Rumor Look Back: Oct. 17 - 23, 2021

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. First, let’s knock some old rumors off the outstanding list.

March 27, 2019

• Advertisements for Survivor Series later this year are pushing the “Raw vs. SmackDown” theme once again.
• This is a bit nitpicky, but it ended up as Raw vs. SmackDown vs. NXT, which is different. They only did that for one year. (0/1)

May 4, 2019

• The Observer says Los Angeles is the likely landing spot for WrestleMania 37 in 2021.
• It was even announced, but this is one of those rumors the pandemic messed up. 37 ended up being in Tampa as Tampa was moved to the Performance Center the year prior. Now LA is going to be next year. (0/1)

May 11, 2019

• The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that they’ve been told the planned opponent for Becky Lynch at WrestleMania next year, as of right now at least, is not Stephanie McMahon, Ronda Rousey, or Charlotte Flair.
• She faced Shayna Baszler (and won) before going on maternity leave soon after. I would venture to say Shayna never really recovered from that. Not that she couldn’t have but creative never gave her a chance. (1/1)

OK, now onto this week’s rumors.

October 18, 2021

• Braun Strowman met with Impact Wrestling’s Scott D’Amore in Detroit this past weekend, according to PW Insider, and they had a long chat.
• It did not go anywhere given they’re not doing any business.
• Insider also says Impact has been working on “several surprises” for Bound for Glory this year.
• There were no surprises. Looks like the Forbidden Door talent and all that were announced ahead of time. (0/1)
• The Observer notes current planned main events for Madison Square Garden on Dec. 26 are Big E vs. Bobby Lashley for the WWE championship and Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair.
• I don’t see either match even on the card, though it looks like the Lynch vs. Belair was planned until affected by COVID, though it doesn’t look like E vs. Bobby as a plan. Edge and Kevin Owens had themselves a cage match though. (1/2)
• Fightful Select says Shane Helms produced the Carmella vs. Zelina Vega match on SmackDown last week, and Joseph Park produced the Finn Balor vs. Sami Zayn match.
• It’s wild that Abyss is a producer at WWE now.
• Select also notes that Lady Frost has received a contract offer from Impact Wrestling.
• I believe this is true as she still works with but cannot find an official Impact announcement or one from Lady Frost regarding her contract. She has done consistent work with them and liked folks’ tweets that congratulated her about signing a contract so I’m going to say yet. (1/1)

October 19, 2021

• According to WrestleVotes, the Friday night ratings were “a HOT topic” backstage at Raw last night. Mat Men’s Andrew Zarian confirmed this.
• I wonder with whom? The talent? Middle management? Vince and Bruce?
• Zarian also reports that WWE will bring back the Retro Raw concept in January.
• They did not. (0/1)
• Talent heading to Saudi Arabia for Crown Jewel will need a negative PCR test before departing, per PW Insider. The site also says “the belief among those we’ve spoken to is that all talents going to the event will have had to have been vaccinated as well.”
• I wonder if that was a requirement to get into the country at the time.
• No titles are expected to change hands at Crown Jewel, at least according to the latest odds from bookmakers like Bet Online.
• That’s accurate. (1/1)
• WrestleVotes says WWE is changing up Karrion Kross’ presentation again. Kross will be “more of a ‘psycho’ yet still ‘calm & cool’.” The helmet stays, but his theme music & entrance will change. And “still no Scarlett.”
• He was released within a month of this. So no. (0/1)

October 20, 2021

• Ringside News claims there are those backstage on SmackDown who aren’t happy that Becky Lynch is going to Raw and Charlotte Flair is coming to the blue brand.
• There had been some rumors (maybe after this) that Charlotte does some things to alienate some of the locker room. I think those were around the championship swap, which was only days later. But who knows how accurate those are.
• Although others have said last Friday night’s ratings were a hot topic backstage at Raw, Shane Helms and Ringside News claim that’s not the case.
• Split rumor! (1/2)
• The Wrestling Observer notes that the feeling among WWE brass is they just need to ride it out and AEW will burn out like WCW did.
• I don’t think that’s going to be the case.
• GiveMeSport claims Montez Ford’s recent main event singles match with Roman Reigns was something of a test to see how he would hold up and he got high marks for his performance. There are apparently big things in his future.
• I love the Profits but Ford can be a massive singles star too. That just wouldn’t bode well for Angelo Dawkins.
• Bobby Lashley told Busted Open Radio that Gage Goldberg will be in Saudi Arabia for Crown Jewel. Obvious speculation is he will get involved in the match.
• If Gage was there, he didn’t get involved. (0/1)

