WWE Rumors Roundup for Week of Dec. 21 Ahead of Royal Rumble

On this week's Raw, Stephanie McMahon announced that the women would take part in their own Royal Rumble match for the first time in WWE history. The winner would then be able to challenge either the Raw women's champion or the Smackdown women's champion at WrestleMania.

It's exciting news. WWE has the chance to create something special and hopefully establish an annual tradition from here on out.

Here are the most interesting rumors that have been making their way around the dirt sheets this week.

30 Women in the Royal Rumble

Credit: WWE.com

According to Randall Ortman of Cageside Seats, it is currently assumed that there will be 30 women in the upcoming Royal Rumble.

The very first Royal Rumble in 1988, by comparison, had 20 participants. Assuming that every woman on the main roster who is not injured or filming participates, that still leaves several spots open. It's a perfect opportunity for NXT rookies, WWE legends, or MMA crossovers to make surprise appearances. No doubt, there will be many rumors of these surprise entrants in the coming weeks.

Women's Royal Rumble Announcement a Surprise

When Stephanie McMahon announced the women's Royal Rumble at the end of Raw, all the women had individual, out-of-character reactions. According to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet, the women were not told about the announcement, which explains a lot about their facial expressions.

This was a great thing to air live and unexpected. So much of wrestling is scripted that any time the audience can see something genuine, it's a special treat. Even if a few of the women had suspicions—it looked like Bayley sensed something was going to happen—there's nothing like hearing it firsthand for the first time.

New Talents in WWE

Credit: WWE.com

According to Pro Wrestling Insider's Mike Johnson, WWE fans can expect to see three newly signed wrestlers in 2018. The talents are as follows: Ricochet of New Japan Pro Wrestling and War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) of Ring of Honor.

When WWE became massive in the 1980s, it was partly because Vince McMahon poached all the top guys from the territories. This is now happening (albeit on a smaller scale) with the indy promotions. And aside from the WWE talents who willingly left the company to go to the indies, it seems that the best wrestlers will all work for WWE at some point.

Hall of Fame Nominees

Twitter user Brad Shepard, who, based on his recent XFL exclusive, appears to have an inside source with WWE, recently posted what he says are the 2018 WWE Hall of Fame nominees. They are as follows: Goldberg, Bam Bam Bigelow, Ivory, The Dudley Boyz and Kid Rock.

Hopefully, there will be more. Both Vader and Kamala, for example, are in ill health, and it would be nice to see both of them receive the recognition of their peers and fans before it's too late. Also, Chyna is still not in the WWE Hall of Fame. It seems strange that the woman who she destroyed at WrestleMania X-7 would get into the Hall before her.

Ziggler Retirement Is a Work

And lastly, on this week's SmackDown, Dolph Ziggler laid the United States Championship down in the center of the ring after saying that the fans did not deserve him as champion. The imagery was symbolic and would be traditionally understood to mean that he was retiring or quitting the company.

According to Mike Johnson, however, Ziggler is still scheduled to work house shows even though he is not scheduled to be on SmackDown. This implies that his retirement is a work, and he's just laying low to sell the storyline.

If Ziggler does retire for real, it would probably be on a bigger stage, and it would probably be announced beforehand as a career-ending match. There's no reason why WWE can't sell some tickets for people to see this, and a company soldier like Ziggler deserves better than a short segment on SmackDown anyway.