Can't believe that we don't have a prediction thread for 2026 here. We need to create one and go back to it when the year is over.My predictions:>Donald Trump will show up to a major WWE event>Trump intervenes in the Netflix-Warner Bros buyout, forcing Warner Bros to be bought by Paramount, inadvertently saving AEW. >TNA on AMC will be a ratings dud.>CM Punk finally crashes out in WWE like he did in AEW (He still main events night 2 of Wrestlemania so he's fine ruining his career). >WWE will release NXT Black & Gold era people that haven't gotten over on the main roster. What are your predictions?
Buddy will return.
Jericho debuting at the Royal Rumble this year might as well be a freebie at this point.
Danhausen finally makes the jump to WWE after getting out of Khanutanmo Bay
>>19598537some sheets were saying he could show up as early as the next raw
If we're doing release predictions, here's my picks for next year:>Tozawa>Theory>Dragon Lee>The War Raiders>Rusev (He pulls an Andrade lol)>Zoey Stark>Aleister Black (He doesn't come back to AEW and quietly retires)>MCMG>Apollo Crews>Most of The Wyatt Sick>R-Truth (They announce it as a retirement)>Ray Fenix and Penta (They both go back to AEW)>Shinsuke Nakamura (He has one final short run in NJPW and retires)>Johnny Gargano>Tomossa Ciampa>Candice Lerae>Giulia>Wendy Choo
Brock Lesner finally retires.
AJ Lee has one final match and then retires. She is inducted into the Hall of Fame.Years later she quietly divorces Phil.
Bayley leaves the company and shows up in AEW as Mercedes new partner in crime.
WWE continues to show disappointing results and Triple H is removed as head of creative (Or just demoted).Vince returns to head creative.
>>19598534>He still main events night 2you think he's dropping to bron then winning the saudi rumble to challenge cody?
Vince dies lol
>>19598573a lot of these are just absurd. maybe the only ones that'll happen (at least in 2026) are tozawa, the war raiders (they might get backstage roles though), apollo (if mexico can't save him), the wyatts (except for bo even though he's the worst of them), maybe shinsuke but his contract situation is weird, and wendy but NXT is another thing entirely.
>>19598615The fact that Wendy is still stuck in Evolve after all these years is not looking good for her.
LA Knight loses every match he's in.Gunther retires AJ Styles by tap out to mild reaction.
>>19598584sheets have already leaked that gunther retires him at SS
>>19598615What's weird about Shinsuke's contract situation?
>>19598622>LA Knight loses every match he's in.*blocks your path*not so fast!
It will be absolute ass but still somehow make stupid money.To make it more fun>Cody/Roman 3 happens just to set up Rock vs Roman at WM43, either Rock screws Roman or Cody turns heel with Rock to beat Roman>LA Knight returns and wins the Rumble at Saudi>The Vision angle is going to be built around turning Theory face
>>19598623Source?
>>19598622Does AJ's current contract end in 2026? I remember he said that once's he done with his current contract, he's retiring.
>>19598629shinsuke re-signed relatively recently in late 2024. but he also requested his release last year to go be with tana, WWE denied it. i think they'll probably ride out his contract rather than release him and not sign him back.
>>19598608Punk keeps the title and loses it to someone at Wrestlemania Night 2's main event.
>>19598632do you guys think rock vs roman, whenever it happens, will be rock's retirement match?
>>19598652Oh shit, didn't realize he asked for his release. Those contracts are for like 5 years, right?So he isn't getting out until 2029 unless they release him since Tanahashi retires in a few days.
>>19598537That and Tanahasi retiring.
>>19598641his contract reportedly ends in february, he's gonna have to sign an extension, i'm not sure if WWE will let him work without a contract
>>19598661It will be The Rock's final match but they won't announce it as such in case he wants to come back at anytime.
>>19598670Maybe they'll add on injury time.
>>19598676Meant for>>19598659
>>19598654>someoneinshallah it's timeONE MORE RUN
>>19598621Saw a post from Wendy recently said something like she was shaping up or getting fit for the new year, it reminded me of this.
>>19598654Punk vs CodyPunk vs Roman Punk vs Brock (if the rumours are true that 2026 is also his last year, then surely Brock will main event WM)I don't think anything else would warrant Punk main eventing night 2.
>>19598698They actually gave her gear that shows off her curves.But that being said, she's technically been in developmental for like 8 years now. With like 3 different gimmicks. Idk why they keep her around.
>>19598573My prediction is they release people but they still show up on WWE because they get re-signed to basically pay-per-appearance deals (Like the one Braun is supposedly getting).
