Professional Wrestling Discussion

>talkSPORT managed to catch Charlotte in London promoting WWE’s move to BT Sport in the UK this week and we asked her if Sane’s injury affected what they were planning to do in the match and how it was coping with such a bad injury in a big match like that.

>“It didn’t in the moment,” Charlotte started when asked if it changed the match. “I guess, everyone, how they felt afterwards is what made them feel different. In the moment, it was more it’s a tough spot. It’s the main event of a brutal pay-per-view and everyone has already seen Tables, Ladders and Chairs.

>“It’s feeding off the crowd, going with the crowd and feeding off their reactions. So I didn’t really think anything until after. Obviously Kairi was hurt, but in the match I’m just thinking ‘how do we keep people invested?’ with them already seeing so many different TLC, brutal matches. You’ve already seen a kendo stick, you’ve already seen a chair, you’ve seen a ladder, a table.

>“And the pressure of us delivering that, with a weird dynamic seeing me and Becky tag? To me, me and Becky tagging is more what I was thinking about. How does that come across and how our characters should be interacting on television. How do you go from this [indicates high level] to all of a sudden, they’re tagging? We had the let’s fight the enemy because we have a common enemy. [mentality]”

>Watch AJPW 2020 NEW YEAR WARS: Day 7 ~ Extra Dream 23 tonight starting at 3am EST / 8 am GMT in /wooo/tube - http://taima.tv/r/wooo

> Watch WWE SmackDown in http://taima.tv/r/wooo and http://taima.tv/r/woooalt from 8pm EST / 1am GMT
> WWE Main Event is shown at 7:40pm EST / 12:40am GMT with Shelton Benjamin vs Akira Tozawa as well as Cedric Alexander vs Eric Young
> The third hour of SmackDown with the cruiserweights follows at 10pm EST / 3am GMT with Isaiah "Swerve" Scott vs Raul Mendoza as well as Ariya Daivari vs Tyler Breeze.
> Finally, Championship Wrestling From Hollywood is shown at 11pm EST / 4am GMT only in http://taima.tv/r/wooo

> Last week’s SmackDown featured a Glorious return and a subsequent attack that ended with King Corbin’s court sending Roman Reigns viciously through the announce title. Now Reigns will look to deliver royal justice to Robert Roode for his surprise assault in what promises to be a brutal Tables Match on Friday Night SmackDown. If that wasn't big enough, WWE.com has now learned that the winner of tonight's match will earn the right to choose the stipulation to Reigns' match against King Corbin at Royal Rumble! Has Roode bit off more than he can chew with The Big Dog? Or will King Corbin and Dolph Ziggler be waiting in the wings to hand Reigns another humiliating setback en route to the Jan. 26 pay-per-view?

> Eat your hearts out blue brand – John Morrison is getting back into the ring. The Guru of Greatness will have his hands full in his return, as Big E will be seeking payback for Kofi Kingston’s loss to The Miz on Jan. 10. After weeks of speculation, Morrison joined his longtime friend on “Miz TV” and defended The Miz against the WWE Universe’s recent backlash. The New Day entered in an attempt to deliver a dose of reality to the former “Dirt Sheet” co-hosts, and Kingston met The Miz in the ring for a showdown. The Prince of Parkour showed he still has the moves with an impressive flip from the ring steps that neutralized Big E and spurred his longtime friend to victory. Will Morrison bring the same intensity inside the squared circle, or will Big E’s strength be too much to overcome?

> Former WWE Champion and current Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, Kane makes his return to SmackDown this Friday for a special appearance to announce he'll be making an appearance at the upcoming Saudi Arabia show if rumours of him wrestling The Fiend are correct. The Big Red Machine has competed in more Royal Rumble matches and has more eliminations than any Superstar in WWE history, and with the match on the horizon, could Kane be ready to make history once again?

> After weeks of verbal attacks and plenty of flying fists, Lacey Evans and Sasha Banks will finally meet in the ring on Friday Night SmackDown. Last week the two Superstars appeared headed for an in-ring clash, but with The Boss off recording her album, The Sassy Southern Belle was left frustrated without an opponent to release her wrath on. SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley was quick to offer her taunts and reveled in Evans' despair. As a result, Evans charged up the ramp setting up a backstage collision that saw both competitors land vicious blows. Will The Boss prove that she is indeed still at the head of SmackDown, or will Evans snag arguably the biggest win of her WWE career by besting The Blueprint?

