Former WWE star Peyton Royce has said that she is ready to make a WWE Royal Rumble return if offered an opportunity after previously having turned down a similar role.

The former IIconics star recently spoke to Ring The Belle where she discussed things such as wrestling Kris Statlander before she was famous, planned dream matches in WWE that were cancelled and more.

Discussing the disappointing reign IIconics had with the Women’s Tag Team Titles in the company, Peyton Royce said that they made the best of the opportunities they were given:

“Obviously, if I could have written that title reign my way, it would have gone a bit differently to the way it actually went. But as I said everything happens for a reason. We can only control so much. We had fun and we made the best of every opportunity that we had.”

Peyton Royce Is Ready To Return

During the interview, Royce was asked if she would be open to making a surprise Royal Rumble return to WWE after having turned down the opportunity in 2022. The female star said that she would love the chance to catch up with old friends:

“Yeah, I’m open to it, for sure. I would love that. It’d be so good to catch up and I mean, it’s the Royal Rumble. We said no last time because we were still pretty hurt about it but, I feel healed now and I feel like I’d love to do that if the opportunity came.”

Peyton Royce was signed by WWE back in 2015 and is most widely known for her tag team with Billie Kay called The IIconics. The IIconics had a successful run with the company which includes winning the Women’s Tag Titles at WrestleMania 35 in 2019.

Their reign, however, didn’t last for long and they lost the title in August that year. The IIconics were disbanded following a loss to the Riott Squad in August 2021 and they were released from the promotion during the April 2021 budget cuts.

The duo was offered a spot in the 2022 Royal Rumble while they held the Impact Wrestling Knockouts Tag Team Titles. It was the same Rumble where the then Knockouts Champion Mickie James made an appearance.

While Impact Officials were willing to approve the gig, the former WWE stars turned down the offer, feeling that it wasn’t the right time for a comeback.

Pro Wrestling couple Cassie Lee and Shawn Spears have announced that they are set to become parents for the second time. 

Taking to Instagram, the couple revealed that they are expecting a baby boy in 2024. Lee delivered the couple’s first child, Austin Jay Arneill, in January of this year. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/reel:C1QOm_7PmLk

Lee isn’t the only IIconic wrestler to enjoy being a parent. Last week, her tag-team partner Jessica McKay gave birth to her first child, named Cooper. 

Shawn Spears & Cassie Lee in the Ring

Spears currently competes for AEW, where he has been working since 2019. The former Tye Dillinger instantly made an impact with a feud with Cody Rhodes which would see Spears deliver an unprotected chair shot to  Rhodes’ head. In 2010, Spears was part of the MJF-led faction ‘The Pinnacle’. The faction would defeat the Inner Circle in a Blood and Guts match at Blood and Guts before losing in a Stadium Stampede match at Double or Nothing.

Cassie Lee is a former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion and IMPACT Wrestling Knockouts Tag Champion and is one of four women to have held both titles. In April 2022, Lee, alongside McKay requested their immediate release from IMPACT which was granted. The pair gave a statement sharing their intention to step away from wrestling. Lee wouldn’t wrestle until October of this year and would compete for a tour in her native Australia. 

What do Cassie Lee & Jessica McKay make to wrestling, motherhood, and more? Click here to check out their exclusive comments to SE Scoops. 

AEW’s Shawn Spears and fellow wrestler Cassie Lee are celebrating the birth of their first child, a baby boy they have named Austin Jay.

Taking to Twitter, Spears shared a photo of their son along with his name, a blue heart emoji and that he was born this past Tuesday.

The couple announced that they were expecting a bundle of joy last August with a post on Instagram.

We here at SEScoops would like to congratulate Spears and Lee on this joyous occasion.

Cassie Lee & Shawn Spears

The new parents met when they were working for WWE, where Lee was Peyton Royce and Spears was the ‘Perfect 10’ Tye Dillinger.

The couple married in August 2019 in a ceremony attended by multiple wrestlers.

In February of that same years, Dillinger announced that he had requested his release from WWE, which was granted days later.

Debuting at the inaugural AEW event ‘Double or Nothing’ Spears would establish himself as a heel and later become part of the Pinnacle.

During AEW’s debut in Toronto last October, Spears turned face and reverted to his ‘Perfect 10’ character from WWE.

As for Lee, she became a WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion in 2019, but would be released from WWE in April 2021.

Released at the same time as her IIconics tag-team partner Jess McKay (Billie Kay) the pair would join Impact Wrestling later that year.

In their debut, the team, now going by The IInspiration, would capture the Knockouts Tag Team Titles, the only team to hold both WWE’s and Impacts women’s tag gold.

In April 2022, both women requested their immediate releases from Impact and are taking a break from wrestling.

One wrestling couple has just announced that they’re expecting their first child together.

All Elite Wrestling star Shawn Spears and former WWE Superstar Cassie Lee (Peyton Royce) shared a video of social media sharing the news. Spears and Lee married back in 2019.

Spears ran with WWE from 2013 to 2019, during which he spent four of those years with NXT before being called up to the main roster. Unfortunately, Spears never got a run as a champion during his time with WWE.

However, he was one of SmackDown Live’s most promising young stars at the time. In February of 2019, Spears asked for his release from WWE, and it was later granted. A few months later, he made his AEW debut at Double Or Nothing.

As for Lee, she had a six-year run with WWE as one-half of the tag team, The IIconics, alongside Billie Kay. The pair had runs on NXT and the WWE main roster, which included a reign as the WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions.

However, Lee was released from WWE in April of 2021 along with several other talents, including Kay. She had a brief run with IMPACT Wrestling in 2021 before ultimately requesting her release this past April.

