Welcome to the weekly Rumor Look Back, where we look at the rumors from six months ago and see how they played out. Let’s get started, shall we?
January 24, 2016: Special Royal Rumble Rumor Roundup
- AJ Styles is likely debuting in the Royal Rumble match tonight.
- He debuted at #3 and it was awesome. (1/1)
- Tough Enough winner Josh Bredl, might be used in the Rumble as punishment for his Tweet on Monday night mocking the Social Outcasts. Observer Radio reported they heard whispers of Bredl, who goes by the ring name Bronson Mathews, being entered in the match so he could be worked over a la Daniel Puder in 2005.
- Luckily for BIG ACTION he avoided that old school punishment. (0/1)
- Dolph Ziggler was on Twitter teasing a Scott Steiner Rumble entrance.
- Steiner wasn’t there. I guess after being banned from WrestleMania just a bit over a year ago, we shouldn’t be surprised. (0/1)
- In addition to no Mauro Ranallo, Jerry Lawler is telling folks he's not calling the Rumble this year, so expect the full Raw announce team of Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton.
- That was the team. (1/1)
- MLW was teasing a big surprise that was supposed to happen at the Royal Rumble last night that wasn’t AJ Styles. They are sticking by that but now say it will happen tonight on Raw.
- Another “big angle” rumor that ended up a dude. You can read about this Raw all you want here, but it’s not interesting. (0/1)
- The reason that there weren’t any Legends as usual in this year’s Royal Rumble is because it wouldn’t make sense with the WWE title on the line.
- Yes, because WWE is all about making sure that things make sense within the story they are telling. But in seriousness, I’m not that into random Legends appearances. Unless it’s DDP. I always mark for him.
- Looks like WWE isn’t moving Becky Lynch out of the title picture. Instead, she’ll be part of a triple threat against Sasha Banks and Charlotte at Fastlane.
- They didn’t remove her from the title picture, but the triple threat was held until Mania. Becky and Sasha teamed up against Team B.A.D. at Fastlane. (1/2)
- There is no scheduled time table for Tyson Kidd’s return but Cesaro recently told a fan it’ll be at least six months.
- Six months has passed and there has not been any word on Kidd at all. (1/1)
- Joey Styles says that WWE Network will be adding more ECW shows soon. Copyright issues with the entrance music is slowing things down.
- There were some added in about a weeks time. (1/1)
- Dean Ambrose as the last man against Triple H in the Rumble may have been an audible because of the crowd reaction to Roman Reigns.
- I’m always surprised to hear how unexpected these Roman Reigns crowd reactions are for the WWE.
- Teasing a return to the gym after surgery has insiders already speculating on another miracle return from John Cena.
- Cena didn’t officially return until May (though he worked a spot at WrestleMania). However, this SB nation piece written by some guy mentioned most rotator cuff surgeries are at least 6 months. He was back in less time than that so Super Cena it is. (1/1)
- Despite a cryptic tweet form Cody Rhodes suggesting otherwise, it is expected he will work as Stardust at least through WrestleMania, where he will likely do something special with Stephen Amell.
- He did work as Stardust through WrestleMania until the day he quit (and partially why he quit.) He didn’t work against Amell at Mania. He was part of the Intercontinental ladder match instead. He could work Amell on the actor’s turf this year when he’s part of Arrow season 5. (1/2)
- While Triple H may work in matches prior to WrestleMania, he’s not expected to defend the title prior to that.
- He defended it against Dean Ambrose at Roadblock. (0/1)
- Not surprisingly, the recent backstage segment with Rock and Lana was because of continued heat on Lana.
- This is referring to this segment where the Rock talked about all of the weird sex stuff he did to her in front of her fiance who stood there powerless to do anything about it. I love the Rock, but not really in the WWE any more.
- Owen Hart likely is not going into the Hall of Fame this year.
- He has not gone into the Hall of Fame. He should. When he does, we’ll probably get a ton of great Bret Hart soundbites about the WWE. (1/1)
- Despite Jeff Hardy re-signing with TNA, Jeff is still looking to return to WWE at one point.
- He’s already got enough on his plate after getting deleted so hard that he’s lost all that makes him whole and he goes nuts at indie shows. However he did recently talk about how he’d like to fight Undertaker at WrestleMania.
- WWE is thinking on booking Triple H vs. Roman Reigns for the WWE world heavyweight championship as the main event of WrestleMania 32 apparently as a coronation for Reigns proper like they couldn’t at WrestleMania 31.
- I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the plan prior to Triple H winning the title. (1/1)
- Speaking of which, don’t be surprised if they go with the Rock in Reigns’ corner and Vince McMahon in Triple H’s corner. The expectation would be that the second time with the Rock celebrating with Reigns would be the charm.
- They didn’t go this way. The Rock had his own segment and Vince McMahon didn’t appear on the show at all. (0/1)
- There’s more talk of a Dean Ambrose heel turn, but if it were to happened, it’d be more to help Reigns get over as a babyface. It would likely be a title program.
- Dean Ambrose never went heel. It’s funny what can happen in six months. Dean is the babyface WWE champion as part of the newly formed SmackDown brand while Roman is taking more pins in the last month than he has in the last 3 years he had been in WWE after coming off a suspension. Who would have predicted that six months ago? (0/1)
- Nikki Bella’s neck surgery will be a Total Divas storyline in the future.
- The neck injury and the impending surgery was a part of the story. But they didn’t cover the surgery yet. I originally had this graded as correct, but then realized that this could be a Total Bellas story instead and not be a part of the Total Divas. While I bet it will be, we’ll find out this fall.
- Apparently WWE is high on for MMA athlete Matt Riddle and he’s just in EVOLVE to learn the industry before being moved up through NXT and to the main WWE roster.
- He’s still only in EVOLVE so we’ll have to wait and see for a bit.
- Vince McMahon has pushed for Brock Lesnar to work with Braun Strowman at one point.
- I doubt this will happen, but I’ll give it a little time. I mean they did move him to the same brand as Brock.
- Speaking of Strowman, it’s possible he’ll work with Big Show at Fastlane prior to facing Undertaker at WrestleMania.
- He worked 6 man tag program that Big Show happened to be involved in but not a one on one match. They main evented a Raw with Show/Strowman once. Strowman didn’t have a WrestleMania match. (0/2)
- Shinsuke Nakamura is expected to work some time in NXT prior to being called to the main roster.
- While I’m sure he will get called up, I am going to wait until it actually happens prior to grading this one.
- Austin Aries may never be called up to the main roster and only work NXT.
- I’ll have to give this some time. I’ve been giving rumors like this about Samoa Joe time for like a year now and if he’s not up by the end of the year, I’m marking them incorrect.
- Although it’s possible, there’s no indication that this WrestleMania will be Undertakers last match.
- We haven’t seen him since WrestleMania, but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ll have to hold out a bit on this one to find out.
- According to the Observer there are issues between Rey Mysterio and Lucha Underground similar to the ones they had with Alberto El Patron, creatively and financially.
- I wondered if this was part of the reason Rey went over in the main event of Ultima Lucha Dos against Prince Puma which was taped only a few days after this rumor.
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This Week: 9/19 - 47%
Overall: 938/1,778 - 52.8%
Have a great week, everyone!