During Monday night's episode of RAW, Drew McIntyre finally turned heel and allied himself with Rhea Ripley and The Judgement Day. The expectation now is that he'll take part in the WarGames match at Survivor Series, leaving Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, and Jey Uso to find a partner and even the odds.
The prevailing theory is that it will be Randy Orton. After RAW went off the air, the American Nightmare addressed the fans and said, "Spoiler alert: Jey Uso and I got friends too." With that, fans immediately started chanting for The Viper.
Rumours have swirled for weeks that Orton will return at Survivor Series after being on the shelf since last summer due to back issues. He's said to have been working out at the Performance Center lately, another indication he's preparing to step back into the ring.
Now, it's being widely reported that Orton is a lock for the fifth man and that new merchandise has already been prepared to coincide with that.
We can, however, debunk one big rumour today which claims that Orton will win a major title upon returning. According to multiple outlets, the idea hasn't been broached, so he isn't going to be getting an eleventh world title...yet.
Back to McIntyre, though, and it's said his heel turn has been planned for months, hence why WWE has been slowly teasing him breaking bad ever since Jey arrived on RAW.
The last time we saw The Viper in the ring was when he and Matt Riddle lost the RAW Tag Team Championships in a match against The Usos on SmackDown last May. There had been rumblings at the time Orton might be dealing with a nagging back injury, and he was written off television following a storyline attack by Roman Reigns.
Original plans called for Orton to return and challenge the Head of the Table, Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns, for the title at SummerSlam, though we've also heard WWE wanted Orton to come back and turn on his former tag team partner (which obviously won't be happening now Riddle has been fired).
Instead, we're expecting him to initially team with Rhodes before inevitably turning on his old friend to set up a rivalry which could take place over the next couple of months or, failing that, after WrestleMania when Cody is hopefully WWE Champion.
As always, we'll keep you updated as we learn more.