This is WWE's ongoing era, and its first under the ownership of someone other than the McMahon family, so far marked by uncertainty in upper management, new stars rising in the absence of the old, the final solidification of a new order, and monumental returns.
The Chairman Falls, and the Game Begins
Exiting WrestleMania 39, the atmosphere surrounding WWE was one of uncertainty, as it was confirmed on the second night of the show that the company had been sold to Endeavor Group Holdings, the parent company of UFC, and had been unified with UFC as TKO Group Holdings, marking the first time the product was answerable to someone other than Vince McMahon. On the topic of Vince, it became evident that his apparent departure from the company was a bit less tenacious than first believed, as he reinserted himself as Executive Chairman of the WWE board around the same time and, once again, became increasingly involved with WWE's creative direction - including interfering in TV broadcasts, ripping up scripts at the last minute, and slowly becoming a fixture backstage again.
Not all was simply a return to the status quo, though. Still mostly under the direction of Triple H, WWE continued to put out a creative product generally considered to be good, and at least far better than what was produced during Vince's last years in sole command of the company. Match quality was mostly high, the tag team division was widely considered to have finally redeemed itself (largely thanks to the work of two teams: The Usos, and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn), and the Bloodline continued to be the primary fixture of weekly television, with Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns racking up a record-breaking title reign at its head and the story surrounding the faction consistently drawing high praise. Recognizing the increasingly desperate need for a world champion on both brands, Triple H reintroduced the old World Heavyweight Championship to RAW, and the title would be snapped up by Seth Rollins in very short order. Soon after, the show-specific branding of the two women's championships would also be dropped, with Asuka's RAW Women's Championship once again becoming the WWE Women's Championship and Rhea Ripley's SmackDown Women's Championship becoming the Women's World Championship.
All the while, the two brands would each see the meteoric rise of a wrestler each from the midcard to the very top of the wrestling world. On RAW, Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER came to be regarded by fans as not only the best IC Champion of all time, but practically a third world champion in his own right, all on account of the staggeringly high quality of his matches. Meanwhile, on SmackDown, a combination of talent and perfect timing launched LA Knight to a level of fan popularity rarely seen since the Attitude Era, and the WWE - in what some might consider an uncharacteristic display of wisdom - responded to this reception by slowly entrusting the blue brand to the Megastar, assigning him not just the role of the top babyface of the show, but its top star in general, filling a gap left by increasing life- and injury-related absences on Reigns' part.
On the side of the much less fortunate and much more tragic, WWE would once again come together with All Elite Wrestling in mourning for a member of The Wyatt Family, as the wrestling world was blindsided by the sudden death of Bray Wyatt on August 24, 2023, at the young age of 36, as well as the passing of Terry Funk after a long career at the age of 79 the day previous. Led by Knight and Cody Rhodes, the August 25 edition of SmackDown saw WWE pay tribute to its two deceased family members in what was almost universally considered to be one of the greatest, most moving tribute episodes in the company's history.
Just as the wrestling world was beginning to accustom itself to the new normal, October of 2023 once again threw the balance of power in WWE into upheaval, as reports sprung up that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel had unilaterally removed Vince McMahon from the WWE creative team and handed full control, once again, back to Triple H. In January 2024, following yet another damning indictment — this time a lawsuit filed by former employee Janel Grant, accusing Vince and John Laurinaitis of sex trafficking and rape — he resigned from his Executive Chairman position yet again, leaving WWE and TKO once more, with TKO president Mark Shapiro declaring in March that McMahon will never return. Finally freed from the Chairman's looming shadow over the storytelling process, the Game could finally begin in earnest.
With Reigns continuing to be conspicuously absent, despite his high profile and the continuing length of his title reign, an ever larger gap began to open in the WWE roster for high-profile stars to carry the company forward. Following a calamitous split from their cousin, and then from each other at SummerSlam 2023, The Usos moved to different brands, with Jimmy seemingly reasserting his loyalty to Reigns after their initial parting and Jey moving to RAW to officially begin his career as a singles star. On the Red Brand, The Judgment Day - headed by Ripley and Damian Priest, alongside Finn Bálor and Dominik Mysterio - shuffled around across various titles and slowly took the place of the disintegrating Bloodline as the company's top faction, with Ripley continuing her own lengthy title reign, Priest claiming the Money in the Bank contract as well as the Undisputed Tag Team Championships with Bálor, and Mysterio becoming NXT North American Championship to an amusingly indecisive reaction, and in the meantime Drew McIntyre was finally driven to half-insane villainy by repeatedly being cheated out of his dignity and recognition by Reigns and his cousins. Ripley and company would even align with the Scottish Warrior in time for Survivor Series 2023, with the men involved facing off in a WarGames match against Rhodes, Uso, Rollins, and Zayn, with a final mystery partner being revealed on the go-home episode of RAW: a returning Randy Orton, coming back from literally breaking his back for the company a year prior.