Now, it appears she’ll take some time away from the ring as she and Spears start their family together.

WWE made headlines recently when it was announced that Impact Wrestling Women’s Champion Mickie James would return to the company for an appearance in this year’s women’s Royal Rumble.

It turns out that James wasn’t the only former WWE talent currently with Impact that WWE reached out regarding the Rumble. According to Fightful Select, former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions The IIconics (Peyton Royce and Billie Kay) were asked about coming in for the match.

The two are currently the Impact Knockouts Tag Team Champions as The IInspiration. Both Cassie Lee (Royce) and Jessica McKay (Kay) decided against the return. They’re happy where they are at now in their careers since their WWE releases last year.

The Fightful report notes that Impact would have signed off on the request and allowed them to compete in the match had they wanted to. Apparently they are not the only former WWE releases who have been asked about returning for the Rumble match.

Difficulty Filling Out The Rumble Roster?

The women’s side of the Royal Rumble appears to be quite challenging for WWE when it comes to filling out the roster with names the general audience will recognize (read: non-rookies from NXT). Given all of the releases over the last couple of years, the roster has been left pretty thin. Several names from the past have already been announced.

So far confirmed for this year’s women’s Royal Rumble: Mickie James, Charlotte Flair, Rhea Ripley, Nikki A.S.H., Dana Brooke, Carmella, Queen Zelina, Shotzi, Natalya, Aliyah, Naomi, Shayna Baszler, Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, Lita, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly, Summer Rae, Bianca Belair, and Liv Morgan.

Names confirmed so far for the men’s Royal Rumble match: Johnny Knoxville, Big E, AJ Styles, Angelo Dawkins, Montez Ford, Rey Mysterio, Dominik Mysterio, Austin Theory, Sheamus, Damian Priest, Happy Corbin, Madcap Moss, Sami Zayn, Kofi Kingston, and Kevin Owens.

Regarding the note that other WWE releases have been contacted about appearing in the Rumble matches, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer recently noted that no AEW talent will appear in the match.

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Impact Wrestling stars The IInspiration (Cassie Lee and Jessica McKay) will miss Saturday’s Hard to Kill PPV due to COVID exposure.

They had been scheduled to defend their Knockouts tag team titles on the show against Madison Rayne and Tenille Dashwood.

The tag team contacted Impact to let them know they were in close contact with someone who tested positive shortly after.

As of this writing, neither Lee or McKay have tested positive themselves.

“IMPACT’s COVID protocols are in place to keep our talent roster, staff and fans safe. I am sure the fans will share The IInspiration’s and my disappointment that they won’t be in action at tomorrow’s stacked HARD TO KILL event, but we look forward to their return soon,” said Scott D’Amore.

Hard To Kill 2022 Lineup

Impact Hard to Kill 2022 will take place January 8th, 2022 from the Bomb Factory in Dallas, Texas. The matches below have been officially confirmed for the show:

• Impact World Championship
  Moose (c) vs Matt Cardona vs W. Morrissey
• Knockouts Championship
  Texas Death Match
  Mickie James (c) vs Deonna Purrazzo
• Ultimate X Match For The #1 Contendership to the Knockouts Championship
  Lady Frost vs Alisha Edwards vs Tasha Steelz vs Jordynne Grace vs Chelsea Green vs Rosemary
• Josh Alexander vs JONAH
• X-Division Championship
  Trey Miguel (c) vs Steve Maclin
• ROH Championship
  Jonathan Gresham (c) vs. Chris Sabin
• 10-Man Hardcore War
  Eddie Edwards, Rich Swann, Willie Mack, Heath and Rhino vs. The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) and Violent By Design (Eric Young, Deaner, and Joe Doering)

Jessica McKay and Cassie Lee are now known as Iinspiration (FKA Billie Kay & Peyton Royce, the Iiconics). The Australian duo have recently announced their return to pro-wrestling. They had both been released from their WWE contracts in April after having been with the company since 2015.

Both Jessica McKay and Cassie Lee took to Twitter recently to announce their returns to pro-wrestling. They have announced “The Iinspiration Tour” with dates and cities to be announced soon.

WrestleCade has announced them for their event at the Benton Convention Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in late November:

News that the team are returning to pro-wrestling comes after they had both discussed having problems obtaining work visas after being released from WWE.

“People are like, ‘what are going to do now?’ Well, nothing, because I can’t legally work in the country and people think that you apply for the green card and it comes in the mail,” said McKay on Oral Sessions. “This stuff takes years and we’ve been through the ringer with this, getting stuff denied and switching the process because of the pandemic. It keeps backing up, year after year. We’re almost there, but almost there could still be a year away. We just don’t know.”

The IIconics became the second team to win the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships after they were brought back in 2019. They won a 4-way match at WrestleMania 35 to win the belts from Sasha Banks and Bayley.

The duo formerly known as The IIconics said goodbye to “Peyton Royce” and “Billie Kay”, Wednesday.

Jessica McKay and Cassie Lee took to Twitter to say farewell to their old WWE gimmicks, expressing gratitude towards the opportunity to portray and create the personalities.

As pointed out by Reddit user u/braincloud215 on r/SquaredCircle, the pair’s WWE 90-day non-compete clause expires on the same day they announce their separation from the names.

Similarly, Tommy End, formerly Aleister Black, posted a video on his Instagram account in which he escapes from an “insane asylum” the same day he debuted for AEW.

In June, The IIconics appeared on Renee Paquette’s Oral Sessions podcast and revealed they were unable to work in the US, due to issues with their visa status after leaving WWE.

Though it stands as mere speculation, it is interesting to note that the two former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions say “adios” to their old gimmicks on a Wednesday—the same day AEW Dynamite airs.