2022 - A Year In Review, Part 1: WWE

The dust has finally settled on 2022, the debris of the New Year’s Eve celebrations swept away, and the Christmas decorations packed away for another year. Naturally, our inclination is to look back on the year that was. Globally, it seems there’s little to be fond of - the impact of climate change has perhaps never been more starkly apparent in the western world, with extreme weather events ranging from record high temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius in the UK to the snowstorms that so recently buffeted North America, while war rages in Ukraine, and Francis Fukuyama is comprehensively in the mud.

Things look set to get worse before they get better. Putin’s warmongering has raised the spectre of nuclear conflagration to an extent not seen since the Cold War, while developing countries are feeling the brunt of his war’s disruption of energy and food supply chains and prices. While recent electoral results in countries like Brazil, and even the United States, suggest a measured rejection of the recalcitrant nationalism and authoritarianism that has coloured much of the century so far, global politics continues to feel like a fractious and economically fragile space, with every legal shouting down of an Alex Jones being counterbalanced by Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and opening the sluices to allow every bit of blocked up intellectual sewage to flood back into our timelines. The defeat of a Bolsonaro is muted when one must also consider an attempted far-right coup in Germany, and when women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights are under threat to an alarming degree. It all lends weight to the sensation that since around 2016 we’ve been living through the chapter that history books will title “Factors Leading To…”, before all the arrows drawn on maps.

Almost inarguably the biggest story of the year was the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Fittingly, given that sense that the pages of history’s book are a-turning, it’s conventional in the most basic, primary school approach to history that we mark great periods - in which innumerable people lived, loved, died, warred, innovated, created art, and spanned the entire breadth of human experience - with the name of whoever, by happenstance of birth, happened to be sat on the English throne at the time. There is no real, tangible way in which the death of Elizabeth II has impacted on the lived reality of those of us who live in the United Kingdom, bar the obscenity of a garishly expensive public funeral coming so soon after many of us were unable to say goodbye to loved ones in person due to (necessary) public health measures amid a pandemic that only sheer stubborn willpower allows us to believe is not still ongoing. Not for the Windsors - including disgraced Pizza Express enthusiast Prince Andrew, back in the public eye and in an official capacity - is the indignity of the Zoom funeral. Worse still, during the worst cost of living crisis since the 1950s, when many are forced to choose between heating their home and feeding their family, and where demand for food banks has outstripped supply, the new King Charles has steadfastly rejected any suggestion that his coronation be anything less than an expensive display of pomp and circumstance, with costs running up to the tens of millions. This, having already benefited from a law exempting the Royal Family from inheritance tax, meaning Charlie didn’t pay a penny into the public purse after pocketing somewhere in the region of £500 million from his dear old Mum. No word on who got dibs on her Fabergé egg collection.

I could go on and on. I had jars of Branston Pickle that witnessed three Prime Ministers. Cryptocurrency predictably collapsed in all of the ways that anyone who wouldn’t have been won over by a 19th Century confidence trickster or a town-to-town Monorail salesman had been predicting since the outset. The World Cup happened in a country only slightly less corrupt than FIFA itself. The UK’s political and media establishment continually struggled to grasp the concept of class solidarity in the face of widespread strikes and industrial action across multiple sectors (solidarity - join a union, folks). It was a year that just kept on fucking happening.

On a personal note, that pandemic I mentioned has left me feeling continually knackered, still feeling the effects of an illness I caught almost eleven months ago yet still see the dregs of social media downplaying as “just a cold”, or even of being entirely fictitious. I brought my ten year career in the wrestling business to a rest, if not an end, both wrestling and refereeing my last matches for Channel Island World Wrestling back in July - it’s a career I’m nothing but thankful for, the best and maddest thing I’ve ever done, and it has improved my life immeasurably. I may have graced a few other rings in the past few years - and, who knows, might don the stripes again one day, or end up in the ring in some other capacity - but CIWW will always be my home. I’m not done with wrestling yet, not by a long shot. It’s also the year I signed my first book deal, (mostly) finished writing the bloody thing, and it’s with the upcoming release of that book in mind that I started this very blog, which has given me an excuse to explore some of the wilder and weirder stories I’ve encountered in my research, and just to wax lyrical on wrestling in general. It seems to be picking up a little bit of steam, and long may that continue.

