Rumor Roundup (Aug. 29, 2025): New duo on SmackDown, Randy Orton plan, Raja Jackson incident, more!

Speculating on the rumors surrounding pro wrestling is a favored pastime of many fans, perhaps second only to actually watching the matches. In this daily column, we take a look at the latest rumors being churned out by the pro wrestling rumor mill.

Important reminder: Rumors are just that — rumors. None of this has been confirmed as fact, it’s just circulating around the pro wrestling rumor mill. We track rumor accuracy in a weekly feature called Rumor Look Back you can find here. Remember, take it all with a grain of salt.

Rumors for the Day:

• Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer says WWE has talked about adding Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre to the Clash in Paris PLE this Sunday. The match is definitely happening before McIntyre challenges WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, at the very least.
• WrestleVotes heard that many people in WWE want to see the duo of Chelsea Green and Ethan Page appear together on SmackDown soon, due to their impressive chemistry on NXT television. Some people think this is a great way to “quickly establish Page as a key player” on the main roster.
• According to WrestleVotes Radio, the upcoming episodes of WWE Raw on Sept. 15, Sept. 22, and Sept. 29 will all have a start time of 7 pm ET. The idea is to see how the show performs on Netflix with minimal head-to-head time against the NFL’s Monday Night Football.
• During an interview on The Masters of Wrestling, Douglas Malo indicated that KnokX Pro has lost a lot of students in the aftermath of Raja Jackson’s violent assault on Syko Stu. Rikishi is apparently going to “overhaul everything” with the promotion.
• Sources told Fightful Select that Ian Riccaboni is “beloved” backstage in AEW, with many wrestlers hoping that he’ll “become a more permanent fixture” on the shows. It’s expected that he will be featured regularly during AEW’s current residency in the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia.
• For whatever it’s worth, Andrew Zarian heard “there will be an announcement regarding AEW PPVs on HBO Max in the coming weeks.”

If you have heard of any interesting rumors that you’d like to add, feel free to post them in the comments section below. Just remember they are rumors and not confirmed as fact, so please take them as such.