OFFICIAL 2018 PREDICTIONS THREAD
 

Embrace your Nostradamus so that we may ponder your good, bad and ugly predictions for 2018.

READYYYYYYY....GOOOO!!!!

Triple H wins at Rasslemania

Mojo Rawley becomes United States champion.

Early one, but Tomasso Ciampa costs Johnny Gargano his title match at Takeover.

Ratingsand gates continue to dip as the company has no stars.

This facebook show fails due to the gimmickand insteadnof creating a product that isnt awful they abandon the idea altogether

Roman Reigns

Vince will fear NJPW.

Hulk Hogan makes his WWE comeback.

WWE does a Tag-Team classic tournament.

and a bold one - Sting vs The Undertaker at Survivor Series.

Daniel Bryan not only fights Shane at WrestleMania 34, but inks a new deal with WWE and dethrones AJ Styles at SummerSlam for the WWE Championship.

if only.

Danielson bumping would get me to reup my subscription

Braun Strowman will be WWE Champion

I'll do you one better. I predict Hulk Hogan competes in a match.

And that he pins Finn Balor

Nah. Finn's not over enough to face Hogan.

He'll pin Braun Strowman clean.

TNA will almost fold for the 100th time but somehow make it into 2019

Jason Jordan becomes a main eventer.

Seth Rollins is champ for 4 months.

He's already main evented RAW

God I hope so.

He moves to the A-show?

Daniel Bryan wrestles.

Hideo gets injured.

Paige gets released.

Chris Jericho doesn't wrestle for WWE.

Dean Ambrose wins the big one.

Honestly i'm probably the only person who wants to see him back in the ring. Hulk Hogan has always been one of my favorites .

XFL 2.0 will return again...............and fail again.

And Vince will look an absolute fool for dumping all of his own money into it for nothing.

Rusev wins the WWE championship and proclaims the date of his victory to forever be known as the real Rusev Day.

Bludgeon Bros will actually attack someone with their hammers.

* AJ Styles isn't the WWE Champion heading into WrestleMania.

* Brock Lesnar beats Roman Reigns at WrestleMania.

* The Usos get singles pushes.

Smackdown will get a 3rd hour

That's something I see too, actually.

Big E gets a singles push whilst still being part of The New Day.

I do see The New Day (specifically Big E and Xavier Woods) getting singles pushes under The New Day banner this year. Xaxier Woods' inclusion in the US Title feels like the WWE working out they can actually do that.

John Cena wins Royal Rumble
John Cena wins WWE Championship @ Wrestlemania

Braun Strowman wins Universal Title

Hulk Hogan returns

Paige wins Women's Championship

Chris Jericho appears in Ring of Honor

Daniel Bryan leaves WWE.

I was going to suggest Finn reunite with Gallows and Anderson but that happened Monday.

Samoa Joe wins the Universal/WWE Championship.

Jason Jordon to turn heeled no reaction be a mainstay on Main Event by the end of year.

Mike Kanellis to be on NXT

Tye Dillinger and Apollo Crews to be released.

Kurt Angle to win the Universal Title.

Was going to say: My random push prediction for 2018, given that absolutely nothing has alluded to this on-screen, is Apollo Crews.

Rusev and Lana both leave the company.

I don't think it actually launches in 2018, but by the end of the year WWE release tentative plans to unleash a third WWE brand "on par" with Raw and SmackDown; not NXT.

Bobby Lashley, Derrick Bateman, James Storm and Eddie Edwards all jump ship to the WWE and actually form a faction of maligned talent that either never got a break, or got screwed over. Arn Anderson as mouthpiece optional.

Bayley turns heel, lets her hair down, gets a jacket with ironic "Remember when I used to be a babyface?" badges on it, and it's surprisingly hot, so she gets a push towards the end of the year as a "good girl turned bad."

205 Live doesn't make it to the end of the year, but the cruiserweights get swept into the other shows.

1. John Cena's last year as a full time, part timer. After 2018 maybe 1 appearance at the big 4 and and a short lead up prior to it.