But that’s quite enough of that, what about wrestling? That’s what people actually come here to read about, isn’t it?
Well, you may have noticed that this post didn’t originate on my Patreon page - there’s a reason for that; the early-release posts on Patreon are those that required research, and therefore took a fair chunk of time, and sometimes personal expense, to prepare. That’s not what this is. I haven’t been keeping a tally of my favourite matches of the year, nor have I intentionally sought out a greater array of wrestling than usual throughout the year with the intent of producing a comprehensive breakdown of 2022’s key events. No, consider this instead to be a stream of consciousness remembrance of the year past, by an informed observer (unless, of course, you’re one of the no-mutual-follower weirdoes who all descended on my Twiiter account en masse over the festive period, aggrieved by a Tweet critical of Jim Cornette from earlier in the month, you lot can continue to call me an uninformed idiot while, more often than not, only supporting the argument I was making in the first place. Thanks lads). It feels like a more honest approach - I won’t pretend to have seen everything there is to see, and with that, won’t lend any suggestion that any given match or show is the best of the year, or anything other than something I personally enjoyed.

The Biggest Story Of The Year

You wouldn’t know it from most of the wrestling Twittersphere, or even the best of wrestling’s journalists, but one story from 2022 outshines everything else that happened. If we were to look at proverbial column inches, at the number of words given up to discussing a single story across all wrestling news websites and the social media accounts of wrestling journalists and fans alike, you’d be mistaken for thinking that nothing so shocking or unprecedented happened this year as the press conference haranguing of The Elite by CM Punk, but lest we forget that this is the year that Vince McMahon left WWE.

Beset with allegations of financial impropriety uncovered by the Wall Street Journal, and with multiple allegations of sexual assault and pay-outs for sexual favours underpinning said impropriety, Vince McMahon was forced to resign as chairman of the company that he built from the foundations his father had laid, and over which he has ruled as sole dictator since 1982. McMahon’s immediate reaction to the allegations, and an ongoing investigation by the WSJ, was typical Vince McMahon - he booked himself to appear on television, for no other reason than for an audacious, offensive victory lap; soaking up the applause of fans in some of the most baffling TV segments of the year. At some point, the weight of the allegations became too much to bear. Perhaps conscious that there remained further skeletons in the closet of a man who has over the years been credibly accused of rape, sexual assault and harassment of all stripes, embezzlement, purchase, sale and distribution of illegal steroids, criminal negligence leading to the death of a WWE-contracted wrestler, cover-up of a murder, defrauding investors, and - per Joey Styles - mocking God - people close to Vince McMahon made the decision that he should step down and “retire” from his position in charge of WWE. That he was permitted to do so, and create even the slightest intimation that he left willingly on his own terms, rather than being dragged away in chains, is typical of the whole tawdry affair.

In hindsight, one of the stranger moments of McMahon’s 2022 - his decision to compete in a match, aged 76, and twelve years since last competing, perhaps should have rung alarm bells. Prior to this year, McMahon’s final match had been against Bret Hart - an unstructured, ugly mess, but a fitting end to his unlikely in-ring career, losing to the man whose screwing over at Survivor Series ‘97 unwittingly set the ball rolling for the heel Mr. McMahon to become a wrestling villain in the first place. Few careers are so appropriately framed. So what can be said, then, of Vince choosing to wrestle an unpromoted match against commentator Pat McAfee? It seemed a bizarre act at the time, perhaps a desperate mad grab for a “Wrestlemania Moment” - a buzzword for WWE’s often self-destructive booking of their biggest show of the year, where months of booking or character work can be sacrificed for a fleeting pop, or a moment on a soon-to-be-forgotten highlight reel. After Vince was forced away from the company, however, it feels like something different - a last hurrah from a man who knew that forces beyond his control were closing in, and that this might be his last chance to play the bad guy wrestler on the biggest stage. Looking like Ronald Reagan’s Spitting Image puppet left out in the sun, it was an unedifying experience, second only to another high profile match by a wrestling septuagenarian sex pest, Ric Flair’s Last Match.

