FTR Heading to WWE? Major Raw Return Angle Scrapped? WWE Raw Review! | WrestleTalk
In this WrestleTalk News, Dax Harwood teases WWE move, another major WWE return for Raw scrapped, And Pete’s review of last night’s Raw. Subscribe and enable notifications to always on for daily wrestling news videos. Since the Triple H creative era began in WWE last summer, it’s become pretty evident that he may enjoy something more than he enjoys a good sledgehammer… or shovel. And that is of course signing former WWE talent. While it may seem there isn’t anyone left for Trips, there is ONE AEW act that he might just manage to bring in after all, without any
‘contract tampering’ needed whatsoever…FTR. As regular listeners of the ‘FTR Podcast with Dax Harwood’ will be aware of, FTR’s AEW contracts are due to expire in April, that’s just two months away. You know what else is in April right? (Obligatory point to WrestleMania sign spot) And the links to WWE have not been kept secret by Dax himself, with him speaking openly on the decision he and Cash Wheeler have to make. Whether it’s staying with AEW, going the free agent/indie route or making a move back to WWE. Dax has spoken of the decision, saying on his Podcast
last month that FTR’s post-April decision would likely be the “absolute last thing we do, as far as wrestling”. It’s a massive call, one you
Yes, while, of course the suspicious WWE branded document in Dax’s tweet could well be anything for all we know, the swift deletion of the tweet may suggest otherwise. Or of course it could just be one massive troll because that’s always a likely outcome. But wait… there’s more! That’s right, Triple H may not be quite content with FTR, as according to WrestlingNews.co, the much-rumored WWE return of Matt Cardona could be set to happen very soon indeed. The report reveals that certain people in WWE “who would know”, believe that Cardona is set to join his wife Chelsea
Green back in WWE and could be returning to the company “imminently”. Cardona’s much-rumored return to WWE has been an ongoing story for months now, prior to her return at the Royal Rumble, both Green and Cardona had done their fair share of social media teases regarding a return, with Cardona stating he and Green had “unfinished business” in WWE back in November last year. So now that one half of the couple has made the jump, it’s fair to say the former Zack Ryder may not be far behind. Woo Woo Woo… You Know It? Maybe? Finishing up today’s
news, we’ve got a follow up on the previously reported rumor that WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus was set to return to the company, something that actually should have already happened by now. Yet, if you watched Raw last night you would know that it sadly did not. The return of Trish was reported last week by a new Twitter account by the name of WRKD Wrestling, who had also successfully reported on last week’s Raw return of fellow WWE HOFER Lita. According to WRKD, the Lita angle was set to lead to a Trish return this week, and
then finally a six-woman match between Trish, Lita and Becky against Damage CTRL at the Elimination Chamber. Once again though, that ended up not being the case. However, WRKD have now responded to this saying plans had changed regarding Trish: “Hate to backtrack on our 2nd tweet ever, but plans have changed due to Dakota’s injury and Trish won’t be at Raw tonight. Despite this, WRKD revealed that Trish’s return is still happening soon, and will see her take part in a “lengthy program” and she “won’t be in a role most expect”. What on earth that means I don’t
quite know, but I am intrigued. As of right now though, there is no Trish and unfortunately no match at the Chamber, however, there’s still plenty of time to build for Mania, so there’s still plenty of time for some Stratusfaction. The show began with Becky Lynch, who had brought out Adam Pearce to ask him if she could fight her way into the Elimination Chamber match because she said she’d lost sight of the title, the thing that means the most to her. She was interrupted by Bayley, who said nuh uh, if anyone should be added it’s me
because I got cheated out of the cage match last week. They then compared their accolades, before they were interrupted by Bianca Belair herself. Bianca said that she wants to fight the best so in order to fight the best they need to…go through her. So they made it official for tonight – Bianca vs Becky vs Bayley, if Becky or Bayley win they get added to the Elimination Chamber match, if Bianca wins then they…don’t. This was fine I guess. After Judgment Day do a promo backstage and Dominik says Rhea is excited for Valentine’s Day, I bet she
is, they faced The Street Profits and after some Dominik distraction, Judgment Day got the win, and after Damian Priest wanted to keep attacking Montez Ford as both of them are in an Elimination Chamber , Edge and Beth Phoenix came out to make the save. But before Beth could take out Dominik Mysterio, out came Rhea Ripley to hit the Riptide on Beth to leave her laying. Solid stuff, no complaints. Brock Lesnar and Bobby Lashley had their contract signing segment next where Lashley was definitively the heel, stalling, coming out with his own security and contract signing desk,
demanding he did things on his own terms etc. After saying Lesnar didn’t have the balls to fight him right now, Lesnar started taking out Lashley’s security but Lashley took out Lesnar and signed the contract. This was also solid. Piper Niven took on Michin next and won pretty quickly and handily. This was also solid, but it’s a shame that the crowd didn’t care one iota. Also when Piper Niven won with the Black Hole Slam, Corey Graves said it was like slamming her into the Abyss. Teehee, nice job Corey. I understood that reference. Well the start of
the show has been…fine hasn’t it. And now we have a backstage segment with Baron Corbin so it’s sure to get better. Oh wait it got better because they cut away from Corbin backstage to someone invading the ring: Sami Zayn. Sami called out Cody Rhodes, and Sami said in his promo with Paul Heyman last week, there’s one thing Cody said that stuck with him, and that’s that it’s looking more likely that it’s going to be Cody Rhodes vs Sami Zayn at WrestleMania, and he needs to know: was that lip service or was it true? Does Cody
