Rumor Look Back: June 20 – 26, 2020

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!

June 20, 2020

• Despite all the teases on Monday Night Raw, Christian apparently still hasn’t been medically cleared.
• I guess we don’t know for sure, but he didn’t do anything after his “unsanctioned match” that makes us think that he has been. The punt kick was probably edited to ensure he was never actually touched. He attacked Randy Orton during the Ambulance Match against Drew McIntyre, but he never took any bumps. We’ll know more when Edge is back, but I think this is probably the case.
• It’s expected Kevin Owens will be back for WWE television tapings on June 29, per the Observer.
• It looks like he was back for the July 6 Raw which was taped on July 3. I think a COVID outbreak altered the taping schedule. (0/1)
• The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that when Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff took over Raw and SmackDown, they had some legitimate draft/trade negotiations that led to Bray Wyatt and Braun Strowman on SmackDown so Raw would get the likes of Aleister Black, Andrade, and Charlotte Flair.
• The dudes were canned from their positions for within a year.
• They also say that folks at USA Network were behind making changes to Raw to build new stars and then got upset when they weren’t told sooner about things changing again.
• Apparently, USA continues not to be pleased.
• Evolve/WWN is apparently finished, according to the Observer, and the belief is the library was already sold to WWE.
• That’s true. (1/1)

June 22, 2020

• On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said nothing has come out about Matt Riddle that WWE hasn’t known about for years now. He speculates that the latest allegations won’t make a difference in his push based on the company having prior knowledge but that is subject to change.
• I don’t know if his push changed. At one point he started losing more, but that could be the standard NXT talent losing now that they’re on the main roster thing.
• With Ali being shifted over to Monday Night Raw, the speculation is the anonymous SmackDown hacker storyline has been dropped completely.
• It was. He confirmed it was him, but he’s no longer the hacker. (1/1)
• The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that Shinsuke Nakamura & Cesaro are replacing The Forgotten Sons in a program with The New Day.
• That’s true. Shin and Cesaro won the tag gold at Extreme Rules. That may have been the plans for the Sons prior to the Tweet. (1/1)
• PW Insider says they’ve asked WWE about the future of Total Divas and received no response. The obvious speculation is the future of the show is up in the air.
• Total Bellas is still on. I’m not sure the status of Totes Deevs.
• According to Insider, it’s looking like Joey Ryan is done with Impact after multiple allegations of misconduct on social media recently.
• Yup, he’s gone. He’s currently putting out long “apology” videos and suing his accusers. (1/1)

June 23, 2020

• The news about WWE Backstage is part of Fox scaling back on their plans to have a dedicated team working on WWE, per Orlando reporter Jon Alba. Last year at this time, the network planned to have one for wrestling just like they do for their other sports properties.
• I wonder if that was due to the pandemic or because numbers weren’t what they were expecting.
• Alba also tweeted that Backstage will be stripped back to only airing around PPV and “big shows”, but “none of the cuts will affect Smackdown’s status on Friday nights on Fox.”
• I don’t think Backstage is on at all, especially now with Renee Young gone. SmackDown is still on Fox and that looks strong. (1/2)
• Kenny Omega announced that he and The Young Bucks decided against releasing Being The Elite as usual yesterday. There’s speculation the show could go on hiatus.
• That show is still going strong. (0/1)
• WWE may be looking to repackage Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler, per WrestlingNews.co. The company doesn’t think the Forgotten Sons gimmick works given current events.
• It took them a long time to get there, but they eventually repackaged them as King Corbin’s henchmen. It’s smart to move on from the gimmick. The Forgotten Sons look like guys who would be involved in kidnapping the governor of Michigan. (1/1)
• Dave Crist was likely done with Impact even before the #SpeakingOut allegations against him. PW Insider says there was so much heat on him at the last taping, he wasn’t allowed to change in the locker room.
• Damn. Looking into this, apparently he injured Rich Swann in a match and refused to apologize. Even his brother Jake and oVe mate Sami Callihan were done with him.

