For many fans, reading about rumors -- and trawling the sites that traffic in them -- has become as popular as watching the matches themselves. In this daily column, we take a look at the biggest rumors and weirdest stories being churned out by those pro wrestling "news" sites.
Important reminders: Rumors are "rumors" and not "news" for a reason, folks. That which has not been confirmed as legitimate news or fact will be made clear. Also, don't let these things ruin your day. It gets better.
Is Goldberg next?:
While Ryback seems to be filling his role just fine, former WCW champion Goldberg has made it clear that he's willing to come back to the business.
- Talks between Goldberg and HHH -- who managed to bring Warrior and Bruno Sammartino back in the WWE family over the past two years -- have already happened, with the two getting together in the build-up to WrestleMania XXX. A match between he and the aforementioned Ryback was the popular rumor at the time, but it appears to have been just that. Very few specific were discussed at the time, as they served mostly as a sort of icebreaker between the two sides.
- At this point, Goldberg has said he would be very interested in coming back, telling PWInsider: "Would I love to do it again and have my son and my wife, who has never seen me wrestle? Abso-damn-lutely."
- But this, of course, came with the caveat that he would be unwilling to "jeopardize what I've done in the wrestling world just to make that happen".
While this may seem like more of the mild egotism that we've come to know and love from Goldberg's sporadic appearances on WWE DVDs, it's clear he's more concerned about what he'd look like in the ring than anything else. "If I wasn't ready to do it, physically ready to do it, and it wasn't the right situation, I wouldn't do it just to do it." Which, according to Goldberg means that if it were to happen, it would "probably be at WrestleMania this year. It just has to be right and if it's not right, then I'm retired, for good."
The Rest of the Rumors and News Bits for the day:
- Philadelphia looks to be the favorite to host the 2015 Royal Rumble, and Memphis seems to be the chosen destination for the Elimination Chamber special event the following month. It appears that the process of choosing a location for the event is a fairly formal one, with each one carefully planned out to maximize gates and crowd responses. But we at the Rumor Round-Up still hold out hope that they'll take our idea of a battle royal between officials from every competing city and air it on the Network.
- Hugh Jackman hosting Raw next week is something that everyone who watched Monday's show will know, but the fact that it reignited a feud between Damien Sandow and Dolph Ziggler on Twitter is something you may have missed. Ziggler is appearing on the pre-and-post shows for Raw and Smackdown! this week, and Sandow has drifted from "poorly planned push" to "poorly planned push ended by a KO punch", so both need some sort of direction going forward. Hopefully this means that one or both of them will be looking at the beginnings of a Bad News Barrett-esque repackaging in the coming weeks.
- WWE will be producing a DVD on the best of the Great American Bash called "United We Slam" to be released in mid-July. While it's been announced that it's going to be exclusively about the WCW version of the show, how they'll explain away the sheer terribleness of the 1991 edition has not.
- As chances of him returning to TNA get slimmer and slimmer, AJ Styles is beginning a "phenomenal" world tour next week. With stops in places as disparate as Yokahama, Japan and Bangor, ME the itinerary for the tour seems as coherent as TNA's booking strategy since he left the company.
- Speaking of TNA, they will be coming home to Orlando for the Sacrifice PPV this Sunday. They'll also be taping several episodes of their flagship show, Impact, there for the last time this year. To be clear, these are the last tapings of the show in Orlando, not the show itself. We were surprised to find that out as well.
If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you'd like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Please remember, these are merely rumors. Try not to take them too seriously, just have fun with them.