believe Sami can win at Elimination Chamber? Cody responded by saying it was true, but it doesn’t matter what Cody thinks, what does Sami think? Does Sami believe that he can win? And Sami was clearly conflicted, unconfident, questioning his own abilities, but said he knows he’s capable of beating Roman Reigns, he’s capable of becoming Undisputed Champion, he’s capable of headlining WrestleMania, but will he? He doesn’t know. The Bloodline always finds a way, he knows, he’s been with them in the trenches. Cody fires Sami up, saying he believes in Sami, everyone has been saying that when Cody
won the Rumble he needs to finish his story, but at Elimination Chamber, Sami needs to finish his. This was a bold move, putting Cody and Sami in a promo segment together, but my god it worked. Both men were over, the crowd wanted to see both men succeed, this succeeded in making both men more over than when they went in, and made me more excited for the match at Chamber this weekend. The ole chants from the crowd, Cody’s passion, Sami’s fire, yet incredible facial expressions showing that despite his confidence, there’s doubt under what he’s saying, this
was a home run segment, and yet another in the lineage of the Bloodline story being absolutely top tier. Carmella, Nikki Cross and Asuka were backstage and Nikki Cross is still stalking Candice LeRae. Alrighty. Baron Corbin is still there waiting for his backstage interview, where he says JBL is the past and he doesn’t need him, and then runs down Sami for interrupting his scheduled interview and then Cody for talking to him too, but little did he know Cody was right behind him. He said Cody was a joke, his child was a joke, his dad was a
joke, his dog was a joke and you don’t talk about Pharoah like that Corbin, so Cody attacked him, the two had an impromptu match and Cody won very quickly, even while wrestling in a suit. Once again, solid. What popped me more was this fan holding up a Something Something Cody Rhodes sign, my favourite. Well done. Natalya, Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez were backstage and they said some stuff, and then they had a Raw vs SmackDown 6-Women Tag Match. But what about the one night a year where Raw and SmackDown go head to head in-[JUMP CUT
INTERRUPT] The crowd were absolutely dead for this match, which was a shame, but they also weren’t given a whole lot to get into as a lot of this match was shmoz. Asuka turned on her teammates before the finish and then tapped out Liv Morgan because she can. She’s very cool. Maximum Male Models are still trying to recruit Otis – I have missed babyface Otis, he is very funny – and then Bronson Reed killed Mustafa Ali pretty quickly ahead of his appearance inside Elimination Chamber. It sucks for Ali, but it makes sense to have Reed win
decisively here. Side note: I don’t know what was going on with this show, but the entrance music was insanely loud, to the point where they showed a backstage promo during Ali’s entrance and you could barely hear it over his music. Edge and Beth Phoenix said they’re going to win and they’re the Grit Couple. Cool. Miz hosted MizTV with Seth Rollins, where Seth wore the big red meme boots, and Miz said WHAT ARE THOSE, which was outdated when they did it in the Black Panther movie in 2018, and here we are, five years later. Finger on
the pulse of culture as always. Miz questioned Seth though, asking why Seth wanted to talk about Logan Paul on all the radio shows he’s on and on social media, but he wouldn’t talk about him in a WWE ring, why is that? So Seth responded by saying that he loves wrestling, the fans love wrestling, and Logan doesn’t, he just wants to make money, which…is probably true. He said he doesn’t want to talk about Logan because his name doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the ring. This was good, put over Seth’s issue with Logan more, heating up
their feud before their inevitable WrestleMania match, no complaints. Austin Theory then attacked Seth, Seth stomped Miz in his horrendous boots, which admittedly, got a laugh out of me, but then Theory stood tall over Seth. Solid. Rick Boogs and Elias had a backstage promo while The Hurt Business talked in the background, and I personally am quite looking forward to seeing more of Rick Boogs, I think he’s really funny and if he’s given more material than just doing the same intro for Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance every week I think he could make for a really fun mid-card character.
He faced The Miz next and won quickly after Miz was still out from Seth’s stomp. Chelsea Green backstage continued to be a Karen and she is annoyingly good at being that hypocritical character. Solid stuff. Judgment Day did another promo where they said they’re going to win and they’re the Judgment Day or whatever. That was most of the promos on this show honestly, person said they’re going to win. Solid. Then it was the main event of Bianca Belair vs Becky Lynch vs Bayley, which was a well-booked Triple Threat match, where it rarely felt like a singles’
match with one person on the outisde, there were a ton of interactions between all three of them at the same time which made for a much more fun match to watch. There were a couple of questionable spots though – like when Bayley stacked Bianca Belair on top of Becky Lynch and then went to the top…which is surely Bianca pinning Becky, why aren’t you counting referee, all the women in the Elimination Chamber piled out from the back and started beating up Bayley and Becky and Iyo Sky and Dakota Kai and each other which was a bit
weird, and in the finish, Bianca Belair hit the KOD on Becky Lynch onto Bayley, and Becky stayed on top of Bayley for a second before rolling off her and Bianca getting the pin, which was almost a really fun spot if Becky had just bounced right off Bayley in the first place. Regardless, Bianca got the win meaning neither of them were entered into the Chamber match, and that’s how the show went off the air. Solid stuff. Honestly, I’ve done the joke of saying solid or solid stuff through the whole review, but really that’s what this episode
was. It was completely solid with not much special, except the Sami Zayn and Cody Rhodes promo which was awesome. This did make me more excited for Elimination Chamber this weekend, primarily down to the Sami and Cody promo, and everything else was pretty bog standard. A decent show. A high 3/5.