October 21, 2021

• After announcing on Tuesday that their breast cancer awareness merchandise would benefit Susan G. Komen, AEW received criticism on social media, with many pointing out CM Punk’s 2015 tweet saying “Komen is a scam.” WhatCulture notes AEW’s since deleted all references to Komen in promotion of the merch, but hasn’t commented otherwise.
• WWE still does business with them, I believe.
• Regarding speculation Charlotte Flair could be added to Crown Jewel’s SmackDown Women’s title match, Fightful Select says she is not listed internally for today’s show. Talents in Saudi Arabia they’ve checked with haven’t seen her there, either.
• She was not part of that match. (1/1)
• For whatever it’s worth, Shotzi & Nox worked heel against Natalya & Tamina on last weekend’s house show in El Paso.
• They didn’t work together for long.
• Deonna Purrazzo told Fightful she and Britt Baker are interested in working together in AEW & Impact as a tag team. They’ve approached their respective bosses Scott D’Amore & Tony Khan about it.
• That never came to pass, which is a bit of a shame.
• After a nasty fall during the Triple Threat on Tuesday’s NXT, Toxic Attraction’s Jacy Jayne was taken out of the match and helped to the back. Wrestling Observer Live’s Bryan Alvarez says Jayne underwent a CT scan and the results were normal, but her status for the Women’s Tag title Ladder Match at Halloween Havoc is still unclear.
• She was able to compete.

October 22, 2021

• The people in WWE who PW Insider spoke with were “really thrilled” with yesterday’s Crown Jewel pay-per-view (PPV) event. It sounds like WWE plans to return to Saudi Arabia in the first quarter of 2022.
• They returned for Elimination Chamber. Crown Jewel was a strong show. The first Saudi show that didn’t feel like a house show. (1/1)
• WWE currently does not have any NXT TakeOver PPV events listed on their internal schedule for the rest of 2021, per Insider.
• They don’t call them TakeOvers any more. I thought next show was New Year’s Evil in Jan but I forgot they had a WarGames in early Dec. And that was on Peacock. (0/1)
• On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said Paul Heyman wanted Aleister Black to defeat Brock Lesnar and win the WWE championship at WrestleMania 36, but it didn’t happen because Vince McMahon saw things differently from Heyman.
• They would have had to do A LOT of work to get Black there. Drew was being built for a while. Black was a newer addition to the roster who the fans were still getting used to. Aleister/Malachi is a great talent and that match probably would have been great. But Drew was the correct choice. Vince may have been correct in this case.
• F4WOnline’s Bryan Alvarez indicated the reason why WWE permanently removed Riddle’s first name is because they didn’t want anybody to search his name on the internet when his personal life was under scrutiny.
• WWE really fears what happens when people use search engines.
• AEW filed for a trademark on “WYW” and the phrase “Watch Your Wrestling.” WWE recently filed for a trademark on the term “AXIOM.”
• I don’t think either of these have come to play in either promotion.

October 23, 2021

• In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer said the reason Eva Marie was written off WWE television and didn’t get drafted is because she is “working on a movie for a while.”
• She was soon released.
• PW Insider had several updates about how WWE will present talents after the draft. On Raw, Mia Yim is supposed to debut as a babyface, and Tegan Nox will remain babyface as a singles star. On SmackDown, the site says Xia Li will be a face, but Shotzi will turn heel.
• Mia never debuted. Nox was released. Xia is a babyface and Shotzi did turn heel. (2/4)
• Insider goes on to say the Hit Row faction will obviously remain together, but Top Dolla will be the singles act, while Swerve Scott & Ashante Adonis will represent the group in the tag scene.
• They were released too, though for some reason B-Fab was released prior to the rest of the guys.
• There’s talk of using Apollo Crews & Commander Azeez as a tag team on Raw, per Insider.
• That did not happen. (0/1)
• The Observer mentions that with west coast NHL games set to air after Dynamite at 10 pm ET for the next several Wednesdays, TNT’s current plan is to air hockey live in the Mountain and Western time zones. That means Dynamite will be run on delay at 10 or 11 pm in those areas, a move that will hurt AEW in the national ratings.
• This was one of the reasons they moved to TBS.

This week: 8/18 - 44%

Overall: 4,131/7,289 - 56.7%

Have a great week, everyone!