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. We’re going to hit a few outstanding rumors to start.
April 16, 2022
- According to WrestlingNews.co, there are still no plans for Roman Reigns to lose the WWE Universal championship anytime soon. If WWE decides to keeps the title on him through WrestleMania 39 next year, the idea will be to promote him as the greatest of all-time.
- I already graded the “lose the title” part but sat on the Greats of All Time bit. And they haven’t called him that. That’s Cena’s moniker now, but they weren’t pushing that even prior to John’s retirement tour. (0/1)
- WWE wants to run more stadium shows in 2023, according to Mat Men’s Andrew Zarian. Nick Khan wants to make stadiums “the new norm… when it comes to Premium Live Events.”
- They ran 6 stadium shows in 2022. (Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, two Saudi shows, and Clash in the Castle in Wales.) That’s more than usual (about 5 seems to be the average but they certainly haven’t run more. (0/1)
- Wrestling Observer Newsletter indicated that John Cena’s next match in WWE, which at one point was rumored to be against Theory later this month at SummerSlam, might be delayed until next year at WrestleMania 39.
- John actually had a match tagging with Kevin Owens against Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn in December 2022. The next match was that Theory match at Mania 39.
Now onto this week’s rumors:
- WrestleVotes confirmed with its sources that WWE is bringing back the all-women’s Evolution PLE this summer. An official announcement is expected to be made before WrestleMania 41.
- It did happen though it was announced in May, not prior to WrestleMania. (1/2)
- Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp says he talked to a lot of people who were “surprised” by Saraya announcing her AEW exit with “a number of months [left] on her deal.” However, Saraya’s management team claims she is a free agent right now.
- Probably given the injury, but it wasn’t the most auspicious run for Saraya.
- For whatever it’s worth, Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer suspects Saraya is “going back to WWE.”
- She hasn’t yet but we can sit on this a bit longer. I thought she may have shown up by now, and I kind of fully expect her to be back in WWE. It would depend on if WWE medical feels OK about where her neck is, but she wrestled an infrequent amount there so hopefully would be good if she wanted to wrestle at WWE.
- Meltzer said “all signs lead to me believing that Brian Cage has a knee injury.” The first sign is an email Meltzer received last week from “someone who I don’t know” with a picture of Cage “holding his knee” in a match against Chris Masters. The second sign is that Cage missed his scheduled match against Rich Swann at the Chris Bey benefit show a few days later. The third sign is the Murder Machines were originally planned for a tag team title match against the Hurt Syndicate at AEW Dynasty, before an angle was shot this week to put the Learning Tree in that spot instead.
- This is correct. (1/1)
- Votes indicates the Lucha community in Mexico is “pissed off” about Chad Gable’s portrayal of El Grande Americano in WWE, including the angle on Raw where he pulled off Dragon Lee’s mask. The whole thing was said to be like “mocking their religion.”
- Fans there seem to like Kaiser’s version. But we don’t know that this is how is going over with the lucha community. It also may be different since now AAA is owned by WWE so a lot of those people may opt to keep their mouths shut not to piss off the new boss.
- According to PW Insider, former WWE and TNA announcer Josh Mathews was backstage at this week’s AEW Dynamite taping. It’s not clear if he was “there visiting or is potentially coming in.”
- It looks like he works there.
- Former ECW, WWE, and WCW star Perry Saturn was also backstage at Dynamite visiting with friends, per Insider.
- As for as I know, he does not work there. Moppy works in talent relations though.
- Sources told WrestleVotes that WWE’s decision to induct the Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin match at WrestleMania 13 into its 2025 Hall of Fame was “made well before the event’s underwhelming ticket sales.” It was “always part of the 2025 HOF plan.”
- They would need to lock both guys up in advance.
- The Wrestling Observer Newsletter says WWE denied the reports that NXT star Giulia “was banged up and would be taking time off and that’s why Stephanie Vaquer won both titles.”
- Giulia did take time off, but was wrestling within a couple weeks. Maybe she was banged up but it wasn’t a lengthy absence.
