The world of Star Trek is about to get bodyslammed. News broke this week that Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was going to beam up one of the most recognizable pro wrestlers of the modern era, with the enlistment of one Becky Lynch. Lynch, real name Rebecca Quinn, has been a major face on WWE screens for almost a decade now.
The 37-year-old, super popular wrestler, announced recently that she was going to be a part of the new Star Trek show on her Instagram account (via TrekMovie.com). The move brings a major name from outside of the world of acting to Star Trek and a move that may hint at Star Trek's future home. As of right now the series is still set to appear on Paramount+.
Yet, there have been rumors for almost a year that Paramount+ may shutter their doors, or merge with another distributor. They have a huge chip to play in any sort of buyout or merger, as they have the NFL on their platform. Plus you throw in franchises like Star Trek and you can see why some people would be interested in doing business with the brand.
That said, should the streaming service go belly-up, then Paramount will likely look to push their content to third-party outlets like Netflix. A move that's already happened with Star Trek: Prodigy. So Lynch's involvement with Star Trek may be more akin to The Rock's involvement with Star Trek: Voyager.
See, The Rock wrestled for the WWE in 2000, and the WWE had a show on UPN. That show was SmackDown. Voyager likewise appeared on UPN and so there was some symmetry. With the WWE now going to Netflix in January with their show RAW, and Lynch being a former WWE megastar, there may once again be some symmetry going on.
Though that's just speculation at this point, firstly, there has been no movement yet on Star Trek's future with Paramount+ or what Paramount wants to do with their struggling streaming platform, especially with the merger and change in leadership that Paramount recently went through. Also, despite rumors, Lynch is currently a free agent and isn't with the WWE at this time.
She may return, she may move on to elsewhere. So despsite the remote possibility that this is a potential sign of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy heading to Netflix, it's far more likely that Lynch is just being brought in due to her name value and not because of corporate synergy.