Predicting What The Entire Wrestling World Will Look Like In Five Years
1. Will There Be A THIRD Major Promotion?
Yes.
Consider the landscape.
WWE has finally abandoned its sign-everybody-in-blind-f*cking-panic recruitment strategy. AEW's roster is beyond over-sized. The free agent talent pool is deep with the potential to expand even further, given limited opportunities in the latter promotion and Nick Khan's fondness for balancing the budget. Rights fees are projected to become yet more astronomical and in the meantime, as mentioned, the culture of binge-watching is showing early signs of fatiguing the consumer. Both WWE and AEW rank higher on cable than virtually anything beyond major sporting fixtures and the news, when something seismic happens. The stigma of wrestling as a lurid low-rent hobby for "the poors" is evaporating.
Nothing ever did come of the Domino's Nick Gage "furore", did it?
So who heads up this third major league, which Dark Twitter rumours suggest might already be in the process of forming?
Triple H is an easy pick; his NXT product didn't fare well on television, but he has significant name value and has fallen afoul of WWE's corporate structure. His health likely precludes him from fronting such a high-pressure venture.
Paul Heyman is well overdue his typical acrimonious exit, and while his Executive Director stint manifested in painfully dull gauntlet match theatre, he too has name value - and more credit in the bank these days, following his acclaimed input into the Tribal Chief character.
Jeff Jarrett, Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff are all much too carnified in 2022.
Who has a movie career that has seen better days, is suddenly a bit more apprehensive about his previously expressed political aspirations, is now more interested in business ventures, absolutely loves lots of money, knows a thing or two about wrestling, and is close friends with a former wrestling writer?
The Rock.
Rock and Brian Gewirtz doing sports entertainment right: it's a wild bet, but that's wrestling for you.