Things are taking shape for WrestleMania, but there's lots to be decided before then, and some names out of action.
As reported on Fightful Select this week, Velveteen Dream has still been at the WWE Performance Center, despite not being on television in months -- specifically since the the debut of NXT on USA.
As far as the women's battle royal this week, they knew that the battle royal was coming before the weekend rolled around. Deonna Purrazzo initially would kept out of the battle royal because her status with NXT is unclear after her Raw debut. However, she was a fairly late addition. Jessamyn Duke had surgery on her elbow area recently, which has her sidelined. We didn't hear as to why Marina Shafir was left out.
This is hardly news at this point, but those that we've spoken to in WWE say that WrestleMania is still "wide open in many regards." At this point in previous years, there would be run-sheets or tentative WrestleMania lineups around, though those have been made more secretive in recent years. At this point, no one we've spoken to has seen a run sheet or anything related to that yet. There have been a couple of people at the Performance Center who have been told to "be ready" in case a WrestleMania spot is there for them.
Of those that we spoke to about the topic, almost all saw that as a positive and a welcome change as compared to previous years. One wrestler said that it leads them to think WWE will go with who is hot for certain spots instead of trying to make certain talent hot to fit the roles they've already decided for them.
These reports all first ran on our premium service, Fightful Select. Subscribe to directly support us, and get exclusive news, podcasts (over 20 a month), merchandise, and much more.