10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About 2023
6. The Lack Of A Youth Movement
Roman Reigns is 38. Cody Rhodes is also 38. Roman might never return in a full-time capacity, and while Cody no longer speaks in absolutes, he is more capricious than his top WWE guy predecessors.
Seth Rollins is 37, has done everything there is to do in WWE, and isn't the physical specimen he once was. LA Knight is 41. He's over to an absurd degree, but he's not going to get much better in the ring at this point. Damian Priest won the Money In The Bank briefcase, ostensibly casting him as the next WWE main event hope. He's 41, too. Judgment Day stablemate Finn Bálor is a year older. Drew McIntyre is 38. Sheamus is 45. Bobby Lashley is (an albeit inexplicable) 47. AJ Styles, if he's even a top star these days, is 46.
Charlotte Flair is 37. Becky Lynch is 36. Bianca Belair, at 34, has just entered her wrestler's prime.
That realistically leaves just Rhea Ripley, at 27, who has a decade of a top run ahead of her. Every other prominent WWE star is closer to the end than the beginning. This is when the wrestler masters the full range of the form, generally - but it's also when the injuries start to pile up.
Solo Sikoa and Dominik Mysterio haven't done enough to suggest they truly have the stuff to headline consistently. WWE don't seem to know what they have with Montez Ford.
NXT is intent on telling you that Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes are the next two recurring WrestleMania headliners, but they don't have amazing hit rates. Their chemistry together is weak, too, undermining the idea of an Austin Vs. Rock-style legacy feud.
WWE is popping bottles in the present. The future however could be a lot brighter.
The women in NXT are the crack of light in a greying sky - Tiffany Stratton and Lola Vice are both tremendous for their level of experience - and the Creeds are proof of concept that the NIL programme could see WWE finally make the Performance Center worthwhile. It's a bit early to tell still.
Austin Theory is just 26...but...