2022 - A Year In Review, Part 3: The Rest & What’s Next

Having already looked at eventful and tumultuous years for WWE and AEW in Parts 1 and 2 respectively, it’s time to look at a grab bag of the rest of the wrestling world’s 2022.

That is to say, not a very comprehensive one. I’ve not consumed that much wrestling content in 2022, so have little to say on the year that was for, for example, NJPW, Stardom, or really much of Japan at all. I’ve dipped my fingers into American indie wrestling, followed AAA’s thirtieth year fairly closely, and attended a handful of British independent shows. So this is a looser conflagration of thoughts that even the previous two entries.

Antonio Inoki

For my money, there’s only one place to start. In a year that saw Vince McMahon removed from power in WWE (though I’ll be getting back to that later), and the CM Punk/Elite story that dominated the wrestling headlines, it feels like - outside of Japan - the death of Antonio Inoki was met with a fairly muted response, when in any other year it would have been undeniably the biggest story of the year.

I have written extensively about Antonio Inoki in my upcoming book, Kayfabe: The Mostly True History Of Professional Wrestling. For the most part, I have attempted to eschew a “Great Man” approach to writing this history, using profiles of key figures only as a launching pad from which to discuss broader trends or where their life story provides insight into a wider historical context - I’m a firm believer that wrestling’s boom periods are driven not by the contributions of a handful of talented individuals, but by societal, cultural, economic and technological trends; whether that be economic prosperity providing a broader range of entertainment options, the advent of national cable television allowing for the national expansion of the WWF (or, indeed, of any other promotion as well positioned to take advantage of it), or the relative affordability of DVD production and distribution allowing for the independent wrestling boom of the early ‘00s.

Perhaps the only exception to that view of wrestling history that I will concede may well be in the life of Antonio Inoki - it’s possible to imagine that professional wrestling in Japan would have evolved with someone else in the boots of Rikidozan, or of Giant Baba, but the shape of professional wrestling in Japan and worldwide without the involvement of Antonio Inoki would be entirely unlike where we have ended up today. Inoki’s dogged, often counter-intuitive, pursuit of “Strong Style” begat entire new genres of professional wrestling - Strong Style evolving into shoot style, and later into the proto-MMA of RINGS and Pancrase, but also directly influencing Atsushi Onita’s early forays into wrestling vs. karate fights that ultimately evolved into the explosive deathmatches of FMW and beyond, and, along with Hisashi Shinma, his endorsement of Satoru Sayama as the original Tiger Mask had an outsized influence on the development of Junior or Cruiserweight wrestling for decades to come. Outside of Japan, Inoki’s business relationships with the WWF in the early ‘80s kept the money coming in to such an extent that it’s not unreasonable to suggest that the first Wrestlemania would never have happened without New Japan money helping McMahon stay afloat in the years leading up to it. In Mexico, he played the unlikely role of peacekeeper and master negotiator between EMLL and UWA, allowing the two promotions to work together for the first time in their history.

Perhaps Karl Gotch would have found another willing disciple, another promoter to indulge him and treat him as the star that he realistically had never been during his prime. Perhaps Japanese wrestling’s close connections to other martial arts would have ultimately grew to accommodate the kind of inter-disciplinary fights, worked or otherwise, that Inoki specialised in. Maybe every path that Inoki took wrestling down was an inevitable one, driven by market forces and external influences more than by his own personal tastes, but it’s hard to picture - he wasn’t the first wrestler to fight boxers, or the first to challenge fighters from other disciplines, not by a long shot, but nobody did it like him, nobody made it the central facet of his self-promotion. And that is still but one aspect of who Antonio Inoki was.

I’m not here to write his biography - again, this is all gone over in greater detail in the book - but to reflect on his death, and what that means. That it fell within the 50th anniversary year of NJPW, the promotion he founded, meant that the promotion and its long-time stars were already in reflective mood, and more open to reintegrating the exiled founder into their legacy - after Inoki’s death, NJPW announced that they had been intending to appoint him to a ceremonial “lifetime chairman” position. Kazuchika Okada, a decidedly un-Inoki-like figure at the head of NJPW, spent much of 2022 consciously fashioning himself as a modern Inoki, dressing in a familiarly cut entrance robe and towel, cast as the modern inheritor of Inoki’s crown, and the man to carry NJPW into an unknown future.

