What is the story about?
Welcome
to the weekly Rumor Look Back, where we look at the rumors from six months ago and see which played out as originally stated. Let’s jump right to it.
- According to PWN and Bodyslam.net, WWE is tentatively planning to bring back the all women’s Evolution PLE on Saturday, July 5, at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
- They did bring it back but it was the following week. (There was rumor that it was originally supposed to be that weekend but they moved it for the big All In counter programming weekend, but that date was never announced.) (1/2)
- Sources told WrestleVotes Radio that the Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon) are expected to join WWE’s Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
- This is accurate. (1/1)
- Votes heard that WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event will take place on May 24 at the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. The NXT Battleground PLE is also set for Tampa on May 25. That’s the same night as AEW’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view event in Glendale, Arizona.
- That’s the case for both shows. (2/2)
- After Drake attended WWE Elimination Chamber, several wrestlers and people backstage in AEW immediately pitched the idea of getting Kendrick Lamar to appear in AEW, per Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp. It seems unlikely that this will actually happen, however.
- That did not happen.
- It looks like Mickie James won’t return for the second season of WWE LFG, and she will be replaced by Michelle McCool. Sources close to A&E’s production told Fightful Select that the Undertaker was willing to continue doing the show if his wife was involved, so WWE decided to replace James with her.
- She was not on the second season, though we don’t know how much of that was Undertaker pull. (1/1)
- The outlet also mentioned that former AEW star Rey Fenix is expected to go through WWE’s medical evaluations soon. Sources believe it’s only a matter of time until he signs with the promotion, and ideas for his merchandise are already being discussed.
- He is on SmackDown though he’s barely used. His brother is featured on Raw pretty often but Fenix got lost in the fray, which seems a bit baffling. (1/1)
- The Wrestling Observer Newsletter heard there was a plan at one point to save John Cena’s heel turn for the finish of his match with Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 41. This implies that Cena was going to win the WWE championship in that scenario and break the record for the most career world titles, with help from The Rock.
- Part of me doubts that this was the plan that far ahead. If Unreal is to be believe (and as we’ve discussed maybe, maybe not), the John Cena heel turn was the big move for Elimination Chamber as opposed to other shocking moments for that show.
- The Observer says rapper Travis Scott “got all kinds of heat backstage” after legitimately injuring Rhodes at Elimination Chamber. There are people in WWE who believe Scott “shouldn’t have been out there nor put in that position in the first place.”
- His relationship with the company appears over. It seems like they gave the word folks could talk shit about him. Drew McIntyre did. Triple H hinted at Scott’s lack of commitment when putting over Jelly Roll’s. And maybe that’s true. But it’s likely they were using their breakup with him as a way to scapegoat him for the poorly booked and poorly received main event of WrestleMania. And Travis Scott didn’t book that. Triple H booked that. I would bet Scott didn’t even try to ask his way in. They were just trying to shift that narrative.
- Fightful Select indicates the tension between Jade Cargill and Shayna Baszler goes back to a match they had in Scotland last year where the finish didn’t go according to plan. The word going around backstage was that Cargill said Baszler needed to “learn how to work,” which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. For what it’s worth, people close to Jade deny that’s what happened and say she was apologetic about the situation.
- It would be something else if Cargill said that to Baszler.
- It sounds like Jade’s extended absence from WWE also got her heat in the locker room. Some people backstage believe that she asked for time off during WWE’s mandatory holiday tour, which led to a lot of doubt and uncertainty about her injury being legitimate when she was later pulled from TV.
- That injury still feels like a mystery.
- According to a PW Insider Elite report, Rey Fenix will debut with WWE after the European tour that ends on Mar. 31.
- He debuted on Apr. 4. (1/1)
- During his appearance at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Triple H said WWE will return to Perth, Australia this fall.
- He’s the boss so it’s not a rumor. They will.
- F4WOnline’s Dave Meltzer mentioned that Abadon and Nick Comoroto are among the AEW wrestlers who “were not going to be resigned as their deals expire.”
- Neither still work there. There’s a later rumor that pseudo disputes this (though neither work there currently) so we’ll hit it there.
- Meltzer also said the Young Bucks were backstage at a recent episode of AEW Dynamite, and “there are plans being worked on for a return.”
- They returned at the April Dynasty show.
- With the exception of International champ Konosuke Takeshita, all of the champions defending at AEW Revolution are currently favored to win at BetOnline. Jon Moxley has the slimmest odds of retaining at -200.
- All the champs not including Takeshita (who lost to Omega) retained. Mox defended against Cope. That was the match Christian cashed in his title opportunity. (1/1)
- For what it’s worth, Brian Gewirtz said the reports of John Cena’s heel turn being planned for the WrestleMania main event and it changing to the day of Elimination Chamber on the day of are false.
- So we can split these rumors, though I believe this one more. (1/2)
- The Observer notes that WWE will be doing a different stage setup for Raw in Madison Square Garden to get as many fans in the building as possible.
- That makes sense. The MSG set up often looks different.
- PW Insider is maintaining that Jade Cargill wasn’t injured during her time off from WWE but Sean Ross Sapp responded to say if that’s the case then “they worked the creative team, the medical team, the PC staff, all her closest friends and coworkers, and the people involved in the storyline.”
