10 Things That Must Happen Before WrestleMania 36
WWE have their work cut out before hitting Tampa next year.
It has been close to three weeks since the curtain fell on WWE's season finale, WrestleMania 35, but only now does it feel like the company are truly looking to the future.
A dearth of shocks and surprises tanked the Raw and SmackDown after 'Mania, and this year's Superstar Shake-Up was even more confusing than ever, with several wrestlers changing brands more than once across two weeks' worth of TV tapings. Let's hope that now, finally, the chaos is in the rearview, the new season is underway, and WWE can begin building to the Raymond James Stadium on 5 April 2020.
The next 12 months will be challenging. AEW have brought competition back to professional wrestling, viewership is plummeting at a rate almost thrice as sharp as the average top 25 US cable station, and dissent plagues the WWE locker-room. If Vince McMahon must work harder than ever if he's to stop the rot and satiate viewers and investors alike. Fail, and WWE will keep losing ground across the board: even their once-indomitable financial stats are starting to show cracks.
A healthy, thriving WWE is best for everyone, so let's hope they pull it off...
10. Get New Women's Tag Team Champions
Billie Kay and Peyton Royce are excellent jobbers. They're annoying, get decent heat, are good enough between the ropes to put someone over in 2-3 minutes, and always come up with hilarious excuses for their shortcomings. This should disqualify from holding championships, at least until WWE have switched gears and tried to build them up, but alas.
The IIconics are a combined 1-4 since taking Sasha Banks and Bayley's straps at WrestleMania 35, with that one victory coming against a pair of local jobbers. They've got belts, but they're still being booked like jokes.
This reign is already unsalvageable. Say what you will about Banks and Bayley's professionalism following their post-'Mania stunts, but they were right about the Women's Tag Team Titles. These things are deader than dead at the moment, and while it should be acknowledged that Kay and Royce themselves aren't the problem, the straps can't be received with any degree of credibility while around the waists of two performers who routinely lose in under two minutes.
Asuka and Kairi Sane's emergence gives WWE an easy option to put this division back on the right course. Fingers crossed they take it.