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DEBUNKATHON! Loaded news update, most downloaded interviews, more!

Added 2025-12-19 23:30:49 +0000 UTC

Welcome to the Fightful Friday tradition -- THE DEBUNKATHON! This week's loaded news update includes:

Reaction to the Thea Hail/Blake Monroe ref
NWA contracts
TNA contracts
AEW plans
Will Ospreay
Why AEW didn't air live.
Top downloaded Fightful interviews in 2025.
Raquel Rodriguez
Austin Theory
MORE!

Welcome to the Fightful Friday tradition -- THE DEBUNKATHON! This week's loaded news update includes:

Reaction to the Thea Hail/Blake Monroe ref
NWA contracts
TNA contracts
AEW plans
Will Ospreay
Why AEW didn't air live.
Top downloaded Fightful interviews in 2025.
Raquel Rodriguez
Austin Theory
MORE!
We had originally heard that NXT referee Felix Fernandez got props backstage for counting the Thea Hail vs. Blake Monroe match as a shoot and doing the title change. However, this was pushed back on heavily, with some claiming he got heat for not checking on Blake Monroe when she was hurt.

NXT sources confirmed people had to physically come back to the venue to re-tape materials after the Thea Hail/Blake Monroe match.
Kerry Morton announced that he's extended his deal with NWA for two years. The deal had originally been set to expire at the end of the year. NWA had been trying to get Morton to stop working GCW and JCW dates, but we're not sure if that ended up happening.
Raquel Rodriguez was legitimately banged up after her segment with Nikki Bella on WWE Raw. She was checked on and cleared quickly.
Austin Theory had been planned as the masked man on WWE Raw since the start, and has been discussed as being involved with the Vision for months. Wrestling Observer had reported this quite a while back.
After Todd Grisham's story on Chris Van Vliet's show about Vince McMahon planning an interaction with him all weekend, we had numerous people connected to McMahon that claimed McMahon did that quite often.
The plan for an AEW Worlds End four-way match has been in effect at least for well over a month.
Will Ospreay was backstage at AEW Dynamite this past week.
There was a report about a number of short-term TNA contracts that were signed. We can confirm despite being reported, a couple of those are not true as of now.
For those asking why AEW Dynamite did not air live despite it being in the UK, Warner Bros Discovery has the first live rights to AEW programming.
AEW Dark is not back permanently, but the company has talked about doing special Dark episodes for quite some time. We're told they're open to doing them again in the future.
Fightful spoke to Mike Santana, Killer Kross and others for new interviews
The Fightful Holiday HUMPATHON is taking place Tuesday at 2 PM ET, featuring the Fightful Staff.
A reminder, if you have changes to your Fightful Awards voting, just message us the changes and we'll make them!

DEBUNKATHON

A series of pages have just outright made up quotes about John Cena's final match. Just report the pages. It's the only way to rectify it.
There is no retirement program planned imminently for Rey Mysterio.
There hasn't been a rule to not say "professional wrestling" in WWE in years. This account peddles Sportskeeda clickbait bullshit.
Wrestling Observer never reported anything about Jey Uso having backstage heat in WWE.
What is this "According to Sportskeeda" shit? Sportskeeda let go of literally everyone they had that had any sources to focus more on clickbait stuff. That's what these pages all are -- referral farms for their "exploring the possibilities" articles.
Sportbible is using their 10 million facebook likes to perpetuate rumors that Omos' return is being reported. It isn't. The dude just does promotional stuff for WWE at this point. Nobody knows when he's coming back.
Sportbible also sucks for aggregating Vince Russo's sourceless babble and speculation as fact. WWE is not "set to sack" Triple H.
Sportsbash just made up that "reports" claim Chris Jericho is signing a two-year WWE contract. There are no reports of that, or that he'll return at WrestleMania. 8,000 morons liked that post.
John Cena isn't wrestling again.
There are no plans for John Cena to replace Shawn Michaels as the head of NXT. I'm not even sure Sportskeeda actually reported that, but they wouldn't have the connections to find out even if they did.
Wrestling Fever's page exists only to post ragebait fake quotes. They're just worth reporting at this point.

FIghtful's top downloaded interviews:

For those that give a heck or a hoot, here are our top 30 downloaded interviews of 2025. All of these interviews can be found on Youtube.com/Fightful.