Select Answers: Upcoming Retirement Tours, Tanahashi, AI Creative?

Welcome to Select Answers, a short feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.

When aggregating these posts please refer to it as "Fightful Select Answers Q&A" and tag Fightful, noting that it was in the Q&A format to avoid confusion.

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What do expect for legends who's retiring possiblyin the next few years? Such as Styles, Orton, Mysterio and such?

Randy Orton signed a five-year extension with WWE that goes until 2029, so barring something terrible, he's not retiring any time soon. He's expressed a desire to continue wrestling for a long time. So far it seems like he'll be able to. Rey Mysterio re-signed last year, and I imagine we'll get a clearer picture of his future upon him returning from injury. Styles will almost certainly get a big sendoff. WWE loves him and he's committed many more years there than he expected.

Who do you think is the retirement match for Tanahashi?

I think the ideal opponents are Kenny Omega or Kazuchika Okada. I honestly think that Kenny Omega is the best available choice because the Okada matches should probably continue to exist as is. I know NJPW would also love to have Shinsuke Nakamura, but I'm not sure how realistic that possibility is. I think a big time, headline worthy match is something they will go after instead of a "pass the torch" match.

What have you heard about the new hire for WWE creative and implementing AI into the structure of the company?

Well, I've heard they've had the AI integration for quite a while, but not in the manner in which many are suspecting. Instead, it's been used more as a digital writer's assistant who helps them with information, or researchable questions and the like. I was told it was more of an "idea starter," thing than fleshing out full storylines.