Top RAW Backstage Rumors: Paul Heyman released because of Bobby Lashley? Vince McMahon being forced to push Superstar he doesn't want to; Former US Champion to return after 6 months (18th August)

Welcome to another edition of the Top RAW backstage rumours that could have a major impact. This week we saw the go-home show of Monday Night RAW ahead of the upcoming SummerSlam PPV.

The show will see Randy Orton vs Drew McIntyre for the WWE Championship along with Sasha Banks vs Asuka for the RAW Women's Championship among other matches from RAW.

Reports have suggested that WWE may be planning cliffhanger ending for Orton vs McIntyre at the show which will get resolved in another PPV Payback - happening just a week after SummerSlam.

So without further ado, let us jump into the biggest RAW related rumors you cannot miss:

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#5 Was Paul Heyman released as WWE ECW head because of RAW Superstar Bobby Lashley?

Former RAW Executive Director was let go by WWE a few months back and replaced with Bruce Prichard. However, this was not the first time Heyman had to quit the position of a creative head involved in WWE.

Former RAW ED Paul Heyman was the creative head of WWE's relaunch of ECW in 2006. Heyman was released from his duties after the debacle of a PPV called December to dismember. It is believed that the reason for Heyman's unhappiness was Vince McMahon forcing him to make Bobby Lashley the ECW Champion on the PPV even though Heyman wanted CM Punk to win.

While speaking about the incident on Grilling JR, Jim Ross revealed that Heyman had himself pushed for Lashley to join WWE ECW. However, he did not want The Almighty winning the Championship. Instead he wanted either RVD or CM Punk to win.

Though Jim Ross believes Lashley winning was not the sole reason for Paul Heyman being removed as ECW head, it did add to the dispute between Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman.

#4 Vince McMahon is not keen on pushing Dominik as a singles star on RAW

Rey Mysterio returned to RAW this week. However, it has been reported that Vince McMahon is not too fond of the SummerSlam match between Rey Mysterio's son Dominik and Seth Rollins.

Tom Colohue has reported that WWE did not want to push Dominik as a singles Superstar but had no choice but to do that as Rey Mysterio was adamant. The master of 619 made it clear that he would re-sign with the company only if his son is pushed as per the report.

It is speculated that the reason behind Dominik's brutal beatdown on RAW last week was Vince McMahon indicating that Mysterio should not hold WWE responsible for the well-being of his son.

"I really can't see this as anything but a message from Vince McMahon to Rey Mysterio. Something like, if you're son gets hurt that's on you for pushing us to get him involved too early because the WWE did not want Dominik debuting in a solo match at this point, but that's what Rey wanted, and Rey wanted to make sure they did what he wanted before he would look at signing a new contract."

#3 More details on the possible return of Samoa Joe on RAW

Samoa Joe has been doing a tremendous job on the RAW announce booth as of late. The former US Champion had been deemed unfit to compete after suffering a concussion and has been serving as a commentator on RAW since 6 months.

However, Samoa Joe's friend MVP revealed in an interview with Newsweek that he understands that Samoa Joe will be returning to action very soon.

"What I understand, ole Samoa Joe is gonna be back in action and over the years Samoa Joe and I have been great friends, but we've never ever faced each other. At this stage of my career, I think I feel a lot more confident facing him, knowing that I got Bobby and Shelton backing me up—but I also know that wouldn't phase Joe in the least."

Samoa Joe has been involved in scuffles with Seth Rollins and Murphy over the past few weeks although he has not been in any physical altercation. Joe is one of the best powerhouse performers on RAW and it would be epic to see him compete in RAW Underground.

#2 Truth about RAW anonymous General Manager storyline

One of the most ludicrous storylines in the past decade was the one involving an anonymous RAW General Manager. The GM would send out instructions via a laptop for Michael Cole to read it out aloud. While the story helped Michael Cole become one of the most despised heels on the roster, it didn't achieve anything more.

Though fans believed that there would eventually be a reveal as to who this RAW GM was, WWE quietly dropped the angle without any revelation. Arn Anderson talked about the storyline on his podcast - ARN.

"[It was] hokey. Yeah, it was bad, it was bad. You can't have some phantom guy that's got all the authority, that's booking all the matches. It takes that stretch of believability and it goes way, way, way too far. And I think it just did. "It was cute for a week or two but it still didn't make sense unless you're going to have a reveal, and you never had a reveal. It's just 'blink blink' and that was the GM that nobody knew who it was, making career decisions on people's lives."

#1 WWE changed Randy Orton and Ric Flair's segment on RAW

Last week on RAW, Randy Orton and Ric Flair cut splendid promos right before The Viper turned on his mentor and punted The Nature Boy Ric Flair. As per reports from Fightful Select, the original promo was much longer than what was aired on RAW.

It is stated that Randy Orton's promo was longer and 'minutes' from it were cut. The reason for Orton's promo being cut on RAW was that the show was running out of time.

The angle saw Ric Flair be written off from RAW and WWE. Some reports had also suggested that the former 16-time World Champion was not happy with the company for their decision to leave him out of SummerSlam.

Here is what Tom Colohue had stated in regards to the promo:

''As such, we had quite a real promo from both men because they didn't have much to go on. They weren't given much writing to essentially say, 'go on out there and hit these exact notes'. So that's close to very real promos from both guys, with some editing where they would write off a few lines and so on and so forth."