Hiroshi Tanahashi was in tears at NJPW’s ten bell salute in tribute to their founder. Tanahashi had long been critical of Inoki prior to his split from NJPW - in Tanahashi’s mind, Strong Style was an approach to professional wrestling that needlessly endangered wrestlers while alienating fans, who neither wanted to see blood-letting, hard-hitting violent affairs, nor understood the smaller intricacies of technical grappling. Almost heresy for a student of the NJPW Dojo, Tanahashi’s approach to wrestling was one of flash, glamour and of “moments”, borrowing more from one of his favourite wrestlers, Shawn Michaels, than from the teachings of Gotch and Inoki. When then-parent company Yukes bought out Antonio Inoki’s shares in NJPW, it was Tanahashi who ceremonially removed the founder’s portrait from the wall of the NJPW dojo - a reflection of Inoki’s first scandalous departure, when he was forced out of the JWA in 1972 for plotting a coup against out-of-touch and aging management, his portrait was then taken down from the walls of the company office.

Tributes to Inoki have, thus far, been uncharacteristically subdued - this to a man who used his own Inoki Genome Federation promotion to stage his living funeral, or to be carried to the ring dressed as Christ upon the cross. Ten bell salutes and moments of silence were held, his catchphrase shouted, his music played. But it all felt decidedly un-Inoki. Thankfully, that’s where Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye, his trademark New Year’s Eve event comes in - a posthumous Bom-Ba-Ye featured a combination of kickboxing and MMA events, including one viral takedown from atop a raised platform into the smoke-filled “moat” surrounding the ring, and a single pro-wrestling match, under UWFi rules, between Tom Lawlor and Katsuyori Shibata, a wrestler who owes as much to the philosophy of Inoki-Ism as anyone.

Inoki’s is a ghost that will continue to haunt Japanese professional wrestling for years to come - those who followed his lead, who trained under him, and whose career path was forged by the distillation of Strong Style into Shoot Style populate every major men’s promotion in Japan, and beyond. After a career as both wrestler and promoter that was shaped in opposition to, and often in the shadow of, his arch-rival and former tag team partner Giant Baba, it stands as a testament to the strength of Inoki’s philosophy that its adherents now populate even Baba’s former promotion AJPW and it’s once-offshoot Pro Wrestling NOAH, that has become an unlikely haven for aging shoot style grapplers and Inoki-ists.

AAA

I’ve written a little about AAA in this blog in the past, and it’s a promotion that I’ve long had a soft spot for - while not resistant to the homogenisation that has impacted all professional wrestling in recent years, Lucha Libre remains stubbornly a genre within a genre, a style of wrestling with its own tropes, codes and conventions that stand apart from its equivalents anywhere else in the world.

Lucha Libre has a connection to its own history that runs through almost every fibre of the genre, to a far greater extent than, for example, WWE’s token head nods to a stage-managed history. It’s not just the proliferation of Jrs and El Hijos that keep the past alive in Lucha Libre - familiar masks are sold outside every venue and in every street market, parents and grandparents can tell their children and grandchildren about the time they saw their favourite wrestler, while watching that wrestler’s child wearing the same mask today. It’s a family affair, built on that shared imagery.

AAA, in celebrating its 30th year, leaned heavily on that history to a greater extent than ever before. Not only did the likes of the 70 year old Canek, 63 year old Rayo de Jalisco Jr and 57 year old Villano IV compete in the hotly promoted Ruleta de la Muerte mask tournament, but the early stages of that tournament featured “run-ins”, interference and cameos from the likes of Cien Caras (73 years old and walking with a cane). The build to matches in that same tournament leaned heavily on the past to lend them an added air of importance - Villano IV vs. Psycho Clown harked back to Los Villanos taking the mask of Psycho Clown’s father and uncles, Los Brazos, back in 1988 - a feud that began when Psycho Clown was barely out of nappies.

