Rumor Look Back: January 10 - 16, 2016

Welcome to the weekly Rumor Look Back, where we look back at rumors from six months ago and see if they played out as expected.

Before we start, I need to correct something from last week. Thee was a rumor about Dana Brooke wrestling soon soon and that could be at the next NXT taping. While she did wrestle soon at a house show and she was at the tapings, she didn’t wrestle the tapings. So instead of 2/2, I’m changing it to 1/2. (-1)

OK, onto this week’s rumors.

January 11, 2016

• Brock Lesnar is expected to enter the Royal Rumble match tonight on Raw.

• Paul Heyman tried to finagle his client a position to get to face the winner of the Rumble at WrestleMania but it did not work. He ended up in the Rumble. (1/1)

• Speaking of the Rumble, we can expect about 20 men to be announced for the match prior with the rest left for potential surprises.

• They only announced 15. Many of the other 15 were men pulled from other matches. We did get surprises such as AJ Styles & Sami Zayn. (0/1)

• Jeremy Botter tweeted that WWE licensed the rights to Shinsuke Nakamura’s entrance music.

• That’s not true. But his new music is really boss too. (0/1)

January 12, 2016

• Not surprisingly, Ric Flair is the guy expected to induct Sting at the Hall of Fame.

• He was. (1/1)

• Randy Orton isn’t expected back in WWE in time for WrestleMania.

• He’s still not back, but he does have a big match at SummerSlam against Brock Lesnar. (1/1)

• A series of social media messages from MVP’s visit at Lucha Underground has a lot of fans thinking he may sign with promotion for late season two and season three.

• Well, he did sign with the promotion. He was fired within a week for having an LU talent on his podcast without getting permission from the company, so he was never on TV. That’s a shame too. I would have liked MVP in the Temple. (1/1)

January 13, 2016

• As of now, WWE has no plans to take the title off Roman Reigns, so he’s likely winning the Royal Rumble.

• He did not win. He lost when Triple H eliminated him and Trips went on to win the WWE title. (0/1)

• There’s a weird rumor going around, apparently from Scott Keith’s Blog of Doom, that WWE is releasing Daniel Bryan next week.

• They did not. He retired, but it was in February. (0/1)

• The Fabulous Freebirds, Stan Hansen, Vader, and JBL are all names being thrown around for the WWE Hall of Fame this year.

• The Freebirds and Hansen went in. JBL and Vader did not. (2/4)

• It is expected the William Regal will work an angle when he’s at Evolve, but it will be for the live crowd and won’t be part of the broadcast.

• He did a segment with Timothy Thatcher and Matthew Riddle. It didn’t air. (1/1)

January 14, 2016

• Dave Meltzer says as of right now, the WrestleMania main event is Roman Reigns vs. Triple H.

• That’s the one. It went on at 2 in the morning. (1/1)

• The word is Sting’s in-ring career is over and he’s wrestled his last match. Him going into the Hall of Fame hints to that as well.

• He announced his official retirement at the Hall of Fame after a month of teasing that that may not be the case. (1/1)

• It looks like Charlotte will be defending her title against Becky Lynch at the Royal Rumble.

• That’s the case. That was probably my favorite WWE women’s feud in awhile. (1/1)

• New Japan stripping Shinsuke Nakamura of the title wasn’t a WWE thing. They made the call themselves.

• I don’t watch NJPW. Would fans have liked him to drop it in a match instead?

• The Fabulous Freebirds are almost certainly going into the Hall of Fame this year and it's expected that it will be Michael Hayes, Terry Gordy, Buddy Roberts, and Jimmy Garvin all together.

• That’s the case. It was a rather long speech. (1/1)

January 15, 2016

• According to the Observer, there are no current plans for Daniel Bryan to make a surprise return at any point. He’s still waiting to be medically cleared. Don’t expect him in the Royal Rumble basically.

• He never wrestled again. (1/1)

• There’s some word going around that WWE is planning on making Fastlane a major event with it clear what’s in store for it after the Royal Rumble.

• The only aspect about the PPV that was “major” is that Brock was there, but otherwise, it was pretty much standard fare. But outside WrestleMania, which PPV isn’t? (0/1)

• Once again, there is serious talk about Sister Abigail debuting as a character on television.

• This has yet to happen, even on the Wyatt compound. (0/1)

• The Observer notes that Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows will debut in NXT in March.

• Much like their Bullet Club ally AJ Styles, they skipped NXT. They debuted on Raw a couple weeks after WrestleMania. (0/1)

January 16, 2015

• The Rock is not schedule to wrestle at WrestleMania this year, but he has a very big role planned. It’s possibly alongside Roman Reigns in the main event to combat the Authority.

• That wasn’t the case. He did work a match and he didn’t go anywhere near Reigns. Probably learned his lesson after the Royal Rumble in 2015. (0/1)

• It looks like Sami Zayn will stay in NXT until after TakeOver: Dallas where he’ll work (possibly as a heel) against Finn Balor. He’ll debut on the main roster a soon as the Raw after Mania.

• So I’m going to grade this in three parts. He did stay in NXT until Dallas. He did not work against Balor and instead worked a debuting Shinsuke Nakamura. He debuted on the main roster prior to his leaving NXT though prior to WrestleMania (and worked the show.) (1/3)

• It looks like Stardust and Stephen Amell will continue their feud at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest in NJ.

• There was no interaction with them this event. At a Dallas Comic Con convention, Stardust threw water at Amell. That was in February. While Cody is gone from WWE, they will still be interacting since Cody will be on Arrow this season. (0/1)

• Jeff Hardy is apparently looking for a WWE return in 2017.

• Well, he’s since been deleted so this rumor is obsolete.

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This Week: 13/26 - 50%

Overall: 918/1,734 - 52.9%

Have a great week, everybody!