The Aftermath of McMahon

A Vince McMahon-less WWE has, at times, seemed unforeseeable - in 1994, when under investigation for the distribution of steroids and facing the very real risk of some jail time, the then-WWF concocted some contingency plans; Vince’s wife Linda was appointed CEO of the company, while Memphis booking genius Jerry Jarrett was earmarked as the creative head of the promotion, supported by Vince’s usual right-hand men. It’s difficult to imagine anything other than an Arrested Development situation, a jumpsuited McMahon still calling the shots from behind bars. There’s always money in the banana stand.

But since then, Vince has long seemed untouchable, and any on-screen suggestion that anyone other than Vince McMahon might be at the head of the table sent WWE share prices plummeting. For a time, the long-term strategy appeared to be that Vince McMahon’s daughter Stephanie and son-in-law Triple H would step up to replace the old man when the inevitable happened, each being groomed for greater positions. But then both were unceremoniously dumped from their positions - Triple H’s role as the mastermind behind NXT put him in the firing line in 2021, when that brand failed to outdraw or meaningfully compete against AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights. Following a September 2021 heart attack, Triple H saw his corporate responsibilities significantly pared back, and many of his key allies and NXT signings were released from their contracts during his convalescence. At Wrestlemania this year, the very same event that saw Vince McMahon - and Stone Cold Steve Austin - return to the ring, Triple H symbolically left his wrestling boots in the ring, confirming his retirement in a manner I expect was not how he had envisioned ending his career.

Stephanie McMahon fared little better. Spending her entire working life with WWE, and seemingly prepared to take the reins since her first stint as a writer for WWE television in the early ‘00s, Stephanie abruptly and unexpectedly announced a leave of absence in May 2022. This came mere months after Vince McMahon, in an interview with eventual Wrestlemania opponent Pat McAfee, expressed disappointment in his own family, suggesting that they had failed to live up to his expectations, and weren’t the best choice to run the company following his departure. This interview, too, coming three months before the Wall Street Journal story broke, now has an air of pre-emptive damage control to it, a concerted effort to grasp control of a narrative that would soon spin entirely and uncontrollably out of Vince McMahon’s hands - his every move in 2022 now feeling like a Trumpian effort to manipulate reality to his whims, as he has so often been able to do, only this time, not succeeding.

Stephanie returned to WWE less than one month after announcing her leave of absence, and being publicly derided and criticised by her father and colleagues, being named Interim Chairwoman and CEO following Vince’s absence. Another month later, with Vince’s absence now permanent, the “Interim” was dropped, and she was joined by her husband Triple H, returning from the cold as WWE’s new Head of Creative.

It’s worth noting at this point, the prodigal son Shane McMahon’s own WWE career came spiralling to an end in 2022. Tasked with producing the men’s Royal Rumble match in January, Shane McMahon booked himself to go toe-to-toe with wrestlers like Brock Lesnar, and to last until the final three entrants in the match, all while sweating profusely and as red as a Christmas ham before even making it to the ring. Typical of Shane’s matches since his surprise return to the family business in 2016, he was booked as a serious competitor and a skilled martial artist despite all evidence to the contrary, and in total ignorance of the amateurish qualities that gave his earlier matches their charm; as a heel, Shane was a coward who could find ever more entertaining ways to evade his opponent until he was inevitably caught, while as a babyface he was unskilled and unrefined but reckless and full of heart - in both cases, it was the fact that he wasn’t a conventionally talented professional wrestler that was the appeal, but since returning, he was presented as an equal to anyone from AJ Styles to The Undertaker. It wasn’t just Shane’s wrestling that marred the Rumble match, but his production, booking and meddling - entrant numbers were changed, with one story circulating that Shane’s own music played at the incorrect time as a result of how much he had chopped and changed the running order, causing him to have to enter the match when Randy Orton had been scheduled, while perhaps the final straw was repeatedly moving around the entry number of surprise entrant Bad Bunny, giving the pop star insufficient time to practice spots with his opponents, and risking a fruitful and important business relationship with WWE. As a result, Shane was quietly canned in early February and, unlike his sister and brother-in-law, has yet to return.

