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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 jump right into it.
- For what it’s worth, Dave Meltzer seemed to think the finish to the Brock Lesnar-Roman Reigns match at Greatest Royal Rumble was botched. PW Insider, however, claims it was the planned finish all along.
- Felt like a botch the way it played out, but it could have been the plan to make it seem less ridiculous to lead to another Brock Lesnar/Roman Reigns match at SummerSlam.
- WrestlingNews.co says WWE told wrestlers if they objected to the Greatest Royal Rumble show they could stay home and not participate.
- Most guys worked the GRR. With respect to Crown Jewel, Daniel Bryan and John Cena didn’t want to so they stayed home. But John is super part time and Daniel likely has a some pull. I wonder if other guys didn’t want to go but opted not to rock the boat.
- Daniel Bryan is going to be working a full house show schedule starting soon, per the Observer.
- Looks like he works a pretty full house show schedule. (1/1)
- WWE clocked Mike Kanellis’ elimination in the Greatest Royal Rumble at 3 seconds, meaning Santino Marella’s record 1 second elimination in 2009 is safe.
- Got paid for 3 seconds of work. Could be worse. Though to have to travel half way around the world for that probably evens it out.
- The Riyadh Report is saying WWE will return to Saudi Arabia for another show in November.
- Very accurate. It did not go as smoothly PR-wise. (1/1)
- According to PW Insider, there were some within WWE who were not happy about going to Saudi Arabia to perform at Greatest Royal Rumble.
- No change in this six months later.
- Drew McIntyre wasn’t at Greatest Royal Rumble because WWE didn’t call him up to the main roster in time enough to work out a visa for him, per the Observer.
- Love me some Drew McIntyre.
- Apparently some fans thought Aiden English was hurt at Greatest Royal Rumble on the Tombstone he took from Undertaker but PW Insider says he’s okay.
- If there was something, it didn’t cost him any time. (1/1)
- PW Insider says WWE was originally going to have Hornswoggle wrestle on the Greatest Royal Rumble Kickoff show against Wee-BL but instead decided to put him in the Rumble match.
- Interesting.
- Brock Lesnar’s next match is expected to be at June’s Money in the Bank.
- He didn’t work again until SummerSlam. (0/1)
- On the subject of Money in the Bank as WWE is looking to make it a ”Big 5” PPV, it looks like events other than it, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series will remain three hours long, even with both Raw and SmackDown Superstars on every show.
- The last two non-special PPVs that featured a full roster (meaning not including Evolution), ran about 3 hours and 40 minutes, long enough for me to say “remain three hours” is incorrect. (0/1)
- WWE wanted Big Show involved in WrestleMania and Greatest Royal Rumble, according to Wrestling Observer Radio, but he suffered a new injury while coming back from his hip surgery.
- From the way Big Show tells it, he didn’t have any new injury. He had a pretty big issue with infection post surgery but nothing new just prior to these shows that would have affected his appearance. (0/1)
- There’s speculation Shelton Benjamin will be added to the United States Championship match at Backlash so he can take the pin rather than Randy Orton or Jeff Hardy.
- He was not in the Backlash match. (0/1)
- A Saudi Prince WWE was dealing with while planning Greatest Royal Rumble allegedly wanted to see Undertaker, Ultimate Warrior and Yokozuna - apparently unaware the last two are dead. In relaying the story on Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer says Sumo Hiroki Sumi was “probably” brought in as a Yokozuna substitute.
- Such a ridiculous story (though probably true).
- There aren’t expected to be any title changes at Backlash.
- This is accurate. (1/1)
- WWE had been using Braun Strowman’s green Greatest Royal Rumble championship title in graphics for Backlash but they were deleted. It would appear the belt won’t be used going forward.
- It was a one-night prop. He was unable to win a real belt in his last trip to Saudi Arabia a couple days ago. (1/1)
- WWE Network News says Sunday Night Heat is coming to the Network next week.
- It’s on the Network now, though I can’t say exactly when it was added. (1/1)
- PW Insider says folks within Impact Wrestling blamed last week’s lower than normal viewership numbers on the NFL Draft.
- Impact has bled so many viewers that Pop pushed them back to a less desirable 10 pm slot.
- The expectation is WWE will add at least one more match to Backlash, and maybe more than one.
- They added a Bayley vs. Ruby Riott preshow match. What would you know? They’re still feuding. (1/1)
- Daniel Bryan was originally scheduled to interrupt Big Cass during the segment on SmackDown Live this week but that was changed late, per Fightful.
- This was the segment that Cass beat up the little person where he defied orders and likely at least partially led to his release.
- PW Torch is saying Keith Lee has signed a deal with WWE and he’ll be reporting to NXT soon.
- He’s part of NXT now. (1/1)
- The Torch also says Ricochet has been great to work with in NXT and “in turn producers have invited him to have more input into his character.”
- I can believe this. I wonder if NXT talent has more input in general on their characters than the main rosters - especially because they’re developing them more in NXT.
- WrestleVotes says NXT referee Drake Wuertz made a play to work the Ronda Rousey & Kurt Angle vs. Stephanie McMahon & Triple H match at WrestleMania 34 and obviously got it. This apparently was a big surprise to the main roster referees.
- I wondered if they used an NXT referee because Triple H and Stephanie took advantage of Wuertz in the match, and they wanted to protect the regular main roster referees from looking bad.
This week: 8/12 - 67%
April 2018: 41/78 - 53%
Overall: 2,439/4,425 - 55.1%
Have a great week, everyone!