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 Wrestling Observer Radio, the planned main events for WrestleMania 42 are Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns for the WWE Championship and CM Punk vs. Bron Breakker for the world heavyweight championship.
- Those did not happen. (0/2)
- WrestleVotes claimed there was some creative contention over the entrance order for the men’s War Games match at Survivor Series, with multiple scenarios discussed and varying opinions on each.
- I could imagine that’s probably a pain to orchestrate.
- Per PW Insider, Liv Morgan was originally set to be cleared in early 2026 but she worked hard enough to return at Survivor Series.
- Good on her.
- They also note WWE played music for stars like Edge, Stone Cold Steve Austin and more during Survivor Series setup at Petco Park just to mess with someone streaming it live nearby to see what would leak out.
- I know it’s the business we’re in, but I am always bummed when something big gets spoiled. Or even when stuff becomes an open/reported return as opposed to a big surprise.
- Bron Breakker was evaluated backstage after the bad Doomsday Device bump at Survivor Series, but he is okay, says Wrestling Observer Radio.
- He’d eventually have a hernia after the Rumble that cost him a match at Mania. Apparently he may be banged up now.
- Bryan Alvarez noted on X that there is already talk of running a stadium for next year’s Survivor Series event.
- We’ll have to wait and see.
- On Wrestling Observer Live, Alvarez said one of Santos Escobar’s requests for his new deal with WWE was to sit down with Triple H to figure out his creative, so the belief is he will be back with a push. It’s just not clear when that return will be.
- It was never. (0/1)
- According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, AEW is trying to avoid putting Kenny Omega in long singles matches and that’s why he’s being put back with The Young Bucks.
- Understandable given his health and his age. He’s had 6 singles matches in 2026 and one was an under 4 minute match with Rocky Romero.
- Boxing Scene’s Lance Pugmire says Ronda Rousey is in negotiations to return to combat sports, but not to UFC or WWE. Rousey is talking about coming back as a boxer for a bout against Katie Taylor on Netflix in 2026.
- She actually had an MMA bout against Gina Carano. No word on this boxing match.
- Jacob Fatu is close to returning, or at least that was the talk backstage at Survivor Series, says PW Insider.
- He returned in January during the Cody Rhodes/Drew McIntyre title match, costing Cody the title. (1/1)
- Speaking of Fatu, his injury is what led to a change in plans for the War Games match, according to the Observer. Austin Theory was planned but removed because Fatu’s injury forced WWE to accelerate the Cody Rhodes vs. Drew McIntyre feud, which left them free to join the match.
- That Cody/Drew feud definitely went too long.
- Fightful Select notes there is no heat on Paul Heyman for appearing to push a child at Survivor Series but the focus is more on security allowing the kid to get that close.
- That’s some sentence.
- MVP said on his Marking Out podcast that he turns down moves on behalf of Bobby Lashley because Bobby is “too nice” about it.
- Makes the rumor of them not wanting to take losses more believable.
- Some have noticed John Cena is being advertised for the Raw After WrestleMania next year. UPDATE: Based on the date listed, the ad in questions appears to be for the 2025 Raw After WrestleMania.
- So the Raw that already happened? I guess when they both happened in Vegas, that’s easy to confuse.
- Self Made Pro claims Roman Reigns vs. Bron Breakker and Cody Rhodes vs. CM Punk was the plan for WrestleMania 42 in early November but Reigns preferred to go back to the Rhodes match, and it’s how we got to Punk vs. Breakker on the other side.
- We ended up getting Reigns/Punk. (0/1)
- They also say original plans even before that called for Reigns vs. Seth Rollins, and it was after WrestleMania that Bron Breakker and the rest of The Vision would turn on Seth and lead to a title match against Reigns. His injury changed everything.
- That makes some sense, but I’d much rather see the Roman/Punk match we got than a Seth/Roman match. And for all criticisms of WWE’s creative, many I feel are warranted, I thought that main event delivered in gravitas, build, and match delivery. (I understand you can argue the build may have lulled in the middle, but I felt just their general presence and portrayal of disdain for each other continued to propel it forward.)
- Fightful Select indicates AJ Lee was never expected to be full time upon her return, and she will be coming and going as far as television appearances.
- That is surely the case. She takes some legit time off. (1/1)
- PW Insider shut down rumors that were going around that the WWE/TNA partnership would be ending after the announcement of TNA’s TV deal with AMC.
- The partnership was announced as a multi-year partnership in 2025 so unless they specifically ended it (and we’d have heard something about that), it’s still going on. Plus, Arianna Grace was Knockouts champion for some this year. (1/1)
- Paul Wight said on NotSam Wrestling Live that he’s hoping to return for another full time run before he fully retires from in-ring work.
- No sign of that yet. I’m not sure if we’re ever going to see Show full time again, though I can see a world that Tony gives him a couple month long retirement angle.
- The opening lines at betonline for CM Punk’s WWE World title defense against Bron Breakker on Raw next month gave Punk a 64% chance of retaining.
- The odds were correct. (1/1)
- Looking ahead to WrestleMania 42’s rumored main events, it’s expected Breakker will be favored in a rematch with Punk. betonline’s oddsmakers currently give Roman Reigns a 67% chance to take the Undisputed WWE title from Cody Rhodes in Vegas.
- Odds were incorrect. (0/2)
- During a lengthy appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Nick Khan teased McAfee’s return to WWE for sometime after college football season ends next month. For his part, McAfee said, “I am in shape.“
- He returned for WrestleMania season and it was so badly received it scared him away. (1/1)
- WWE sources tell TC of WrestleVotes we should “expect to see more” of comedian Andrew Schulz “featured in WWE programming moving forward.”
