Despite an initial report on Tuesday, Eminem has not signed a deal with WWE that will see him appear on SmackDown Live later this year.

WWE is no stranger to the odd celebrity appearance. It almost feels as if Vince McMahon lives for that sort of thing. Sadly, most of the time, they are really nothing to write home about. Either people who wrestling fans don't recognize at all, or someone they have no interest in seeing on a wrestling show. Most of the time, it's both.

There are rare exceptions though, and it looked as if we were on the verge of one of those exceptions. Earlier this week, a report started to circulate that WWE was in the midst of striking up a deal with legendary rapper Eminem. The deal reportedly involved Eminem contributing to the WWE 2K20 soundtracks, appearing on SmackDown Live, and getting his own custom championship.

PREVIOUSLY: EMINEM REPORTEDLY REACHES A DEAL TO WORK WITH WWE

via time.com

If you are an Eminem fan and this news excites, we're afraid to inform you that it might not be happening after all. According to a spokesperson for the musician, any reports that a deal has been reached are false. The spokesperson, Dennis Dennehy told Pro Wrestling Sheet "it has not gone beyond preliminary discussions, and any reports to the contrary are false. Right now there are no plans to further pursue it."

Dennehy did clarify that there was an exploratory conversation with 2K sports, however, that was via a third party and did not directly include Eminem's team. If that is the case and WWE doesn't manage to bring Eminem in to work with them, it would be a real shame. If nothing else, we were looking forward to a WWE 2K soundtrack curated by and possibly contributed to by Eminem.

While we understand how the rumor of Eminem creating music for WWE and appearing on SmackDown Live came about, the custom championship part continues to confuse us. It sounds as if someone added that element along the way and decided to report it. Strange, and not something we can imagine Eminem demanding as part of a deal. WWE does like handing out custom titles to sports franchises though, so perhaps it was something they threw in to try and sweeten the deal. 

NEXT: BATISTA DID NOT LIKE BEING LABELED A "CELEBRITY" BY STEPHEN AMELL