Smark Out Moment

I'm currently watching NXT for January 13, 2021 and Wade Barrett said something that sparked my curiosity. Dexter Lumis had drawn a caricature of Johnny Gargano (and another of Austin Theory) that Gargano had ripped up. Barrett said "I'd have put that up on eBay!"

It got me thinking: Why doesn't WWE and/or AEW take things like that, put them up on eBay or create their own auction site in some fashion, and try to either make some extra money from that? Better yet, why not take those things and take whatever money you earn from it and donate it to charity?

Someone would probably want to buy one of those props. Not everything is going to be preserved in the storage warehouses. That's a small prop that will just be tossed out, most likely. And there are TONS of those things throughout each year.

Keep what you want to keep for history's sake. Let the Superstars and other personnel take home souvenirs if they want them. But if you're just going to toss something, why not put it up on an auction site? No matter what money you get out of it, it's a positive. Even if someone spent $25 to buy the smashed tombstone from Halloween Havoc or things from Being the Elite or AEW Dynamite or whatever, it's still something that can go to charity.

Just a thought. We're no longer on commercial break, so back to the coverage of Lumis vs. Gargano.

What do you think? Drop a comment below!

WWE has advertised this week as "Premiere Week" and put up two different posts to let fans know what's going on. However, in typical fashion, that's still lacking information on some of the shows that aren't taking priority.

They want you to be sure you have Raw, NXT, SmackDown and Total Divas covered, but what about the rest of the changes to the lineup? How will the other programming fit into the schedule?

I've got you covered. Here's a much fuller rundown:

MONDAY:

Main Event tapings (spoilers) = ~8 p.m. ET

Monday Night Raw = 8 p.m. ET
- This is the "premiere" of Raw, whatever that means.

TUESDAY:

Impact Wrestling = 8 p.m. ET on AXS TV

Total Divas = 10 p.m. ET

WEDNESDAY:

NXT = 7:30 p.m. ET pre-show | 8 p.m. ET on USA
- the pre-show will air on WWE Network, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WWE.com
- there will also be a Watch Along
- the last two weeks were half on USA and half on the WWE Network, but now, it's a full 2 hours on USA

AEW Dynamite = 8 p.m. ET

THURSDAY:

NXT UK = 3 p.m. ET

FRIDAY:

Main Event on Hulu = ???
- I cannot seem to find this information for MONTHS and WWE doesn't even acknowledge that it's a show that exists on the website, so that goes to show how little this matters.

Friday Night SmackDown = 7:30 p.m. ET "blue carpet" | 8 p.m. ET start time
- premiere on Fox

205 Live = 10 p.m. ET

SATURDAY:

n/a ?

SUNDAY:

WWE Hell in a Cell PPV = 6 p.m. ET kickoff | 7 p.m. ET main card begins


Now I'm willing to admit that I'm missing some non-WWE things and I still have no idea about Main Event, so if you have any other info for me to fill in, let me know!

There are 17 championships in WWE today when you count Raw, SmackDown, 205 Live, NXT and NXT UK. Out of those, all but 4 of them have side plates in some fashion or another.

Those 4 are the Intercontinental Championship, the United States Championship, the Raw Tag Team Championship and the SmackDown Team Championship.

So what gives?

Obviously, the tag titles need a full redesign, as it seems nobody in the world except probably Vince McMahon likes the stupid spartan heads. Thankfully, the women's tag titles are a much better design. Here's hoping WWE just adapts that concept and applies it to the Raw and SmackDown men's titles. It works so well having one side plate be each member of the team if it's a duo, or if it's a stable, just two side plates of the logo (The New Day would be just those symbols, The Undisputed ERA would just be that one, etc)

The Intercontinental Championship still has four grapplers as side plates, which is horribly outdated and needs to be replaced. Ideally, in my mind, the four side plates would be condensed to just two. There's no need for four. But if you did have four, I'd like to see two custom plates for the wrestler, naturally, and the other two are things I'm not sure about. Maybe some kind of legacy of the title? Again, I'd rather just keep it to two so there's no need to figure out this problem.

