{"id":788176,"date":"2026-05-11T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788176\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T06:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:30:12","slug":"rumor-roundup-asuka-retirement-talk-john-cena-classic-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788176\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumor Roundup: Asuka retirement talk, John Cena Classic, more!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rumor mill never stops churning them out.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s top rumor: Asuka\u2019s status<\/p>\n

At the end of her match against Iyo Sky at Backlash, one she lost, while tearing the house down, of course, Asuka was emotional. So was Sky. They embraced, and it appeared the two were sharing something like a goodbye. There were hints leading into the show that it could be Asuka\u2019s last, and the response in the aftermath from many within the industry certainly seemed to support that. Dave Meltzer, speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio<\/a>, tried to clarify with a bit of what he was told.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the story I heard is that she is semi-retired,\u201d he said. He did go on to say he doesn\u2019t know exactly what that means and he wasn\u2019t told beyond that.<\/p>\n

Fightful Select<\/a>, meanwhile, has chimed in to say folks backstage were confused about the situation but that most people do not believe this was her last match.<\/p>\n

Bodyslam<\/a> has also claimed that this was not a retirement, or even a semi-retirement but rather she is \u201cout indefinitely for personal reasons.\u201d They also said they would not be revealing what those reasons are.<\/p>\n

It was definitely a goodbye of sorts, and a massive show of respect for one of the most respected women in the company, but it\u2019s unclear just how long that goodbye will be for.<\/p>\n

Other rumors floating around<\/p>\n

Get in on this, Cagesiders. Heard anything?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rumor mill never stops churning them out. Today\u2019s top rumor: Asuka\u2019s status At the end of her…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2594,105206,5212,171,121155,67,132,68,188,64804,2202],"class_list":{"0":"post-788176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-aew","9":"tag-aew-collision","10":"tag-backlash","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-rumor-roundup","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-wwe","17":"tag-wwe-nxt","18":"tag-wwe-smackdown"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116554539061446609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}