>>19598661contracts vary, they tend to mostly be either 2, 3 or 5 years. there can be exceptions i think but that's mostly the case.shinsuke also reportedly has the ability to work japan written into his contract, he almost never uses it but it's there. so WWE must have denied his request to retire tana, then he tried to get out of the contract entirely while there was still time (this was in the summer of 2025) but they again cucked him.i guess they could release him but that would just be ridiculous after all that imo.
>>19598710They release him January 5th to spite him and Tanahashi
>>19598659It probably will be, and it'll be the main event of Saudimania. Maybe he could do a Rock / Cody match at some point to end that whole storyline for good but I doubt it.
>>19598567It will be Rumble, he's the only surprise they got I can think of outside of memes
The Rock vs Roman Reigns happens at Summerslam since they're trying to make that equal to Wrestlemania now.It turns out to be The Rock's last match, but isn't announced as such.At a later PPV, Roman faces either Solo Sikoa or Jacob Fatu and put them over. This also turns out to be his last match and Roman goes onto movies.
AAA is rebranded as NXT Mexico.
>>19598623retirements should me memorable, feeding everyone to the gunt is retardeddom, bron or oba in that spot would be huge for them
TNA on AMC turns into a ratings dud and slowly becomes another NXT show.
NXT Europe continues not to be a thing.
Marigold goes bankrupt. All the players scatter into the joshi indies.
>>19598754TNA on AMC could be a huge success but they'd need to make a huge first impression and with their current roster i just do not see that happening
Rossy dies
>>19598768That's why they'll have NXT people all over the show.
>>19598635WRKD wrestling, the outlet that first broke all the way back in july that gunther was going to retire cenai either read the summerslam thing somewhere else or i just made it up but it is apparently planned to be gunther retiring bork
>>19598622anyone but bouncy retiring aj is a mistake, would be a career making moment people always talk about passing the torch and are full of shit when they do but this would be that legit
>>19598775>no trick>no oba>no bouncysurely charlie dempsey and OTM are gonna carry the show...
AJ Styles actually has another match in TNA this year.
>>19598784they are already fumbling bouncy by not having him beat oba for the NXT title and just calling him up
Jericho returns. And he becomes WWE/TKO's man on the TNA booking team.He ends up winning the TNA World Championship and making TNA his domain.
>>19598534>Can't believe that we don't have a prediction thread for 2026 herebecause nothing matters in WWE anymore. Triple Bypass showed us that getting excited or invested in any of his storylines will end disappointment. it's pretty grim.
>>19598704i stopped watching evolve months and months ago but i've heard good things about her new gimmick now that she's dropped the sleepy psycho shit and they let her talkshe's built for TNA
>>19598806Still means we can't make predictions.
>>19598798i think they just wanna save his first title win for a big spot on the main rosteroba has a monster us/ic title run and bouncy beats him. it'd put 20 bucks on it.
TKO/WWE buys NOAH
>Cody turns heel before Mania to feud with Roman>It is fumbled horribly
>>19598814i think there's a chance they just send oba right to the world title/main event scene. there's an angle for him to feud with drew and it'd be a total KWAB to drew, but, it could happen.if they want him to start in the midcard i think he goes to raw for the IC, it's a weak scene right now compared to the US (where trick will go), but imo they need to capitalize on jevons momentum before people stop caring.he's over, why wait so long? waiting for oba to be done with a monster reign would be too long. and the men's roster on NXT is gonna suck soon.
>>19598819i've heard there's weird laws around foreign companies purchasing japanese companies. but i'm not a japanese business lawyer so idk.if it's possible, i think they'll try for noah or all japan.
Men's Royal Rumble winner - LA Knight, he won't main event either night of Mania though.Women's Royal Rumble winner - Iyo/Rhea, they will end up losing the tag titles and the non-Rumble winner will beat Cargill at Elimination Chamber or setting up a face vs face Mania match which Rhea will win.Jake Paul will debut at some pointCody will turn heel
>>19598819CyberAgent is even wealthier than Bushiroad and NOAH is just now starting to turn a bit of profit after all of the money they've invested into it. NOAH won't be sold to gaijins. At most Muto might talk Paul and Shawn into letting NOAH borrow NXT talents for longer excursions but even that isn't a guarantee.
>>19598848It’s seen as not good because many Japanese consumers are still pretty nationalistic.That being said, they could maybe buy a stake in the company. Technically TKO only owns 51% of AAA.
>>19598865jake said he's not especially interested in wrestling but if he was gonna come to WWE, he'd be, in his own words, logan's manager, a paul heyman type.which would be retarded.jake is also the jannetty by a HUGE margin and always has been, i personally wouldn't really be thrilled to see him in WWE.