With the United States Championship, I still maintain my argument that it should change to the International Championship and the belt should change designations based on the person who wears the title. There would be four side plates: two with the logo of the wrestler's iconography and two for their nationality. For example, R-Truth would have his logos and then an American flag x2, or maybe an American flag and then something like the Statue of Liberty that they have as a side plate right now for the United States title. Then, if a guy like Drew McIntyre were to win it, those two location-based plates would be one of the flag for Scotland and one of something else, or just two flags.

However, if WWE wanted to specifically keep it the United States Championship, then maybe everyone just gets two side plates and there isn't anything else on the side. That's much easier in the long run, isn't it?

The point is, it's weird and strange that they haven't bothered to get new titles made for these four belts when I can't imagine it would take much to really change up the designs from what they already have. Just get rid of the name plate for the US title and adjust the center plate a little bit and change the four side plates to two, change the side plates for the Intercontinental Championship but don't touch the center plate, and make a red and a blue strapped (even though I don't like that, WWE clearly does) bigger versions of the Women's Tag Team Championship and replace "Women's" with "Raw" and "SmackDown" and you're good.

Side plates. Do them.

Piggybacking off my previous Small Package post about Becky Lynch's plans for Raw later tonight, another thing going on is that Roman Reigns will be making an appearance to "provide an update on his battle with leukemia"—which is very vague.

Of course, it's vague for a reason, as WWE wants you to tune in to find out what he has to say. They'd be stupid to put something out there like "Roman Reigns will pop up on Raw to say he's doing better and he hopes to be back in the ring at some point that we can't quite determine yet and then end the segment with some cheers before we go to a commercial break and come back with a tag team match."

But is that all we're in store for, or is there something more to this?

Is Reigns healthy enough to announce that he's stepping back in the ring? If so, doesn't that sort of dictate that he has to have a match at WrestleMania? And if so, who is he facing? Does he team with Dean Ambrose and Braun Strowman to fight Drew McIntyre, Baron Corbin and Bobby Lashley? Is Seth Rollins too injured to compete and Reigns has to step in to fight Brock Lesnar for the third time at WrestleMania (the 9000th time or so in general)? Or, maybe, he's healthy enough to do something, but not ready for WrestleMania, so WWE tries to get nuclear heat on Lesnar by having him attack Reigns to further the feud with Rollins.

It's an interesting scenario and exactly what WWE needs to do to get people tuning in to Raw, but when expectations are all over the place, there's a risk of disappointing people. Hopefully, there's something substantial enough that it goes down in a way that people aren't upset, as if WWE's whole plan is to just do nothing and promote Reigns having an appearance strictly for the ratings bump, it's going to do more damage than good.

Regarding the idea of Reigns at WrestleMania, the six-man tag is something worth entertaining, but I also find it very bland. I don't want Strowman and Ambrose and someone else (Reigns, Kurt Angle, whoever) teaming up in a match we'd normally see as the main event of Raw. I want something more for everyone involved, even if it's to clusterfuck them all into a 10-man ladder match for the Intercontinental Championship or something. I also don't want Reigns to take the Rollins spot in the Universal Championship match, as I think that will kill the babyface reaction Reigns was just starting to get.

Instead, I'm hoping for the Lesnar beating. That makes him seem like an even more despicable person and puts Rollins even higher up when he beats him at WrestleMania (which should happen, mind you).

Our crew here at Smark Out Moment have been discussing, behind the scenes, whether or not Reigns joining the Universal Championship match dictates that being the main event of WrestleMania, rather than the Triple Threat for the Raw Women's Championship. There are differing opinions, but it seems most agree with what I'd also say, which is that you can't undo the women's match at this point and even Reigns coming back shouldn't take the top spot. Any other year, of course it would, but too much has been built up for the Triple Threat between Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey to be anything but the closer. Keep that in mind, as we'll find out more later tonight and address what happened on the next edition of the Hot Tags podcast for Smack Talk.

