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Welcome to the Rumor Look Back, where we look at the rumors from six months ago and see how they all played out. Let's get right to this week's rumors.
Now it looks like Kevin Owens vs. John Cena will happen at both Battleground and SummerSlam, with their final match having some stipulation.
The feud ended at Battleground. I wonder if it went four, would Cena have won the final three would Owens have picked up another win somehow. (0/1)
There’s some word going around that Jack Swagger is unhappy with the company and he’s thinking of leaving.
This rumor is vague enough that I decided not to grade it. He’s still around.
he finally got that win over his white whale Rusev.
Hideo Itami is going to be pushed on the July 4 show to set up a big angle when he returns from injury.
They showed him in the audience once or twice, but I’d hardly call that "pushed on" the show. (0/1)
Johnny Gargano worked the recent NXT tapings but he is still under contract to WWN so there must be some type of working relationship between WWN and NXT.
Triple H officially announced their relationship and WWE even had Sami Zayn appear at an Evolve show. (1/1)
There’s word that Dolph Ziggler’s contract is coming up and he may leave WWE if he doesn’t get a big push.
While the Swagger one was more vague, the Ziggler one is clear enough that I opted to grade. The deadline of his contract makes this more of a concrete rumor than just Swagger thinking about maybe leaving. Dolph did re-sign but without any major push. (0/1)
Rollins may be turning babyface soon.
While the injury has derailed any plans for him, up until the injury, there was no hint of a face turn in the works. (0/1)
CM Punk/Brad Maddox special edition
Word is Brad Maddox is working a CM Punk gimmick on house shows.
This wasn’t really a rumor about what’s the come but what happened at a house show and even that could have gone both ways. Apparently, Maddox look to be dressed like Punk and maybe delivered a pseudo-pipe bomb during a house show. Clearly it didn’t go anywhere and Maddox has since been released from WWE for calling fans "Cocky dicks."
Paige missed Raw due to Tough Enough duties but will not miss any more time.
This is true. She continued to feud with the Bellas and then the Divas Revolution was started. (1/1)
WWE has dropped the trademark for "Slayomi" and apparently Naomi is not allowed to use it because the company felt the word "Slay" was too harsh.
If only that could be true for Twitter as well.
Samuel Shaw and Gunner were released from TNA because they had no creative direction but there are apparently no hard feelings and they can be used again down the line.
Gunner was always too generic for my tastes. I actually enjoyed Samuel Shaw’s early Dexter gimmick but his first feud with Anderson (which he lost) killed that character. Then they teamed him up with Gunner and that was lame.
There are rumors that if Dolph leaves WWE, TNA is going to do their best to bring him in. As if that’s even going to be a possibility by the time his contract is up.
If Dolph did leave WWE, I don’t see him doing well in TNA. He would have been better served on more of an indie circuit or in Lucha Underground.
The dig at TNA’s existence by that time did prove incorrect as they continue to tick along.
It indeed looks like WWE will be pairing up Summer Rae with Rusev to oppose Lana and Dolph Ziggler.
It’s true. And at the time, I was not happy about it to the point that I posted a gif of Walter White giving the finger to that rumor in the comments. Turns out, I ended up loving the pairing because everything those two did together was gold, no matter how crappy the ideas given to them were. (1/1)
There’s a story going around that Jim Ross told fans at a speaking event that Brock Lesnar asked to lose to Undertaker at WrestleMania 30.
I was really unhappy about giving the streak to Brock. But to continue the theme of me being wrong about things in retrospect, I ended up agreeing with the move especially because Brock ended up re-signing and they told a great Conqueror story afterwards.
If Dolph leaves WWE, New Japan and Lucha Underground would been interested in bring him in.
Where would you all have preferred Dolph if he left WWE? Are you happy he stuck around in the WWE or would you have preferred to see him working somewhere else? Leave it in the comments.
There are rumors floating around that Jeff Jarrett is looking to buy TNA and merge it with GFW.
The opposite happened. In exchange for an angle with GFW talent on TNA TV, Jarrett sold his TNA stock to TNA. (0/1)
In addition to Gunner and Sam Shaw, TNA may be releasing more people in the new few weeks.
Magnus and James Storm soon asked to be released and TNA granted it, so I suppose that can be counted as "releases" even though it’s more talent prompted. (1/1)
Randy Orton missed Raw this week because he was on vacation with his girlfriend. He will return in early July, likely the July 6 show in Chicago.
He did return on the July 6 show and continued feuding with Sheamus. (1/1)
It is expected that Natalya will take time off to help Tyson Kidd as he recovers from his injury.
She did miss a good amount of time. She was eventually brought back to feud with Paige but was written off by a mystery attacker angle. (I still think if they come back to that, they’ll reveal it was Charlotte.) (1/1)
WWE is planning an NXT tour alongside SummerSlam like they did last year at WrestleMania.
SummerSlam’s NXT event was actually bigger, having a massive TakeOver at the same arena that held SummerSlam and the Raw after, but it was still in the same vein. (1/1)
It looks like Orlando is the frontrunner for WrestleMania 33.
We’ll have to wait awhile to find out. They have not yet announced WrestleMania 32. It was expected they’d announce it for Minnesota while they were there for Raw the other week but they did not.
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This Week: 7/12 - 58%
Overall: 592/1,117 - 53%
Have a great week, everyone.