'Amore's departure, the TNA roster wrote a letter to Anthem management
04:48 sensitively expressing their support for Scott and their concern for the company's future.
04:54 What had become one of the most tight-knit, family-like rosters in the whole wrestling
04:59 industry was seemingly breaking apart.
05:02 Now following the most recent set of TV tapings, PWInsider is reporting that both of the Motor
05:08 City Machine Guns - Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin, long-time TNA wrestlers and single
05:13 stars in their own rights, both of former world champions with Shelley holding the belt
05:18 until this January - were given a send-off backstage after the show, as it will be their
05:23 final appearance ahead of their contracts expiring on the 1st April.
05:28 The Motor City Machine Guns are one of the best teams of recent times, and I would be
05:32 stunned if Tony Khan doesn't try to buy them for his collection.
05:35 I mean, sign them for his roster.
05:37 PWInsider also writes that former TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion Killer Kelly, whose MKUltra
05:42 team only lost the belt several weeks ago, has also "finished with the promotion"
05:47 and they're setting up a new partner for Masha Slamovich.
05:50 Fightful Select, however, is reporting the door is being kept open for Shelley and Sabin
05:55 to return, and refutes PWInsider's claim about Kelly, writing her contract actually
06:01 runs through until August 2025, and she's just "taking some time off".
06:06 It's hard to know what wrestling reports I should trust these days, because The Rock
06:10 has also told me it's all complete horse poo.
06:13 It was recently reported by numerous outlets that Triple H and Nick Khan had sent an internal
06:18 memo to the WWE roster reminding them to keep things PG on both TV and social media, as
06:25 that's a requirement of the network and licensing deals they have in place.
06:30 Maybe nobody cc'd in The Rock, though, because he's been posting 20 minute profanity filled
06:35 promos on social media, and then doing profanity filled 20 minute promos on episodes of SmackDown.
06:41 It was reported that some wrestlers were frustrated by these double standards, as they felt like
06:45 they could get over a lot more if they didn't have any handcuffs like The Rock.
06:50 The Rock even seemingly referenced the TV companies complaining about him on social
06:54 media writing about his Rock concert segment "Networks and "standards and practices"
06:59 have issues with my language, but I'd rather be real than not."
07:03 Then several days later on USA Network, Cody Rhodes got to use naughty language, saying
07:08 words like "bitch", "dick" and "ass" in his promo against The Rock on the 18th
07:14 of March.
07:15 It caused some to theorise that the WWE memo and Rock frustration stories were intentionally
07:20 leaked to fuel this storyline.
07:22 But now The Rock himself has shot back.
07:25 WrestleMania posted a summary of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter's report on X, writing
07:29 "TKO would like The Rock to follow and set a good example, its guidelines of TVPG product.
07:36 However, many feel the double standards of the Vince McMahon era are back."
07:41 Prompting Rock the Dwayne Johnson himself to reply "This story is complete horse s***"
07:47 and the conclusion is "Everybody's right, everybody's right, kind of."
07:52 Here's what Meltzer actually wrote about the situation in the newsletter.
07:56 As one person noted, "The Rock does what he wants and because he's on the board of
08:00 directors nobody is going to say anything to him.
08:04 He also has an entire team of representatives that he surrounds himself with, so any issues
08:09 they handle while he stays out of the mess with the people he directly deals with."
08:14 But one person noted that there was a feeling that the era of Vince McMahon's double standards
08:18 for his handpicked stars and for everyone else was over, and then Johnson shows up and
08:24 it's exactly the same.
08:26 The talent was told that because the company was publicly traded and the wishes of TKO
08:30 management was to be TVPG, the feeling was that if he's on the board, if anything,
08:35 he should be the one following the rules to set the example.
08:39 So there wasn't actually anything in the original report about TKO wanting The Rock
08:44 to follow the PG guidelines.
08:46 It was about some talent thinking The Rock should do that to set an example, given his
08:51 position on the TKO board of directors.
08:53 If only there was a video diving into The Rock's fascinating career behind the scenes
08:58 where he started off as one of the most unselfish top guy wrestlers ever to end up with arguably
09:04 the most backstage power of anyone.
09:06 I'd certainly watch that video.
09:07 It sounds like a really good video.
09:08 Oh, just one more thing.
09:10 There is a video like that.
09:12 I host it.
09:13 It went live on this very channel at the weekend.
09:15 Here's a clip.
09:16 "But despite either being the top or joint top guy with Austin for the six prime Attitude
09:21 Era years from '97 to 2002, The Rock had one of the lowest win percentages out of the
09:28 entire main event scene.
09:30 Kurt Angle, who I could only use from his debut in '99, surprisingly had the highest
09:35 at 66.75%.
09:36 Triple H, unsurprisingly, was next, followed by The Undertaker, Kane, Stone Cold Steve
09:43 Austin and Chris Jericho, who spent two of those years in WCW.
09:47 And then, second from Rock Bottom is Dwayne Johnson, with a 52.95% winning average.
09:55 The only top Attitude Era star lower was Mick Foley, whose entire gimmick was getting beaten
10:01 up and losing."
10:02 We've spent so long researching and writing that video, so please, please give it a watch
10:06 after you've finished this one, comment and share it around too.
10:10 The Rock might not be the only WWE legend at WrestleMania XL, though.
10:14 Because according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, "Nothing is official, but the
10:18 belief right now is that Steve Austin, Undertaker and John Cena will have something at WrestleMania
10:24 in some form."
10:25 Meltzer notes that there is no creative locked in right now for any of them, and Cena's
10:29 involvement would likely not involve getting physical for insurance reasons with his upcoming
10:34 movie production schedule.
10:36 As for Taker and Austin, what they're willing to do depends on how they're feeling.
10:40 Triple H has also responded to the Platinum Record selling rapper Meek Mill inviting him
10:45 to appear at Mania.
10:47 How would you book Austin interacting with The Rock at WrestleMania?
10:49 Let me know in the comments down below, because I'll be replying to people FROM OUTTA SAINT
10:54 AUSTIN SHOULD JUST JOIN THE BLOODLINE TOO.
10:56 ONE MORE YEAR.
10:57 ONE MORE YEAR.
10:58 Now click the video on the left to watch my video on The Rock's WWE TakeOver backstage
11:04 politics in wrestling, Hollywood and beyond.