> GRUDGE MATCH | TY MATTHEWS with DICKY MAYER v DAN JOSEPH

> WOMEN'S DIVISION MATCH | THUNDER ROSA v VIVA VAN

> CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING EXCLUSIVE | Dustin & Maria Starr sit down with Cody & Brandi Rhodes for a special couple to couple interview!

> SPECIAL CHALLENGE | THE QUESTION MARK v GENTLEMAN JERVIS

> MAIN EVENT - UNITED TV CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH | ROYCE ISAACS with JAMIE IOVINE (c) defends against ADRIAN QUEST

> The Royal Rumble, with just one Raw left, still has only a few things announced. The 1/25 show at Minute Maid Stadium in Houston is expected to draw about 36,000 fans and be packed. The advance was more than 30,000 a few weeks ago. There are tons of secondary market tickets out with a $34 get in price. Unlike in the past when they would run four shows in the same market on big show weekends, this time the 1/23 Smackdown show will be from Dallas and the 1/26 Raw will be from San Antonio.

> There are two shows in Houston, the Rumble, and the Worlds Collide show the night before at the Toyota Center. Worlds Collide ticket sales are very weak, basically ringside and most but not all of 100s as they haven’t sold out the side of the hard camera, and the rest of the building isn’t for sale. Similarly, the 2/16 Takeover show in Portland also has a weak advance. About 60 percent of the 100s that would normally be for sale are on sale, not including what you’d expect not for sale due to the stage. They are not opening up any other seats at this point for Worlds Collide. The secondary market get in price is $26 for lower level tickets.

> Portland is a little better, with about 60 percent of the 100s and 60 percent of the 200s up for sale and a $38 get in price.

> Announced for the Rumble, besides the two matches, are Bray Wyatt vs. Daniel Bryan for the Universal title, Becky Lynch vs. Asuka for the Raw women’s title and Roman Reigns vs. King Corbin. Reigns and Corbin are also scheduled for the Rumble, so they could do a thing where one of them loses but then comes back and wins the Rumble. There’s no obvious Rumble winner this year, but Reigns winning to challenge Wyatt is a possibility. Brock Lesnar, the WWE champion, will be entering the Rumble at No. 1 and whoever he is to face at Mania, that would probably be a guy that either eliminates him or shoots an angle with him.

> Names announced for the men’s rumble are Lesnar, Reigns, A.J. Styles, Erick Rowan, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, Ricochet, Drew McIntyre, Elias, Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, Otis, Tucker, Rusev, Bobby Lashley, Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy. Cain Velasquez has been told that he will be in. From that list, I only see Reigns and McIntyre as strong shots of winning with Corbin, Black or Orton as outside shots. The only names announced for the women’s match are Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Sarah Logan and Nikki Cross.

> Bayley vs. Lacey Evans for the Smackdown women’s title and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Braun Strowman for the IC title continue to be built up. Both were on the TLC schedule, but the decision was to move the former to Rumble, although it hasn’t been announced for Rumble. The latter didn’t happen due to Strowman’s injuries and not being cleared in time for TLC, but Strowman pinned him on television this past week. Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo was being groomed for the U.S. title, but Andrade first has a ladder match for the title with Mysterio on Raw. Carrillo should be returning soon for that program but whether it’ll be on Rumble isn’t clear. Additionally, New Day vs. The Miz & John Morrison is the Smackdown title match they are starting to build.

> World’s Collide at this point has five matches announced, and when it comes to Takeovers, that could be the entire show. The bouts are Imperium (Walter & Alexander Wolfe & Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner) vs. Undisputed Era (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish), Rhea Ripley vs. Toni Storm for the women’s title, Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano vs. Tyler Bate & Trent Seven, Angel Garza defending the cruiserweight title in a four-way and Finn Balor vs. Ilja Dragunov.

> On paper, all of those matches look very strong and there have been angles shot for all on television, but they are more thrown together with one angle and little follow-up in most cases aside from the eight-man tag. In the cruiserweight match, one of Garza’s three opponents will be Isaiah Scott, while the other two will likely Jordan Devlin and Travis Banks. Devlin vs. El Ligero and Banks vs. Brian Kendrick are both being taped this coming weekend at the NXT U.K. tapings to determine the other two slots.

