It's Official: We Are In WWE's Endgame

WWE Raw The New Day Xavier Woods Kofi Kingston
WWE

This often led to long and very tedious stretches of programming littered with overfamiliar talents doing the same thing over and over again, but this boring foundational stuff is necessary; without these nuts and bolts, WWE is in danger of collapsing under the weight of horrible impressions of pro wrestling matches. You see evidence of this all the time; at least once a week, a wrestler either goes missing or botches a move beyond belief. Sheamus and the New Day should be in a WWE ring, right now, losing matches to the new generation of talent. They are not. That is because WWE attempted to renegotiate their deals to make the contracts significantly more favourable to TKO. Kofi (Kingston) recently let slip to Chris Van Vliet that WWE tried to lop more than 50% off his existing deal. Kofi, Xavier Woods, and Sheamus all balked at this bullsh*t, rightly, and WWE let them go (the former have now jumped ship to AEW). But WWE can always build more Superstars from the ground up at the Performance Center.

Except, no, WWE can’t do this. The PC has produced infinitely more couples than WrestleMania headliners. The system was not fit for purpose years and years before the TKO era, and it’s even more certain to fail now that WWE has slashed its house show schedule in recent years. This year’s domestic ‘Summer Tour’ was an attempt to address this issue, but like everything TKO does, it’s half-arsed.

This era of WWE feels different to even the parody of pro wrestling that Bryan Danielson described several years ago. Wrestling is a capitalistic enterprise that only exists to generate money - but WWE has completely abandoned the notion of attempting to obscure this. WWE is in an endgame, fast approaching a final form as a blank advertisement hoarding masquerading as a wrestling-adjacent content farm. New champions celebrate with mascots in front of fans who are encouraged to pay sickening ticket prices for the privilege. Those numbers are dwindling, and you can hear an ant piss on cotton in the arenas most of the time - but the balance sheet looks better, so swivel. The use of AI is increasingly prevalent. Fans from cities who have never had the chance to witness WrestleMania live in person don’t participate in grotesque human rights abuses, so they don’t get to attend, even after it was all but promised to them. They miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch multiple long adverts on a big screen as TKO builds the main event around Pat McAfee because they like him and he’s in the boy’s club.

All of this is reflected in the onscreen product of 2026.

CONT'D...(3 of 5)

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Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick (Creative Writing BA Hons) is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over a decade of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential UK institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!