SPOTLIGHTS: Ten Wrestling Wishes for 2020

Time to ring in a new year and decade. And with it, here’s 10 professional wrestling wishes for 2020 (and in no particular order).

1. Someone with business savvy buys Ring of Honor, and ideally merges it with another promotion into its own division. There’s simply too much talent and history associated with ROH: allowing it to disappear would be a travesty.
2. WWE embraces and prominently features inter-gender matches. The supposed women’s revolution died a painful death, weighted down by horrific plot lines and stereotypes. The audience can handle seeing men and women wrestle each other. Do it.
3. A changing of the guard at wrestling executive levels. It’s way overdue to say ‘sayonara’ to leadership/announcers at literally every major wrestling promotion. They’re carrying with them bad habits, outdated ideas and ethics. There’s endless talent 45 and under to make it fresh.
4. Eliminate tiny windows for commercials. The only thing worse than television commercial breaks during matches are replacing them with larger, louder ads and for several minutes at a time. Animated icons/messages, 5-10 second spurts, please. Soccer does it; so can you.
5. Form leagues of regional independent wrestling promotions, and profit share amongst them. This includes setting wage structures, ticket prices, offering health coverage, and joint streaming/television offerings.
6. Anoint John Cena as the advocate for professional wrestling, and not just for WWE. He’s the most recognizable, well liked, also respected athlete in professional wrestling’s history. Cena needs to be the bridge between the sport and masses, not ESPN.
7. Root out the misifts. It’s time professional wrestling cleans house of the harassers, predators, and criminals. They’ve been protected for too long, and are dragging down the entire industry with them. Do it quietly to protect those hurt by their actions.
8. Create higher quality merchandise. Pro Wrestling Tees had the right idea…and now it needs better execution. The vast majority of professional wrestling products are poorest quality, at levels mainstream sport leagues would never tolerate. Spend and charge a few dollars more for better items.
9. Destroy the smark culture en masse. NXT embraced the smark crowd to put independent wrestling on the map. It’s now time to put it out of its misery. Smark fans and subcultures wreaked havoc on what should be a family friendly nature for professional wrestling. Take it back, to include promotions speaking out against it.
10. Stop the plastic surgery requirements. Fake boobs, botox, and accompanying stupidity has to stop. There are no fans demanding this of the athletes and talent. Plus, those choosing to go this route are looking like alien clones of each other. Convince me Charlotte Flair doesn’t look like 90’s Cher.