-
December 6th, 2022, 10:50 PM
#1
Story of the Year 2022
2022 has been a pretty insane year in Wrestling. The top story being so obvious in a year full of stories that would be the biggest deal in any other year is insane. I am going to start off listing a few stories. Please fill in this thread with stories I may miss here or just give your thoughts on the stories listed here.
The Vince McMahon Sex Scandals/WWE Palace Coup
Obviously the most important man in the history of Wrestling being forced out of his company is the biggest story of the year, and increasingly the story looks like it started before we heard a word of the hush money Vince McMahon was paying out to cover up being a sex pest.
First you have the demotion of Paul Levesque and what appeared to be the outright firing of Stephanie McMahon including a blistering hit piece in the Wall Street Journal planted from inside WWE about how incompetent she was. This led to a series of memes portraying Nick Khan as a mastermind taking down one McMahon at a time.
Then also in the aforementioned Wall Street Journal a story appeared about Vince McMahon paying hush money to a former mistress. This story would extend to paying hush money to a talent who had been forced into sex by McMahon.
No one knows who leaked this to the WWE Board or to the Press but the big winners of this appear not to be Nick Khan but the aforementioned Paul Levesque and Stephanie McMahon who seem to have had a preemptive strike launched against them before this happened. If anyone could ever figure out how all the knives ended up in all the backs in this one that would be an all time story to tell.
The Gripe Bomb/Brawl Out
CM Punk the top draw of All Elite Wrestling spent the summer on his couch with a broken foot. Seems in that time he stewed in his own resentments over two words in a promo no one understood the meaning of and had a complete and utter meltdown over several weeks after his return from injury. This led to Ace Steel biting Kenny Omega who was trying to save CM Punk's dog and CM Punk being so deathly afraid of Matt and Nick Jackson he had to start throwing hands which if you saw his "fights" in UFC is not exactly that scary a proposition.
Old Phil is expected to leave AEW and return to WWE which he said he would never do, but all but begged to get back in with Vince by slumming it on some 1 AM Smackdown talk show on the 5th biggest sports channel in America.
Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestles first match in almost 20 years in main event of Wrestlemania
Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestled Kevin Steen, who in the wake of Brawl Out made sure to sub tweet CM Punk about that one and if you know the history there that was sweet, in the main event of the first night of Wrestlemania I want to say 39 and it is at best the third biggest story of the year. That's insane. Also Kevin Steen main evented Wrestlemania. That's also pretty insane.
Cody Rhodes returns to WWE becomes first major jump from AEW to WWE
Speaking of Wrestlemania Cody returned to WWE at that show. After seemingly wearing out his welcome on and off screen in AEW Cody left the territory and returned to WWE to a heroes' welcome. Seemed to be in line for a super push before a major Pec Tear took him out, but did lead to probably WWE's MOTY.
Kota Ibushi loses mind on twitter. Tries to get fired from New Japan
Kota Ibushi went on twitter with all sorts of accusations against New Japan Pro Wrestling starting mostly with his problems with an executive named Kikuchi, but would escalate to blaming the company for his mother's suicide attempt and accusing the company of having ties to the Yakuza. Things seemed to eventually settle down. Now it seems that both sides are just waiting out Ibushi's contract which rumor has it will come due in January.
The death of Antonio Inoki
Wrestler, Promotor, Politician, so many other things. Summing up Antonio Inoki is impossible. He fought Muhammad Ali, he created NJPW, he stole from NJPW, he at least got the credit for getting the hostages Saddam Hussein was holding pre Gulf War released. He had ties to the North Korean government. He accidently once converted to Islam and stopped a riot in Pakistan and became a hero there. Also investigated UFOs for the Japanese government. The man lived a life.
-
December 6th, 2022, 10:51 PM
#2
I'd love to hear what anyone has to add
-
December 6th, 2022, 11:47 PM
#3
Clearly lower than what you've listed:
- Big E suffers a broken neck
- Scott Hall passes away
- Tony Khan buys ROH
- Sasha and Naomi walk out on WWE
- AEW and NJPW have Forbidden Door
- Bray Wyatt returns to WWE
- Logan Paul in WWE
-
December 7th, 2022, 12:14 PM
#4
You can tell someone doesn't like CM Punk when they omit the part where his shit hands knocked out one of your boyfriends lol.
The top story is definitely the Vince situation. It is going to be very interesting once we find out how all of this came to be, did one of the kids leak this stuff? I wouldn't be shocked. Triple H was the guy who told Vince to screw Bret. Trips is a fucking mastermind, the best worker of all time no doubt about it. Terra Rizin to the end all be all of WWE production. Nobody not even Bruno or Hogan pulled that off.
I remember when PWI used to drop the yearly almanac. I still have one that covers 1997 talking about Rodman coming into WCW.
-
December 7th, 2022, 1:13 PM
#5
Her right to choose…
- Rep Power
- 670544