25 Best Wrestling Moments Of 2024
Wrestling in 2024 was frustratingly brilliant - as best evidenced by...
2024 was an uneven year in pro wrestling. As was always the case historically, the wider industry suffered as WWE entered a new commercial boom.
WWE was unstoppable - Paul Levesque did a magnificent job of identifying that which WWE fans love about the promotion, overloading almost everything with soapy melodrama - but the thing about WWE is that you need to like WWE to love it. It remains idiosyncratic in a way that is off-putting to those who like more wrestling in their wrestling.
On wrestling: yet again, it was AEW or bust. The ‘E’ is immaterial at this point. AEW is All Wrestling, having adopted every genre (and almost every talent) as its USP. The byproduct is that no other promotion has anything unique to offer, and nobody can gain traction on a depleted independent circuit (Nick Wayne being the most recent example) without being gobbled up. TNA, too, is destined to lose its top acts now that the company has entered a working relationship with WWE.
The Japanese scene, still battling the dismal performance of the yen, remains beleaguered.
Wrestling was as alarming as it was transcendent, but the latter was best exemplified by…
25. Burning Down The House
Hangman Page was a revelation as a heel throughout 2023.
His acting was a level above virtually everybody else. There is nothing more physically painful than watching a pro wrestler attempt to play unhinged - and yet, Hanger was totally believable as the wronged psycho who was driven to avenge what had been done to him.
His facials, veering between wild-eyed fury and spiritually vacant, were incredible - so incredible that, within the heightened context of the programme, you could believe that he actually burned down Swerve Strickland’s childhood home.
To be pedantic about the angle, Page’s long, expository monologue was a tad unnecessary. If he was so consumed by rage that he’d go to that extreme, he’d do so, surely, in a fit of blind rage.
Still, it hardly mattered: this was a bold, creative move that played mischievously with Swerve’s catchphrase, and was deftly foreshadowed by Hangman’s vow to burn Swerve’s life to the ground.
A bit much?
Yes - but the characters made the plotting that bit more credible, and the shot of Page taking a satisfied drink in front of the wreckage was an instantly iconic photograph.