Happy New Year Graps Fans!
Well 2025 is over, let us never speak of it again. WWE ruined 2-3 years of general goodwill to (re?)reveal themselves as the evil megalomaniac villans we all knew them to be with a largely terrible year of creative, extortionate ticket prices, relentless advertising and associations with fascists and blood thirsty royal families.
AEW had a generally much improved year, not perfect but certainly a huge improvement on 2024 (in the second half of the year at least) and while still don’t have the numbers they’d like are proving themselves as largely clean-conscious alternative.
NJPW meanwhile had a solid if unspectacular year, as they gear up to not repeat WWE’s mistakes in booking the final retirement match of their biggest star of the last 25 years with… a thoroughly odd card for their biggest show of the year.
You like multi-man matches to get everyone on the card?! Well do I have a show for you. There’s no doubt I’m sure that WK20 will still be a great show, but it really says a lot about the lack of real feuds or story-lines when there’s only four single matches including giving a huge spot to the largely unproven (but intriguing) Olympic Gold Judo winning Aaron Wolf against, lol, EVIL. Still the womens match (shamefully low on the card, despite the top billing on the poster) should be great, Tsuji surely gets his moment as the true next top star and a no doubt emotional war between Okada and the boots-hanging Hiorshi Tanahashi. Also, nice to see Black Country (New Road)'s finest Chris Brookes get an opportunity on Japan’s biggest stage in the opener.
Over in America, as things currently stand WWE have only booked as far as the 1 year Netflix anniversary for RAW on Monday featuring CM Punk putting his title on the line against Bron Brekker, but there is a Saturday Night’s Main Event to come before what normally would be the most exciting night of the year at the Royal Rumble, but will require some real moral judgement being the first big step towards the Saudi’s throwing their power and influence around. Still, at least it will be on at a very convenient time for the UK…
AEW’s next big show is Revolution, which is not until March, but I’m sure someone who follows them week to week will be along to inform us on what to expect in the meantime (sorry lads). What I will say though is, I stan the Mina Shirakawa, Orange Cassidy, Toni Storm thruple.
Alright let’s do it, to it! Wrestling that is.
