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We are now in the last month of 2018, and with the end of the year, December brings us an opportunity to take a look at what lies ahead.
While 2018 has been a good year when it comes to quality of matches to take place at World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. there have been quite a few challenges WWE has faced as well.
The year is now closing out with WWE suddenly having lost one of their masthead superstars to illness, and with a whole crop of top-tier superstars slowly fading away and no longer working full time.
2019 will be no different. Along with the arrival of the new year, will arrive a whole new crop of issues that WWE will have to tackle head-on if they are to do well in the coming year. One thing's for sure, 2019 will not be the easiest year for WWE to face.
Many things that happened in 2018 will make sure that WWE has a whole lot of challenges which they will have to confront in the coming year.
In this article, we will talk about some of the challenges that WWE will have to face in 2019.
#5 Working Without Brock Lesnar
As the days go on, the number of part-time stars are going on a steady decline.
For the long run, this is actually a good thing. While Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and The Undertaker all make appearances, very rarely is it that a major WWE pay-per-view is built up surrounding them.
However, the one part-timer who has been a mainstay of WWE for the past 2 years, Brock Lesnar continues to play a critical role in the company.
This situation is such, where Brock Lesnar is the WWE star to have held the Universal Championship for the better part of the last 2 years. However, he has entered the USADA drug testing pool, and sooner rather than later, Lesnar will be leaving WWE to go to UFC.
WWE will just have to get used to the idea of continuing without 'The Beast' and managing to step up so as to replace him. To do this they need to push their regular talent in a better manner than they have done so far.
#4 Running Out Of Firsts in the Women's Division
For the longest time, the WWE Women's Division has been a collection of firsts.
The Women's Evolution has seen the first women's main event, the first Hell in a Cell match, first Elimination Chamber match, first Royal Rumble, first Last Woman Standing match, first pay-per-view among others.
At some point, WWE is going to run out of firsts. Instead of focusing on how the WWE Women are innovating and performing in first-time huge matches, they will need to focus on WWE's need to continue their women's division and actually maintain them at the same level as Raw.
With the hype behind Becky Lynch and women like Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey in the division, the women should not face too much of a problem in keeping the attention of the crowd on their division with interesting feuds.
It's up to WWE where the Women's Division goes from here in 2019.
#3 World Domination
WWE has been laser-focused on expanding their brand across the world for a while now.
With the launch of NXT UK brand, WWE has taken the first step in achieving exactly that.
WWE is recognized as the biggest professional wrestling promotion in the world, but their popularity varies from location to location. With the first step taken in 2018, WWE will need to focus on increasing their reach even farther.
Their biggest competition is none other than NJPW at this point, who put on quality matches on a regular basis. In the next step of their quest for World Domination, opening up a branch of NXT called NXT Japan could very well help in this pursuit.
A movement being helmed by none other than Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWE has for once seemed to have had their finger on the pulse of what locals want.
Could this happen next in Japan?
#2 Transition To Fox
On the 1st of October 2019, WWE will take another huge first step which could end up shaping their future in a big way.
SmackDown Live will be leaving USA Network to move to Fox.
Given that Fox is a completely new home for WWE, they will have to adjust their product to suit them. Fox is far more sports oriented than the USA Network was and this is something that WWE's product will have to adapt to.
With WWE being more about Sports Entertainment, it will be interesting to see what sort of changes WWE makes to their product to suit their new home.
Possibly a completely new crop of stars, and more of a wrestling-oriented show could be something that the WWE Universe has to look forward to.
Either way, 2019 will definitely prove interesting for the SmackDown Live brand.
#1 Replacing Roman Reigns
One of the biggest losses WWE faced recently was that of Roman Reigns.
Roman Reigns recently announced that he was suffering from Leukemia and as a result would have to take a hiatus from wrestling and WWE to deal with it.
For the past 5 years, Roman Reigns has been booked by WWE to be the face of WWE. Now, with Reigns gone, WWE has suddenly been left without a single face for WWE fans to look up to.
For this reason, 2019 will be a huge one for WWE. They will have to find a way to replace Roman Reigns.
This will prove to be quite a challenge for anyone superstar to do. It's not that WWE has a shortage of candidates for the role, with Drew McIntyre and Braun Strowman both having the potential to fill the slot.
Given that Lesnar is the temporary Universal Champion, it will be interesting to see how WWE book whoever they choose as Reigns' replacement.