The Prodigal Son Returns
And yet, the event in question - taking place in Rosemont, Illinois, just outside of Chicago - had one last surprise to offer wrestling fans. After a victory for the heroes, Rhodes' music would suddenly cut out to static, followed by the sound of Living Colour playing a returning CM Punk out to a positively insane hometown crowd. Despite his ignominious parting with his previous employer and an intervening decade's worth of viciously disparaging WWE, wrestling's favorite and most notorious troublemaker had finally mended fences and come back to where his fame began.
Additionally, quietly easing along in the background, the WWE Women's Division in general began to receive increased TV time, with their storylines becoming less comedic, their matches much longer and more high-quality, and their brawls more bloody and violent, with a years-in-the-making singles match between Becky Lynch and Nia Jax ending with Lynch having her mouth legitimately busted open in a work injury and ending the match with blood pouring down her chin. In news certainly not related to this in any way, executive producer and chief cinematographer Kevin Dunn - considered by many to be Vince McMahon's right-hand man - happened to announce his departure from the industry in the winter of 2023, permanently removing the former Chairman's final connection to the WWE creative product.
January 2024 became a month of surprises when one Dwayne Johnson made his return to WWE, showing that he was ready and willing to get back into the ring to have one more run in the spotlight. What's even more shocking was Johnson joining the Board of Directors of TKO Group Holdings two weeks later, as well as a monumental deal with Netflix to become an exclusive house of Raw and also hosting other WWE products on the platform beginning January 2025. Immediately following this, what some considered to be inevitable and others impossible happened: following by far the worst allegation against him so far - with Dunn, John Laurinitis, and Brock Lesnar named as co-conspirators - McMahon would resign all posts within TKO in disgrace as WWE came under threat of major sponsorship losses in the wake of the newly-reinvigorated scandal, seemingly gone forever after a year and a half of back-and-forth uncertainty.
More Than One Royal Family
But in the wrestling ring, the things would get even more heated: Cody Rhodes wins his second back-to-back Royal Rumble, clearly indicating he was gunning for the Tribal Chief and calling him out moments after eliminating CM Punk. However, these plans would be put in jeopardy, with Cody making a statement on the next week's Smackdown that he would face Roman for the WWE Championship... but not at WrestleMania, taking counsel from an individual that "knew [Roman] very well". The next second, the Rock came out to the ring and stared his kin down, seemingly challenging to a match at WrestleMania.
This turn of events sent fans into a spiral of confusion, especially when there were clear signs Cody would face Roman Reigns only to willingly give up the title opportunity to the Rock, a man whose last in-ring appearance happened almost eight years ago and who has recently been assigned to the Board of Directors. This was only exacerbated when the plans were revealed for CM Punk to challenge Seth Rollins for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania, only to be injured during the Royal Rumble match by Drew McIntyre, so Cody was slotted in to take Punk's place. The fans quickly let their displeasure with this be known, making #WeWantCody the no.1 trend on various social media, as well as chanting it during the television programming and booing the Rock. It all came to the climax during the WrestleMania Kickoff panel in Las Vegas next Thursday, where Roman chose the Rock to be his opponent, only for the latter to be met with a thunderous mixed reaction and with "We want Cody" and "Rocky sucks" chants. The Great One remained undeterred in the face of "passion" shown by the audience and called them "Cody Crybabies" before displaying the Samoan Dynasty family tree, proclaiming it to be the only one dominant and powerful royal family in professional wrestling and told the fans that "it doesn't matter what they think".
Just as the decision was about to be finalized and the two embraced each other, Cody took to the stage to interrupt and called this scene "bullshit". He proceeded to call out the Rock for his arrogance to decide what will be the main event, challenging Roman with his Royal Rumble victory. The Tribal Chief started mocking the challenger, claiming him to be only a chapter in his story and an embarrassment to the entire Rhodes family before calling him irrelevant just like his father. Seemingly incensed at Dusty being mentioned, Cody shot back at Roman's treatment of the Usos and saying that his and the Rock's grandfathers would be ashamed of them. That time, the Rock made it clear that he and Roman share ancestors and blood and they have a problem before slapping Cody and leading to them being dragged apart by Seth Rollins and the officials, with Cody being led off stage and the Rock showered with boos, seemingly joining forces with the Bloodline.