Unfortunately, after an interesting first instalment of a three-part Triplemania, AAA’s 2022 proved to be a comedy of errors, even by their own standards, and not always one of their own making.

The gimmick of Ruleta de la Muerte was that the losing wrestler would advance in the tournament, culminating in the tournament final in Mexico City, where the loser would be forced to unmask. It was an intriguing question - would notoriously loss-averse luchadores like L.A. Park be prepared to lose two high profile matches in the pursuit of a higher paying main event later down the line? Park even alluded to that fact, promising in a press conference that he would lose his first match on purpose - something he didn’t even hint at during the match itself, an unexpectedly incredible brawl against Villano IV. In the end, Villano IV making the final and ultimately unmasking was what most observers had correctly predicted, and Pentagon Jr. was likely the right man to be on the otherside of the ring, even if it made the result even more of a foregone conclusion.

This, then, is where the problems began. Fans buying tickets to shows two and three of Triplemania were assured that those wrestlers eliminated from the tournament would still be appearing at every show, which turned out not to be the case, and it’s doubtful it was ever planned to be. I daresay no one was in tears over missing out on another 2022 Canek match after Psycho Clown did the impossible and carried him to something watchable, but the old man made no subsequent AAA appearances, and nor did fellow eliminated wrestlers Ultimo Dragon, Rayo de Jalisco Jr, and L.A. Park, in spite of Park being an ever-reliable draw and agent of chaos for AAA events, and Rayo de Jalisco Jr having seemingly been positioned as a major heel and ally of his relatives, current AAA Trios Champions Nuevo Generacion Dinamita, and rival of AAA regular Blue Demon Jr.

Elsewhere on the show, and never referred to again, Dr. Wagner Jr returned to AAA to take out Psycho Clown with the help of Andrade El Idolo. Andrade had a very public falling out with the promotion, putting paid to any planned main event match with Psycho, but Wagner wasn’t given the call either, just dropping the whole business without explanation. Presumably, it was intended to provide a big match at the Mexico City show, as the usually consistent main eventer and company focal point Psycho Clown found himself buried in the mix of a three-way trios match instead. The prodigal son Vampiro also returned to the AAA fold for the first time since AAA, coming to the aid of Latin Lover - ‘90s AAA star turned actor, dancer, and reality TV star, who retired from the ring in 2012 - following an attack at the hands of Rey Escorpion and Jeff Jarrett. At this point, it should come as no surprise that neither Jarrett, Escorpion or Latin Lover appeared at either of the subsequent AAA events (though, admittedly, Jarrett was contracted to WWE for show two and likely unavailable, though by the time show three came along he was a free agent), and Vampiro was shuffled into a supporting role in the Pagano/Cibernetico feud, and wrestling in undercard Battle Royals not really befitting a star of his stature. Speaking of Cibernetico, his return to AAA was hotly promoted as he and his Vipers faction targeting old rival Konnan - a motivation that hasn’t been acted upon, and rarely referenced, ever since.

The other eliminated member of the Ruleta tournament was Blue Demon Jr., who likewise did not compete on the second or third shows, and wasn’t even included in a December match for a title named after Blue Demon, despite appearing on the same card.

I’m not suggesting that AAA should be privileging these aging, and often either difficult to work with or physically limited, luchadores over a current crop of talent, by any means. Just that, when using them for high profile matches and stories, it wouldn’t hurt to see at least one or two of those stories through to fruition, and that it never hurts to have an old man brawl or two on a major card to attract fans of the older names, particularly in a year celebrating the promotion’s rich history.

