SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
With 2025 now in the history books and 2026 has begun, it can be a time to reflect on where we’re at and where we’d like to go in the next year.
Many of us look at our diet, the amount of exercise we do, quitting a bad habit, or how we have been spending money. For a majority of us, these resolutions are forgotten about halfway into January.
We remember how much we like sugar, carbonated beverages, and sitting on our butts with our feet up at the end of our day. What we really have are wishes for what we’d like to see ourselves as.
With that spirit, I have some wishes as a wrestling fan that I would like to see.
RAF Growth
I get my weekly platform, and I’m gonna use it to plug one of my favorite wrestling companies that has recently launched and has had four shows so far. That company is Real American Freestyle. At the helm of this organization is Chad Bronstein and Izzy Martinez.
Their association with NCAA wrestling and MMA coaching led to a proposal to take another shot at legitimizing freestyle wrestling into a professional sport. With professional wrestling interests peaking, and UFC a viable brand for decades now, the foundations of both start in amateur wrestling.
Through a friendship with Hulk Hogan, they were able to strike a branding deal with Hulk’s endorsement and brand recognition as well as using the “Real American” branding Hogan was using for his beer. With Hulk also came an opportunity to work with Eric Bischoff.
Eric has a background that makes him a perfect partner. He wrestled in high school, which meant he understood the basics of mat wrestling. He performed in martial arts tournaments, understanding the mindset of a performer. He came up from ad sales to being the Executive Vice President over WCW.
After his time in live entertainment, Eric worked with the man who played Kevin Arnold’s jerk of a big brother, Jason Hervey, in “The Wonder Years” sitcom. He understand that what makes professional wrestling stay viable isn’t the matches, and what made UFC catch on wasn’t the fights; it was the wrestlers and the fighters. Why did you care about someone winning or losing? Otherwise, why should I spend money on those fights, when I can watch free fights on television or the ones in my house between my children? He knew it was about the fighters.
What we also get with Bischoff’s partnership is a link to the professional wrestling we come to PWTorch for – Kurt Angle on commentary, big entrances, and trash talking promos.
In 2026, what I’d like to see are a few attraction matches with names from pro westling. It’s been done with UFC fighters like Holly Holm, and it would be fun to see Nick Nemeth, Chad Gable, or Shelton Benjamin mix it up. Whether we see RAF go in that direction or not, it is another avenue for athletes and potentially could build a star who could cross over when they’re done training for competition performances.
TKO Show More Care For Fans
Like any corporation, the bigger they get, the more they move away from what initially helped attract and build a bond with their audience. You can spend so much time on the vision you’ve cast and sticking with what worked until the audience moves on and it’s too late to get the consumer back. They’ve been telling companies for years they were going to leave, and the ones at the top thought they were idle threats by a small portion of their audience.
This can be applied to booking of the show and its talent. They kinda sucked the life out of half of John Cena’s final run with a heel turn that was a very cool moment, but wasn’t planned out for the follow up.
The financial cost to be a fan is skyrocketing. You have dramatically increased ticket prices and multiple app and cable package subscriptions to watch. We were spoiled to have it all with the WWE Network where all you needed was that and a way to watch USA Network or catch it the next day on Hulu. If you went the Hulu option, you could watch all WWE content for $18 a month. Now you’ll pay roughly $120 a month for similar content in the United States. Now try being a super-fan who buys merch or goes to events like Fan Access or autograph signings. It became unfeasible for so many in 2025.
Like every company that follows the dollar, they will lose a significant portion of their audience and revenue. Will they find a new audience okay with these new terms, or will we see WWE shrink back down to an arena business instead of stadiums again?
True Youth Elevation
It’s about to hit hard that top stars are human. We continue to see legends such as Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker, but not in physical roles any longer. As I write this, I am 45 years old, so these were the big stars of my teen years. They don’t look like they once did, reminding us that we don’t look or feel the same either.
John Cena retired after I had witnessed his entire career. He was different from someone like Ric Flair who was “old” when I started watching as a child. Next up are rumored to be A.J. Styles, Brock Lesnar, and Chris Jericho, who again, I saw from his television debut to, soon, an upcoming retirement match.
What this can do is remind you of the ages of the top WWE players where C.M. Punk is 47, Cody Rhodes is 40, Drew McIntyre is 40. WWE is risking facing late-‘90s WCW problem of sticking with the top stars too long and not having the younger talents interact enough with them in a way that legitimized them as main event talent.
When the top WCW players aged out, you were left with Booker T, Jeff Jarrett, and Diamond Dallas Page as regular top talent, and only DDP was seen on a level to have a match with Hogan or Goldberg and be seen as a contender.
AEW Lands on Its Feet
In another example of corporate interference with our wrestling, the company that platforms AEW is in the midst of a sale, probably to Netflix, with small potential of Paramount forcing a hostile takeover in one of the more dramatic wrestling stories this year. This deal has enough drama to become a film.
If Netflix wins out, they aren’t purchasing any of the cable networks, so AEW could still have a home, but where does that leave cord cutters like me who has depended on HBO Max to watch Dynamite? Will Netflix want both WWE and AEW content? Would TKO even allow that? If Paramount somehow pulls off the deal, after signing an agreement with TKO to air UFC, will TKO let AEW continue?
Media in 2026 is scary for a lot of properties as we have so many entertainment options, and while AEW has made some good choices recently, it comes after years of fans loosing interest.
Healthy Rosters
There is a lot of wisdom in the people who have lived longer than you and seen more. That doesn’t mean you should blindly follow what everyone older than you says , but there are many respected voices from the past who should be given respect when they speak up.
Arn Anderson and William Regal are two of those voices. Neither of these men chased fame; they were doing a job in an industry that they loved. In the opinions of most in the know, they did their job very well. Neither expected to be the World Heavyweight Champion; they knew what their role was on the show. So when they speak now, it doesn’t come from bitterness. These are two men who have shown their love of an art form in retirement. When they advise wrestlers to watch out for and take care of their necks, young wrestlers, and especially fans who’ve never bumped, should do what we are supposed to do when Miz’s hand goes up, and have our mouths shut.
I’m at an age where I’ve regretted my diet and lack of commitment to exercise because, along with simple wear and tear, it has caught up to me. Not to whine like I’m in a terrible place in life, but there are places in my body I call the pain Young Gunz, because it Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop. I can’t imagine the level of pain that professional wrestlers live with who make it out without surgery, but the injury bug is hitting necks like it’s the early 2000s again when Steve Austin, Rhino, Chris Benoit, Lita, Edge, and Kurt Angle were all out during a similar period having neck surgeries. That’s not even a detailed list. Those are the ones I remember without research, which is a rough statistic.
Seth Rollins is another wrestler on the injury list. I’m not sure how necessary that corner-to-corner move was, and it was easy to tell he didn’t land well when watching. Not only do injuries like this disrupt stories for fans and other wrestlers, they deprive the wrestlers themselves of crafting their art in the short period they have to tell their story, their ability to sell merch, and worst of all, when the body slows down on healing as well get older, it just makes their quality of life worse. I can’t feel good being entertained by a future limping elder citizen, or worse, a paraplegic.
Father Time does no jobs, but we can extend the feud if we do this right.
Do you live in Colorado? You’re invited to Nerdstalgia’s Grand Opening Party on Saturday Jan. 24, featuring talent from Battleground Pro Wrestling.
(Griffin is a lifelong fan of wrestling, superheroes, and rebellious music of all forms. He is the owner of Nerdstalgia, and you can shop online, learn about visiting the store in Colorado Springs, or catch him at a comic con in the Rocky Mountain area by going to http://nerdstalgia.shop.)
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.