2024 Pro Wrestling Thread

I mean, the guy broke his neck. We could give him some grace. That said, he also could have stepped away from his desk and calmed them down once they got frustrated with the losses.

That’s one of the beauties about being a heel. Mick Foley wrote in his first book about how Freebird Michael Hayes told him that a heel should always be able to justify his actions, no matter how crazy the justification is. Foley used that in ECW when he used a fan’s sign as his motivation to turn heel and cut his famous “Cane Dewey” promo.

In New Day’s case, their motivation is that E abandoned them, even though E has his own justification for doing so.

 

He didn’t, though. He just stopped appearing with them.

 

The best heels are the ones who think they’re right. See: Owens, Kevin and Reigns, Roman

 

And they interpreted his non-appearances as abandonment.

Remember: To a heel, it doesn’t matter if the justification is accurate. All that matters is that they can justify it in their own minds.

Like Jimmy says with KO and Roman.

Or like Rollins is about to do with Punk. Rollins is going to feel justified in that Punk just walked right back in the E like nothing ever happened for the last 10 years and is upset that Punk is pointing out to him that he wasn’t willing to help the Bloodline at War Games.

 

Drew McIntyre might be the best example of this, well, ever. Nothing he said about Punk was ever wrong.

 

I'm definitely ready to turn my vote in for Moxley's stable in 2024's WrestleCrap Gooker Award, although I liked seeing them finally get some comeuppance tonight.

Any other good (bad?) Gooker moments from 2024? All the Elite stuff? Jericho?

I genuinely struggle to think of much bad that WWE did to that level this year.

 

Orange Cassidy, Jay White and Hangman Page teaming up to take on Mox and his crew? Interesting.

 

Brody King being this over is pretty cool.

 

I think they have a rule that anything that is an ongoing angle is ineligible, because even the worst stuff can theoretically turn around and go somewhere. So Moxley's stable and the Learning Tree (which I enjoy, since I get the joke that seems to sail over a lot of people's heads) might be 2025 candidates, but not 2024.
In fact, I think they mentioned in a letters column a couple months back that this is going to be a tough call precisely because it's been a good year where nothing obvious has risen to the Gooker level.

The Elite airing the Brawl Out backstage footage is definitely a candidate, though.
I'm sure there are some WWE angles or matches we're forgetting.
Maybe something under the radar, like the James Mitchell cocaine party (and the train wreck of a PPV it overshadowed) that won last year is lurking somewhere.

 

Is Big Show Page a babyface again?

and what’s with Swerve heeling off on the Acclaimed guy? Was everything they did in that hardcore stuff to get them both over already tossed?

 

Page is the main character of AEW. They can't have him be a heel for too long. So they are planting the seeds that he's beginning to turn.

As for The Acclaimed, Max Caster is turning heel and will feud with Anthony Bowens in the coming weeks.

 

Page is the main character of AEW … when MJF isn’t there. There are signs that Tony’s starting to figure out how badly he’s misbooked the company over the past 15 months or so.

Saw a thing on Cultaholic this morning that one of the Nemeths is suing AEW and Pepsi Phil, so maybe that helps burn the lesson in.