Mine are:
NJPW:
- Naito defeats Jay White on night one and Kazuchika Okada on night 2 to become double champion.
- Naito isn't double champion long, losing the IC title either to Jay White at Kizuna Road (via bullet club shenanigans) or Sanada at Sakura Genesis.
- Sanada wins the New Japan cup this year, defeating Zach Sabre Jr in the finals (Okada and Ibushi are semi-finalists, with Okada losing to ZSJ and Sanada shocking Ibushi to win). Goes on to challenge Naito for the IC title in the main event of Sakura Genesis (world title not defended at the event).
- White loses on both nights, he's been pushed very strongly as of late so he may go into a bit of a slump (albeit not a huge one)
- Ibushi loses night one in a close contest, angry ibushi mercilessly beats White.
- Both White and Ibushi go after the IC title in the latter half of the year and are one of the main rivalries.
- Ibushi will get his own faction one way or another
- Okada's fall from IWGP champ leads to the implosion of CHAOS (which is directionless) and the formation of a new faction alongside Tanahashi (with Tana as leader,Okada as the ace and Finn Juice, Ospreay, Yoshi Hashi, Taguchi, Yano and Eagles forming the core of the group; the boys from the Japan Dojo team up with them a lot).
- Ishii joins Goto in a Shibata/strong style faction (probably led by Ibushi actually, with Shibata being the leader so to speak, Goto, Ishii, Henare, GBH and shockingly enough, RP3K joining, with them floating as jr's and heavyweights).
- Suzuki leaves New Japan after a rather dissappointing Wrestle Kingdom for him, does get a good sendoff with a singles match on night 2 against Shingo being an absolute banger and a good farewell (with Taichi and/or ZSJ kicking him out). Much like Bullet Club, no real succesion plan is in place initially.
- Yoshinobu Kanemaru and surprisingly, Lance Archer follow him out the door.
- FinnJuice win the tag team titles and form a nucleus with Goto + Ishii (when they're not doing never openweight stuff), G.O.D, RP3K and EVIL + Shingo with those belts in one of the better years in a while.
- Moxley beats both Archer and retains against Juice. Moxley loses the title to EVIL (mainly cause EVIL had a down year, he's going to have to get a big win somewhere).
- Two big names/former/rejected ace from another Japanese Promotion leaves to join New Japan and it causes controversy (my picks being Nakajima, Takeshita, Sekimoto, Hashimoto, Kenoh or Zeus). They take over Suzuki-Gun and are propelled into the very top of the upper mid-card or low main event (becoming the #5 wrestler in new japan).
- Tanahashi is mainly doing tag team stuff with Yoshi-Hashi this year, they win the 6 man tag team belts with Taguchi
- GBH + Henare do a lot in the 6 man tags as well.
- Mikey Nicholls leaves the company quietly, due to lack of any real success, rejoins NOAH and teams with Suzuki
- New Japan/Impact begin a relationship as the New Japan/ROH alliance is formally ended. Impact team with CMLL (obviously). Top Talent finally bothers to rock up to PPV's regularly
and we get our golden team of Callis/Kelly back. Other Japanese promotions:
- NOAH get Suzuki, he comes with Kanemaru, Lance Archer and Mikey Nicholls (who also leaves due to lack of any real presence in New Japan)
- There is a shock departure however as a trade off in the main event/upper main event scene (one of Kenoh or Nakajima) who goes to New Japan. Causing massive controversy in NOAH and hysteria in the community.
- Kaito struggles to maintain interest as lack of opponents becomes apparent. Obviously there is Suzuki who is new, Elgin who is new but feuds become repeated. Eventually loses to whoever out of Nakajima or Kenoh don't leave (probably Kenoh). As a main event draw, whilst its not dire, he's not showing improvement either as people are way more interested in others.
- The next champion has a short reign and loses to Suzuki via shenanigans (with Kaito winning the belt back in 2021 off of Suzuki).
- Archer is involved a lot with the National title and has great matches with the likes of Suigara, Elgin and some outsiders like Hideki Suzuki etc.
- NOAH finally get a streaming service and get an english commentary team to push into the english speaking market.
- They're not the only one, as DDT also does the same thing as does Dragon Gate.
- DDT and AEW officially ally with each other (only after New Japan and Impact get into cahoots).
- Miyahara breaks the defense record with his current run, loses the belt to Nomura after he wins the champions carnival.
- Nomura loses the belt to Jake Lee later in the year (maybe after Odo).
- Zeus and Ryoji Sai feud with the Violent Giants and probably win the tag team titles. feud with Doering and a returning James.
- All Japan get the PWF title back as a mid card belt (Gaora belt relegated to third).
- Stardom shows great growth over the year, with Momo phased out as ace, in favour of a core of Utami, Hana, Kagetsu and Mayu along with Hazuki and suprisingly, Kyona and Momo propping up that group.
