Like any TV show nowadays, die-hard fans love to know some of the behind-the-scenes rumblings going on. We wrestling fans have been keeping tabs of the “dirt” for decades now, thanks to all kinds of so-called “dirt sheets,” which sometimes do contain a hint of truth; other times, the whole truth; and still more times complete and utter hogwash.
As the industry continues to thrive between three WWE brands and still growing, Evolve, ROH, Impact, NJPW, Shimmer, and countless other promotions all over the place, there's always a heap of backstage news and websites to sift through. Who knows what's fact, what's fiction, and what fiction that is read that will become fact. Sometimes the WWE likes keeping things under wraps, as they prefer any new signing, or push to remain a big surprise. Other times, backstage sources will happily let some news leak, as it maintains a buzz around the product, even if the rumored plans never actually come to fruition.
More so than any other sport and perhaps shows and movies do fans love to book pro wrestling and come up with all kinds of storylines. More so than plenty of shows, do fans love to read spoilers and be Marks to the business. With that in mind, here are 20 Backstage Leaks Currently Circulating Around WWE.
20 AJ Lee At Evolution
Possibly the newest and most far-fetched leak on this list is that AJ Brooks, the former AJ Lee will be a part of the Evolution special. Someone is messing Dirt-Sheet writers here, they'd have to be, right? They fired her husband on their wedding day. She's moved on to become a successful author.
As the rumor goes, Vince McMahon himself pick up the phone and reached out to the former Divas Champion.
While the entire special is going to pay tribute to all of the Women “Then, Now, and Forever,” and AJ has stated on Sam Roberts’ podcast that she does miss wrestling; that doesn't mean she'll just happily come back to the company that had pulled all kinds of perceived ‘ish on her spouse.
19 nWo Reunion
It was over 20 years ago, that the infamous Bash At The Beach event happened. Hulk Hogan was revealed as the third man, joined Hall and Nash giving birth to the nWo. First those of you that somehow don't know, the faction ran roughshod all over WCW and for a brief time, WWE. But returning to the ring? Hogan and Nash are always in pretty tip-top shape, but even still - with new hips, new knees, and advanced ages?
It seems that some would-be couch bookers are trying to correlate Hulk’s Hall Of Fame reinstatement and the trio’s recent photo sessions to a full-on ball out return. But more likely than not, the big “return” is the group reuniting for a big signing session on 10/27/2018. No disrespect to the three legends, there's just no way they'd be able to truly hang with today's talent.
18 Women’s Tag Team Division
With more and more women filing into the WWE and all of its brands, it does stand to reason that there will possibly a Women’s Tag Team Title division creeping up soon to follow in the tradition of teams like the Glamour Girls and the Jumping Bomb Angels. With several established women tag teams currently around - Boss And Hugs, the Bellas, and the Riott Squad to name a few; the question of when not if is applied.
The when will most likely not be at Evolution, the way some rumors have circulated. We're less than a month away, you'd think a tournament would have been announced now. The safer bet is that if the company is going to make any sort of announcement, it will be made during the special.
17 Paige VanZant Ready To Make The Jump To WWE
Men and women from other sports heading into the wrestling world is definitely not a new thing. Nowadays when one of those men and women hail from the world of MMA, immediate comparisons are drawn to names like Ken Shamrock, Ronda Rousey, and Brock Lesnar (even though he got his start in WWE).
The latest MMA star looking to crossover is Paige VanZant. The 7 and 4 fighter and Dancing With The Stars alum has mentioned that she wants to join the WWE.
If she could be successful and make the same name for herself that women like Rousey and the Queen Of Spades, then women’s wrestling is going to continue to do nothing but excel and exceed the men on the roster.
16 Nikki Cross Re-Joining SaNiTY
The call-up rumors on this list are all more like “when will they happen” as opposed to “if they will happen.” With all of the call-ups that already has happened this year, a glaring omission would have to be Nikki Cross not joining SaNiTY on the main roster.
Cross is actually the only member of the group that brings the element of danger that they’re all supposed to have. You have no idea what she’s going to do or wants to do and even her own squad has to pull her off and away from competition at times. That also makes her the only female to have that scary side of her that would give probably all of them the creeps. Once she does come up, the only logical thing to have her do is rejoin SaNiTY and give the women’s roster an injection of crazy that it needs.
