WWE Rumors on Vaquer, Grace, Saints Call-Ups, WrestleMania 42, 3-Hour SmackDown

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe.

Vaquer, Grace, Saints All Reportedly on Verge of Main Roster Call-Ups

Several top NXT stars are reportedly set to get called up to WWE's main roster in the near future.

According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t Steve Carrier of Ringside News), the decision to have Ricky Saints drop the North American Championship to Ethan Page and Stephanie Vaquer lose the NXT Women's Championship to Jacy Jayne on Tuesday's episode of NXT was due to their impending call-ups.

They, along with Jordynne Grace, are expected to get called up to the main roster "imminently," per Meltzer.

Vaquer, Grace and Saints have all had relatively short runs in NXT, as Vaquer debuted in September, and both Grace and Saints debuted in February.

Over her eight months in NXT, Vaquer held both the NXT Women's Championship and NXT Women's North American Championship, and she successfully defended the NXT women's title against Grace at Battleground last weekend.

Grace challenged for the NXT women's title on a couple of occasions and never won it, but there is little doubt that she is ready for the main roster after holding the TNA Knockouts World Championship three times.

As for Saints, he had a successful run in AEW under the name Ricky Starks from 2020 to 2025, having memorable matches against top stars such as CM Punk and Bryan Danielson.

He won the North American Championship less than two months after arriving in NXT, and it appears as though he is already moving up after just over three months in NXT.

Roxanne Perez and Giulia were recently called up to the main roster as well, so while NXT is in line to lose a ton of talent, it will open up opportunities for some lesser-known prospects and give them a chance to develop and shine.

Latest on WrestleMania 42, Future of WrestleMania in Las Vegas

In the wake of WWE pulling WrestleMania 42 out of New Orleans, new details have emerged regarding the company's plans for that WrestleMania and future ones as well.

According to Meltzer (h/t WrestlePurists), the "working idea" is for next year's WrestleMania 42 to be held in Las Vegas, although it has yet to be officially announced.

Meltzer added that there is also a future WrestleMania "on the books" for Las Vegas beyond WrestleMania 42.

Last week, Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics was the first to publish a statement from the Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation, which divulged that WrestleMania 42 would not take place in New Orleans despite a prior announcement that it would.

WWE later confirmed the move, noting that a future WrestleMania would emanate from New Orleans instead.

Shortly thereafter, PWInsider Elite (h/t Carrier) reported that WWE was in "advanced talks" to bring WrestleMania 42 to Las Vegas, and that a deal was "very, very close" to being done.

If Las Vegas does end up landing WrestleMania 42, it will mark the second consecutive WrestleMania hosted by Sin City, as this year's WrestleMania 41 was in Vegas as well.

Meltzer (h/t Cultaholic.com's Jack Atkins) went on to report that since WrestleMania 41 was so financially successful in Las Vegas, plans were being made for WrestleMania to take place in Vegas regularly moving forward.

However, Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select (h/t Atkins) suggested this week that there may be more to the story.

Many in WWE who spoke to Sapp expressed their belief that the report of WrestleMania being held in Las Vegas regularly was a "negotiation tactic" meant to encourage other cities to submit more lucrative bids.

Whatever the case, Las Vegas appears to be the heavy favorite to host WrestleMania 42, and there could be more to come even if it isn't a yearly occurrence.

WWE, USA Network Reportedly Agree to Keep SmackDown 3 Hours

WWE has reportedly gone back on its original plans to shorten SmackDown from three hours to two hours in June.

According to WrestleVotes (h/t Cultaholic.com's Aidan Gibbons), WWE and USA Network agreed back in January that May 30 would be the final three-hour SmackDown, but that is no longer the case.

SmackDown will continue to be three hours "for the foreseeable future," and USA Network primarily pushed for that to be the case since it is "happy overall with the performance of the show numbers-wise with the extra third hour."

WrestleVotes added that WWE and USA Network are still in talks to potentially move SmackDown back to two hours in the future, and it could possibly happen when the new season begins for television networks in late September.

SmackDown was a two-hour show for essentially its entire existence, but that changed in January when it moved from Fox to USA Network.

When WWE negotiated new television deals for Raw and SmackDown, USA lost Raw to Netflix, but it landed SmackDown as a replacement.

Raw went from two hours to three hours on USA Network in 2012, and when Raw went to Netflix, USA lost three hours of WWE programming per week.

Replacing it with a two-hour SmackDown would have left USA Network an hour short, so SmackDown was lengthened to three hours, and there are no immediate plans to go back to the two-hour format.

While USA Network may be happy with how SmackDown is performing as a three-hour show, most wrestling fans seem to favor the two-hour length, so they are likely hopeful that WWE and USA Network will revisit it in the future.

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