CyberAgent announces a merger with Bushiroad.NJPW and NOAH are merged. Stardom and TJPW are also merged. Titles are unified.DDT continues as is.Later, AJPW is also bought by this new company.
>>19598878that's interesting, i didn't know they didn't own 100% of AAA.people were saying WWE might spring for TNA but that seems less likely to happen as time goes on.do you know who owns AJPW? i tried to find it online but i didn't see it, i'm not sure if they're owned by a big company like cyberagent or bushiroad.i'm not too deep into puro but i feel like if there was a big japanese company they could acquire it'd probably be them. bit of a cockroach fed no?
>>19598534Kross & Scarlett jump to AEW and, confusingly, join the Don Callis Family.
Stardom somehow poaches Seri Yamaoka and Senka from Marigold.
>>19598841nxt will panic and do a bunch of raids of mid 30s mid carders in njpw and elsewhere, it's gonna be an older black and gold on the men's side
>>19598904this won't happen BUT i think MLW could sign them.this year, i think MLW is gonna continue on their journey towards becoming the biggest indie, the closest thing to a true #3 north american wrestling will have.
>>19598884Logan is only in WWE because he's a wrestling mark, despite trying to hide this
>>19598899The other 49% who owns AAA is the family who were the original owners.I think AJPW is owned by some minor television company in Japan. It’s definitely the equivalent of a major American indie at this point. The current owner said he would never sell to anyone but who knows with this shitty Japanese economy.
>>19598917The question is if they can get a tv deal.
>>19598899WWE desperately wants TNA to get the international tv deals that they had before going exclusively to Netflix everywhere but in the US so AEW doesn’t get those deals.I think trying to position TNA as a controlled opposition no. 2 won’t work and they’ll buy it when it fails.
The WWEID program is slowly phased out and Evolve is quietly cancelled.
>>19598949AAA is put on Tubi instead.
IYO and Rhea Ripley will make out on tv in bid to one-up Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa.
Jericho has a not good mid card run in WWE that’s pretty forgettable. He retires in 2027 and gets inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Vince lawsuit goes to trial, where more horrific shit is revealed. It forces Hunter, Stephanie, and Nick Khan to retire.
Vince settles his lawsuit.
Vince returns and we find out the Janel Grant thing was the biggest work in the history of pro wrestling.
>>19599024>#30
Janel Grant fucking dies in a “mysterious” accident.
>>19599024>>19599042>big poo
>>19598886That would cause a mass exodus of wrestlers. They would probably form a new major company.
>>19598803This is a very plausible and lucid prediction. It's how they're going to plan out a new booking team for the next decade, by slowly introducing these retiring wrestlers into the managerial positions. Punk, AJ, Jericho, possibly Cena.
>>19599466this is not what is going to happen at all. when HHH eventually wants to give up the book (never), either bobby roode (his right hand man) or seth (the son he never had) is getting the pen.
>>19599466I think Cena is completely focused on Hollywood.
>>19599810If Triple H gets replaced, I think The Rock is the one picking the next creative team.
>>19599814cena could have a rock-type deal where he comes back every year or two to ruin the biggest storyline then fuck off until he's ready to do it again
>>19599820samoamania... forever...
>>19599822I think Cena is pretty much done with wrestling and really wants to break into Hollywood as best as he can.Not saying he'll do one-off appearances. But I don't see him coming back every Mania season like The Rock.
>>19599830yeah i agreeand i think that's unfortunate
Triple H is forced out for disappointing ratings and The Rock takes over his role. The Rock isn't as directly on creative as Triple H, but he hires people who he trusts to do the day-to-day of creative.The Rock releases people he doesn't care for, and there's a big backlash to that.
>>19599828Get ready for RAW to become Bloodline forever buddy
Benoit returns
Brock retiresRoman retiresRock has his last match ever
Tiny gets kicked of HBO Max and AEW folds.
>>19598760They're saving that for when a British promotion tries to get a national tv again.
>>19598784>ric flair retired by sean michaels>sean michaels retired by the undertaker>the undertaker retired by AJ styles>AJ styles to be retired by je'von evansthis is a krazy lineage.......
Vince comes back for a last run before he croaks
>>19598534Did anyone go back to last year's predictions? Just saying...
>>19599024for what purpose?
>>19600049Trying to find a predictions thread in the archive but nothings popping up
>>19599994no chanceno chance in hell!
>>19599889like 3 more years minimum til this happens
>>19599466Out all of those guys, I think only Punk and Jericho would want creative positions. AJ I think will be done with wrestling and Cena will be busy with Hollywood.
AEW is revealed to be a complex money laundering scheme by the Khans.
>>19598810Since TNA has become a WWE proxy, I can actually see her trying to make a jump to AEW.
>>19601161but enough about the entirety of the wrestling business