15 TakeOver’s Taking Over
One of the best aspects of NXT is the developmental program’s TakeOver specials. They're just the right amount of time (as opposed to the main roster’s monthly marathons), and they're also the right amount of time in-between them to have plenty of time to build up storylines.
But if the company is supposed to be getting this kids ready for the main roster, then they might need to get to used to ramping up their storylines to the same month to month scenarios of the main roster. That, along with their popularity is the reason that TakeOver specials are rumored to get bumped up to the same one a month that the main roster PPVs have.
14 Velveteen Dream Call Up
With so many established stars high on the Velveteen Dream, he's got a lot of hype surrounding his mystique and “Prince-news.” If he keeps swimming in all of the hype instead of drowning in it, he will no doubt be headlining WrestleManias for years to come.
With his recent tights having “Call Me Up Vince” emblazoned on them, rumors definitely began to swirl that the Dream was coming up.
Furthermore, during Triple H’s post-TakeOver: Brooklyn conference call, The Game claimed he didn't know Dream was going to have those tights. All of this hype just fuels the rumors that we'll see the Dream on Raw or SmackDown way sooner than later.
13 Brand Split Ending
The Brand Split of 2016 started much like the original one years ago. The shows were totally separated and new stars were allowed to blossom when they otherwise might have been able to thanks to one massively stacked roster. Much like last time, eventually all of the separate PPVs were combined again and the rosters started to resemble one big team again.
Similar rumblings have been heard ever since the PPVs were again recombined after WrestleMania. With SmackDown Live moving over to Fox in 2019, rumors are that the chairman wants a stacked roster to head to Fox, and the only way to do that is put the rosters back together again.
12 Mandy Rose Is Emmalina
She has golden hair, golden skin, and golden tights. Everything about Mandy Rose is made for her to shimmer and shine all throughout arenas worldwide. Her look is alluring, the kind of look that Vince adores and loves to push to the top of the card (i.e. Trish Stratus, Alexa Bliss).
Rose is getting a bit of a push currently thanks to the planned but aborted Emmalina gimmick. The rumor mill has been circulating since her initial move to SmackDown Live that she has been working this gimmick. Time will tell how Rose will make it her own, but she certainly does have the chops and looks to pull it off.
11 Post-Mania Annual Cuts Were Avoided Due To All In
We live in a strange world now. The Flairs and the Rhodes were the Hatfields and the McCoys of the business. But thanks to the youngest Rhodes and a soon-to-be Flair-in-law, one of wrestling's hottest weekends didn't have a single thing to do with the current WWE product.
All In started almost as a dare when Dave Meltzer had foolishly assumed ROH couldn't draw 10 grand to an indie show.
Cody and the Young Bucks took that challenge and All In was born. The event had sold out in a heartbeat. Strangely enough, there was a rumor circulating that Vince had foregone the usually post-WrestleMania releases to avoid more and more wrestlers heading to All-In. Certainly, not because he has to keep the rosters maintained on Raw, SmackDown, 205 Live, NXT, and all of their various expansions.
10 Big Push For The Chosen One
Drew McIntyre once said on Chris Jericho’s podcast that being released was actually the best thing that could have happened to him. He left a boy and returned a man. A very scary and imposing man who’s on air character and real life thoughts are very similar – the locker room is too complacent and filled with plenty of folks who would not have even been signed years ago.
But instead of being in deep water like some might assume he’d be, the boss and The Game are really high on McIntyre. As we’ve already seen, he’s being given a tremendous push. But the real push for McIntyre is supposedly coming, as the face of the Raw brand.
9 Huge Plans For 1,000th SmackDown
Duh, right? Of course the WWE has big plans for the Blue Brand’s 1000th episode! But just what are they? Edge is rumored to be there, and why not – SmackDown was where he had plenty of his greatest successes. Another interesting rumor is that if just for one match, Tazz and Michael Cole could again join forces.
But the biggest rumor and in more ways than one, probably the most plausible is that the Great One is gearing up for heading back to “his show.”
If they can pull that one off and want to pop a huge rating, we should hear an announcement any day now.
8 Bryan Cleared Just To Prevent Him From Leaving
Daniel Bryan has been wrestling literally since the day he graduated high school and he has never looked back. His love and passion for telling stories in the ring is the reason he fought so hard and traveled the world to get cleared and make a full-fledged return to the ring. He didn't even care if had to again work back in high school gymnasiums.
