How WWE Is Quietly Building Its Next Main Event Megastar
WrestleMania has a fantasy main event AND a dream one, but the realistic option is the best of all.
Winter is coming.
The foreboding, threatening nature of what a simple season can do to this planet and the humans that inhabit it has become so visceral in recent years that all your favourite forms of media have jumped on it. Integral to the marketing of Game Of Thrones in the early years, the mere idea that everything was finished at the first drop of snow promised doom for those you had time to grow to love.
AEW borrowed it for the name of a December 2020 Dynamite special in which the narrative world was turned upside down. Kenny Omega and Don Callis revealed a grand plan to dethrone AEW World Champion Jon Moxley in the most unpredictable fashion imaginable - “Forbidden Door” teases with New Japan Pro Wrestling were in fact hiding an Impact Wrestling relationship in plain sight.
Decades ago, “winter” was a bit of a dirty word within WWE, presumably because it sounded like a reason not to buy tickets, leave the house and go to shows. It was Holiday Season, where Thanksgiving and Christmas cards offered the first clues of what might be to come at the Royal Rumble and ultimately, WrestleMania. Sadly, before Vince McMahon resigned in disgrace, he’d given up on this completely - Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar had feuded from SummerSlam 2021 through to a planned bout at January 2022’s Day 1 before Covid provided a delay that bought everybody an offensively bland WrestleMania main event.
That’s categorically not the case this year, thankfully.
There’s a warmth around WWE that’s not just because the cold and callous McMahon has at long last gone into overdue hibernation. Winter is coming, but the story of Sami Zayn's place within The Bloodline has got heat out the *ss and might well be hot enough to change the biggest conversation in WWE's promotional calendar as Spring 2023 approaches...
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