10 Most Uncanny Predictions Ever Made About Wrestling

This predictions lark is a tough business. Even in a piece in which the crystal ball was on one's side, certain things did not transpire.

Mick Foley once told the then-WWF to "cut their losses" and get rid of the Rock when the man was floundering as Rocky Maivia. This was a damning assessment because Foley was one of the sharpest minds of his generation, and furthermore knew precisely how to maximise the skills of the next generation as well as any booker. He didn't just predict the future much of the time; he paved it. Foley had an absolute nightmare with that, but he's far from alone.

Jim Cornette predicted that All Elite Wrestling would go out of business by April 2020. His ingrained hatred of anything that didn't look like tough guys doing tough guy stuff could not allow him to comprehend, fairly, that something he was predisposed to hating might actually have a strong audience. It was a prediction informed by arrogance and a wilfully ignorant misconception of the way in which the modern industry works at an artistic and commercial level.

The specificity of that prediction makes it all the more bird-brained because even a global pandemic - one that necessitated bleak closed-set tapings - could not stop AEW's rise (which, if you're interested in reading about in great detail, buy this).

Cornette was indulged with that opinion because he really knew what he was on about once upon a time...

"In five years' time, we're really gonna need 'em".

Those were the words with which Jim Cornette pleaded with WWE upper management as mainstream North American wrestling faced something of an existential crisis. He knew that WCW was doomed. He hated the "goofy sh*t" ECW was doing. He knew that the independent scene of the late 20th century was nowhere near enough to replenish the talent pool that had evaporated following the collapse of the territories.

In 1999, he tasked himself with formalising the splintered and wildly unfit for purpose developmental "system" and, driven by his loathing of the culture in Connecticut and Vince Russo, reframed Ohio Valley Wrestling as the one-stop shop for building new stars. OVW booked its own shows and trained its own talent in addition to the muscle monsters dispatched there by WWE; the idea, and WWE loathed this, possibly because it made too much sense, was to emulate a competitive meritocracy. If the WWE hires weren't up to the task in a backwater burg, they stood no chance on the biggest stage.

While Cornette was a year off, WWE did need the new stars whose early careers he navigated. The promotion was performing dismally when the boom bust, as Cornette predicted it would, but by 2005's WrestleMania 21, OVW graduates John Cena and Batista posted its record PPV buy rate.

Cornette wasn't spotless - he probably still thinks Matt Morgan would draw on top of AEW - but he was an uncredited architect of WWE's future.