What is the story about?
Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill.
Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it’s just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take
it all with a grain of salt.
Rumors for the Day:
- Fightful Select heard that a lot of WWE talent were “worried” about roster cuts coming yesterday, before the news officially broke about the long list of stars who were being let go.
- The outlet says the majority of these WWE departures were “outright releases,” as opposed to contracts running out and not being renewed.
- Sean Ross Sapp said the Motor City Machine Guns will “certainly” get an AEW offer after being released by WWE.
- The Wrestling Observer Newsletter indicates that the negative reaction of the WWE talent was a big factor in Pat McAfee’s decision to opt out of his angle with Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and Jelly Roll.
- Per WON, it sounds like McAfee’s decision to leave the angle early contributed to a chaotic situation behind the scenes where WWE changed the WrestleMania finish away from the original plan of Orton winning the WWE championship, and instead move in a direction of Rhodes vs. Punk for the title.
- The Observer also claims that WWE “talked about” CM Punk beating Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 42 and then losing the title to him at Backlash, in order to “protect Punk’s position” and keep the two stars “even.”
- Jade Cargill wasn’t at SmackDown last night because she asked for the day off a while ago, per Fightful.
- Fightful also mentioned that Punk faced no disciplinary action from WWE for slapping the phone out of that creepy man’s hand at the WrestleMania hotel.
- F4WOnline’s Dave Meltzer speculates that the teaser video posted on Lucha Underground’s X account yesterday might be for “some kind of a deal made somewhere to air the old episodes,” rather than a reboot of the promotion.
- After Ric Flair said he wouldn’t be surprised if AEW President Tony Khan buys WWE one day, Meltzer responded with, “That is not going to happen.”
- WWE filed to trademark the name “Mason Rook.”