10 Deadly Mistakes WWE Must NOT Make Before WrestleMania XL
It's a long road to Philadelphia; here's everything WWE shouldn't do...
WrestleMania 39 was subjectively a leading example of how to promote a lucrative pro wrestling product.
Everything that has since succeeded it, has subverted WWE's breakthrough with fan interest.
Vince McMahon is back. He has the final jurisdiction on what makes it through the curtain as NewCo's Executive Chairman following Endeavour's deal with WWE. McMahon, who'd been out of full creative (mis)management since the summer, was reported to have had a hand backstage in the running of 'Mania's second day, a duty that significantly and evidently expanded by the time the post-WrestleMania Raw was broadcast. A litany of last-minute revisions, an emblem of Vince's time at the helm of WWE, culminated in the worst Raw ever.
Objectively, WWE has never been in a worse state. Its diehard audience is threatening - or at least attempting to, albeit incompetently - to boycott shows. While that won't outwit WWE, it may cause GUNTHER, the ruling Intercontinental Champion whose Final Boss identification has brought compelling dignity and prestige back to the title, to crudely drop the title to Shanky, such is the cynicism of a Vince McMahon-led WWE.
That's just one of the myriad of neglectful blunders WWE can't make en route to WrestleMania XL...
10. The Beast Ends The Story
This was not the right call.
Cody Rhodes, who'd been conveyed as a determined, boisterous God since his April 2022 comeback, was ultimately felled by Roman Reigns in a 'Mania phenomenon that yielded a counterfactual result. Rhodes was the guy, the one to beat Roman, the one babyface who has possessed the same natural, gripping charisma not seen since peak-John Cena.
And then he lost.
And then he got battered by Brock Lesnar.
Rhodes vs. Lesnar will doubtlessly be a grandiose contest the likes of which WWE markets itself on, but how will they consummate the accurate result? Cody's lost all momentum. The audience was cheering when he got mauled by Lesnar - a move that is undividedly WWE's wrongdoing - so a Cody Rhodes victory may not be the enviable conclusion it once was, though it's unquestionably the correct one.
Cody, in theory, needs to get past Brock to get back to Roman. There's a way of tying this senseless heel turn together; Lesnar, unable to challenge for the top prize as long as it's on Roman's shoulder, could have been employed by Paul Heyman to mutilate Cody with the affirmation of a title contest.
It's too elaborate a story beat for WWE's inconsequential and trivial 'storylines'. But it works, so long as Cody slays 'The Beast'.