Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show speaking about WWE’s release of James Ellsworth. He says that nobody expected Ellsworth to make it to WWE, not to mention the fact that he picked up a win over A.J. Styles and had a great, extended run. Taz says it sucks that WWE released him because you never want to see someone lose their job, but Ellsworth appears to be a very smart guy and he’ll do great on the indie scene.

Taz points out that Mauro Ranallo made a huge error during his commentary on last night’s go-home episode of NXT. At one point he promoted NXT Takeover: War Games which will air this Saturday night, but when he promoted it he said it will air ‘A week from Saturday’. Since NXT’s shows are taped together weeks in advance, the dates for each show can become confusing for commentators, but there’s no way that this slip up should have made it to air last night.

He points out that this may not have even been Ranallo’s fault. He may have been incorrectly told that date was correct prior to the tapings, and since NXT is taped weeks in advance, some parts of the show that aired last night may have originally been intended to be a part of last week’s show. This would have made Ranallo’s comment factual.

In either event, this comment should have been edited in post production prior to last night’s show airing. This type of error should never make air on WWE’s programming, especially from a company that prides itself with perfection.

The post The Taz Show Recap – James Ellsworth’s Release, Ranallo’s Big Error, War Games & Survivor Series Preview, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

It was reported earlier this week that Roman Reigns mentioned that people don’t need to be running around trying to be DX or nWo, basically a direct shot at The Young Bucks.

“No offense to any of these guys, but we don’t need guys running around doing ‘too sweets.’ We don’t need guys acting like they’re DX from 20 years ago. We need original characters, guys who are [themselves].”

A fan tweet the quote to Reigns on Twitter, along with WWE’s celebration of DX with wrestlers doing DX poses and Reigns responded. You can check out the exchange below:

@WWERomanReigns "we don't need people running around here acting like DX from 20 years ago" pic.twitter.com/yjQJMHz08M

— Obsolete 1995 (@Obsolete1995) October 14, 2017

Me and my boys beat the DX! No need to celebrate them. #TheRealestGeneration is what I celebrate and represent. https://t.co/fQpLu42ZnP

— Roman Reigns (@WWERomanReigns) October 14, 2017

The post Roman Reigns Says He Represents The Realest Generation appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

Lane presents a clip of Bryan Alvarez from last week, where Alvarez said that wrestling fans seem to enjoy watching big guys smashing into each other again. Russo says the fans were always into the big guys, but for a period of time little ‘dweebs’ like Alvarez were convincing marks all around the world that small guys drew money.

He points out that WWE embraced talents like Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Finn Balor, but not one of them drew a dime. Now none of those guys are in the main event picture and the only guy that fans are interested in at all is Kevin Owens because he’s in a storyline with Shane McMahon. If McMahon wasn’t part of that feud, nobody would care about Owens either.

Russo says that WWE realized they made a mistake and now they’re gone back to doing what made them money for 30 years: spotlighting big guys.

Another clip of Alvarez presents him discussing Okada’s number one ranking on the PWI500. Alvarez pointed out that Okada was the first Japanese wrestler to be ranked number one, but Russo couldn’t care less. He says that this is a fake list ranking fake fighters, and there’s no reason to give it the time of day. Next thing they’ll be arguing about who gets a Slammy.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – WWE Embracing Big Guys, Dirt Sheets Wrong About Jeff Jarrett Story, Are Promos Essential? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is joined on today’s show by Big Vito LoGrasso.

On today’s show, Russo and Big Vito will try to uncover what led to the transition from the professional wrestling they loved into this new Japanese style. Russo says that he simply has no care for the Japanese style of professional wrestling, and he doesn’t care about any sports outside of the United States in general. That’s why losing the North American style of wrestling that he loved to the Japanese style is so disheartening.

Russo just doesn’t understand the concept of ‘strong style’ because it’s 2017 and everyone over the age of 12 realizes that wrestling is a work. If these guys are so tough and they want to kill each other in the ring, why don’t they just fight for real somewhere?

Big Vito informs that he traveled to Japan to work for a promotion in 1992, and it was a significant adjustment for him because the style was very different than what he was accustomed to in the United States. The ‘strong style’ was very evident to him right away, but it was a different strong style than what we know today.

Back then, Japanese ‘strong style’ was defined by guys like Bruiser Brody, Vader, The Road Warriors; big, powerful, believable men that could lay their offence in and be aggressive in the ring. Today, ‘strong style’ is defined by average sized men who flip and flop all around the ring without any safe way to protect themselves and their opponents.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Japanese Influence on Today’s Product, Wrestling’s Downhill Trend, Why Are Talents Killing Each Other? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

While appearing at the Wizard World Columbus this past weekend, AJ Styles was asked about his personal picks on who he’d still like to wrestle in a WWE match. Styles revealed a couple of names.