WWE Under Triple H

There are so many unanswered questions surrounding the McMahon family this year - how much was known of the Wall Street Journal’s investigation prior to publication? Was Vince McMahon - or others close to him - anticipating that more stories (because Lord knows they exist) would come out of the woodwork? At what point was the decision made to cut Vince loose, and what changed to perhaps force WWE’s hand? What was the story behind Stephanie McMahon’s short-lived leave of absence, and, given how eager others within WWE - including her father - were to criticise her on the way out, how “short-lived” was it intended to be, really?

Typically, much of the wrestling discourse has ignored all of these questions, in favour of shallow critique of the most readily apparent aftermath of Vince’s departure - the television product, no longer beholden to the whims of an unpredictable 77 year old. I’ve discussed, in my review of Summerslam, some of the most immediately apparent improvements - Vince’s strange diktats are the thing of the past, so the show is no longer weighed down by his unmistakable mangling of the English language and forced buzzwords filtered through commentators and wrestlers; promos feel more natural, the commentary team’s delivery less forced, and commonplace words like “fans” and “wrestling” that were once verboten are now sensibly permitted as part of a wrestling show. The world outside of WWE is open for discussion too - some of the more surreal moments of Clash At The Castle, WWE’s return to large scale UK stadium events, were Michael Cole namedropping early 2000s UK indie promotions, and referencing Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, while, more touchingly, Cole recently took the time to send his condolences following the passing of former TNA announcer Don West. It’s all window dressing, and while it’s a marked improvement, none of this is exactly reason to get excited - to anyone outside the darkest reaches of the Wrestling Bubble, the suggestion that “wrestlers are allowed to say wrestling” should be cause for excitement would rightly sound insane, if not incomprehensible. It’s all for the naught if the booking, and the TV product as a whole, hasn’t meaningfully improved.

If you were to ask many fans, they’d tell you that it has. And perhaps they’re right, but again, the bar was astonishingly low. With the exception of a surprisingly good Wrestlemania in 2022, WWE programming has been nigh-on unwatchable for some time - that Wrestlemania, it’s worth remembering, was followed by one of the most perfunctory business-as-usual pay-per-views that WWE have ever produced. If WWE have excelled at anything in recent years, it’s in pissing away audience goodwill quicker than they can win it back, following any good decision with three bad ones.

Personally, Triple H’s booking of WWE leaves me cold. Even at the height of critical acclaim for his time booking NXT, there were signs of a rot that would eventually consume the brand - the appearance of Kana, soon to be rechristened Asuka, in the audience at an early Takeover, in a position usually reserved for WWE “legends”, and members of the main roster deigning to lend their credibility to the developmental brand, was a genuine shock, an unexpected and innovative way to introduce a new signing to the company. But before long, it became an expected, routine part of the show, and ultimately something of a meme - no Takeover was complete without the token shot of a former independent darling seated in the audience. When it became time for them to debut, the commentators’ hype was equally predictable - they’ve wrestled all over the world, held titles everywhere they’ve been, and they’ve come to NXT to prove themselves. Yeah, you and everyone else mate, get to the back of the line. While NXT under Dusty Rhodes allowed wrestlers seemingly endless avenues of creativity and opportunities for reinvention and character development, for all but a select few the NXT of Triple H was a playground for former independent standouts who had, yes, “wrestled and held titles all over the world”. It’s difficult to look at the likes of the Undisputed Era, from their first to their last appearance as a stable, and find any evidence of character development or progression. It became a place where matches simply happened, again and again and again, and where “surprises” became routine shortcuts in place of coherent booking. It’s a mistake that many bookers of hot promotions or territories have fallen prey to - you rest on your laurels, you always do what you’ve always done, and it always work until it doesn’t. And once it doesn’t work, the last thing you want to do is keep on going back to the same well, because nothing looks more tired and dated.