Later tonight on Monday Night Raw, WWE is holding a special birthday celebration for Ric Flair, as he recently turned 70 years old (congrats Naitch).

I think it goes without being said that despite the pomp and circumstance that will go along with this occasion, one thing is an absolute necessity: Becky Lynch has to cause some sort of disruption.

The tricky thing here is that Flair is beloved, so WWE can't just treat the situation as a babyface coming in to wreck the plans of a heel. Obviously, Lynch is going to get cheered no matter what she does lately, as she's just that popular at the moment, but it's still flying in direct opposition of what this would be if Flair wasn't tied into the Lynch story.

Think about it. If Flair's daughter Charlotte was involved in a feud with Nia Jax or someone right now, there would be no reason for Lynch to interrupt and the segment would go down the opposite way, with both Flairs being the sympathetic ones and Jax (or whoever) as a heel would be the one spoiling the fun.

Hopefully, WWE finds the proper balance, which in my mind can happen by having Ric start to delve into his heelish side by touting Charlotte's success and downplaying Becky. Flair loves being a heel and he rarely gets a chance to do it, so as a birthday gift to The Nature Boy, let's make him the bad guy for his own birthday party!

As the owner-operator of both a website dedicated to professional wrestling as well as another dedicated to movie reviews, I naturally had to see the movie Fighting with My Family, as it's a biopic based on WWE wrestler Paige.

I've talked about my feelings heading into the movie plenty of times on Smack Talk and in other avenues on Smark Out Moment, but as this is a movie review, I felt this is a perfect time to get the megaphone and fill everyone in on Fanboys Anonymous.

In the previous feedback survey, some people indicated that they had no idea what Fanboys Anonymous was, somehow. I think I plug it enough, and there are links on this very page, but I guess it still gets lost in the shuffle.

So if you're unfamiliar, Fanboys Anonymous is my other site—the one about movie reviews, superhero discussion, television, video games, whatever parts of geek culture that aren't pro wrestling. Sometimes, there's crossover, like this.

If you want to know what I felt about Fighting with My Family, you'll find my latest Movie Reviewpoint up on that site. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel, follow the Facebook and Twitter accounts and check out everything else happening there to show your support for my equivalent of SmackDown (since Smark Out Moment is my A-site and has a red theme while Fanboys is my B-site and has a blue theme...works out pretty nicely, eh?)

Pretty much the only thing holding Andrade back from being a bigger focal point in WWE right now is his mic skills, which largely surround him not speaking English as his first language. He's working on it, and it's a tough thing to do (learning a new language and coming across confident and charismatic in that, as people who have spoken only English their whole lives sometimes can't cut a promo), but he still relies on Zelina Vega to pull most of the weight.

But right now, he's feuding with Rey Mysterio. Why not play up to the strengths of their culture and allow them to fully dive into the passion behind this feud by letting those two just cut some of their promos full-on in Spanish?

I don't speak Spanish, as I've forgotten most of it since high school (but I can remember how to say "my family eats in the window") and I'm sure plenty of people would be annoyed at a promo not having at least a mix of English with the Spanish, but pro wrestling is largely a visual entertainment vessel. Everything is grandiose. It's not all that subtle. Do you think if two guys were cutting an impassioned promo in Spanish and you didn't speak it, that you wouldn't get the gist of it and not still feel the emotion behind it?

Maybe that would be something to help keep Andrade happy so he doesn't leave for AEW or elsewhere down the line. Maybe that would also help put him over with the audience that isn't quite on board yet with him being a big star. Maybe he would also start to tap into that Hispanic market that WWE desperately, desperately wants to have more star power for.

Just a thought.

