It’s 2022, and you know what that means! It’s time for us to go over what people will be talking about the rest of the year. Last time, we took a look at the non-WWE topics, mostly because Tony Khan had a wild weekend that needed to be discussed. Today, we look at WWE, right after they had a wild couple of days that need to be discussed.

One thing’s for sure, we won’t be lacking for topics of conversation in 2022.

5. Will NIL lead to anything?

Confirmed and MASSIVE! 👀https://t.co/ztO65Y2oaB

— TPS (@TotalProSports) December 28, 2021

To be honest, I expect NIL to lead to nil in 2022. Gable Steveson has other business to attend to this year, namely winning another NCAA Championship. Barring his winning that title, immediately entering WWE and winning their Championship, which seems highly unlikely, you won’t see a dramatic impact from any of the people signed under this program in 2022.

2023 & 2024, now that might be a different story. If people are patient. Patience is a virtue that wrestling executives & fans are usually short on, so we shall see.

4. Will NXT 2.0 get a chance to develop?

It’s no secret that NXT’s re-tooling met with a lot of criticism from the Internet. Many felt that Triple H’s version of NXT was the perfect wrestling product and should never have been tampered with. What’s done is done, and we’ve certainly seen a different presentation on Tuesday nights over the past couple of months. It had some bumpy moments early, but seems to be hitting its stride now. Bron Breakker has been established as a future top guy. The women’s division has been reset with the likes of Toxic Attraction & Cora Jade getting the most attention. Grayson Waller is rubbing shoulders with the likes of AJ Styles.

So far, WWE’s been trying to make this thing work. The question is if they’ll continue trying, and if the fans that gave up on NXT will give it another look.

3. The new strains of the coronavirus that will pop up and take people out of commission for periods of time

I yearn to perform tonight at #WWEDay1 to defend my Universal Championship. However, unfortunately, earlier today I tested positive for COVID-19. Due to the proper protocols I am unable to compete as originally scheduled. I look forward to returning to action as soon as possible.

— Roman Reigns (@WWERomanReigns) January 1, 2022

I mean, who are we kidding? This covid thing ain’t going away anytime soon. We can easily predict what will happen throughout 2022 and how it will affect WWE.

-New strain emerges
-People get sick
-Wrestling continues

We will continue to discuss it and say the same things we’ve been saying since March 2020. WWE will ignore it as much as possible, only acknowledging it when somebody important gets sick. Which I’m not even saying is the wrong decision, as most of us watch this wrestling stuff to get away from our real-life problems. Traveling across the country is a little more questionable, but I think that ship’s already sailed. People can either attend the shows or not. It’ll be interesting to see how crowds trend while the pandemic continues, and just how thin the roster gets at certain times of the year.

2. Will somebody dethrone the Tribal Chief? If so, will it be somebody new?

Roman Reigns has been Universal Champion for nearly 500 days. If he doesn’t vacate or lose the championship on Friday’s SmackDown, he’ll break the record for longest reign with that championship. For most of his run, there’s been no real threat of him losing the championship. Some tried to tell you that The Demon King could do it, or Edge, possibly Kevin Owens, or any of these other alleged challengers could do it, but if we’re being honest (and we are because this is a Steve Cook column), nobody has posed much of a threat to Roman’s reign.

Well, there is Brock Lesnar. Brock had to settle for winning the WWE Championship on Day 1 instead of the Universal Championship, but he still seems to be coming for the Big Dog. Could we see the titles unified? Will Roman reign all year? Or will somebody actually break through to Roman’s level and knock him off his perch?

1. Who will get released this week?

By this point, I think we all know that WWE is going to be releasing people on a fairly regular basis. Heck, they released a batch of people while I was in the process of writing this. Fans are going to act shocked and outraged, but there’s really no reason for shock and the outraged aren’t going to do anything about it except be outraged again when more people get canned.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not great when people lose jobs. You especially feel for somebody like Allison Danger, who got 90 days of employment after moving across the country to work her dream job. Most wrestlers of my age group and younger see WWE as the dream. It’s what they grew up on. It’s tough for them to realize that the company they loved most of their lives doesn’t necessarily love them back. They need to realize what WWE is & who they are.

Hey, I’m not going to fault anybody for wanting to work for WWE. Plenty of people do well there. Folks just need to come into the whole thing with eyes wide open. Employment for a lengthy amount of time isn’t a guarantee. More & more people will find this out in 2022.