WWE only has a couple of PLEs left to promote before the year is over, and while Survivor Series: WarGames and Saturday Night's Main Event are fast approaching, so too is John Cena's retirement.
In our latest rumour roundup, we have news on creative plans for Cena's final matches, more on the backstage reaction to Brock Lesnar's comeback, and another surprising link between WWE and the White House.
There's also news on WWE's possible plans to use AI to tell stories, with one early pitch from the technology bad enough to make Vince McMahon's final years in WWE look like the greatest creative ever.
Check out these latest WWE rumours below, but be warned that potential spoilers follow.
- In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer claimed that WWE has considered having John Cena beat Dominik Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship at Survivor Series: WarGames, primarily because it's a title he's never held. He'd then defend that against Gunther in his final-ever match at Saturday Night's Main Event.
- Ilja Dragunov returned to SmackDown on Friday with a new look. The bulked up former NXT star defeated Sami Zayn for the United States Championship, and Bodyslam.net says Zayn made the call to drop the title.
- Wrestling and politics don't often go hand-in-hand, but if Melzter is to be believed, "Those at the top in WWE have bragged that the White House itself took their own storyline inspiration from WWE talent." That's a reference to a White House press office official supposedly texting "a major WWE official" during the height of the Epstein Files scandal.
- That allegedly led to Triple H telling people in WWE that Paul Heyman's defence of Brock Lesnar's SummerSlam return was "part of the inspiration" for how the Trump administration handled its response to the scandal.
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Talking of The Beast, some in WWE were indeed "strongly against it" and "some women on the staff were even more unhappy with one using the term privately disgusted." Apparently, "many production team members don’t believe [Lesnar] moved the needle past the first week and many felt the segment with R-Truth was embarrassing."
- Cyrus Kowsari is serving as WWE's new Senior Director of Creative Strategy, and appears eager to bring AI into the company's storytelling efforts. Triple H is reportedly pushing for that, too, and WWE may have already experimented with the technology.
- That included an "absurdly bad" AI-generated storyline, which imagined Bobby Lashley returning to WWE as a character "obsessed with Japanese culture and history."
- While Chris Jericho is still absent from AEW television, it's said that this was time off was always scheduled and that AEW President Tony Khan remains eager to bring him back into the fold.
- Fightful Select has also learned that Nikki Bella is absent from RAW because WWE doesn't have any firm creative plans in place. The latest is that she will be "around here and there" and that the company expects her "to be on the show for a while."
- Addressing AJ Styles possible retirement next year, while plans are not "fully locked" in, WWE is "gonna do something."