The Wrestling Observer/Figure Four Online top ten most viewed news stories of 2025
Image: WWE
With 2025 officially in the books, let’s take a look back at our most viewed news stories of last year — a list that featured a lot of WWE news and some quotable quotes.
What’s interesting to me is that these weren’t the biggest stories of the wrestling year (Hulk Hogan’s death, John Cena’s final match, the ESPN/Peacock changes, Brock Lesnar’s surprise return, etc.). Rather, these were stories coming out of those stories, showing how powerful social media has become when breaking big news and garnering immediate reaction.
Note that none of these are live event posts, but just straight news.
Number 10
John Cena’s final opponent confirmed for WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event
This was a pretty straightforward December post: Gunther winning The Last Time is Now tournament to earn the shot at beating John Cena in his final match. Cena’s final run was newsworthy enough, but the confirmation of who he would be facing making our list.
Number 9
Report: Natural Disasters to be inducted into WWE Hall of Fame
This one was a surprise to me to make our top ten: a March report about the late Earthquake and Typhoon (aka the Natural Disasters) being set for induction into the WWE Hall of Fame class. Who knew 1990s tag team were that popular, huh?
Number 8
Karrion Kross and Scarlett’s first post-WWE appearance announced
A big story during the middle part of the year was the plight of Karrion Kross & Scarlett after their departure from WWE and whether the whole thing was a work. Apparently, it wasn’t and the announcement of their first post-WWE appearance got a lot of attention.
Number 7
WWE & Vince McMahon file appeal to prevent discovery in Janel Grant lawsuit
The Janel Grant lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE continued to progress throughout 2025 with one specific story in June standing out: McMahon and WWE filing an appeal to prevent discovery, claiming Grant “has failed to meet the legal standard for pre-arbitration discovery and is also trying to seek unrelated documents relating to the question if Grant signed the NDA under duress.”
Number 6
Subscriber exclusive: John Cena’s final opponent revealed
This was an October Dave Meltzer exclusive for our subscribers that Gunther would be Cena’s final opponent, determined via a yet to be announced tournament.
Number 5
Stephanie McMahon confirms role for John Cena’s final WWE match
With Cena’s final match date official, Stephanie McMahon wanted the WWE fans to know she would be in attendance, revealing in a November interview with Megan Morant that she was going to be co-hosting Saturday Night’s Main Event alongside Joe Tessitore.
Number 4
Triple H says he’s ‘incredibly proud’ of CM Punk for apologizing to Saudi Arabia
In case you didn’t hear, CM Punk made his first appearance in Saudi Arabia in June, competing against then-WWE Champion John Cena at Night of Champions. He also apologized to their fans for his “mean tweet” during a pre-event pep rally of sorts in the country — all of which made headlines considering how opposed Punk had publicly been in the past about WWE and the Saudi shows.
His boss, however, was impressed with what Punk did and said as much after the event ended.
Number 3
WWE star announces break from social media following Hulk Hogan comments
That star was Chelsea Green who got some heat in July after making some positive comments about Hulk Hogan during a media appearance to promote WWE Unreal when she was asked about his death. She later apologizing on X after saying she got death threats and that she was taking a break from social media.
Number 2
Stephanie McMahon says Vince McMahon is probably his own ‘biggest nemesis’
The runner-up for the most viewed story was Stephanie McMahon talking about her dad on her ‘What’s Your Story?’ podcast in June while chatting with WWE president Nick Khan. In talking about Vince’s legacy and in response to a Khan statement about how “Family’s complicated. And, you know, obviously, we don’t need to get into any of that,” Stephanie somewhat did get into it without going any deeper.
“Absolutely he is [an empire builder],” she responded. “And no one can take that away from him, no matter what, including himself, who is probably his biggest nemesis — is himself.”
And our most viewed story of 2025 was:
Bret Hart says Vince McMahon ‘used wrestling as a backdrop for all of his evil’
Bret Hart made a podcast appearance back in June where he was asked about his old boss Vince McMahon possibly returning to the business.
Among his various quotes was this one where he was asked about the allegations against Vince and John Laurinaitis as part of the Janel Grant lawsuit:
“Shame on all of them. I mean, that’s just terrible. I’ve had ups and downs with Vince McMahon, and in a lot of ways I have a lot of respect for him, but at the same time I find what happened there inexcusable. There’s no place for that. I think Vince McMahon became a predator and used wrestling as his backdrop for all of his, sort of, evil. And it just tells me that too much money can turn you into a bad person.”
Our top viewed AEW news story (#17) was from December where Chris Jericho addressed some of the WWE move rumors, saying he was “pretty sure” he’d be wrestling somewhere in 2026 without saying WWE. After that, it was another Jericho story (his upcoming cruise not featuring any AEW talent), the announcement of an ROH Women’s TV title unification match, Matt Jackson talking about a revival of Being The Elite, and the Young Bucks returning to aid Jon Moxley at April’s Dynasty.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.