It would perhaps be more forgivable if AAA had been doing right by their younger talent too. The unquestioned breakout star of AAA for 2022 - and arguably one of the breakout stars anywhere - is El Hijo del Vikingo, the current AAA Mega Champion. Across three Triplemania shows, he found himself on the losing end of two of them. On night one, he was pinned for - thanks to a fuck-up from perennial shithouse referee El Hijo del Tirantes - a visual six or seven count by the Young Bucks, while on night two he was part of a five-way match for two titles other than his own. In spite of this, he had a number of stellar performances - mindblowing matches with Fenix and Bandido that threatened to reinvent high-flying wrestling for the 21st century the way Rey Misterio Jr and Psicosis did for the 1990s - and a visually stunning match against the former John Morrison, amid torrential rain.

Vikingo - and other prodigiously talented luchadores like Bandido, Dragon Lee, Dralistico, the criminally underrated Taurus, and sentimental favourite Mr. Iguana - have made AAA a watchable, and sometimes must-see, product even when it’s own booking conspires to make it anything but. You are guaranteed death-defying acrobatics, never-before-seen spots, and incredible matches in a way that AAA have not been able to boast in recent years. But to get to those matches, we’ve had to brave incomprehensible booking, angles started and immediately abandoned, bait-and-switch booking, and the non-appearance of any number of advertised wrestlers. It hasn’t always been AAA’s fault - Jeff Hardy’s stint in rehab led to him being replaced by “Johnny Hardy”, turning a potential dream match into a campy holiday camp affair, while other wrestlers were absent due to commitments elsewhere with AEW, but a more competent promotion would have worked harder to make good when others let them down, and done more to capitalise on the momentum gained from the viral and memetic success of Vikingo. But it’s AAA, and it’s unlikely to get any better.

BritWres

It feels like it will be ten years time, and we will still talk of BritWres as being in a rebuilding phase, recovering from any number of hits - the pandemic, the Speaking Out movement, the emergence and eventual collapse of NXT UK, the current cost of living crisis, and the slow collapse of multiple venues and promotions. It’s a rough patch, to say the least.

It’s a scene that has lost momentum, and that has lost trust, and retains a knack for sticking its foot in its mouth and fucking things up at the worst possible opportunities.

This year, I attended my first live PROGRESS shows - full disclosure, as an invited guest of the promotion for the latter two - attending a solid but scarcely attended all-women’s show (booked on a Tuesday night, with Everything Patterned the following night, and a full-fledged PROGRESS chapter show that weekend, it was a death slot), and two nights of Super Strong Style 16, where I was in attendance chiefly to see the pay-off of an I Quit match between Cara Noir and Spike Trivet, though wasn’t going to turn my nose up at the opportunity to see an old favourite like Jack Evans again, or the likes of “Johnny Progress”, Aramis, and Charlie Dempsey, and BritWres reliables like Charles Crowley, Dean Allmark, and Chris Ridgeway. The shows were solid, varied, professionally run, and the I Quit match in particular was a delightful mix of melodrama and punishing physicality, hinging on the central question of how you convince a wrestler who has never spoken to say the words “I Quit”. I’m a firm believer that the story of any good wrestling match should contain at its core a question to be answered, so I was 100% on-board with that, and felt the match more than delivered.

I was optimistic, then, about PROGRESS’ chances under new ownership, and it seemed like they were in a position to build slowly by booking smartly, and being able to rely on the strength of the shows themselves to win over any doubters. But it hasn’t really gone that way, as baffling decision after baffling decision sees the promotion getting in their own way - whether that’s with overly long shows, strange booking decisions, or the decision to choose 2022 as the time to run a show in Dubai.

I believe that PROGRESS earnestly chose to run in conjunction with Wrestlefest DXB in Dubai because of a desire to expand their brand, and to support a young promotion, with connections to the British wrestling scene, that have already done admirable things in terms of furthering the representation of women and LGBTQ+ people in Dubai. Some of the abuse directed towards promoters and wrestlers at Wrestlefest on social media was uncalled for, and sometimes uncomfortably close to racist and Islamophobic to say the least - whatever one thinks of a nation’s politics, it’s hardly a progressive position to damn those whose only “crime” has been to be born under the auspices of that regime, particularly when those people are actively demonstrating that they don’t hold the same political views as their government.

