Rumor Look Back: July 7 - 13, 2017

Welcome to the weekly Rumor Look Back, where we look at the rumors from six months ago and see which played out as originally predicted. Let’s get right to it.

July 7, 2017

• According to the Observer, there has been talk in WWE of doing a women’s Royal Rumble match next January.
• (It’s happening Ron Paul gif) (1/1)
• Braun Strowman is a big favorite over Roman Reigns at Great Balls of Fire, leading to speculation that WWE is sticking with the original idea of him winning. What that would mean for Roman Reigns and is SummerSlam title match is unclear.
• Braun did win the ambulance match though then got murdered by Roman. Don’t worry, he survived just to get murdered by Kane later on. Don’t worry. He survived that too. (1/1)
• Apparently Alberto El Patron tried to cut a promo on WWE at a GFW Impact Wrestling taping the other night and he was drowned out by his entrance music being played louder and louder until he gave up on it.
• Sigh... Alberto...
• The plan is for GFW to debut its new titles on television on Aug. 17 at the Destination X show.
• That’s what they did. (1/1)
• New Japan is looking at running a big show in New Orleans on WrestleMania weekend next year, according to the Observer.
• I’ve heard nothing about that yet. They announced a ton of shows at Wrestle Kingdom laying out much of the year and that wasn’t one of them. I’m going to mark this as incorrect for now and correct myself if things change. (0/1)

July 8, 2017

• The word on Austin Aries release, according to the Observer, is that he asked for it. Speculation is he was unhappy with the idea of being stuck in the cruiserweight division.
• According to the man himself on Talk is Jericho, he did not ask for his release. He said they released him because they didn’t have anything for him. (0/1)
• In addition to talking about doing a women’s Royal Rumble next January, WWE has apparently also talked about doing a tag team tournament next summer that is similar to the Dusty Classic.
• I would love a tag tournament as their next summer tournament. The CWC and MYC have both been great.
• The Bella Twins may be getting another show, this one on the WWE Network and based on nutrition and cooking.
• That’s a YouTube thing. (0/1)
• The Observer notes GFW is claiming they did “triple” the PPV buys of last year’s Slammiversary for the 2017 event.
• It was an OK show. I don’t know the PPV buys. It ran up against the New Japan G1 Special second night.

July 10, 2017

• According to Observer Radio, Austin Aries did not request his release, but was happy when WWE decided to let him go.
• This lines up more with what A Double said on the podcast. I don’t know if he was happy in the sense he was hoping it’d happen. He was willing to stick around in a different role. But he seemed positive about everything on the pod. Oh and he’s Impact world champion right now.
• That’s because he was reportedly unhappy (particularly about losing out on WrestleMania royalties due to his match being on the pre-show and off the DVD) and unpopular backstage, and this way he can resume wrestling for other companies well before the three-year contract he signed in 2016 expires.
• This is the type of stuff he likely wouldn’t talk about even if it were true, especially the idea that he wasn’t liked. He kind of refuted the royalties bit but not directly.
• WWE has taken the already announced U.S. title match off the Battleground page following AJ Styles win over Kevin Owens at Madison Square Garden last Friday. Despite that, word is Owens is not hurt or scheduled for any lengthy absence from television.
• KO has been around all year mainly. (1/1)
• Ring of Honor’s 2016 Top Prospect Tournament winner Lio Rush announced his final CZW appearance for next month, and PWInsider says it’s because he’s been offered a NXT deal.
• He’s in WWE now and had a few NXT matches. There was rumor they were considering releasing him after his unwise Emma tweet, but that hasn’t happened. That’s being worked into story now. (1/1)

July 11, 2017

• The finish of Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss’ match at Great Balls of Fire was changed at the last minute because WWE wants to use the reports the two women dislike each other in real life to extend their feud.
• A shame they didn’t actually extend the feud. They had a match at SummerSlam but the plan was Bayley until she was hurt.
• Bray Wyatt going over Seth Rollins was also a late change, but the reasons there are less clear.
• I don’t remember that match or feud at all.
• A backstage source reportedly told Fightful that Brock Lesnar was “was really, really happy with Samoa Joe” after their match on Sunday, which is probably helping keep him in the mix for SummerSlam.
• Joe rules. It’s a damn shame he got hurt last Monday.
• Lei’D Tapa, Barbi Hayden, Jessica James, Santana Garrett and Miranda are all expected to be announced for the Mae Young Classic soon.
• Santana Garrett was and Miranda Salinas were. The other three were not. (2/5)
• Based on a trademark filing, looks like the Bella Twins cooking show we told you about last week will be called Bella Appetit.
• That is the name of the YouTube show. (1/1)

July 12, 2017

• The SummerSlam main event plan apparently changed recently, though it’s unclear what it was changed to. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar was the rumored match but it could be a triple threat or even Fatal 4-Way now.
• It did end up being a fatal 4-way. Don’t know what the original plans were though.
• Not surprisingly, Braun Strowman is expected back for Monday Night Raw next week.
• He was there. (1/1)
• There are expected to be multiple multi-person matches on the SummerSlam card, as well as two to three matches on the pre-show.
• There were 3 pre-show matches. The multi-person matches is an odd one. Yes the main event was a fatal 4-way, but I’m reading this multi-person matches as “get every on the card” match. Since one of the kickoff matches was Miztourage with the Miz vs. the Hardyz and Jason Jordan, which is a random one, I’ll count that part as correct as well. (2/2)
• According to Squared Circle Sirens and the Observer, Shayna Baszler, Rachael Ellering, Santana Garrett, Renee Michelle, Barbi Hayden, Nicole Savoy, Mercedes Martinez, Marti Belle, and Ayesha Ray are all expected to be announced for the Mae Young Classic.
• Only one on this list that is incorrect is Barbi Hayden. This is one of those rumors that pad the stats. (8/9)

July 13, 2017

• According to PWInsider, the Hardys and GFW did have an agreement in principle which would have allowed Matt & Jeff to use the “Broken” gimmick in WWE, but Impact President Ed Nordholm has not signed the deal sent to Anthem by the Hardys lawyers.
• We don’t know the specifics of the details. but it took another half year for Impact to release the rights.
• Given Jeff Jarrett’s comments yesterday, it looks like Nordholm won’t sign, which will leave the Hardys no recourse but a lawsuit where they’ll likely claim their contracts were breached during Dixie Carter’s ownership of TNA.
• This avoided a courtroom.
• Speculation Carter could appear on Raw in Nashville next Monday is heating up, with Dixie playing coy when asked about it in a recent SI.com interview.
• She did not appear on Raw but she was on the Kurt Angle WWE 24 video. (0/1)
• When we learn the identities of the entire 32 woman Mae Young Classic field tonight, former TNA Knockout Marti Belle and current Shimmer champ Mercedes Martinez will be included, says Insider.
• This is true. MYC continues to pad the rumor stats, but I always count rumors from different sources correctly even if listed multiple times. (2/2)

This week: 21/29 - 72%

Overall: 1,935/3,542 - 54.6%

Have a great week, everyone!