> Tessa Blanchard was the center of controversy on 1/12 for her past on the day she was booked to become the first female pro wrestler to win a male world championship on a PPV show. The Impact Hard to Kill show was to culminate a year-long storyline where Blanchard continued to wrestle men, in particular Sami Callihan, and came close but never beat Callihan (who later became world champion) nor won the X Division or world title.

> The company made the call a long time back to make Blanchard. 24, its top star. The idea was to push her by having her come close and fail in multiple big matches against men, with the idea they could showcase the chase of a woman to the world heavyweight championship level as a calling card. It was a storyline that wouldn’t be duplicated since none of the other promotions that have national television in the U.S., WWE, New Japan, AEW, MLW or ROH were doing intergender singles matches, which Blanchard among others had made popular on independent shows the past few years.

> Blanchard is the daughter of Tully Blanchard, but who was raised from childhood by Terry “Magnum T.A.” Allen, her father’s most famous career rival when Allen married Blanchard’s ex-wife. Blanchard has been controversial for years, since she was a standout for WWE at the Mae Young Classic, but due to a number of issues, even with her looks, heritage and ability, they passed on signing her. There was always talk of attitude issues and other problems, including issues of not getting along with talent, that followed her career in its early years including in Japan. It was those issues that in a sense also helped make her career, because she became the biggest female star on the independent scene, and popular in matches against men, including a notable bout with Brian Cage.

> Although both Don Callis and Scott D’Amore at Impact have long tenures and have in the past had a more traditional view on wrestling, they felt from the start of their tenure running the creative end in late 2018 to make Blanchard into the top star, basically remove her from the women’s division and work with almost exclusively men, feeling that there could be a fan backlash of pushing a woman that hard and having her beat men. It did seem to work as when she didn’t win the X Division title on PPV, there were fans complaining about how Impact would never let her hold a men’s title, which was the exact reaction they were looking for.

> For whatever reason, the day before the PPV, Blanchard sent out a tweet saying, “Hey women, try supporting one another. Cool things happen.” This touched a nerve with women who had worked with her in the past. Most notable was Allysin Kay, who was women’s champion in Impact as Sienna in 2016, who wrote, “Remember when you spat in a black woman’s face and called her the N word in Japan? Was that you `supporting women?’ The audacity of this tweet.”

>AEW: 940,000
>NXT: 700,000

>9:30pm EST / 2:30am GMT in http://taima.tv/r/wooo2 - CMLL Super Viernes

>MLW Fusion airs on Mondays at 7pm EDT / 12am BST in /wooo/tube - http://taima.tv/r/wooo. Replays air on Tuesdays at 11am EDT / 4am BST in /wooo/tube.
>Impact! airs on Tuesdays at 8pm EDT / 1am BST in /wooo/tube. Replays air on Wednesdays at 1:30pm EDT / 6:30pm BST in /wooo/tube.
>Impact Xplosion also airs on Tuesdays at 10pm EDT / 3am BST in /wooo/tube. Replays air on Wednesdays at 1:20pm EDT / 6:20pm BST in /wooo/tube.
>ROH Wrestling also airs on Tuesdays at 10:10pm EDT / 3:10am BST in /wooo/tube. Replays air on Wednesdays at 12:30pm EDT / 5:30pm BST in /wooo/tube.
>AEW Dark airs on Tuesdays at 7pm EDT / 12am BST in /wooo/tube 2 - http://taima.tv/r/wooo2. Replays air on Wednesdays at 7pm EDT / 12am BST in /wooo/tube - http://taima.tv/r/wooo and /wooo/alt - http://taima.tv/r/woooalt.
>AEW Dynamite also airs on Wednesdays at 8pm EDT / 1am BST in /wooo/tube and /wooo/alt. Replays air on Thursdays at 2:20pm EDT / 7:20pm BST in /wooo/tube.
>AEW Live Specials/PPVs, Impact Plus/Twitch/PPV events, MLW Live Specials/PPVs, and ROH TV Taping/On Tour/PPV events will be shown when scheduled in the tubes.

>All Elite Wrestling

>Impact Wrestling