Soon after, as Roman and Rock walked back to the backstage area, they met Triple H when The Game was being interviewed. Rock confronted his old rival, telling him that he needs to fix this issue or they would. Triple H didn't budge: He retorted to Rock that his behavior is out of the line and asserts on the following day at SmackDown that Roman and Cody will main event WrestleMania XL. He understands that there will be some that are disappointed with his decision, but he doesn't care and echoed what the Rock said on the previous day by saying "it doesn't matter if you don't like the decision". Later in the show, Bloodline's special counsel Paul Heyman appeared in Triple H's office to tell him that he will be bringing Roman and Rock to next week's SmackDown, to which Hunter said that he's looking forward to it...
At next Monday's RAW, Cody affirmed that the fans made it possible for him to face Reigns at WrestleMania and addressed the Rock, saying he'd hit back for the slap he'd got. Rollins came out to tell him to finish the story for everyone following it, calling him the only man able to take down Roman and release his stranglehold from the WWE Undisputed Championship and offering his support. A few days later at SmackDown, the Rock came out to confirm he's joined the Bloodline and insulted the crowd, showing he's re-embraced his more arrogant ways. He mocked the very concept of Cody having a story, saying that "Cody crybabies" propelled him to the top and he would do anything to deny him his "happy ending".
The buildup to WrestleMania XL proved to be an eventful one, especially when it became clear that — whether due to his position among TKO's Board of Directors or just having the social clout to do so — the newly-christened "Final Boss" version of The Rock made things as gritty as he could, delivering surprisingly profane messages to Cody on social media in promises to make his life a living hell, which especially took hold on a late March episode of RAW where — after Cody spent most of the episode brawling against Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa backstage — The Rock came in to finish the job, delivering a massive No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that left Cody visibly bleeding from his face. Not only did this add serious heat, many critics saw this as the herald of a Tone Shift for WWE, with a genuinely shocking level of darkness and edge not seen in WWE content since the Attitude Era. At the very least, many saw it as the company testing the waters for the prospective move to Netflix in 2025, seemingly confirming that the "PG"-era was steadily on its way out.
The Show of Shows finally arrived in April, and WrestleMania XL became a smashing financial and critical success full of shocks and surprises, including Rhea Ripley defending her Women's World Championship Title from Becky Lynch, Sami Zayn defeating Gunther, finally breaking his record-long streak and claiming the WWE Intercontinental Championship, R-Truth claiming the RAW Tag Team Championship after a crazy Six-Pack Tag Team Ladder Match, Damian Priest pulling off a "heist of the century" by cashing out his Money in the Bank contract and defeating Drew McIntyre to snatching away the World Heavyweight Championship, Bayley turning face again and winning her first one on one at WrestleMania against Iyo Sky to become the WWE Women's Champion, and many more.
Then came the main event, split across the two days: day 1 saw a tag-team bout between Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns and The Rock to determine the ruleset behind the match between Cody and Roman for the Universal Championship the following night. The match turned out to be an impressive showing from everyone (including for The Rock, who, despite being over a decade since his last in-ring showing, managed to stay in top physical form over the match's 40+ minutes), and with a little bit of help from petty abuses of power from The Rock's end, The Bloodline came out victorious. On day 2, Cody ended up facing a staggeringly uphill battle against Roman, as "Bloodline Rules" gave them full reign to pull off every dirty trick to knock Cody down. This ended up being retorted by a staggering amount of reinforcements ready to help him out: Jey Uso, Seth Rollins, John Cena, and The Undertaker (the latter appearing out of nowhere to personally chokeslam The Rock before taking the so-called Final Boss to parts unknown). All these combined efforts finally enabled Cody to complete what had evaded him for far too long: finally beating Roman at WrestleMania, ending Roman's 1,316-day streak of the Universal Champion, winning the title that his father never won, and above all else, he finished the story.
The main event was met with widespread acclaim — described as akin to Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame in terms of drama, sheer scope, and finality — and WWE were quick to stamp it as the true beginning of a new era. With Vince no longer calling the shots, the company began at last eschewing the artifacts left behind from his regime, symbolically represented by their move to abandoning the concept of being "sports entertainment" — from here on out, WWE is the home of true "professional wrestling".
