With the sports calendar constantly shifting (goodbye football, hello men’s basketball), one underappreciated sport remains a constant. Professional wrestling is one of the few sports that runs throughout the entire year.
We will soon to be treated to WWE’s Elimination Chamber live from Perth, Australia on Feb. 24, with four great matches already on the card and more to be added later. In less than three weeks, AEW Revolution will go live from Greensboro, North Carolina on March 3, where the Icon himself, Sting will have his last match before retiring after a nearly 40-year career.
With these tantalizing upcoming events, it’s time to propose something I think every wrestling fan can get behind. The industry almost always takes a backseat to more mainstream sports like football or baseball. The solution I am proposing to put wrestling over the edge and redeem its place as one of the world’s premier sports is to merge the various promotions spread out across the world.
Specifically, I think it would only make sense for the following promotions to merge: World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Ring of Honor (ROH), Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), which are all headquartered in America; New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW), headquartered in Tokyo; and the Consejo Mundial De Lucha Libre (CMLL), headquartered in Mexico City. While there are dozens of other promotions that do splendid work (I’m looking at you, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla), these six main leagues, if combined, could create the greatest assemblage of wrestling talent ever assembled.
One of my biggest complaints about the Monday Night Wars was in the title. I never wanted WWE and WCW to be two separate entities as a kid. Instead, I wanted the two companies to be combined. We could’ve been treated to dream matches, like Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Goldberg, Sting vs. The Undertaker, and more. The proposed merger between these six companies would create a new level of competition previously unseen in professional wrestling.
The other pro associated with this super-merger would be that each company would improve upon the other. WWE has some of the strongest storytelling in the business, but their in-ring performances are lacking. AEW and NJPW, meanwhile, have displayed some of the best in-ring performances of the past decade. Their storytelling, while fine, is much less compelling than their competitors’. If the big six companies were to combine, they could each take their best aspects and combine them into one unstoppable force.
I do recognize that competition in general, regardless of enterprise, is always good for the economy. Yet, I think that the pros here outweigh the cons. To ensure the survival of one of the world’s most underappreciated mediums, today’s promotions need to combine into one conglomerate.
Sports Editor
