According to WrestlingNews.co , WWE fans have speculated that Vanessa Borne is one of the members of the mysterious Retribution faction. On the latest episode of Friday Night SmackDown , the group attacked several enhancement talents who were at ringside for the show. Fans identified Borne as one of the culprits after noticing that one of the attackers had the same hairstyle.
Borne was promoted to the main roster earlier this year and was scheduled to debut on Monday Night Raw . Those plans were put on hold for some reason, and she’s been absent from television ever since. This was presumably because the company was trying to come up with a storyline idea for her.
As The Inquisitr previously documented, there have been rumors that the team will be made up of NXT call-ups who have been waiting to debut on one of the flagship programs. Borne was listed among the rumored candidates, and the latest development has only added more weight to the theory.
Fans have also stated that the other woman in the group is Chelsea Green. She hasn’t been seen on television since May, after splitting from her former manager, Robert Stone, on an episode of NXT back in May. This led to rumors that she was being promoted to the main roster.
The WrestlingNews.co report highlighted that Ricochet, Bo Dallas, Mustafa Ali and Cedric Alexander have also been rumored as potential participants.
Ali recently returned to television and seems like an inevitable candidate as the company reportedly wanted to give him a hacker gimmick. Retribution has been causing technical difficulties to shows, which is reminiscent of the Friday Night SmackDown hacker who briefly appeared on the show earlier this year.
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The other names mentioned fit the bill, as they are all underutilized performers. It is believed that the stable’s purpose is to get revenge on the company due to the way in which performers are managed.
The current members might not be the final roster, however. The pandemic has resulted in WWE having a depleted locker room. This means that the superstars who have been used in the Retribution segments already aren’t guaranteed to be part of the group when they’re eventually unmasked.
As recalled by WrestlingNews.co , Vince McMahon is currently in the process of trying to build new stars in order to overcome the promotion’s current ratings decline. Superstars like Borne and Green being featured in such a promising angle could be a sign of the product focusing on younger performers.