Rumor Roundup (Mar. 10, 2023): Trish Stratus heel turn, WWE gambling, Shazam, Sarray, more!

Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill.

Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it’s just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take it all with a grain of salt.

Rumors for the Day:

• According to WRKD Wrestling, WWE’s current plan is for Trish Stratus to turn heel and feud with Becky Lynch through SummerSlam.
• Dave Meltzer says if WWE is successful in legalizing bets on scripted matches, “The creative team will no longer be allowed to know finishes ahead of time to the major matches.” Not surprisingly, the general reaction he’s hearing from people is that this is a dumb and bad idea.
• Meltzer speculated that WWE might be interested in doing this in order to drive up the company’s sale price.
• That could be a moot point, because the Colorado Division of Gaming already told CNBC that it is not considering the idea of legalized gambling on scripted wrestling matches.
• Fightful Select indicates that the primary reason Tony Khan decided to change the name of the AEW All-Atlantic championship to the AEW International championship is because Warner Bros. Discovery asked him for a big idea to help promote Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Khan had a new championship belt made months ago, with this plan in mind.
• In general, it sounds like whenever cross-promotional opportunities like this arise for AEW, they want to make sure to accompany it with something newsworthy.
• Per Fightful, the “beginning of the end” of Sarray’s time with WWE happened when her top supporters backstage were released by the company in early 2022, including William Regal. It was generally understood that the creative ideas pitched for her were “outright bad.” She hasn’t been seen at the Performance Center in a very long time, and people who asked about her did not receive any answers.
• When Bryan Danielson was negotiating with WWE and AEW in 2021, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter says Vince McMahon told him he could work New Japan’s G1 Climax, but Tony Khan wouldn’t agree to let him work the grueling, weeks-long tournament. Meltzer thinks it’s possible that “Vince McMahon had no idea what G1 was at the time.”

If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you’d like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Just remember they are rumors and not confirmed as fact, so please take them as such. And check our weekly Rumor Look Back here to keep track of how often rumors turn out to be correct.