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 jump right to it.
- Stephanie McMahon talked about the WWE Board’s investigation of her father at an “all hands on deck meeting” at the company Thursday, PW Insider reported: “She noted that she loves her father and that she loves WWE and will be doing everything she can for the company in the days ahead.”
- This was before Vince officially stepped down. This was when they brought her back in an interim role as he waited on the investigation.
- The site also says that over the past week Stephanie has been ”actively involved” in meetings Vince normally would have been a part of.
- Still looking forward to the independent documentary that delves into all of this.
- AEW will be “heavily involved” with Discovery’s Shark Week, says the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Promos have already been filmed for it, and they plan on doing a gimmick match the week of July 24 related to Shark Week.
- They had the Barbed Wired Everywhere match which contained a shark cage as part of the tie in. (1/1)
- As far as Bryan Danielson’s injury is concerned, The Observer says, “It was believed he had suffered a concussion in the Anarchy in the Arena match.”
- Bryan was out for awhile.
- NXT wrestlers Io Shirai and Zoey Stark are expected back from injury “relatively soon,” per the WON.
- Both women returned in July. Io returned to the main roster and Stark back to NXT. (2/2)
- The WWE roster’s reaction to Bruce Prichard taking over talent relations from John Laurinaitis is “generally negative”, per Wrestling Observer Newsletter. This is because Laurinaitis was seen as approachable while Prichard isn’t. One person called the move “scary.”
- Lucky for them, Triple H got that job after everything went down. It seems like he has a good relationship with a good deal of the roster.
- WWE specifically wanted to remove Bray Wyatt from the WWE 2K22 roster after he was released from the company, reports Fightful Select. This despite the fact other Superstars let go after him were left in the game when it launched earlier this year.
- After all this, Bray is back in the fold.
- AEW’s Blood & Guts match for this week’s Dynamite was always planned as six-on-six, according to the WON. Sammy Guevara rejoined Jericho Appreciation Society to give them a sixth man to balance out Wheeler Yuta on the other team.
- This was a fun match, but in general, I’m not the biggest fan of War Games. (A minority take, I know.)
- Fightful also reports Orange Cassidy’s theme song will soon change. AEW has supposedly licensed Jefferson Starship’s “Jane”, which he frequently used on the indies, to replace The Pixie’s “Where Is My Mind?”
- That’s the case. (1/1)
- Based on how Ric Flair’s been talking about him on his podcast, speculation is Jay Lethal will be one of the Nature Boy’s opponents at Ric Flair’s Last Match.
- That’s the case. He teamed with Jeff Jarrett. Funny enough, they’re still a team, challenging for the AEW tag titles next week. (1/1)
- In the Observer’s Daily Update, Dave Meltzer notes that neither WWE nor Jerry McDevitt have commented on the updated Vince McMahon rape allegation. Meltzer speculates that’s because the media hasn’t picked up the story, so it “doesn’t appear to be harmful to McMahon’s position right now.”
- All of it definitely got to be too much to just ride out. Though Vince thinks he could have.
- John Cena’s return excited the WWE locker room, according to WrestleVotes: “Cena is viewed as the ultimate leader, with his positive presence felt throughout the company when he’s around.”
- He just returned for a match a couple days ago.
- Jon Moxley was busted open “hardway” at Forbidden Door, per Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio, probably because he and Hiroshi Tanahasi “clonked heads”.
- That man loves to bleed.
- Mox mentioned in the post-show interview that he might have gotten a concussion in Sunday’s main event, but Meltzer writes that “it was just something he said but he’s fine.”
- He didn’t miss any time. (1/1)
- Kurt Angle told NBC Sports Boston that one of the AEW offers he turned down was for 10 matches, but he turned them down because he knows he can’t be “the old Kurt Angle” any more.
- It’s good to have that self awareness. Some wrestlers don’t have that.
- PW Insider says the belief is Kevin Owens is injured and that’s why he missed Raw this week. The good news is that it’s apparently not serious.
- He didn’t wrestle for a month. I suppose we don’t know if that’s at injury related though.
- Insider also says that both Sasha Banks and Naomi are still listed on the active WWE roster and neither has been released as of this time.
- Looks like Sasha is heading to Japan. Naomi hasn’t returned. In just a few days, we very well may have the answers to the rumors and speculations with Wrestle Kingdom on the 4th. We won’t know about the specifics of the negotiations with WWE prior but Sasha’s next stop will most likely be revealed.
- On Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez said he’s heard not much has changed in NXT since Triple H announced he’s “back.”
- Triple H never really returned to NXT, but who knows if that was in the cards if Vince didn’t step down. NXT is Shawn Michaels’ show now.
- For whatever it’s worth, Tony Khan claimed the Forbidden Door event garnered over $5 million on pay-per-view.
- It looks like it did well compared to the earlier shows but not as good as the bigger more recent shows.
- Fightful Select says Impact Wrestling has plans to return to Philadelphia in late September, possibly for a TV special.
- That didn’t happen - they had to change locations. They went to Nashville instead. (0/1)
- Reacting to recent reports Sasha Banks is still listed on internal WWE rosters, Wrestling Inc’s Raj Giri stood by his report she’d been released but tweeted “the rumor is that leadership is trying to smooth things over” with Banks.
- The more recent word lends credence to Raj Giri’s reports.
- He also said Sasha’s release was finalized on June 10, and handled by Erika Schreiber, VP of Business and Legal Affairs for Talent Relations, “NOT John Laurinaitis, who usually handles those.”
- I don’t know why John would be the guy given what was going on with him at the time.
- On a CEO Gaming Twitch stream, Kenny Omega was talking about how challenging his rehabilitation has been and said he’s “done” if he suffers “another major setback.” It’s not clear if Omega was talking about a setback in this recovery, or a future injury. He goes on to talk about focusing on storytelling as opposed to athleticism, so some have interpreted he meant he’d be “done” with his current style, not wrestling altogether.
- He finally returned a few months back. I wouldn’t say his style has changed much, but he has mainly worked trios since the return, with just one Dark match in that time.
- The drop off in ticket sales for Forbidden Door has been a hot top on f4wonline’s The Board, with Dave Meltzer commenting “$4 get in price on the secondary market. Lowest in AEW history. Less than 200 tickets sold once TV started promoting the card,” which told “the story of a show with huge demand that then died in late interest [in] a manner no show in history ever has.”
- That was always going to be a harder show to sell. It’s the only PPV I didn’t order mainly because I wasn’t interested in the New Japan crossover. I’m more interested in the AEW specific stories. That show felt like more of an exhibition meant for the folks who are fans of both promotions.
- Probably pretty obvious, but Fightful Select reports Tony Khan gave permission for AEW stars like Chris Jericho & Bryan Danielson to record messages for John Cena, and for WWE to show those on Raw.
- I would think he’d have to.
This week: 6/7 - 86%
June 2022: 30/45 - 67%
Overall: 4,417/7,753 - 57.0%
Have a great week, everyone!
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