Calendar Adjustment for Returning Legends?
By Scott Keith on 13 February 2025
It occurs to me that WWE could potentially kill two birds with one stone. Consider:
1. Fans often hate when an aging veteran returns for Mania season and steals the spot of someone who puts in the work every week, and yet fans generally pop big time when a beloved superstar returns.
2. Post-Mania, the company loses a ton of narrative momentum.
So why don’t they have Mania revolve around their current stars, and then save the period between Mania and the next year’s Rumble—a notoriously dead period during most years—to bring back familiar faces from the past?
Wouldn’t that be the best of both worlds? You’d give the product a much-needed jolt during its doldrums without stalling the pushes of the young blood during the most important storytelling season of the year.
Probably, but at the same time I can't see those returning legends wanting to give up the Wrestlemania payday and attention to help prop up the storytelling during the dead time of year. Unless you're the Rock, showing up on some random-ass PPV in the fall and then never following up on it again.