Likewise, the criticism against PROGRESS for running there is perhaps misguided - without wading into the ethics and efficacy of cultural boycotts in a broader sense (suffice to say, I’m broadly in favour), PROGRESS weren’t, despite the intimations of some online, working with or being paid by the government of the UAE. This wasn’t a “WWE in Saudi Arabia” project of sportswashing, and it’s frankly absurd to suggest that a promotion the size of PROGRESS would have any meaningful impact in that respect anyway - it doesn’t really add up to criticise them on one hand for not being able to consistently sell out a nightclub in Camden, while on the other insisting that their name carries enough weight to influence global politics. It’s an absurdity. Not only were PROGRESS not taking the money of the UAE government, or the shady oil sheikhs that some on Twitter seemed to have imagined, they almost certainly ran this show at a loss, with the intention to expand and become more profitable in the long-term. The villain here is global capitalism, really - but when it isn’t?

This isn’t me just blindly playing defence for a promotion that I have no involvement with, and have had little experience of, however. I think running that show, at this point in time, was an unmitigated PR disaster. British wrestling in general, and perhaps PROGRESS most of all, are fighting an uphill battle to win back their audience’s trust, and any misstep will be rightly scrutinised and criticised. PROGRESS’ owners, coming as they do from the world of professional football, should have known better than anyone that, coinciding as it did with the Qatar World Cup, this show would be surrounded by talk of the idea of sportswashing, and of the ethics of running events in countries governed by problematic regimes, or with oppressive laws. For wrestling fans, comparison to WWE’s adventures in Saudi Arabia were almost inevitable. There were ways that a promotion may have been able to navigate their way out of this, and PROGRESS’ statement in defence of their decision was a marked lesson in how not to do that - replete as it was with claims of a “punk rock”, “unconventional and slightly edgy” ethos that the promotion does little to espouse any more and would do better to distance themselves from, along with claims of using professional wrestling as “platform for positive change”; the sort of language you’d expect from a WWE Crown Jewel video package, and certainly not something that serves to dissuade anyone from ideas of sports-washing. It was, to say the least, a significant misstep.

I don’t want to dwell on the negative, however, and - as I’ve found myself saying for something like ten years now - there’s more to British wrestling than just PROGRESS, y’know.

Some personal highlights have included the return to form of Pro Wrestling: EVE, with both their signature She-1 and Wrestle Queendom events more than living up to expectations set by previous years, thanks to a combination of an incredible core roster, and guests from Japan’s Tokyo Joshi Pro and Marvelous promotions. I’ve already raved about the fact that this allowed me to meet the incredible Chigusa Nagayo earlier this year - thanks to her unannounced appearance at Wrestle Queendom, I’ve now spent time with her again, and seen her sing live. What a life. That same Wrestle Queendom featured some of the best wrestling I’ve seen live this year, thanks to incredible matches between Miyu Yamashita and both Alex Windsor and Millie McKenzie, and between Rin Kadokura and Maria, along with the absurdist comedy of Hyper Misao vs. Nightshade, the welcome return of Yuu, and a brutal, sometimes difficult to watch deathmatch between Charlie Morgan and Emersyn Jayne. This was the real “anything goes, something for everyone” variety show vibe that EVE had been missing since returning after pandemic measures, and that few promotions can deliver quite so well.

Elsewhere, Wrestling Resurgence continued their track record as one of the best and most inventive promotions in the country, with an emotional final match for Clementine against Charles Crowley, sitting comfortably alongside one of my other personal favourite matches of the year, between Chris Ridgeway and Kanji. They also kickstarted the year with an incredible main event match between Cara Noir and Charli Evans, during Charli’s all-too-brief BritWres return, and held one of the better all-women’s shows in recent UK memory. The future is very bright for Resurgence,

A personal favourite of mine is Pro Wrestling East, perhaps BritWres’ best kept secret out of Cambridge. Between other commitments and ill health, I unfortunately wasn’t able to make every show of theirs this year, but everything I have seen was just as good as their first pre-pandemic show had the promise of being. With an eclectic combination of wrestlers both experienced and young in their career, and plucked from scenes that otherwise rarely interact, along with a professionally run show in a gorgeous venue, it’s an absolute joy of a promotion to attend, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in 2023 and beyond, and to see where the future takes them, and I encourage you all to do the same.