He vowed he'd work again, even if WWE wouldn't clear him. That according to some is the only reason that the company did clear him. Not just to keep him away from providing star power to a fledgling company, but to keep him working safer and not be so reckless in the ring.
7 Horsewomen Collide
Ronda Rousey and her MMA buddies; Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke, and Marina Shafir have been referring to themselves as the Four Horsewomen for several years now. Charlotte, Becky, Sasha, and Bailey have been referring themselves as the same in the WWE.
The story of what should and could be a long and awesome drawn out war between the two groups can draw serious money for years. The only question is when this rumored collision should happen. Currently Duke and Shafir are still learning and Baszler is still in NXT and Flair and Lynch are in the middle of a blood feud. WrestleMania is still several months away, perhaps everything can come together for one epic Horsewoman moment.
6 Vince Is Mad At Jericho
How petty do people think Vince McMahon truly is versus how disrespectful do we think Chris Jericho would be is at the heart of this rumor. Earlier this year, Y2J shocked the wrestling world by challenging Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom 12 and is the current NJPW Intercontinental Champion.
Supposedly Vince is really cheesed off with Jericho and all of his non-WWE endeavors.
If he is, he probably should have taken him up on his cruise offer and his IC Champ vs. IC Champ idea at SummerSlam. But it's doubtful Vince is losing any sleep over what Y2J’s up to.
5 KO Needs An Advocate
Think about how stocked up the WWE roster is. The talent level is so deep that somehow a top-tier talent like Kevin Owens is sort just there at the moment. Sure he has a new “I'm allowed to do whatever I want” bit he recently started doing but the guy hasn't had a lot of oomph to his career in a long time. If the brass is ready to reignite KO, then perhaps the latest rumors are true. The Prizefighter’s getting an advocate.
With Paul Heyman’s primary client out on sabbatical, Owens would be an amazing pairing with Heyman, both guys can talk circles around everyone and Owens is one of best in-ring performers on the roster. Whether it's true or not, perhaps the rumors started because quite frankly, the pairing makes sense.
4 Ambrose Turns On His Brothers
The constant noise of will Dean turn or won't he rumors have persisted since the very early days of The Shield. He's just such a wild card and his brothers always have to hold him and his insanity back from doing something completely insane. When Rollins turned on his crew, a lot of fans were surprised more about the fact that it wasn't Ambrose who turned.
Since then, the Ambrose Asylum has been cranking and he's been a consistent fan favorite. Whenever the WWE has wanted fans to get behind Roman; they've cheered Dean vehemently instead. If done right, the consistently Ambrose rumored heel turn could see him be a violent heel not seen in a long time and it would give a different feel and look to the entire roster, with the bad guy Lunatic Fringe running around.
3 Nikki Vs. Ronda At Evolution
With not a lot of time left before the first ever all-women's WWE show, at the time of this writing, only two matches have been announced. One of the big rumors for the show is that Ronda Rousey will be defending the strap against Nikki Bella.
That is an interesting match that has from a storyline perspective has a quick time to get started, since both ladies are faces.
However, Nikki is really easy to hate as a heel if need be. Bella has certainly stepped up her game and Rousey has taken to the ring faster than anyone would have expected. The only question is that if both of these ladies could pull off the kind of match that fans are now accustomed to.
2 Undisputed Era On The Main Roster
Besides the Shield and the Wyatts, it has been a very long time since any group has harkened back to the old days like the Undisputed Era has. Triple H finally has his Horsemen style group running amok in NXT. Considering Adam Cole has already made a few cameos on the main roster, the group is clearly polished enough to all reign supreme on Raw or Smackdown.
They’re clearly coming, perhaps at the always raucous Raw after ‘Mania. But they need to debut soon. The Shield needs a new faction to do battle with aside from thrown together threesomes.
1 Lesnar Has One More Date Left
The entire past few months of Raw have been centered on Brock Lesnar having a vice grip on the Universal Title; not caring about the fans or the title he seldom defends. Then WWE creative orchestrated the whole angle to give Roman a chance of getting cheered when he finally won the title.
Does absence make the heart grow fonder? That will be the question when Brock returns. He recently ran in during Roman and Braun's HIAC match, supposedly to set up a triple threat. He supposedly has one more date left on his contract. Rather than using Brock for a big four PPV like Survivor Series, current reports have Brock wrestling at WWE's November event in Saudi Arabia.