- WrestleVotes Radio indicates that even though WWE is interested in bringing Rusev back, a deal is not imminent, and might even take until the end of the year to happen.
- It happened right after WrestleMania. I’m currently watching his IC title match on Raw as I do this. (1/2)
- According to The Observer, Warner Bros Discovery was “said to be overjoyed” with the ratings for AEW’s Slam Dunk Collision.
- It’s good that AEW does well.
- With that in mind, AEW and WBD “already have plans for all sports and other programming preemptions on Wednesdays or Saturdays for the rest of the year.” There’s also a plan for dealing with WWE’s Saturday Night’s Main Event.
- They did not run head to head against the next two Main Events. We don’t know if that was the plan referred to here or they decided that later.
- Following up on concerns that Will Ospreay has a legitimate hip injury after jumping off the top of the steel cage at AEW Revolution, Fightful Select was told that he is fine. Ospreay is banged up due to his in-ring style, but he’s just working the hip injury on television.
- He’s currently out dealing with a neck injury.
- F4WOnline’s Dave Meltzer says it was likely Nick Khan’s decision to hire Mark “Nash” Shunock as SmackDown’s new ring announcer.
- Nick Khan has his hands in boxing (Saudi boxing) so maybe he knew him from that industry.
- According to WrestleVotes, there is frustration within WWE regarding SmackDown being three hours, as there is apparently “creative fatigue.”
- It’s back to two hours, but still has some issues.
- That said, the format is expected to go back to two hours after WrestleMania, apparently sometime in June.
- It did, but in July. (1/2)
- PW Insider says that Drew McIntyre legitimately had to get something removed from his eye after the car spot with Damian Priest on SmackDown last week but apparently it wasn’t glass.
- Damn. Gotta watch that real glass.
- TNA+ had its subscriber count double in the past year, per Fightful Select, thanks in large part to contributions from members of the marketing team who were just recently fired.
- That’s tough.
- Kevin Knight signed with AEW but Insider says he had an invite for a tryout with WWE at the Performance Center “several weeks ago.” Obviously, he made the choice to sign with AEW.
- AEW seems like the right spot for him.
- Fightful notes NJPW wanted to keep Knight when his deal expired in January but he was always expected to find a deal in the States. AEW’s money offer was simply the best.
- I can also understand someone wanting to work closer to home.
- For what it’s worth, Triple H told BBC Newsbeat that Netflix has no creative control over the on-screen product with Raw and only has input on things like how long the show is and when it airs.
- I think that’s believable.
- Fightful notes that The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega remain EVPs at AEW, the Bucks just have limited presence at AEW shows since they’ve been gone dating back to October of last year.
- They lost that title at All In. (Not really.)
- Karrion Kross’ WWE contract is up this year, per Fightful Select. Sources believe the deal ends sometime this summer, and say Kross has impressed some WWE officials with his ability to gain popularity via social media and with the TV time he’s gotten.
- He was not re-signed, despite a rather underwhelming fan campaign to get him to stay/get re-signed. (1/1)
- TNA officials have been impressed by WWE NXT’s Jacy Jayne during her Impact appearances, according to Fightful Select. PW Insider reports Jayne’s Fatal Influence team is scheduled to work an upcoming TNA PPV.
- Jacy ended up holding the TNA Knockout’s title and the NXT women’s title.
- Asked by Daily Mail’s Alex McCarthy if a WWE is bringing another PLE to the UK ‘in the next year or so’, Triple H replied, ‘Oh yeah, for sure.’ McCarthy says Triple H also mentioned India as ‘a place he’d like to go’.
- Nothing announced yet.
- SEScoops is claiming AEW is averaging “around 500,000 viewers” on the MAX streaming service for Dynamite.
- It’s hard for me to believe that they almost double their viewers on MAX – that there are half a million viewers who want to watch AEW but couldn’t because they didn’t have a way to watch TBS.
- According to Fightful Select, WWE is still heavily scripting promos in the Triple H era, with some folks getting some leeway but even the promos that have seemed unscripted were scripted.
- It makes sense that they still want to control those things.