- Stardom are able to lure at least one big name through (i'm predicting that Bushiroad throws a bunch of money at Satomura both as a trainer and to be a top level wrestler/draw, six figures for her isn't out of the relm of possibility).
- NXT Japan doesn't really happen, as their isn't really anyone who is willing to sell, and if they are, not to the WWE (Big Japan finds new owners who want to keep them going in their current capacity, W1/Mutoh won't sell to Vince or any foreign corporation).
- However, Sendai Girls is sold to WWE as Satomura joins Stardom. Only Saree follows Satomura to Stardom as the rest stay in Sendai Girls (McKenzie because of WWE desires, Chisako, Hashimoto and Matsumoto to lead the promotion forward). Lots of NXT UK women go there to tour instead of the Bushiroad affiliated Stardom.
- TJPW suffers as AEW, Stardom and Sendai Girls causes big problems to their roster depth (Saiki to stardom, Sakazaki full time AEW, Shoko Nakajima to Sendai Girls) Itoh and Yamashita are still there though (for now, as Itoh and Yamashita both appear more on AEW tv).
AEW:
- Next champs as follows: Moxley, PAC, Omega, Scurll, Page
- Scurll shows up on New years day and is a huge addition, is hellbent of revenge
- Villain enterprises enters the fray (with Brody King and Brodie Lee as his heavies, and the main tag team), they're behind Butcher & Blade along with the Dark Order.
- The company is able to lure some big name WWE wrestlers out to sign (including one or two currently popular NXT talents that aren't expected to leave).
- Includes: Sami Zayn, The Revival (predictably), Drew McIntyre/Galloway and a few others.
- Diamond Ring is dominated by Cody and MJF
- Flip Gordon debuts to arguably one of the biggest pops of all time
(i'm not even joking), obviously he feuds with cody in a face vs face feud (though Cody obviously is a dick in this). Probably over the Diamond Ring- strong tag team wrestling on the promotion, with the tag team belt main eventing over the world title a few times.
WWE:
- Main roster somehow finds a way to get even worse quality wise.
- WWE is willing to grant releases if done the right way (i.e. no social media, formally request a release by letter, if nothing changes after face to face meeting with Vince/HHH or any other executives to change their mind, release occurs with 90 day clause). Many wrestlers take advantage such as the revival, Drew McIntyre, Rusev, Kanellis's and even some more pushed names (i'm going to say Adam Cole maybe because of connections in AEW which would mean he'd be basically the #2 star, only behind Omega and paid as such).
- WWE's recruitment doesn't stop though, they are able to recruit like no tomorrow as well. Picking up big names everywhere.
- Smackdown is relegated to FS1 due to poor ratings towards the end of the year as they are sitting in the low 2 millions (meaning they're literally at the same place they where when they were on USA). Ratings absolutely tank on FS1 (into 1.3-1.5 mill territory). as that relationship sours quickly, looking likely that a return to USA is on the cards.
- Raw by the end of next year is averaging in the high 1 millions (like 1.9 mill average across three hours).
- Stock tanks as a result/defaults back to what would be considered kind of normal actually (with the inflated figures from the new tv deals being mostly lost).
- Hard brand split looks to be ending as raw ends up getting more talent in the draft.
- Rollins actually has a turn of fortunes as a heel, WWE stuff up Bray yet again.
- Owens becomes the overpushed face (sadly)
- Roman starts to get somewhat push, fans reject him yet again, they FINALLY pull the trigger on a heel turn.
- Punk doesn't return to wrestling.
- NXT kind of loses its way, as it looks towards short term booking, but later in the year goes back to a more long term later in the year.
- No real new main eventers other than owens.
- NXT UK is quietly closed as its integrated into NXT proper as part of cost cutting (and the scene being in decline)
- Financially, despite smackdown, it does reasonably well because of the Saudi deal, NXT UK being axed, releases and cost cutting in general.
UK/European Scene:
- Not a good year at all for the scene, as NXT UK is folded, however, all contracted talent mostly is transitioned into NXT proper minus a few not so popular wrestlers.
- Smallman pulls the plug on Progress in a big loss overall. This is due to losing interest in the promotion.
- ICW kind of recovers, somewhat as a true independent and neutral venue (kind of becoming a wrestling switzerland, much like PWG, just with more storyline than current PWG)
- OTT does really well and continues to grow along with Riptide and some other smaller promotions fill in the gap that progress left.
- WXW fares better than Progress, kind of treads water however. The entirety of RingKampf/Imperium return to the promotion full time. Still affiliated overall to WWE
- WALTER leaves WWE (i'm going to say cause the travel to america), starts going full independent and doing his own thing, namely Champions Carnival for All Japan in a one off. Dieter Jr is WXW unified champ next year again. WALTER appears for OTT and ICW more (becoming ICW champ even).
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