Predicting What The Entire Wrestling World Will Look Like In Five Years
3. Will Wrestling Finally Get Over The Things Most Fans Are Bored Of?
Yes, is the short answer here. To an extent, anyway.
WWE will do what WWE does, and WWE likes to promote more ladder matches in a year than there are months. In general, long-suffering fans have complained about gimmick PPVs and the stilted byproduct of booking programmes on the basis of a calendar and not a story. They still exist. They have existed for over a decade.
Elsewhere, we're already seeing a slow stylistic shift. Virtually everybody hates the outstretched arms welcoming dive spots. Even those who appreciate the pulsating rhythm of a great spot-fest can't sanction the glaring cooperation of that spot - but how often do you see it in AEW in 2022?
The arrival of CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, and the slow-burn push of those positioned to one day replace them, has illuminated the bad habits of certain members of the roster. These habits are now fading. Long for the sake of long matches are dying out too; since Double Or Nothing 2020, no match on any AEW PPV has exceeded 30 minutes in length. Lessons have already been learned from the histrionic excesses of the latter days of the TakeOver era.
Wrestling will continue to react to the marketplace and style itself accordingly, even if it takes a while.
Expect more gnarly head-scraping violence in 2027.