When it comes to the Smark Out Moment SMACK TALK podcast, I'm always looking for more ideas on topics that I can cover, new segments and gimmicks to pull out of a hat, alternative ways to discuss the world of WWE and professional wrestling, and more interesting things that you all will love to listen to.

As such, I'm always looking to receive feedback on potential suggestions from all of you of what you'd like to hear, as it gives me the ability to gauge what the favorite things are from everyone that I should dedicate the most time to.

This is a long-winded way for me to introduce the concept of this Small Package, which is suggestions for one of my favorite podcasts, Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard—ideas I'd like to see THEM cover somewhere down the road.

I just got done listening to their episode #140 on Gorilla Monsoon, and the thought popped into my mind to throw out some votes for some other topics I'd like to hear down the line:

- Jerry "The King" Lawler

- Crush (his beginnings, Demolition, the Disciples of Apocalypse, Nation of Domination, all of it)

- Bam Bam Bigelow

- Sean Waltman / X-Pac / 1-2-3 Kid

- Diesel / Kevin Nash

- Mabel / Viscera / Big Daddy V (particularly King of the Ring 1995)

- Chris Jericho (how has this not happened yet?)

- literally every Royal Rumble and WrestleMania they haven't covered yet

- Legion of Doom / Road Warriors

- Good Ol' JR / Jim Ross

- Word Association (do an episode where Conrad says a name and Bruce gives his first thoughts, or Conrad asks random questions like "Who was the biggest baby in the locker room?" that are open-ended and Bruce can go with whatever stories he can think of)

- Taboo in WWE (an episode dedicated to things you aren't supposed to do or talk about in WWE, like how Vince doesn't like people sneezing around him, or how you can't say the word "belt")

Anyway, just some thoughts to put out there, from one podcast host to another, and something to give you all some insight into my brain. That's the point of these Small Package posts. I'm sure I could think of more.

Likewise, if you have any suggestions of topics you'd like Smack Talk to get into, tell me!

As a refresher to anyone who doesn't know, the Triple Crown in WWE is a setup where someone has won (at least one time) a Primary Championship, a Secondary Championship and a Tag Team Championship.

Over the years, WWE has had numerous versions of different titles and it bugs the hell out of me that they haven't specified one change in particular: the United States Championship still doesn't qualify as a Secondary Championship.

For the record, the Primary Championship used to be either the WWE Championship or the World Heavyweight Championship. So far, they haven't specifically stated the Universal Championship is the new standard in place of the World Heavyweight Championship, but all three suffice, I'm sure.

The same goes for how they haven't fully specified the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championship titles are on par with the World Tag Team Championship and such, but c'mon, they have to be.

Still, though, the Secondary Championship is solely the Intercontinental Championship, even though the United States title has been around for at least 2003 if they're going by strictly WWE standards, but back to 1975 if they include the oldest version of the belt.

Here's the thing. The United States title is not as tied to WWE as the intercontinental, but it's fundamentally serving the exact same purpose as the midcard belt and after 15+ years of this being the case, there's no reason why it shouldn't be recognized.

If the world title and tag title tiers have a "this or that" brand distinction, the secondary tier should, too. It counts for the Grand Slam Champion distinction, so why not Triple Crown?

Sheamus and John Cena should be considered Triple Crown winners, but they've only had a United States title reign, rather than an intercontinental run, even though it's fundamentally the same thing.

It's just stupid and it isn't as though those two people are in bad spots in the company that they wouldn't want to give them a boost, so now's the perfect time to pull the trigger and just casually mention it on commentary some day that John Cena is a Triple Crown winner. The end.

The latest in the long running history of Vince McMahon seemingly thinking that if someone has a first and last name, it's problematic, has claimed Andrade "Cien" Almas.

Now, he's just "Andrade."

You know, even though his song literally says the rest of his name.

This type of stuff is absolutely ridiculous. What is the benefit?

Shawn Michaels didn't have to just be "Shawn". Hulk Hogan wasn't just "Hulk".