That sense of easy short-hand surprises in place of coherent storytelling has coloured everything that Triple H has presented since taking control of WWE creative. By bringing back many of his old favourites that had been released by Vince McMahon and during H’s own absence from the company, Triple H gives the impression of pressing the “Reset” button on everything that has happened in the last year or two, but it’s an exhausting process. Barely a week goes by without a wrestler reverting to an old gimmick - Nikki ASH shedding her superhero persona to return to being “crazy” Nikki Cross, now teasing a return of the NXT stable Sanity - or the main roster debut of late stage Triple H NXT reliables like Dexter Lumis, Jonah Rock and Dakota Kai. It’s a matter of diminishing returns - just as we grew to expect a big name signing to appear sat in the crowd at NXT Takeover, and were disappointed when it wasn’t as big a star as we’d hoped, every time unfamiliar music hits on a WWE show, there’s a resigned sense of, “well, who is it this time?”. WWE’s failure to meaningfully build stars in recent years means that the majority of those returning left little to no impression on RAW or Smackdown in their first run, so it would be absurd to expect a rapturous response to the sound of their music heralding a return now, yet time after time wrestlers are booked in that position - their music playing as they rush out to make the save, an unexpected run-in, interrupting a promo, whatever it may be, they are consistently set up to fail. That precious few of those signed by WWE have troubled the main event picture suggests either that the new boss is much like the old boss, or that WWE are locked into a yearly booking cycle, culminating at Wrestlemania, and Triple H’s grand new vision will only start to take shape once that weekend is out of the way. If the latter is the case, throwing 20-30 new or returning wrestlers into the mix with no plan, and no forward momentum, risks setting them up to fail - anyone muddling through the midcard for the months between July and April risks being damaged goods or a lost cause by the time plans might fall sufficiently into place for any one of them to step up the card.

For now, the only wrestlers troubling the main event picture are those who were doing so before Vince stepped down. On pay-per-view, Matt Riddle was permitted to headline Extreme Rules against Seth Rollins only by dint of Roman Reigns (and, by extension, both versions of the WWE Championship) giving that show a miss, while the only other newcomer to a PPV main event in singles competition was celebrity interloper Logan Paul, tearing his ligaments in Saudi Arabia. It’s been a six month run, so one can’t expect miracles, but nor is there much suggestion that WWE under Triple H has deviated from the long-term plan.

Cody Rhodes & Bray Wyatt

The two most high-profile WWE returns have both been something of a curate’s egg. First, Cody Rhodes marked a significant shift in the direction of travel of talent between WWE and AEW, being the first high profile star to jump ship back to the Fed, debuting amid much speculation at Wrestlemania. Already clearly marked for big things before Triple H’s departure, Cody was given the full bells and whistles of a Wrestlemania entrance, and permitted to keep much of the signatures of his AEW and prior independent run, from entrance music to nickname, and felt ten times the star act he had been in his initial WWE run. Booked into a feud with perennial upper midcarder Seth Rollins - a victim of a typically WWE “boom and bust” cycle of booking that, despite multiple top level title runs, has left him feeling underwhelming as a main event attraction while simultaneously feeling like he’s slumming it when down in the midcard - Cody was given the full hype treatment, a hero’s welcome, and a sympathetic backstory, but went down to injury in June, memorably fighting through a visually horrific torn pectoral muscle in a Hell In A Cell match against Rollins.

For a comeback run, even prior to the injury, Cody was doing all the right things and seemed primed for mega-stardom, with a push that’s almost certain to resume the moment he returns. With many earmarking him for a Royal Rumble win, a potential Wrestlemania main event, and a hot favourite to win the WWE Championship from Roman Reigns, it may well be that a six month lay-off was the best thing to happen to Cody Rhodes. His comeback gave us a taste, but the injury meant that he didn’t stick around on TV every week to become over-familiar, bogged down by the vagaries of WWE’s erratic booking, lost in the shuffle, or otherwise reduced in value. If, as expected, he makes his return in the Royal Rumble, it’s effectively a clean slate, an opportunity to make that big flashy comeback all over again, and potentially this time to even greater effect.