- Feels like competing rumors. (1/2)
- According to Fightful Select, Nick Comoroto and Abadon are still on the AEW roster despite reports they were released.
- They were eventually released – Abadon confirmed her exit, though that was in May. These kind of compete so I’m splitting again. (1/2)
- Fightful says Meiko Satomura is going to be at the NXT “Roadblock” special this week.
- She was not. (0/1)
- Per Lucha Libre Online, Elektra Lopez was backstage at AEW’s Revolution event last night.
- She’s working very sparingly this year.
- There was originally a Cody Rhodes/R-Truth backstage segment on SmackDown this past week, says Fightful Select, but of course it never aired. It’s unclear why.
- Who knows?
- The Bianca Belair/Naomi/Jade Cargill segment from last week’s SmackDown received a lot of praise backstage, per Fightful Select’s WWE sources. In addition to the talent’s performances, the writing, production, and camera work were all shouted out. Ioannis Fillippides was the credited writer for the scene, with TJ Wilson producing.
- It was a great segment.
- Amid reports of past backstage issues involving Cargill, Fightful says her time at SmackDown last week was incident-free.
- I mean that’s good that there wasn’t an issue that week.
- After rumors circulated online over the weekend about Shinsuke Nakamura leaving WWE, none of Fightful’s sources “had heard anything to lend credibility” to the rumors.
- He’s never on TV, but as far as we know, still with the company. We’d have heard otherwise.
- On Sunday night’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said that while “nobody is seriously hurt” coming out of AEW Revolution “there are many people who are banged up”. Will Ospreay and Kyle Fletcher weren’t seriously hurt from their Spanish Fly off the top of the cage, but Ospreay was “limping really bad” after landing on his hip. Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez confirmed Swerve Strickland’s ruptured eardrum, and said that Mercedes Mone has a bruised larynx, and Momo Watanabe was seen leaving the show on crutches.
- That’s some injury run down for a show where “nobody is seriously hurt.” Dave’s like “Everyone got out unscathed. Sammy Guevara needed to get airlifted out but no big deal.”
- Regarding Christian Cage’s cash-in during the AEW Revolution main event, on Fightful’s post-show Sean Ross Sapp said that Cage pitched the idea earlier in the week and it was approved as “AEW just wanted to get this damn contract out there and over with.
- I was really hoping he’d win but in general, that was a smart finish
- Some fans have noticed that WWE is no longer listing Seth Rollins as “Seth ‘Freakin’ Rollins, indicating he’s no longer going by that name.
- They still use that moniker. (0/1)
- Per PW Insider, Bronson Reed was spotted in Birmingham, Alabama and it’s likely he was getting an update on his recovery timeline from the ankle surgery he got in early December. It’s still unclear when he’ll be back exactly but he’s expected to be out until around May.
- He returned late April. Which is around May. (1/1)
- Bryan Alvarez said on Wrestling Observer Live that there was originally a plan for “way more people” to be involved in the main event of AEW’s Revolution show, “including some returns” but it got changed at the last minute.
- Going for the overbook.
- Bryan Williams, a producer for the WWE 2K video game franchise, told PW Insider that it was Nick Khan who pushed to add New Jack as a playable character in a DLC for WWE 2K25.
- Interesting that he’s that in the weeds.
- Miro and CJ Perry are back together as a couple, says TMZ.
- Good for them. I wonder if we’ll ever see her back in WWE now that’s he’s there. My guess is no but you never know.
- Insider notes that TNA’s Sacrifice and Impact tapings this weekend are going to draw the highest crowds for a two day event series in a decade.
- I’m glad TNA is doing well.
- Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp recently said he hasn’t heard anything new on Asuka since his January report that she was “pitched for creative heading into WrestleMania”. That brought more attention to last week’s report from BodySlam.net’s Cassidy Haynes that “WWE is prioritizing a post-WrestleMania return” for Asuka “given that creative plans for the event are already set.”
- She did not return for a couple months after Mania.
- After fans noticed the change to Seth Rollins’ name on his WWE.com profile headline yesterday, they realized that the “Dirty” was gone from Dominik Mysterio’s and the “Big” from Bronson Reed’s. In the case of Rollins and Mysterio, their nicknames are still used in their bios.
- Maybe just trying to make the roster page a bit more serious.
- There were two issues Giulia is dealing with which led WWE to book her to drop the NXT Women’s title to Stephanie Vaquer at Roadblock, per Wrestling Observer Live’s Bryan Alvarez. One is a “minor” visa issue; the other is an an injury that’s currently listed as “undisclosed” on internal documents.
- She’s since returned.
- During an interview with Bootleg Kev, Swerve Strickland said he played golf with Travis Scott at a January charity event and the rapper involved in the WWE title angle at WrestleMania 41 told Swerve that he’d been training with Booker T.
- I doubt he is any more.
- Reiterating his report about AEW considering a consolidation of their International and Continental titles via a Kenny Omega/Kazuchika Okada match at All In Texas, Fightful’s Sapp now says discussions got so far that “many in the company had considered them firm creative plans.”
- That’s where it ended up.
This week: 12/18 – 67%
Overall: 5,838/10,002 – 58.4%
Have a great week, everyone – unless you’re a fellow Mets fan. Then it’s just endless pain.
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