June 24, 2020

• WWE is now booking to get ratings for Raw each week instead of rebuilding for the future, per Wrestling Observer Radio.
• Their plan to get ratings didn’t help ratings.
• The Wrestling Observer Newsletter notes that we probably won’t see Ronda Rousey again until at least WrestleMania next year, and maybe not even then.
• I guess we should sit on this until WrestleMania, but I bet we don’t see her for awhile.
• There’s talk that Vince McMahon soured on Shayna Baszler and she isn’t getting the push that was previously planned for her.
• I don’t know what that planned push was. She is featured but maybe their plan involved a Raw women’s title run.
• Dave Meltzer notes there are long term plans for Andrade and Angel Garza as a tag team, so their teased breakup isn’t happening.
• They’re broken up now, and were getting there before Andrade left due to injury, so I’ll say this is incorrect. (0/1)
• According to the Observer, reports abound that Ring of Honor is not offering anyone a new deal right now due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• They eventually brought Mike Bennett back, but it’s possible they changed their policy.

June 25, 2020

• While there’s been a lot of talk about Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton at SummerSlam, including from Drew himself, Sportskeeda’s Tom Colohue says a McIntyre vs. Brock Lesnar rematch is “pencilled in” for WWE’s August PPV.
• It was the Orton match. We haven’t seen Lesnar since WrestleMania. (1/2)
• That site’s Gary Cassidy tweeted Paul Heyman had plans for a big babyface push for Liv Morgan on Raw, but it looks like those plans are scrapped with Heyman gone.
• I would agree. If those plans were there, they didn’t happen. Liv is a tag act on SmackDown. (1/1)
• Colohue also claims Dolph Ziggler was originally paired with Sonya Deville so he could do most of the promo work, but when he & WWE officials realized she didn’t need any help, he was moved to Raw.
• Sonya killed it in her feud with Mandy. It’s very unfortunate that a deranged individual tried to kidnap her. The obvious reason because that’s extremely traumatic. It also derailed what could have been the making a big women’s star.
• Kevin Owens said on The Bump yesterday there was “no pushback” from WWE when he told the company he was going to sit out last Wednesday’s taping.
• I don’t know if he’d say otherwise, but KO is one of the more honest ones.
• New York, New Jersey & Connecticut are placing travel restrictions on people travel from states with high rates of COVID-19, like Florida. This could greatly impact WWE and AEW, as both have talent & staff that live in those states and WWE’s HQ is in Stamford, CT. Wrestling Observer says AEW thinks they can get around the restrictions because of their testing policy, but it’s not clear if that will work.
• I don’t recall hearing about this being an issue.

June 26, 2020

• Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp tweeted that there were “a lot of positive COVID-19 tests” in WWE across all “departments that were in attendance.”
• WWE had multiple episodes like this.
• WWE conducted a lot of COVID-19 testing on Thursday (June 25), and PW Insider says it was done via drive-thru. WWE is still planning to tape shows today (June 26) and tomorrow.
• They taped SmackDown, but it was a lot of “Tribute to the Undertaker.” They delayed taping any other shows. (0/1)
• There’s speculation that some wrestlers might try to get around travel restrictions in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut by flying into Philadelphia, and then driving into those states from there.
• Whatever they need to do to skirt protocols.
• Gary Cassidy of Sportskeeda says that Vince McMahon didn’t approve any of Paul Heyman’s ideas for how to debut Liv Morgan on Raw, until the Lana wedding angle was eventually pitched.
• I wonder what ideas were shot down.
• On the Dynamite post-show, Tony Schiavone initially said he thinks that Sammy Guevara’s suspension will last four weeks. 15 to 20 minutes later, someone “from the office” reminded Tony that Guevara’s suspension length is “indefinite.”
• It ended up being the first.

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This week: 8/14 – 57%

Overall: 3,589/6,389 – 56.2%

Have a good week, everyone. Have a safe New Years.

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