It’s that time of year again and these articles that I do every year are the most fun I have all year long. I get to take a trip back a year ago and breakdown everything that I predicted for the year in the WWE. Admittedly, I haven’t been watching a lot of WWE lately and I won’t be doing my annual Year-end Power Rankings for either WWE or AEW, but I still do keep up with what is going on. Who are we kidding. Roman Reigns would’ve been the MVP of 2021 in WWE anyways. AEW would’ve been interesting to see though. I got too far behind on those Power Rankings and honestly, I think I enjoy the product more without having to feel tied down to making a list of rankings every week. I will attach the article from last year here, and I will breakdown every section of the article. It is interesting to see where my thoughts were a year ago and where they are now. It also shows how much changes over the course of a year. This year, WWE has undergone a lot of changes and predictions this year will be even more difficult, so that will be interesting. I’m not going to waste any more time so, let’s roll.

State of WWE

Every year, I give a general outlook for the WWE at the beginning of each year and at the beginning of 2021, we were fully enveloped in the pandemic frenzy. There were no live crowds, people rarely left the house and things were very bleak. While restrictions have become looser, we’re starting to see some events in sports getting cancelled again. I certainly hope we don’t revert back to a full shutdown, but at this point, who knows? Just like a lot of big companies around the world, WWE was no different in the way that they had to change things up from how they were doing them.

In January, they were in the best position possible to succeed, but did this hold up throughout the year? I don’t think so. They have dismantled a large chunk of their roster, with nearly 100 talent releases over the last year, and their product has drastically changed in just 6-9 months’ time. I mentioned that AEW was gaining a lot of traction, but it didn’t appear that WWE was in any grave danger. Did this hold up? For about 3 months, probably. At this point, AEW has put WWE on notice. Without bias, AEW is putting out a much better product. I would much rather watch 2 hours of AEW Dynamite than a 2-hour SmackDown and SmackDown is their best show. Is WWE in any danger now? I would still say not yet, but they’re getting pretty close to being in serious danger of losing fans in droves.

- Who Will Be This Year’s Breakout Superstar?

Sometimes this portion will be either dedicated to a breakout star or who I think will dominate the year. My breakout star for 2021 was Big E. Did this hold up? Absolutely! Sometimes I feel like I go out on a limb for a lot of these picks, but I didn’t feel like I was stretching too far out for this one. I really wasn’t. Big E was poised for a big run and it would’ve been a huge letdown if he didn’t find any success in 2021. Big E won the MITB briefcase and cashed in on Bobby Lashley back in September and has held the WWE Championship ever since. When he won the title, it was a great moment, because there are certain people that you can just tell are well-liked behind the scenes, and Big E is one of those people. He has paid his dues and he earned the WWE Championship. Other than Lashley and McIntyre, he really hasn’t been in a big storyline since winning the belt, but I think that will change soon enough. I’m glad to see Big E get his moment in the sun and hopefully he gets a nice title reign.

- Will the WWE Retire the 24/7 Championship?

No, no they did not. I thought this was somewhat of a longshot, but I really don’t think it will stick around for much longer. It doesn’t benefit any performers long-term and if you just think about it, why would anybody want to win the 24/7 belt? I don’t really have an answer for you unless you’re R-Truth and can turn anything into instant entertainment. Dana Brooke is your current champion and to be honest, I wouldn’t have a clue at any given time as to who the belt holder would be, because it doesn’t matter. Bad Bunny was the most notable 24/7 title holder in 2021 and speaking of which, Bad Bunny was in an actual match at WrestleMania 37 in case you forgot. The funny thing is, he did great. 2021 wasn’t the year that the 24/7 Championship became defunct, but I don’t anticipate it lasting much longer.

- Big Superstar Returns

Sometimes you just have to fill in some space for the article and this was one of those instances. Every year, you expect some big returns, whether it may be from injury, or hiatus, or whatever it may be. This was even more prevalent due to the fact that the pandemic put a huge damper on a lot of surprises because, why would they bring back a big performer in front of no crowd? They wouldn’t. Brock Lesnar was my biggest bet for a big return at some point in 2021 and that happened in back in August when he confronted Roman Reigns at SummerSlam. Another big SummerSlam return was Becky Lynch. To a lot of fan displeasure, she randomly challenged Bianca Belair and pinned her in a mere 26 seconds to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship. I loved it, but fans in general hated it. I said she would debut in the second half of the year, I was right.

Back in January, Edge wasn’t confirmed for a return and I expected him to return at some point between the beginning of the year and WrestleMania. Boy, did he ever. He returned at the Royal Rumble and won the thing from the number one spot! I mentioned Ronda Rousey, but she became a new mother this year, so that squashed any potential return. The Bella Twins didn’t make an in-ring appearance in 2021, but they did show up at WrestleMania 37 to attack Bayley. I even mentioned some commentators that could step into the ring. Samoa Joe was almost a guarantee for me and he did return to the ring in NXT, in fact, he won the NXT Championship back in August. He held the belt for a month and relinquished it. He hasn’t returned since. Another name was Wade Barrett, he didn’t return. I listed some longshots and two of them returned actually. John Cena and Roman Reigns headlined SummerSlam and it was great. And perhaps, the biggest return in the last decade, heck, maybe in wrestling history, was CM Punk. CM Punk returned to wrestling, but not to the WWE. He is a member of AEW now and is doing great things. Speaking of historic returns, Sting returned to the ring in 2021 for AEW as well, after ending his legend’s deal with the WWE. Talk about a crazy year for AEW. Naturally, 2021 was a year for returns.