Bray Wyatt, though. I spent a couple of weeks in Florida back in October, which meant an unprecedented amount of watching WWE programming live - part of the reason that UK viewers like myself can perhaps be over critical of some of their output is that it takes a lot to hold our attention in the wee small hours of the morning when live WWE shows actually air, so being able to watch them with a cold drink at a sociable hour made the whole experience much more palatable. Not so, however, for the Bray Wyatt comeback train.

Wyatt returned - making his first major wrestling appearance anywhere since Wrestlemania in 2021 - at the close of Extreme Rules, and that’s where the problems started. Overshadowing the closing moments of the Fight Pit match, and particularly the presence of guest referee Daniel Cormier, Wyatt returned with a typically overwrought, overly busy entrance that typified the worst of the character, and the worst instincts behind writing him. Any single image might have resonated - the mysterious door, a glowing white light, a new mask, the representations of old “Firefly Funhouse” characters scattered around the audience, The Fiend’s mask/disembodied head left on the announcer’s table - but taken as a whole, it was a mess of sound and fury signifying nothing. Wyatt has long since been a stupid man’s idea of a nuanced or multi-layered character, but it’s all utterly meaningless. The cryptic QR codes leading to his return, the masked characters, the secret messages - none of it amounts to anything and, crucially for a professional wrestling show, none of it ever translates to an actual professional wrestling match. In fact, every effort made to translate the character’s more outre elements into actual in-ring content has resulted in some of the worst professional wrestling TV I’ve ever seen. At the height of the Attitude Era, it wasn’t unreasonable to ask why The Undertaker and Kane, seemingly in possession of the power to command fire and lightning (indoors, mind you) never thought to use those abilities during a match. Bray Wyatt’s main roster WWE career has largely been an exercise in exploring that question, confounding viewers with some of the worst matches, worst finishes, and most unwatchable spooky bullshit to ever grace a professional wrestling show, yet wrapped up with the kind of mock-poetic Hot Topic grab bag gothic imagery that’s enough to convince many fans that this is somehow high art, and not cringeworthy abject nonsense on the levels of a Papa Shango curse.

At the risk of extreme pedantry, Wyatt’s return epitomised everything that frustrates me about his character, even aside from the excessive over-egging of the whole deal. We are, I may remind you, viewers of what presents itself as a live sporting event. However you might choose to define pro-wrestling, wherever you might fall on the argument of whether it’s art, sport, theatre, or if it falls into any other category you may see fit to put it in, the central premise of the genre is that it follows the format and convention of live sports. Without that, we have nothing. Within the context of said live sporting event, I’m expected to believe that none of the crew or commentary team noticed the presence of a strange wooden door and elaborate entrance set-up constructed before their eyes. As spotlights and cameras focus, at a snail’s pace, on individual members of Bray Wyatt’s coterie of characters scattered through the crowd, one can’t help but wonder why the lighting technicians and camera crew were clued up as to the precise locations of these supposed surprise guests. This isn’t an issue unique to Wyatt, but it’s one that the excessive production and low rent theatricality of his gimmick highlights better than any other - if this was a spontaneous, unexpected return, not listed on the kayfabe programme schedule, why was the entire production crew so well equipped to capture everything at the correct time cue? Why were Wyatt’s Dr. Moreau sidekicks so well-positioned for the best possible lighting and unobscured camera shots? It’s not just a matter of realism, but of spontaneity - would the whole event not have felt more dynamic, more genuinely alive, had the cameras caught but fleeting glimpses of those characters throughout the show? A blink and you’ll miss,”hang on, was that…?” moment perfect for an age of viral video and social media gossip. One of WWE’s biggest failings for years - again, at its worst whenever Bray Wyatt is concerned - is to run counter to the strengths of the medium, to micro-manage and over-produce, rather than embrace the live and spontaneous energy unique to professional wrestling.

