Ronda Rousey has reportedly been training for an upcoming match with WWE. Rousey’s debut wresting match has been teased by WWE since Wrestlemania 31 in 2015, but it looks like it will finally be happening in 2018. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Ronda Rousey has been training at the WWE Performance Center regularly as of late. The reported plan is still to have Rousey, Jessamyn Duke, Marina Shafir, and Shayna Baszler face Bayley, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte Flair at Wrestlemania 34. If her training and match at Wrestlemania go well, WWE will likely bring Rousey back for a singles match at some point.
Emma was released by WWE recently, but she announced on social media that she is not finished with her wrestling career just yet. She has apparently been negotiating with a few independent promotions, but it appears as though she will not be coming to Japanese women’s wrestling promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter claims that Emma demanded $2,000 per match, first class tickets, and creative control of her character. It looks like her negotiations with Stardom have fallen through. Independent wrestling is not quite as booming for women as it is for men, but there are still plenty of promotions that could sign Emma by the time her 90-day no-compete clause ends in February.
Hulk Hogan has been gone from WWE since 2015 when he was caught making racist remarks in his leaked sex tape. A widely-publicized legal battle with Gawker Media saw Hogan win the case and shut down the company. While this rumor has been reported before, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that WWE has revisited the idea of bringing Hogan back to the company recently. Hogan was apparently set to make a return for another promotion but the idea was scrapped. It is being said that if WWE’s sponsors will ignore Hogan’s scandals and his return won’t harm their relationship with WWE, then he could very well return to the company again.