Who's next? Are we just going to have Sami Zayn go by "Zayn" from now on? So stupid.

Rusev, Big E, Elias, Apollo Crews and so many more...

It's always funny when you've watched enough WWE that you can tell why they're doing certain things in a way that you're not really supposed to analyze.

On tonight's Raw, they made it a point to specify that "for the time being", Nikki Cross, EC3 and the others coming up to the main roster can go between shows and aren't signed to Raw or SmackDown.

Translation: "We jumped the gun in announcing them coming up, because we figured we'd try to get you talking about positive things and we'd just sort it out later. It was more important to us to just say that we have good things coming than to really have any plans. So now that we have waited a few weeks, we know we have to start using them, cause it's getting ridiculous we just keep using the same video package and promising that they're coming. But...to be honest...we don't know what we want to do with them. So how about they just get booked randomly for the time being until we can sort out what brands we want them on? Okay?"

It's better than nothing, but really, is it so hard to just have a game plan in mind before you throw ideas out there?

They could've given me $1 and 5 minutes of time and I'd have told them Cross needs to go to SmackDown, Heavy Machinery needs to go to Raw, Evans is better off on Raw if the plan is for Rousey to leave in the Superstar Shake-up, and EC3 depends entirely who they want him to feud with come WrestleMania and such.

It's not that hard when you can make up rules and get yourselves out of corners you've backed yourselves into. It just takes a few minutes of thinking.

Welcome all to another edition of Small Package, where we keep things a bit lighter and free to chat about whatever's going on in my mind right now that I feel the need to yak on about.

To be honest, one of the things running along in my brain at the moment is jackets—and yes, this does tie into WWE and even AEW, rather than being an All Talk Show rambling (which I totally want to bring back sometime this year, by the way).

It's winter, it's cold outside, yours truly just recently purchased a heavier coat for the season that I'm particularly fond of and the good folks over at On the Go Sports reached out to me to pass on the knowledge that you can design your own custom jacket on their site, and my immediate thought upon checking them out got me thinking for the second time this week about two people's jackets in wrestling in particular: Finn Balor and Chris Jericho.

Saturday at NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool, Jordan Devlin took Travis Banks out of competitive condition before their match could even begin. As a response to that, Johnny Saint and Sid Scala announced that he'd face a replacement opponent, and out came Finn Balor.

These two look so much alike and it was interesting to see the two face each other, not just because of their strikingly similar appearances, but also because they're teacher and student and two of the few Irish stars in WWE today.

But as cool as it was to get that swerve, I've seen a few people buzzing online about how they wish Balor had come out in the face paint as Demon Balor, rather than his normal self, because that would have been an even bigger moment, since we rarely see that form of his character.

To me, as much as I think Balor in a leather jacket isn't as interesting visually as the Demon Balor shtick, I disagree with their assessment. This wasn't a time for Demon Balor (who is literally the same in every way other than the pure baseline visual). Demon Balor should be saved for WrestleMania and really big matches for Finn himself, not for Finn's opponent.

Devlin has his name on the front specifically so you don't go "Hey, is that Finn Balor?"

This was definitely bigger for Devlin, and when the two of them look so much alike, WWE did the right call playing into that by keeping the parallels to really illustrate how Devlin's patterned himself much after his mentor.

Leather jacket Balor was the right way to go, 100%.

That also got me thinking about Chris Jericho, though, because Y2J has been in the news recently after having signed with All Elite Wrestling.

We recently recorded an upcoming episode of Smack Talk of the 2013 Royal Rumble Fannounce Table commentary track and in that, the #2 entry is Jericho, sporting his light-up jacket. You'll see when that episode comes out that I asked if this was the first time he debuted that, as I had forgotten when that came about, but Jericho has been having custom coats for what, a decade now?