“There’s a couple guys that I’m looking forward to getting into the ring with whether it’s Shinsuke or Finn or Seth. You know, guys like that – or even going back to Roman. I love wrestling those guys.”

When asked if he had to pick one current superstar, AJ revealed Nakamura and explained why.

“I’m picking Shinsuke. Sorry, that’s nothing on Finn Balor. The reason why I say this is because at Wrestlemania, it’s not going to happen with Finn Balor and I. Why? Because he’s on Raw. Shinsuke’s my best chance getting into that Main Event picture at Wrestlemania. That’s why he wins the championship. I hope he wins it so I can get in there and wrestle him at Wrestlemania. I think it’s great that Shinsuke is getting an opportunity to be – I don’t know if it’s going to be main event – but I think it’s cool that it’s going to be one of them. This guy has paid his dues. He’s been in Japan for a long time and he’s so charismatic in everything he does. I’m looking forward to the match just like everyone else.”

The post AJ Styles Wants Main Event Match at WrestleMania Against Nakamura appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Ryback opens today’s show by revealing whether he misses being on the road with WWE full time. He says that sometimes he misses the live events and the guys who he developed relationships with, but he doesn’t miss television tapings and all the ‘shit’ that comes along with being on the road 300 days a year.

He says that last week’s show made some headlines due to his recollection of a backstage scenario featuring Tyler Breeze. Some people questioned the legitimacy of Ryback’s claims, but he says that he was there in person when Vince McMahon witnessed Breeze leaving an arena early, and Breeze’s stock within WWE immediately plummeted after that.

Nonetheless, he likes what WWE is doing with Breezango right now as they continue to produce entertaining segments every week. He’s still confused by the fact that Tyler Breeze is wearing a dress every week now, but he assumes that someone backstage at WWE gets their kicks from seeing Breeze in a dress.

Ryback says he loved the Rap Battle on Smackdown Live last week between The Usos and The New Day. He says that these types of segments are what have been missing from WWE programming lately, and the ‘R rating’ line in particular proves that anything can happen on WWE programming, similar to how fans felt about the product during the attitude era.

The post Conversation with the Big Guy Recap – Breeze in A Dress, Ryback vs. Ultimate Warrior, Ways to Improve Wrestling, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

While appearing on Hot 104.1 last week in his hometown of St. Louis, Randy Orton explained why he made his tweets about “dives” on Twitter that got everyone talking. Here is a transcript of what was said:

“I’m putting over AJ [Styles] strong, right? AJ, he has dives. A lot of guys that I work with do dives. I’ve been dived on a lot. I don’t have a problem with dives out of the ring, but when a lot of these guys, who don’t have anything to fall back on, and they’re not making any money doing it, they’re going around town wrestling on these independent shows — which is awesome, by the way. A lot of our guys, like AJ, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins wouldn’t be here without the indie scene. But they’re smart. A lot of these guys are going to go out there and they’re going to break their neck at 23 years old, doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing.

“It’s a display of athleticism, no doubt, but … I’m not going to watch gymnastics. I want to go watch a story, a fight between a good guy and a bad guy. How many flips they do each, I’m not keeping a tally … But do you know who had my back on it? Guys like AJ. Guys that do dives and know what they’re doing … Kurt Angle texted me after that. He didn’t do dives. If he did, he would put it where it should have went … he wouldn’t have done it just to do it …

“If that’s where our business is going, to where it’s just a preconceived, choreographed match with a bunch of acrobatics — back flips, front flips, gainers off the top rope, shooting star presses, moonsaults to the floor — then I don’t want to be a part of it. But I’ll tell you what: I don’t think that’s where it’s going.”

Here is footage of Orton’s appearance on the show:

The post Randy Orton Explains His “Dive” Tweets appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Uproxx recently interviewed the Ayatollah of Rock n’ Rolla, Chris Jericho himself. Jericho talked about a number of things, including how he balances his music career with his wrestling schedule.

When the interviewer, Brandan Stroud, asked Y2J if he would ever wrestle as a part-timer in the WWE, the self-proclaimed “G.O.A.T” had a great response and I quote: (quote credits to iwnerd.com)

“No, I won’t do it because that’s not the way it should be. When you’re there, you should go on the road. That’s how you help guys to learn. That’s how I got better. This whole year I got way better because of working with the younger guys, who then were learning from me as well. They need that. And it was a great year with just an awesome locker room, great people, lots of fun. I had as much fun out of the ring as I did in the ring. And in 2015, all I did was live events. I didn’t do TV at all. It’s like the anti-type Brock Lesnar. I wouldn’t have a problem doing that either. Maybe I’ll never go back on TV again. Maybe I’ll just do live events”

This response alone proves why Jericho is so widely respected by the wrestlers, bookers and fans alike. A legitimate legend indeed.

The post Chris Jericho Explains Why He Would Never Be A Part-time Wrestler appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.