2. Anthem Impact closes its doors for good after teasing its death for the last 6 years.

3. Main roster superstars will actually "demoted" to NXT, officially making it the 3rd brand show and not developmental.

4. Tommy Dreamer becomes the first ECW inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame.

5. 2018 HoF is headlined by Batista

6. The UK title in WWE slowly fades away.

7. RoH has its best year on paper and becomes the #2 and gets a real television deal.

8. CM Punk finally makes a return to wrestling, but it will not be WWE.

9. Bryan Danielson returns to pro wrestling and Daniel Bryan dies.

10. Cody Rhodes goes back to WWE

Brock Lesnar goes to New Japan. He follows Chris Jericho's suit and realizes he can do more for professional wrestling by opposing Vince (in a "friendly" sort of way -- no burnt bridges) and getting more attention for a second promotion. I can see Heyman being the architect and getting a good contract to be some sort of American conduit.

Do you think Brock Lesnar cares about "doing more for professional wrestling"?

I phrased that to make the dude sound altruistic, but I think it will be done with selfish reasons, mainly. Like, Brock helps professional wrestling by protecting his star in the WWE and walking over jabronis who don't matter, even though with one stumble off a right hand he could make them look bad-ass. It counts when he does it.

I think Brock is a shark. He's got to be the predator. He's competitive. In Japan he'll easily make millions, then there are sponsorships, there will be media coverage in Japan and probably even small stuff over here too. "What's this New Japan thing." I also think he wants to make sure Heyman is set too, which might mean keeping with WWE, but if Heyman is getting an itch to do more, and the WWE is not the place for it (and Heyman has even said it), then carving out a new niche benefts him and helps fertilize a business he may not have the same sort of passion for as, say, a Bryan Danielson or Jim Cornette, but understands about as well as anybody working. He knows that wrestling needs a shot if he's going to be making money off it in five years time when he's too old to fight.

Like, I don't think he'll say "I love wrestling, so I'm going to help it," I think it will be more of a "I'm really fucking good at wrestling, and I can make it a lot more lucrative long-term for Paul and myself if I further establish this promotion as legit.

Brock has friends in Japan, and he went there in the first place. I really don't think it's far-fetched to imagine him saying "Fuck it, I'm going to go back there and really give people something to talk about, make a smaller out of money, but a larger slice proportionately, and not get bored suplexing the same scrubs at house shows." Besides, it's kind of my running gag to predict it.

It's like Batista -- does the dude really love wrestling? He went to OVW and just phoned it in. He got his push very quick and then left because he was sick of it. But he's on the Twitter machine all the time talking about how the WWE is fucking up with Stephanie never showing any ass. He "gets it" enough to know that they're doing it wrong, it can be done better, and the wrestling game can make a lot more money if everyone got tighter with their shit and stop running it like a circus.

I thought I posted this in here, but I haven't: Jeff Jarrett develops a working relationship with the WWE. To what extent, I'm not sure. But he's one of those guys, in the same vein as an Eric Bischoff, that you just don't expect to see show up in that context again. I can see him doing some part-time stuff -- working with Elias and maybe even Angle -- and it mattering far more than it ever has because he's back in the WWE and they'll be selling it like a big deal.

I don't think the WWE plans to expand their developmental system, but I could see him setting up something that sort of feeds and exchanges talent with NXT.

If they get Ronda, I can see them starting an all-woman show sometime in 2018. The WWE are all about more, more, more right now. Raw and SmackDown have decreased in size, but they're still performing better than most things on cable, but does NBC Universal want to pay more money for something that is technically getting worse? I think the obvious thing to do is for the WWE to say "Look, give us more money, we'll bump SmackDown up to three hours and do another show." That's a little less original programming for USA to handle, and if it gets like a 1.5, then it might be worth it overall for them. With Ronda Rousey, they might have that star.

I did also predict a third regular WWE touring brand, which I won't exactly shy away from, but I can see the women getting their own thing on Thursdays or something.