His latest getup with New Japan Pro Wrestling at Wrestle Kingdom 13 has had plenty of critics and supporters. I'm more of the critical side who thinks it's less A Clockwork Orange and more "teen you snicker at when you walk by them smoking in front of the entrance at the mall looking like they dread the sun."

When Jericho makes his true AEW debut, seemingly at Double or Nothing, what is he going to be wearing? Is he going to have a different light-up jacket of sorts (even though he said in an interview recently that he wasn't feeling that), something that is on the weirder side like his NJPW gear, or will he actually bring it old school and redo something from his WCW days and ditch jackets all together?

I have no idea, but I'm so used to a Jericho silhouette being a WWE thing that if we see another light-up jacket for his entrance in AEW, it's going to feel very, very strange to me.

Also, insert a Hulk Hogan "let me tell you something, jack(et)" reference, because I couldn't think of one and you know me, so you know I gave that stupid joke idea a few tries, at least.

All Elite Wrestling's Double or Nothing rally took place earlier, and they made plenty of promises about changing the world of professional wrestling and so on and so forth.

Rather than write some convoluted article trying to expand on my thoughts and drag things out, I figured I'd cut to the chase and hit you all with a Small Package of my basic impressions from the press conference:

• Not seeing Kenny Omega was surprising, but it's not some confirmation that he's going to WWE instead. We'll see at Royal Rumble.
• Chris Jericho's involvement is a 50/50 thing to me. Much of this discussion started with he and Jim Ross being part of it, so I'm not TOO shocked, but I'm also simultaneously surprised he made it a true deal that he's in the company and not just a bit-player or something.
• Neville / Pac. Very interesting. Very interesting.
• After the third time seeing the same pyro, I was over it. It's good to see some of it since WWE doesn't do that anymore, but the same setup, meh. (nitpicking, I know)
• The sound was pretty bad. Something to take note of for the future. I certainly couldn't do a better job.
• Interesting we didn't see Tony Khan.
• Double or Nothing being on May 25th hopefully doesn't get messed up with any WWE events like Backlash or another Saudi Arabia event. I want to be able to actually watch it and do predictions and a review of it and such.
• Penelope Ford had a tryout with WWE recently and I thought she had a shot at being signed to NXT. I'm not sure what I think about her being in AEW. Part of me likes that and part of me just wants everyone to be in WWE. The same for Britt Baker.
• For that matter, I'm very curious what other women get signed in the future.
• Conrad Thompson could have just been here for the hell of it, hosting the event as a favor or just to get his name out there some more or whatever, or we could see some announcement in the future that he's actually going to be a member of the broadcast team.
• Still no confirmation of a television deal. Hm...

To be honest, I was underwhelmed. I'm still excited for the potential behind AEW, but I was hoping for something more grandiose, some bigger announcements, and something that made me go WOW at the end of it. That didn't happen. Here's hoping the next bit of info we get about the company is something cool and not a picture of ugly title belts or something.

Frequently, particularly when I'm complaining about being overloaded with work, I'm asked what I would do if I had the creative control to plan out WWE's pay-per-view schedule for the year.

By that, I mean if someone gave me the keys to the kingdom and said "What events on what months should we build around?", how would I go about structuring the year? Would it be just the Big Four? How would TakeOver events come into the mix? So on and so forth.

Well, since it's the end of 2018, I figured I'd brainstorm a few minutes about the topic and give you my ideas of how I'd sort out 2019.

* Note: Everything labeled "In Your House" is a house show. They don't count as true pay-per-views, as they're just slightly better live events from the regular ones made to feel special for that crowd and airing on the WWE Network, but it isn't anything that they really build to

JANUARY
- In Your House: New Year's Revolution
- NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool
- NXT TakeOver: Phoenix
- Royal Rumble

FEBRUARY
- Roadblock or No Way Out (featuring the Elimination Chamber match; would take place toward the end, like February 24th)
- In Your House: Fastlane
- Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic starts in NXT

MARCH
- no major events
- In Your House: March to WrestleMania (or) Spring Stampede