- Will NXT Still Be Considered a Third Brand Moving Forward?

I was on to something here, but my calculations were a little off. NXT is definitely not a third brand anymore. The WWE as a whole underwent a lot of change, but NXT suffered the most. Their whole brand was revamped and practically all of the performers were replaced. Short-term, this was a horrible move for the WWE, but long-term, it is too early to tell. NXT 2.0 emerged in September and are headlining names like Bron Breakker, Grayson Waller, Cora Jade, Harland, Ivy Nile, and many other new performers. Mandy Rose is the current Women’s Champion and I think that’s the right place for her right now. It’s only a matter of time before they move on from Tommaso Ciampa, who is the current Champ right now. Also, there are a few others from the old NXT that are still around, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I can’t see NXT every becoming the potential “third brand” ever again and honestly, that’s fine with me. The only reason they wanted to even be considered as a third brand to begin with was to compete with AEW’s time slot when Dynamite was starting to air.

- Will Arenas Be at Full Capacity by the End of the Year?

This was a legitimate question at the beginning of 2021. My blunt answer to this question was no back in January. They brought fans back for WrestleMania 37 and they had a little over 25,000 fans each night, which was roughly 30% capacity. They went back to the Thunderdome for another 3 months until July. In July, they went back on the road and were holding full capacity shows. Back in January, we had no clue what would potentially take place and I think I wanted to be optimistic that there would be full capacity shows, but I couldn’t say that for certain. When fans returned, it was huge boost to morale for fans and I think it was definite boost for the performers as well. Hopefully we don’t revert back to the Thunderdome. That would suck.

Bold Predictions

I love doing this portion most of all. I like to get a little bold with some predictions for fun. It is interesting to see these at the end of the year. This was my worst bold prediction year by far of the ones I have done, but I think it is very entertaining to look back at the horrible predictions and laugh. It is cool to get one right every now and then too, but this year was bad for my bold predictions.

- Lacey Evans will capture her first Women’s Championship by the end of the year

Apparently, Lacey was supposed to win the RAW Women’s Championship at Elimination Chamber back in February, but things didn’t turn out that way. The match was cancelled, and we found out that Lacey Evans was pregnant. Most fans, including myself, thought this was a work, because in the storyline they said that Ric Flair was the father. Typing this out makes me feel dumb, but we had to endure that garbage. The pregnancy was very real, but not the part of Flair being the father. So, Lacey left after her announcement in February and had a baby girl in October. She is hinting at a return in the near future and I think a Royal Rumble return for her is a pretty safe assumption.

- Samoa Joe will face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania 37

Nope, not even close. The Tribal Chief was really starting to gain a head of steam around this time and I thought, you know what? I think Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns for the Tribal crown would be cool. It didn’t happen. I still think it would’ve been cool to see though.

- By the end of 2021, Charlotte Flair will tie her Dad and John Cena’s title reigns record.

Did not happen. Her title reigns were a confusing topic of discussion this year. At first, they were counting her NXT reigns and even her tag title reign, but not anymore. She sits currently at 13 reigns between her RAW, SmackDown and Divas Championship reigns. I said that she was a 12-time champion back in January, but I was counting NXT reigns. If you count those, she’s a 15-time champion, but either way, she didn’t reach this mark. Maybe in 2022.

- Pete Dunne will win the NXT Championship not once, but twice in 2021

Not even once. He had 3 televised chances and 1 non-televised chance but came up short. I think that was definitely a missed opportunity.

- The Miz will successfully cash in his MITB Briefcase at WrestleMania 37

The Miz did successfully cash in his MITB Briefcase, but it was in February at Elimination Chamber. He held the WWE Championship for a mere 8 days, when he lost it to Bobbly Lashley on RAW. He and John Morrison went on to feud with Bad Bunny and Damian Priest at WrestleMania 37.

- Bianca Belair will not win a singles Women’s Championship in 2021

I tried to do a little reverse psychology here, because everyone expected her to win the Rumble, which she did, and win a belt at WrestleMania, which she did. I was wrong, but it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. She had a good run as SmackDown Women’s Champion, although I thought her match with Sasha at WrestleMania was a little overrated.

- Big E will lose 5 matches or less in 2021

Not counting DQ/Countout finishes. Big E lost a total of 9 matches this year. If I’m being really petty though, he only lost 4 singles matches. I’ll be petty because I’ve got to get a win here.

- Toni Storm will win the NXT Women’s Championship by the end of the year.

A total missed opportunity here. News was broken that she was granted her release request from WWE yesterday and at this point, a person getting released in WWE is normal, but I think she had so much potential in WWE.

- Kevin Owens will earn his first Tag Team title reign in 2021

Nope. Never had a chance either.

- Not one current WWE superstar will go to AEW in 2021

L.O.L. Daniel Bryan, Andrade, Ruby Riott, Aleister Black, Adam Cole, Bobby Fish, Kyle O’Reilly, Christian, Tony Nese, and as of yesterday, Mercedes Martinez all were on the WWE roster at some point in 2021. So, yeah. You could say there was some side-switching going on in 2021.

Yacs

A Look Back at "Predictions for WWE in 2021"