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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 stated. Let’s get right to it!
- Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez claims Mauro Ranallo missing Survivor Series was a result of Corey Graves’ Twitter criticism.
- That was a bit of an ugly situation. He missed a week of NXT TV but then came back.
- In an Instagram post Kylie Rae addressed her departure from AEW, which has been the focus of a lot of gossip on social media. The indie star shot down the rumors, stating “nobody made me leave.”
- This is one we may not know the full story. She didn’t quit wrestling or anything. She signed with Impact.
- On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said TakeOver: Portland (and NXT UK’s TakeOver: Blackpool 2) are on Sunday so WWE Network can test their “belief” shows get more viewers on Sundays than Saturdays.
- I wonder what they’ve found given we’re not privy to the WWE Network numbers. I’m a fan of Saturday myself.
- Meltzer also noted Shayna Baszler is “wanted on the main roster”, but “the dynamic has changed greatly” with NXT on USA opposite AEW.
- She eventually made the jump, but maybe not as quickly as they were originally planning.
- Timing issues led to SmackDown going off air before the planned ending, per Fightful. Mustafa Ali tweeted the spot that was supposed to end the broadcast on Fox.
- That’s the type of mistake we don’t see too often from WWE.
- There’s a lot of talk backstage about getting CM Punk to appear on an upcoming edition of Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Sessions, says PW Insider. It’s not known if anyone at WWE has reached out to Punk yet, though.
- That has not happened. I don’t know if WWE would want him given such a platform on their Network, though the numbers would probably rival some PPVs. (0/1)
- The latest word from Wrestling Observer Radio is that things are fine between Mauro Ranallo & WWE and both sides expect him to work NXT Wednesday night.
- He didn’t work NXT. He took a week but was back soon enough. (0/1)
- Dave Meltzer also said that Michael Cole’s story that Ranallo blew his voice out was “absolutely not true”, and that WWE wasn’t happy about Corey Graves’ tweets. That appears to be what Graves tweeted at Meltzer about yesterday afternoon.
- I don’t blame Corey for Mauro having mental health issues, but he dug in for awhile after this before finally issuing a bit of an apology on his podcast.
- According to Fightful Select, WWE is considering some kind of action to stop AEW’s use of “Bash at the Beach”. Cody Rhodes does own the trademark for the name, but WWE owns “The Bash” and would argue AEW’s shows might be confused with their property.
- I don’t know if any action was attempted. The Elite alluded to something but the show also happened normally in January.
- Vince McMahon was among those disappointed by the main event of Survivor Series, per WrestleVotes.
- It just didn’t click.
- Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio said Vince McMahon was furious at Seth Rollins responding to the CM Punk chants the way he did on Raw this week, apparently because Vince doesn’t want to be building to a match that isn’t in the plans.
- That’s understandable on Vince’s end, but may as well generate some buzz. WWE creative in general starts things that aren’t addressed here and there.
- Speaking of Punk, for whatever it’s worth he told a fan he simply wasn’t booked to appear on WWE Backstage this week. It isn’t believed to have anything to do with Triple H appearing on the show.
- It’s an interaction I’d love to see, but Triple H would never sign off on that.
- Meltzer said Naomi has been kept off television because The Usos are still being kept off television.
- That’s about right. Usos came back early January while Naomi came back at the Rumble. Jimmy got hurt and he is off TV right now, but Naomi still is. (1/1)
- PW Insider says NXT is locked into a contract with Full Sail on Wednesday nights until at least the end of March 2020.
- That’s where they did all those shows (except for the one in the WWE Performance Center) in that time. (1/1)
- WWE recently filed trademarks for old ECW event names, leading to speculation we could see those return in some capacity.
- We haven’t seen any of those shows. (0/1)
- According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, Corey Graves saw his tweets criticizing Mauro Ranallo as part of the Survivor Series “brand warfare” and was going to bring them up “in a joking manner” while working with Ranallo on the PPV.
- That’s how he described it on his own podcast later. (1/1)
- WWE found out Ranallo wouldn’t be working this week’s NXT on Tuesday, per PW Insider.
- He was back the following week.
- Before Survivor Series, WrestlingNews.co said their sources told them Vince McMahon was “a fan of Keith Lee & Matt Riddle”. Coming out of Sunday’s show, the site reports backstage was buzzing about Lee in particular.
- Keith Lee I get. While I can see why he’d like Riddle, I wonder if how the Bro carries himself affects how Vince sees him. According to Riddle, it does not.
- PW Insider says Bobby Fish was pulled from last night’s NXT Tag Title match because officials were concerned he’d been “hurt or knocked for a loop”, but he was walking around backstage after the show and seemed to be okay.
- Smart to play it safe.
- DVR numbers for NXT and Dynamite are “shockingly good”, says Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Radio, which mean a lot more people are watching Wednesday night wrestling than the next day ratings indicate.
- Some people probably watch one on DVR and one live.
- Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that Mauro Ranallo has been in rough shape and it’s probably worse than has been stated so far.
- Luckily he felt better to return soon enough, unlike that worse episode years back that kept him off TV for a while.
- Cain Velasquez hasn’t been advertised for the Mexico house shows on some commercials, leading to speculation he may not be working the show after all.
- He did work that show where he teamed with Humberto Carrillo to defeat the OC. Of those four, only Carrillo is still with the company. (0/1)
- Damian Priest apparently suffered a rib injury at TakeOver: WarGames.
- He wasn’t out for too long.
- Tweets from an account claiming to be associated with WWE putting out rumors appear to be fraudulent, as exposed by Kristen Ashly.
- Some people have too much time on their hands.
- The word going around is the Joey Janela frustration with AEW stuff is an angle.
- I don’t think it ever played out on TV so I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think he was really upset.
- For whatever it’s worth, the Observer says Bray Wyatt is now the top merchandise seller in WWE.
- The Fiend is really cool and cool sells.
- In the latest issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it’s pointed out that there were many within WWE who felt Corey Graves was the victim after his tweets about Mauro Ranallo led to Mauro taking time off.
- Of course that’s the mindset in WWE. Now to be fair, I think fans got on him too much. He was a bit of a dick and if you offend your coworker, you should apologize. But as I mentioned before, Mauro’s issues are well known and they’re not Corey’s fault.
- They also say the original plan for Shayna Baszler going into Survivor Series was to groom her for Becky Lynch and have her on the main roster in 2020.
- This rumor implies the plan changed. But in the end, that’s what happened - original plan or not.
- EC3 has been out due to a concussion he suffered in September, according to Dave Meltzer.
- They probably weren’t going to put him on TV anyway.
- He also says the idea behind doing TakeOver shows on Sundays is to experiment with it to see how it does viewership wise.
- Maybe they think WWE fans are accustomed to watching the specials that night.
This week: 3/7 - 43%
November 2019: 37/59 - 68%
Overall: 3,323/5,931 - 56.0%
Have a good week, everyone. Stay safe and healthy.