APRIL
- Hall of Fame
- NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn V (yes, not "New York"; finale of Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic)
- WrestleMania 35
- Backlash (wrap up everything you can at the very end of the month)

MAY
- Superstar Shake-up
- Fully Loaded or Over the Limit (with the theme being that the rosters are changed and this is a fresh start for the summer)
- In Your House: May Day Mayhem (I like the sound of that)
- start the Mae Young Classic

JUNE
- NXT TakeOver
- Money in the Bank

JULY
+ In Your House: Great American Bash at the Beach (helps offset that Saudi Arabia stuff)
- Evolution (featuring the end of the Mae Young Classic)
- Crown Jewel

AUGUST
- NXT TakeOver: Toronto
- SummerSlam

SEPTEMBER
- Fall Brawl
 - start the King/Queen of the Ring tournament on Raw/SmackDown episodes
- NXT UK TakeOver #2

OCTOBER
- No Mercy (featuring the finals of the King/Queen of the Ring)
+ In Your House: Halloween Havoc

NOVEMBER
- NXT TakeOver: Chicago III
- Survivor Series (Raw vs SmackDown Bragging Rights)
+ In Your House: Starrcade

DECEMBER
- Breaking Point (not a themed event, I just like the name)
- Tribute to the Troops
- Slammy Awards

For those curious, Extreme Rules is just the name for "some kind of gimmick match" and no longer an event. Spread your gimmicks out better instead of forcing them onto a show at that time of the year. The same goes for Hell in a Cell, WarGames and TLC no longer being events, even though the matches can still exist (except TLC cause fuck that, that's just a ladder match).

So according to Dave Meltzer, Karen Q and Rachael Ellering are "on WWE's radar"—a phrase that I think is kind of ridiculous, in a sense.

That's not to say that Meltzer's idea is ridiculous, because it isn't, and I'm sure if he's saying it, he has a reason to be saying it. It's also not to say that Q and Ellering coming to WWE is ridiculous, because that's not absurd, either.

What's stupid to me is that there's a discussion of them currently being on the radar, as if Ellering hasn't already wrestled something like a dozen matches in NXT, her father is Paul Ellering, and both she and Karen Q were in the Mae Young Classic this year.

Clearly, they've been on the radar, or else they wouldn't have been in those positions. The only question is why WWE hasn't bothered signing them.

Are they interested, but not enough to allocate the money right now? Is there some kind of final step testing regimen they still have to go through? Do they feel like they don't need to snatch them up because they aren't likely to sign with another company and they can wait?

I say just go ahead and sign them. It'll be a good Christmas gift.

Earlier tonight on SmackDown Live, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville came out to interrupt the contract signing between Asuka, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch (who had already left, but that's beside the point).

During that promo, Rose referred to the two of them as "fire and desire" and I immediately fell in love with the tag team name.

I had thought they were splitting and Deville would turn babyface, but that's clearly not what is going on, which brings me back to a problem they've had for months and months: once Paige became general manager and wasn't in the stable anymore, the Absolution name has ceased to exist. They've needed a new distinction as a team, and WWE never gave them a team name.

Fire and Desire is perfect. Deville is the fire as the fighter of the group and Rose is the desire as the one that has a gimmick based around her looks.

Perfect. I love it.

On the latest SMALL PACKAGE edition of the SMACK TALK wrestling podcast, the Smark Out Moment panel gives their thoughts on Jerry "The King" Lawler's arrest for a domestic violence dispute along with WWE's decision to suspend him indefinitely.

Make sure to subscribe, comment on the video and this post, and let us know your thoughts!

On the latest SMALL PACKAGE edition of the SMACK TALK wrestling podcast, the Smark Out Moment panel gives their thoughts on John Cena's torn rotator cuff injury and the surgery that will likely put him out of action for WrestleMania 32.

Make sure to subscribe, comment on the video and this post, and let us know your thoughts!