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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.
- On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer mentioned Zelina Vega was essentially given a choice to stop Twitch or be fired and she was adamant about continuing her streaming.
- Now the word is she’s coming back. Looking at her Twitch, it looks like she hasn’t streamed in a couple months. The fact she’s no longer streaming makes me think she didn’t work out some special deal to continue it. (That makes sense since Xavier Woods can’t even do it to promote WWE owned UpUpDownDown.) I also wonder what the desire to return to WWE was. Obviously her love of wrestling is a factor, but she could have gone to AEW and done both. Then there is the fact her husband is in WWE, which may have been a big factor.
- He also mentioned there is a growing resentment in the locker room now that house shows are gone and that source of revenue has dried up and hasn’t been replaced.
- That’s understandable. WWE didn’t allow anything like Twitch or Cameo.
- According to Ringside News, Chelsea Green was supposed to win the Survivor Series qualifying match on SmackDown this past week before getting hurt.
- She was released with the last batch of cuts, never getting a real chance to show what she could do on the main roster.
- Brodie Lee has been out because of an injury, maybe to his ankle, said Meltzer on his Observer Forum.
- It feels a bit weird evaluating this at all, but unfortunately we know it was wrong. It was not an injury but a fatal lung condition. AEW did a great job keeping this close to the vest, protecting the privacy of the family. (0/1)
- Per the Observer, AEW Full Gear did roughly 100,000 buys on pay-per-view, particularly doing well overseas.
- This number doesn’t include B/R Live, which they really push in the states.
- According to Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer, Vince McMahon tore up the script for last Friday’s SmackDown “on Thursday night/Friday morning” and rewrote it. No one else involved in the show had the new script until late afternoon.
- Thursday night/Friday morning sounds like they had more time to adjust than normal when Vince tears up the script.
- Changes included Chelsea Green being added to the Women’s Survivor Series qualifier, and booking the Seth Rollins/Rey Mysterio blowoff.
- This was when Rey defeated Seth in a No Holds Barred match and then the Mysterios accepted the 32 year old Murphy as the boyfriend of their 19 year old daughter. That story was soon dropped.
- Meltzer also said on WOR that Zelina Vega was making more money from her work on Twitch and other services than she was from her WWE.
- I wonder if a new contract would be more lucrative than streaming. It would be disappointing if she gave up something she enjoyed in streaming & the extra money to come back. That would be really demoralizing in a “the big corporation won again” kind of way.
- Ethan Page & Taya Valkyrie’s Impact Wrestling contracts expire at the end of the year, per PW Insider.
- Page is in AEW and Taya is in NXT as Frankie Monet. (2/2)
- Insider also reports that recent Performance Center signee Brandi Lauren’s WWE name will be Skyler Storey
- That was her name on Instagram so I assume so. She’s was released last week. (1/1)
- On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said Roman Reigns wasn’t originally intended to have a long run with the Universal championship.
- I don’t know how much I believe that. There’s no way of knowing, but the way they rolled him out does not indicate a guy who’s going to have a couple month reign.
- Per WrestleVotes, there were ideas thrown around for WrestleMania 37 including Bray Wyatt & Alexa Bliss vs. Edge & Beth Phoenix but that’s unlikely to happen and Edge vs. Randy Orton is still the most likely match.
- Edge vs. Randy didn’t happen. Neither did that mixed tag. (0/1)
- The speculation, obvious as it may be, is that everything we’ve seen with Sheamus and Drew McIntyre recently is a slow build to the two feuding. That could happen very soon.
- They had a feud though it never landed. They should have saved it to initially run at a pay-per-view. Instead they already had a couple matches on Raw prior and it never felt as big as it could have been, even for a one off PPV feud. (1/1)
- According to PW Insider, Kurt Angle is being brought in for Undertaker’s farewell at Survivor Series.
- Doesn’t look like Kurt was there for it. (0/1)
- The Observer notes that while Mandy Rose was written off Survivor Series due to injury, Dana Brooke’s injury was an angle to write her off along with her tag partner.
- Normally if someone gets hurt, their tag partner is off TV too. That is instead of finding something to do with the other partner.
- WWE will be moving ThunderDome from Orlando’s Amway Center to St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field in early-to-mid December. eWrestlingnews was among the first to report the news.
- That’s correct. (1/1)
- WrestleVotes also tweeted about the move, saying WWE will likely be in St. Pete through “Mania season.” The account added that WWE still wants to have some fans in attendance for Royal Rumble, which could be at Tropicana Field. The company is hoping to start “traditional live arena shows with fans the night after WrestleMania.”
- They were at Tropicana through WrestleMania. But there were no fans at the Royal Rumble, and they didn’t start touring after Mania. That doesn’t start until July. (1/3)
- Court filings obtained by Heel By Nature show WWE is working to get Candy Cartwright’s civil suit against Matt Riddle, the company & others moved from municipal to federal court.
- The suit was eventually dropped against WWE and Gabe Sapolsky, though not Riddle. I haven’t seen a recent update.
- Chelsea Green met with Vince McMahon before her SmackDown debut was booked, according to Fightful Select. The meeting is said to have gone well, and prior to her injury, Green was not only supposed to win a Survivor Series spot, but to unveil her new nickname “Victorious” in a post-match promo.
- She spoke about later trying to meet with the boss but it was difficult.
- PW Insider says Impact tried to get Kurt Angle to make his return to the company at Bound For Glory, but they obviously couldn’t get a deal worked out.
- I don’t envision Kurt showing up in Impact any time soon.
- According to Fightful, Big E was supposed to qualify for Team SmackDown on last week’s episode, but his match was cut due to time constraints.
- He wasn’t on the team at all.
- Fightful also says it’s believed that Arturo Ruas suffered a legitimate torn biceps on this week’s NXT episode.
- That’s the case. Injuries are always unfortunate. (1/1)
- There is speculation that one reason why there have been minimal cross-brand interactions in the lead up to Survivor Series is to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.
- That makes sense. Especially given NXT seems to be the biggest issue.
- Artem Chigvintsev told Us Magazine that Nikki Bella has had talks with WWE about a return to the ring with Brie.
- It’s possible that still happens at one point. The rumors still persist. I would like to see them compete for the tag titles at one point.
- On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that AEW is really struggling to sell tickets for their Dynamite episodes at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida.
- That’s apparently still an issue. It’s tough to sell to the same crowd over and over again.
- The Wrestling Observer Newsletter says “all the key players” thought Roman Reigns vs. Randy Orton would be the Survivor Series match right up until Drew McIntyre won the title from Orton on Raw.
- Roman vs. Drew was a great match, and I would bet Drew finds himself on SmackDown at the end of this year for them to pick it back up.
- They also say the belief is while Seth Rollins will be taking time off for the birth of his child with Becky Lynch he’ll be back “fairly quickly.”
- It was two plus months, so a decent amount of time. He was supposed to return a month early but it ended up being changed. (0/1)
- Finally, WON says Triple H is trying to “implement some type of show” to get more ring time and exposure for more of the roster.
- Like they don’t have enough shows. That has not happened. (0/1)
- According to the Observer, there were discussions involving Chael Sonnen going to Impact Wrestling to feud with Ken Shamrock but he decided against it.
- Chael never got as involved with pro wrestling as a character like him could have.
- AAA is finalizing a date for TripleMania this year and it will be happening very soon. It is not, however, scheduled for Dec. 26 as has been reported some places, per the Observer.
- It was Dec. 13. (1/1)
This week: 8/15 - 53%
Overall: 3,753/6,673 - 56.2%
Have a great week, everyone.