Originally Posted by Exemplar

Except that Saurfang was "hidden." The initial achievements (Storming the Citadel) and all other references were to "The Deathbringer." Even Blues referred to him as such on the forums. It was not confirmed "Deathbringer Saurfang" or even labeled as such until his fight began testing, at which point the cat is rather out of the bag unless they'd gone through the intense effort to rename him, give him a different model, and have different speech from what would occur on live.

Rapid guessing was that the Deathbringer was Saurfang, but there was no confirmation until he was accessible.

Occam's Razor - lavaman's clothing scraps match Bolvar to significant degrees of similarity. A randomly created lavaman mob would not be so congruent. The vision on Yogg was labeled "Burning Champion." It is therefore logical to make an assumption that the lavaman is Bolvar.

Hence rapid guessing is lavaman is Bolvar, but there is no confirmation until (if/when) he becomes accessible. Chances of lavaman not being Bolvar are low, however there is always the possibility that lavaman/Bolvar will not be used at all. Blizzard has scrapped plans before.

What exact role Bolvar will play in or after Icecrown has yet to develop. Having this as something to look forward to seeing, rather than something datamined months in advance is rather nice.