9 Ups & 11 Downs For WWE In 2025
6. The Tag Divisions
When Triple H took over following Vince McMahon resigning in disgrace for the first time in 2022, most people assumed that the Women's Division would be the first ignored area to creative to get the TLC it needed and deserved. His revitalising of the scene in NXT back in 2014 had been transformative and influential. and generations of new talent had since stepped up to the main roster only to be greeted by woeful direction and booking on arrival. Hunter was the man to change things.
That, disappointingly, proved not to be the case initially. But 'The Game' did work on building another part of the show back up in the same way he'd managed in that aforementioned golden era. Tag team wrestling was back. The WrestleMania 39 main event between Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and The Usos was a monument to it, and as 2023 roared on, Monday Night Raw was routinely the home of red hot doubles matches closing shows, reflecting a division in genuinely phenomenal condition.
WWE's best match of the year came from the women's division, Evolution was (predictably) the best Premium Live Event in forever, and most of the most captivating matches the company can go to in 2026 come from both Raw and SmackDown's women's divisions. Seemingly as a strange consequence, doubles wrestling has been badly back-burnered. The failure to capitalise on The New Day's incredible heel turn is the most pronounced example, but then there's the strange case of SmackDown's creatively undernourished crew - the gang get together for a multi-man match once every six months or so, but endlessly tread water in between. Both sets of belts have been known to lay dormant long beyond the old 30-day defence rule, resulting in some pining for the straps to be re-unified to at very least half the problem.
What's stopping the 'Cerebral Assassin' and the industry's chief self-fart-sniffer from being able to manage both?