- PWN claims Tonga Loa is expected to return to WWE television in June.
- He returned at Night of Champions in late June. (1/1)
- Fightful notes that there hasn’t really been any further talk of the teased Bayley vs. Roxanne Perez main roster program.
- They haven’t had a real program.
- They also say that while Giulia has been around she hasn’t been participating in any classes and could be dealing with some kind of injury issue. That’s not confirmed yet, however.
- She missed some time, but not a huge amount.
- Per PW Insider, Mistico is injured but he will appear at MLW’s Battle Riot special either way and if he can’t wrestle they have a Plan B in mind.
- This rumor is pretty much he will be at Battle Riot unless he’s not. (He wasn’t.)
- They are also planning to reveal a new color commentator at the show.
- Looks like it was Austin Aries. (1/1)
- While they were careful to specify that they don’t know why Nia Jax is on WWE’s internal “inactive list”, WrestleVotes said on Backstage Pass Jax has “not been cleared for action, which is why she hasn’t been on TV”. Votes says it had been anticipated Nia would be back a couple weeks ago, and they also don’t know and won’t speculate about why that hasn’t happened.
- Jax eventually made her way back.
- On the same show, Votes said that a WWE PLE in Mexico has been “discussed heavily” but they “don’t know if it’s official”.
- That hasn’t been announced yet.
- Jay White was pulled from the Owen Hart Tournament due to a legitimate injury, according to Fightful Select. The site didn’t have much in the way of details, but knows White needs surgery and that AEW had to make “significant creative changes” to their Tournament plans without the Switchblade.
- Jay White & the Bang Bang Gang have been snakebitten. (1/1)
- Speculation is that All In Texas’ early start time was set to avoid running opposite a WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event that at one point was listed on Peacock’s schedule for July 12 at 8 p.m. Eastern.
- That was a long day of wrestling.
- A segment was planned for the March 21 SmackDown that would have featured Nick Aldis telling Andrade about a new talent coming to the brand who the GM wanted Andrade to work with first. That scene was cut, but indicates to WrestleVotes “that at least they had plans, at the minimum, for Andrade vs. Rey Fenix”. Votes doesn’t know if that’s still planned, however.
- Andrade has since been released from WWE and returned to AEW.
- Sources told WrestleVotes that WWE is planning to run the following matches on night one (Sat., Apr. 19) of WrestleMania 41: Tiffany Stratton vs. Charlotte Flair, GUNTHER vs. Jey Uso, Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens, and CM Punk vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins.
- Obviously KO/Orton didn’t happen due to the injury and the Randy segment was on Sunday. The rest were night one shows though. (3/4)
- The same sources say the following WrestleMania matches are planned for night two (Sun., Apr. 20): AJ Styles vs. Logan Paul, Cody Rhodes vs. John Cena, and IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley. Votes says “ it’s possible plans and ideas can change, but this is the format creative is working with.”
- Also correct. (3/3)
- According to Fightful Select, AEW wrestler Mark Davis was injured in last week’s match on Dynamite against Powerhouse Hobbs. Details on the injury are unknown, but one person in AEW said they “felt horrible” for Davis given he just returned a few months ago from a serious injury.
- That’s tough.
- For whatever it’s worth, Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer thinks Anthony Bowens will return at AEW Dynasty to quickly beat Max Caster in another Best Wrestler Alive open challenge.
- That did happen. They teamed very recently, though seems reluctant. (1/1)
- Meltzer was given the impression that CJ Perry (aka Lana) will “not be back” in WWE even though the company just signed Miro (aka Rusev).
- Not yet.
- Votes indicates that WWE’s lone PLE in Saudi Arabia this year will be Night of Champions on Saturday, June 28.
- That’s the case. They do have next year’s Rumble and the WrestleMania the following year. (1/1)
- The outlet also says WWE is not currently planning to run the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments in 2025.
- They did. (0/1)
This week: 16/21 – 76%
April 2025: 44/68 – 65%
Overall: 5,873/10,053 – 58.4%
Have a great week, everyone!