Jeff Jarrett

One man who has had a frankly incredible 2022 is the aforementioned Jeff Jarrett, who I believe must have set a record for the number of pay-per-view appearances by one wrestler across multiple promotions - appearing, as he did, at WWE Summerslam, GCW’s PPV debut, the NWA, AEW, “Jim Crockett Promotions” in Ric Flair’s Last Match, and appearing for AAA, while also fitting in a match at WrestleCade, and office jobs for both WWE and AEW, and one of the better wrestler podcasts on the market. It’s a good time to live on Planet Jarrett.

It’s perhaps a truism that many wrestlers only really begin to grasp the finer points of psychology when their body starts to break down and they can’t rely on the skills that once brought them to the table - every generation of young wrestlers is told to “slow down” by the generation before, and every generation thinks the old men are being jealous or stuck in their ways, and it’s not until time starts to slow them down itself that they realise what the old-timers were on about. On top of that, the older one gets - hopefully - the less ego is the driving force in decision-making, and the more one is content to play the supporting role, and do what is needed.

This, aligned with the experience of a long career, is a roundabout way of saying that often older wrestlers can be the most compelling to watch, so long as they’re still motivated and their heart is still in it. A little slower than their younger counterparts, nursing a few more aches and pains, and not able to pull off all the athletic feats they perhaps once could, they need to dig deeper into a bag of tricks collected over a long career, and rely on storytelling and crowd work above and beyond the more athletic aspects of the wrestling game. Many of them likely wish they knew everything they know back when they were younger - it was once said of Billy Gunn that he’d been the biggest star in the world if he had the psychology of his current self and the body of his 1998 self around the time the WWF tried to push him to the main event in 2000/2001, but it’s rare that any wrestler ever gets all of their ducks in a row at exactly the right time, and we all have to make do with our limitations.

Jeff Jarrett, then, is the absolute platonic ideal of the older wrestler. I have written before of my Road to Damascus moment in terms of Jeff Jarrett - my bouts of fandom fell largely in-between his stints with the WWF, so I saw him as an anachronism in old video games and trading card collections, or as an undeserving main eventer and World Champion in the dying days of WCW, not helped by the (not undeserved) popular perception of Jarrett in TNA as the perennial undeserving champion, the booker with a stranglehold on the main event title picture at the expense of audience favourites. I didn’t see the appeal, nor was there anyone encouraging me to look particularly hard for it. That was, until I saw Jeff Jarrett vs. Johnny Moss during a TNA live tour of the UK. Moss was the local talent, the complete unknown, and Jarrett the star, yet Jarrett pulled deep into that bag of tricks, relying on every bit of Memphis heat stooging and British holiday camp bit of business that he could to draw the crowd into that match - every bit of stalling, conniving, pratfalling, and snivelling cowardice he could muster up, combined with some of the most ridiculous ref bumps and heel work you’ve ever seen. I was hooked. There was a career’s worth of heel tactics being deployed in a single match, and they worked their magic - the crowd weren’t just booing and jeering Jarrett, they were cheering for Johnny Moss, and that’s a distinction that’s easy to overlook; any competent heel can make you hate them, but it takes a pro to turn that hate into love and support for their opponent. Look out for that the next time you watch a heel wrestler perform - is the audience reaction one of “you suck”, or one of rooting for their opponent to come out on top?

