Three stories to watch in WWE for 2023

A new year is a few days away and there are many different stories brewing throughout professional wrestling. WWE has new leadership in place and the biggest opportunity for improvement, simply because of the bottom-barrel booking that was in place for years. With Triple H in charge, these are three big stories that fans should watch for in 2023.

Roman Reigns’ Title Run

Roman Reigns is the Head of the Table. He stands leagues above anyone else in the promotion as the undeniable top draw WWE has to offer. After years in this position, many are wondering how the story will come to an end. Or if it will move into its next phase. How will The Bloodline crumble? Can WWE successfully book its way out of a situation that has stifled much of the men’s division and its programming? This is the biggest story to watch as WWE moves into WrestleMania season before the big show in California.

Expect Reigns to hold the championships going into WrestleMania 39. Who will he face? The Rock on Night One? And the winner of The Royal Rumble on Night Two? Is this the crowning moment that Cody Rhodes has chased his entire career? Will it be someone else who gets the biggest rub available in North American wrestling today? There’s so much to look for each week as major PLEs inch closer on the calendar.

Regardless, the way things play out in these coming weeks and months will have massive implications for the future of WWE and the immediate future of professional wrestling.

The Bray Wyatt Payoff

Bray Wyatt’s return was one of the biggest moments in WWE this year. The video of his appearance at Extreme Rules has 2.9 million views to date on WWE’s YouTube channel. Every week his story progresses, currently wrapped around LA Knight and Uncle Howdy. But what is the payoff? Quiet rumblings are calling for the payoff to come, but things are never intended to move quickly when Bray Wyatt is involved.

His brand of storytelling is different than what is usually presented in WWE. Long-term booking along with callbacks to the smallest of details reign supreme in this angle and any other that he’s been involved in. WWE faces the continued challenge of booking Wyatt within a professional wrestling sense, as his character never fits within the norms of the industry. This time around, it seems like care is being taken to solve that problem, but there’s still a long way to go to see how this plays out and if the outcome will be successful.

NXT Call Ups to Come

The WWE to NXT pipeline was a challenge in recent years. It’s hard to find many examples of individuals that were successful on the black and yellow brand and carried that momentum with them when they made the jump to either SmackDown or Monday Night Raw. Individuals like Bianca Belair or Damian Priest are more an exception to the rule, and they even faced unnecessary hardships under Vince McMahon’s creative “vision.”

Thankfully, McMahon is no longer in the picture. That brings new hope to individuals that will find their way to the main roster. Names like Carmelo Hayes, Cameron Grimes, Bron Breakker, Indi Hartwell, and Toxic Attraction stand at the top of the list of acts that have done nearly all they can on WWE NXT. Bringing them up to the main roster creates interesting new matchups at a time when WWE needs them most.

The promotion must create future stars as others move beyond the prime of their careers. Superstars like Roxanne Perez, Hayes, Breakker, Grimes, and others are the youthful talent that the main roster must be built upon in the future. That starts with calling up new names in 2023 and giving them the treatment of impact players from the very start.

There’s a lot of excitement for the WWE product heading into 2023. With new leadership in place, this promotion has an opportunity to help elevate the entire industry if it returns to the practice of solid, sensical booking, week in and week out. The bar was low for so long, here’s to a 12-month run of raising those expectations.