Wyatt’s return hasn’t got much better since that show. Rather than capitalising on the hype by having Wyatt appear on television the following night on RAW, WWE opted to air a repeat of the entire torturously slow affair instead. When Wyatt finally appeared on Smackdown, it was to cut a rambling, if admittedly fiery and in moments compelling, babyface promo, before being interrupted by an unintelligible masked version of himself via video message. That dictated the pace of everything since - Wyatt’s promo made no reference to any other wrestler, and he appeared to be feuding with himself. Even now, finally on track for his first televised match since returning almost three months ago, his opponent, L.A. Knight, is little more than an afterthought. The feud is Bray Wyatt vs. Bray Wyatt, via the proxy of the mysterious Uncle Howdy. It is, once again, evidence that Wyatt’s much-vaunted creative genius simply doesn’t translate to the medium of professional wrestling. In my own experience with a hand in the booking of wrestling shows has taught me, the worst kind of “creative” wrestler is the one who comes to you with a million ideas for themselves and not one for their opponent, and thus far nothing about Bray Wyatt’s comeback (or much of his run before it, subsequent to his first feud with John Cena) hinges on who his opponent is, or on anything other than furthering the convoluted, confused lore of Bray Wyatt. Some people are into that, I’m decidedly not. If it weren’t for some excruciating acting on the parts of Johnny Gargano, The Miz and Byron Saxton in backstage segments during the interminable Miz/Dexter Lumis feud, I’d say Bray Wyatt was responsible for the worst wrestling TV I’d seen all year.

The Good

That’s not to say that WWE has been all bad. Cody Rhodes - who I’ve been down on in the past - was a brief breath of fresh air prior to his injury. Bianca Belair, Bayley and Becky Lynch have all put significant work into making the women’s division the most consistently strong part of the show, in spite of some occasionally atrocious booking.
Gunther has weathered the storm of Vince McMahon apparently souring on him to become a consistent bright spot of Smackdown under Triple H, with superb matches against the likes of Ricochet and Rey Mysterio, and an honest-to-goodness Match of The Year candidate with Sheamus at Clash At The Castle - watching in a London pub, it was the one match of the night that captivated even the elderly cockney boxing fans that had been ridiculing the rest of the show, and even the bar staff; it was difficult to get served, they were all so focused on watching two big lads leathering each other. It was a grim, hard-hitting slugfest that - insofar as wrestling can - felt real, without falling into the “take turns hitting each other” tropes of what passes for modern Strong Style, or a clumsy faux-MMA exhibition that makes you wonder why you wouldn’t just watch the real thing instead. It was superb, and one of the best matches I’ve seen all year, not just in WWE, but anywhere, and testament to the career resurgence Sheamus has been on since being paired with his partners in the Brawling Brutes, taking him from a reliable solid WWE face in the crowd to a genuine must-see unpredictable competitor.

Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens both staved off speculation about jumps to AEW, and were rewarded with huge Wrestlemania matches - Owens pairing off with boyhood hero Stone Cold Steve Austin for an entertaining walk-and-brawl, and Sami Zayn in an absurd comedy match with Johnny Knoxville, utilising all manner of props and gimmicks, and somehow avoiding the pitfalls of WWE comedy; in years gone by, this would be all forced laughter and someone like Santino or Hornswoggle mugging for the camera, but Zayn’s deadpan approach, treating a match involving mousetraps and giant novelty hands as if it were a WWE Title contest, made this an all-time classic of the genre. Both men, Sami in particularly, have been amply rewarded with their involvement in the best WWE storyline of the year, the ongoing drama around Zayn’s inclusion in The Bloodline, surely leading to a heroic babyface hometown moment for Zayn at Montreal’s Elimination Chamber. Aside from elevating Zayn to borderline main event stature, the story has breathed new life into the once-tired title reign of Roman Reigns, and added a fresh dynamic to The Usos, and brings a positive energy to that group that had long been lacking. Once the subject of tiresome overbooked main events and overwrought am dram emoting, the Bloodline are now a consistent highlight of WWE programming.

What’s Next?:
Still to come are year-end recaps for AEW, The Rest, and a look at What’s Next, some predictions for 2023. Stay tuned!