That’s the energy that Jeff Jarrett has brought to every subsequent match I’ve seen him in, and which is a breath of fresh air in AEW. He knows how to carry himself like a top guy, with no pretense of actually believing himself to be one. The effect of that is that a win over Jeff Jarrett feels substantial, even when he spends most of the match stalling for time, arguing with the referee, or giddily celebrating every minor victory. He’s the competent professional heel, and one that more wrestlers should be seeking to emulate. There’s a real undercurrent of knowing irony to the love of Jeff Jarrett on social media, and want to be very clear that there’s none of that here when I say that he has potential to be one of the most significant signings AEW made in 2022, and perhaps beyond, and should be a featured part of any promotion he appears for.

What Next?

It feels fitting to end a discussion of 2022 on Jeff Jarrett, a man who managed to be bloody everywhere during it.

That leads to the promised “What’s Next” section, which I hope to keep short because, truth be told, not only do I not know, I think it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to try. The last few years of wrestling have taught us that to predict anything is a mug’s game - I don’t think anyone, looking back on their time in CHIKARA, would have guessed that Orange Cassidy, Eddie Kingston and 2.0 would all share the ring with Chris Jericho, for example, while predictions of CM Punk’s return to wrestling, or Sasha Banks debuting for NJPW, all would have sounded far-fetched not that long ago. The suggestion that Stone Cold Steve Austin, Vince McMahon and Ric Flair would all wrestle competitive matches in 2022 would have been laughed out of the room a year earlier.

Since I began this “Year In Review” series, on writing about the impact of Vince McMahon’s departure from WWE, Vince has unceremoniously returned to the promotion less than a week into the new year, and it remains to be seen what the impact of that will be, though talk of a company sale remains in the air. AEW remains an almost impossible to predict promotion in the long-term - I’m not going to pretend I saw Jeff Jarrett’s signing coming, nor that Jun Akiyama would wrestle on an AEW pre-show, or that Tomohiro Ishii would main event Dynamite against Chris Jericho for the ROH Title. Not that long ago, this would all seem like the ramblings of a mad man.

So what does 2023 have in store? It seems almost certain that the future of WWE will dictate the future of much else of the industry - we’ve been promised that Vince McMahon will have no creative oversight, but how long will that last? And if the company is up for sale, to whom, and to what effect? What does a WWE owned by anyone other than the McMahon family look like? What becomes of the live schedule of a promotion purchased as nothing more than a ready means of providing live streaming content, if that’s the way things go?

There’s still time for Triple H to make his mark, and turn around some of the booking that I’ve found disappointing thus far with a clear statement of intent, but that requires that he retains an uninterrupted control over the creative direction of the company beyond Wrestlemania, once the set-in-stone main event picture that began before he took the helm is out of the way. Perhaps the ongoing Sami Zayn/Bloodline story is the clearest example of that - is Sami Zayn knocked to the wayside, or capitalised upon and given a shot at becoming a bonafide main event talent?

The Royal Rumble and the Hall of Fame feel like the optimum moments for Triple H to really stamp his seal on WWE. Primed for comebacks and cameos as we always are by the Rumble matches, Triple H could make a statement of intent by pulling from a wider pool of talent than just the upper echelons of NXT and the usual WWE-approved list of nostalgia acts and “legends”, whether taking a star from WWE’s past that hasn’t yet been given the “do you remember?” treatment, or looking further afield still - and that’s something that the wrestling media seem to be banking on, with names like Minoru Suzuki and Keiji Muto, and Impact champion Josh Alexander, being thrown around in some quarters.

Similarly, the WWE Hall of Fame has thrown the occasional curveball, but generally steers pretty safe. There are a number of deserving entrants that have been on the outs with the company, and have generally been seen as unlikely to be invited in as a result - whether that be Demolition, Rick Martel, Ivan Koloff, or The Mountie - along with those who have either never worked WWE before, like the aforementioned Keiji Muto, or Giant Baba, or who worked the majority of their career elsewhere, like The Destroyer, The Midnight Express, or Karl Gotch. Whoever gets the nod this year could provide a statement of intent on behalf of Triple H. If he really wanted to start off on the right foot, he could do a lot worse than agreeing the long overdue solo induction of Chyna, after years of making spurious excuses in that direction.