- I would not say that is the case. (0/1)
- According to Trish Speirs reporting for Social Suplex, Shinsuke Nakamura was the first choice for Hiroshi Tanahashi’s final opponent at Wrestle Kingdom 20 next month. In order to avoid political conflicts with New Japan’s partners CMLL and AEW, it was decided that WWE would release Nakamura so he could work Tanahashi’s retirement match. WWE later said they would not release Nakamura, but that he could still face Tanahashi. New Japan opted not to risk offending their partners by promoting a wrestler under contract to a rival, booking AEW’s Kazuchika Okada instead.
- Would they release him and then re-sign him? Or would that have been it for Nakamura in WWE? (Not that he’s doing much of anything in WWE.)
- TNA had plans to sign Australian indie wrestler Lena Kross per Fightful Select, but the outlet says Kross either has or will soon sign with AEW. The 30-year old is said to be in the process of moving to Florida.
- She’s in AEW losing five minute eliminators. (1/1)
- Wrestlevotes Radio says Bron Breakker is currently WWE’s “whiteboard favorite” to win the men’s 2026 Royal Rumble match in Saudi Arabia.
- He got eliminated in 5 seconds. (0/1)
- Speaking of WWE’s whiteboard, two of the topics that will be covered in season two of Netflix’s WWE Unreal docuseries, according to Bodyslam.net, are R-Truth’s contract drama earlier this year, and Seth Rollins faking an injury before cashing in the Money in the Bank contract at SummerSlam.
- That’s accurate. I still swear Seth faked that injury purely for this show. And the Vision has been cursed ever since. (2/2)
- Wrestling Observer Radio’s Bryan Alvarez says Darby Allin really was hospitalized “for a while” after getting hurt in his Continental Classic match against Kevin Knight on the Nov. 26 episode of AEW Dynamite. AEW’s claim that there will be an update on Darby’s status on this weekend’s Collision is legitimate, in the sense that AEW doesn’t actually know yet if he has to be pulled from the tournament.
- He was pulled.
- Alvarez also claims that several big NXT call-ups are expected in WWE over the “next month or so.” It sounds like some of these call-ups are long overdue.
- Oba Femi was certainly called up in this time. Trick Williams too. Jordynne Grace has kind of been lost in the fray but she was called up late ‘25/early ‘26 as well. (1/1)
- F4WOnline’s Dave Meltzer says the sale of Warner Bros. Discovery (AEW’s media partner) should take place “within the next couple of weeks,” with Netflix and Paramount currently the front-runners, and Comcast in third place. Meltzer thinks AEW will have a worse outlook if Netflix purchases WBD, because Netflix isn’t interested in owning WBD’s cable stations like TBS and TNT.
- The same day Netflix won the bid. But then it later went to Paramount. (1/1)
- In his Uncrowned column on Yahoo, former TNA President Scott D’Amore said he was actually the man under the mask who executed a gore while pretending to be Rhino at TNA Slammiversary in 2019. Rhino was still under contract with WWE at the time, so they needed someone else to play the character that night. D’Amore compared this angle to the mystery man at War Games, who still may turn out to be the character Seth Rollins, even if someone else was actually wearing that disguise at Survivor Series.
- It was eventually Rollins but it wasn’t exactly Rollins because they had a ton of guys running around in masks (complete with Benny Hill music).
- It was confirmed to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that WWE has plans for a title match between Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns, but “not necessarily at WrestleMania.”
- We still haven’t gotte there.
- Even though John Cena still loves Vince McMahon, Bryan Alvarez at F4WOnline says it’s “increasingly unlikely” but “not impossible” that McMahon will be in attendance for Cena’s WWE retirement match next weekend at Saturday Night’s Main Event.
- He was not there that we are aware of.
- According to The Observer, “There has been talk of transitioning Nikki Bella to a heel manager role down the line.”
- That has not happened, though she is currently out hurt.
- Fightful Select asked over two dozen people in WWE about Becky Lynch’s claim about a main roster star who blacklisted women he pursued or slept with. None of the people Fightful spoke with knew who she was talking about. It sounds like WWE may be planning to look into the matter.
- I don’t think we ever learned more.
- There are people in AEW who predicted Netflix would win the bidding to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery before the news became public, according to Fightful. AEW doesn’t expect there to be any major developments in the short-term as a result of this story.
- They did win it… at first.
- A source in WWE told F4WOnline’s Dave Meltzer that TNA wants AJ Styles to return in January to wrestle a match on the first show of its new TV deal with AMC.
- If they did want it, it not happen. He did appear on that show.
- Meltzer claims that Paul Heyman wanted Austin Theory in The Vision “largely to make him a star and to protect [Bron] Breakker and [Bronson] Reed from having to take pins.” Even though Theory was the mystery man at War Games, if the angle drags out until January, “it could be Chris Jericho” who is revealed as the masked man.
- Chris Jericho returned to AEW. (0/1)
- Darby Allin’s injury on the Nov. 26 episode of AEW Dynamite was the result of a single blow to his head, and not due to an accumulation of wear-and-tear on his body over time, per Meltzer. It wasn’t the coast-to-coast dropkick at the end of the bout that injured him.
- Either way, his style is going to cause that wear & tear.
This week: 10/19 – 53%
Overall: 6,304/10,730 – 58.8%
Have a great week, everyone!
