Mercedes Mone: WWE, AEW, NJPW, Clearing Up Fake Stories

Mercedes Mone continues to be a hot topic in wrestling, and for good reason, as she’s among wrestling’s top free agents.

At the time in which Mercedes appeared at AEW All In as a part of the audience, AEW sources had indicated there was a tentative plan for the two sides to work together when she was no longer injured. At the beginning of December, we were told that those plans were no longer active, and the two sides were far apart on terms. It was not indicated to us if that pertained to dates, schedule, financial terms, or booking.

Contrary to the harsh online reaction, we have not been told that this means that the door is closed there. For example, Wrestling News Source aggregated our Q&A with the headline “plans for Mercedes Mone’s AEW Debut canceled.” To be clear, we have no information and never reported anything as it related to her debuting, when it was happening, or if there plans set for them to be canceled.

We did start to hear rumors around the time of AEW Grand Slam that Mercedes to AEW could be picking up, and that an appearance could happen soon. However, AEW shut that down to us as she was still injured, and they felt they couldn’t get away with having her show up while she wasn’t cleared again.

As of November, Rocky Romero was hopeful that NJPW-Stardom could resume talks with Mercedes soon, and believed she still had some interest in appearing again. Obviously New Japan wants her back, as it was a very successful partnership.

Speaking of NJPW, Mercedes Mone is not currently signed to the company, contrary to a recent Sportskeeda post that said she was. Also, not true from that post – Fightful never reported that Mercedes “demanded” a huge sum of money from WWE. This made its way around non-reputable Facebook aggregators, which we corrected numerous times on our own page. We’ve not reported on any active talks between the two sides, only spoke about our opinions on the matter. As of December 18, we’ve not been informed of any talks. We have heard that WWE is planning on renewing talks with multiple free agents after the new year, though we haven’t been told that she is among them.

We were, however, informed that a rumor that emerged on twitter last week was completely false. There were tweets that caught traction claiming that the WWE creative team was told to come up with ideas for Mercedes’ WWE return. Regardless of if her return is planned or not, that isn’t something that anyone we’ve heard from close to creative has been told to prepare for. It’s worth noting that creative was also not prepped for CM Punk’s return, but for most others, they are.

We’re told that WWE has indicated interest in bringing Mercedes back in the past, and that isn’t anything new. However, there was immediate reaction online that because we reported that we’ve not heard of AEW plans, that WWE is getting her back immediately. We just haven’t heard that, either.

We have more on this topic on the SRS Backstage Report Podcast on Fightful Select