10 Wrestlers Who Will Change The Business Over The Next 10 Years
1. Kenny Omega
He's already doing it.
Kenny Omega is embarking on a cross-promotional endeavour to fulfil the ambition he set out all the way back in 2018 on Talk Is Jericho: collaboration. Omega has long expressed a desire to open doors in pro wrestling to relive the inter-promotional wonder of the 1990s and conjure dream matches and boundless narrative possibilities. Somewhat optimistically, he has even expressed a desire to co-promote with WWE.
The only obstacle to fantasy warfare is aloof stubbornness and complex politics. Every promotion wants their stars to go over, because why wouldn't they? In WWE meanwhile, the idea of cross-promotion is verboten because no promotion even in storyline can challenge WWE's dominance. It would ruin the illusion that other pro wrestling companies exist - or that pro wrestling exists, even. It would freely advertise an industry Vince McMahon has spent 38 years trying to kill.
Omega's ambition is lofty. Impact Wrestling, the promotion to which he has essentially defected in storylines, in part, is irrelevant. New Japan per the latest reports remains cold to the prospect of a talent exchange. Ring Of Honor doubles those respective issues: the promotion is flailing like Impact, and the departing Elite had much to do with its decline.
But if anybody can make this work, it's Omega: masterful storyteller with formal executive power to wield his significant value as a performer.
And who knows? Perhaps, once the pandemic recedes, there will be a renewed appetite to do unprecedented things across an industry in dire need of a new futuristic direction. Kazuchika Okada, himself a talent of major influence, has echoed Omega's call to arms.
Perhaps one day wrestling will come together to reward us all for persisting with this bittersweet emulation with a spectacle never seen before.
If it happens, Omega will hold that pen.