#so we're at where we're at

[sycamoretrees]

wrestling 2024 tag meme

inspired by the ShuPro awards and my struggle to remember what I've actually I've watched this year, I thought it would be cool to have a year-end wrestling round-up.

I would love for anyone else to also do this! Everyone's experience of wrestling is so unique and I'd love to read about everyone's different wrestling ~journeys in 2024. You do not need to write this much lol. Tagging with no pressure @benchwarming @thistledropkick @yoshihashismattebum @wrestleish but forreal anyone who wants to do this consider yourself tagged!

MVP/Wrestler of the Year

Match of the Year

Favourite Feud

Favourite Tag Team/Faction

Favourite Show

Breakout (ish) Star

Horniest Moment

Most Anticipated in 2025

[NB - I'm more interested in recording my specific experience of wrestling this year rather than the actual chronological wrestling year of 2024, so if I saw a match for the first time this year, or got to know someone new, I'm counting them. Confusing? Yes! You do you.]

MVP/Wrestler of the Year

El Desperado (NJPW). This was tough. My rationale was - who was I consistently excited to see on any card and can I think of multiple specific great matches they had off the top of my head (my recall for specific matches is very bad). From Wrestle Kingdom with Hiromu, to his Super Juniors match with Fujita, to the Despe Invi, to his DDT match with Chris Brookes, Despe has been my number one guy in 2024. Runners Up: Konosuke Takeshita, Gabe Kidd

Match(es) of the Year

In no particular order: Shibata vs Okada (NJPW Sakura Genesis 2017) - obviously this is an 8 year old match now, but I watched it for the first time this year, and it is not at all overrated. Unreal.

Hiromu Takahashi & Jun Kasai vs Minoru Suzuki & Takayuki Ueki (NJPW Despe Invitacional) - an absolutely perfect comedy hardcore match.

El Desperado vs Chris Brookes (DDT Wrestle Peter Pan) - the storytelling they manage to pack into this match is incredible. Intensely romantic, erotic, funny, a visual delight.

Gabe Kidd vs Kenny Omega (NJPW/AEW Wrestle Dynasty) - recency bias perhaps, but contextually one of the most interesting and impactful matches of the year (I'm counting it for 2024 don't @ me).

Hirooki Goto vs David Finlay (NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling) - kind of a wildcard pick but I remember having a fucking blast. Finlay is my favourite guy to watch get flung into barricades, and his 'I didn't win the G1 and it only exacerbated my crushing insecurity because I know I'm not as good as Jay White so I'm gonna go after a bunch of easy wins to try to feel like a big man' tour peaked for me with this match.

Favourite Feud

Toni Storm and Mariah May (AEW) - easily the best women's feud AEW have ever done, for me one of the best storylines period. Toni Storm's character work this year was exquisite, and she and Mariah (and Mina Shirakawa) absolutely killed this narrative arc. In a promotion that increasingly felt like it wasn't For Me this year, this feud was For Me.

Favourite Tag Team/Faction

The Bang Bang Gang (AEW). Look, the Bang Bang Gang profoundly overdeliver in almost all regards, they are consistently entertaining and they commit to the bit. Also NJPW is having a such a weird faction time rn and I'm just not really a tag team person.

Favourite Show

Despe Invitacional (NJPW). A truly joyful show from start to finish, warm and fun and excited and exciting. Runner up: Beer Garden Fight in Shinjuku Day 2, the show that made me fall in love with DDT.

Special Mention: AEW Grand Slam, the most fun I had watching a show because I went to see it live with @benchwarming.

Breakout (ish) Star

Yuki Ueno (DDT). Ueno is obviously not any kind of rookie, but I only became really familiar with him this year, and to me (and ZSJ) he's the most exciting young wrestler in Japan. I can't get over how good he is at, well, everything. Runners up: Taichi (took me a minute but I realised just how good Taichi is this year, his pre-G1 matches were incredible), Takeshi Masada, Yuya Uemura

Horniest Moment

GIF by schadentekkers

i mean. This wasn't a tough call. The first time I saw this match (El Desperado vs Chris Brookes, DDT Wrestle Peter Pan) I had to pause it and yell inside my own t shirt for several moments, and it hasn't become any less insane after the third rewatch. And like, I'm not even counting the Just Straight Up Kink nipple stuff after this, but uh also that!!

Most Anticipated In 2025

Gabe Kidd was one my standouts when I started watching NJPW with the 2023 G1, and it's been a delight to watch him progress and develop. Obviously he's poised to step up even more in 2025... I'm here for it.

Taichi vs Sanada is coming and I'm so fucking seated.

The NJPW junior heavyweight division has a bunch of super talented guys and exciting stories right now, and if everyone can just stop getting injured I think there's a ton of fun to be had there.

And then IDK if 'anticipation' is the word but - I'm very curious to see what happens with Shota Umino. Been kind of a brutal year for him, and I personally feel like there MUST be some kind of change coming? Either way, I have no idea where he'll sit in the NJPW landscape this time next year.

Oh also I really fucked my own enjoyment of the G1 this year between getting obsessed with Walker's terrible commentary and getting stressed about the G1 art project I decided to do 'for fun' (hence no G1 matches included in my favourites even though I remember several of them being very good) so uh would love to enjoy the G1 this year.

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[captainsaltypear]

IS ANYONE ELSE GONNA TALK ABOUT THIS OR

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[doubledudeski]

little slowpoke

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Be wary not of the beast, but the hand that tamed it.

(Read more dog training tips over at Tiger Tiger)

[sadmages]

In my mind palace my tav and Astarion are playing the exact same game of 5D chess and they don't realize it yet

[mischievous-thunder]

Wade, during an argument: Now you sound like those boring unromantic people.

Logan, deadpanning: Says the one whose idea of flirting is to kidnap an unsuspecting drunk man at gunpoint from a bar.

Wade: YOU LEANED AGAINST MY GUN OMG YOU-

Logan, smirking: -Which further proves that I'm neither boring nor unromantic.

[naturecalls111]

unorthodox murder mystery

[egophiliac]

the Stitch crossover so far is just pure chaos and honestly, that tracks.

[reunitedinterlude]

phil: whenever i see an ambulance, i like to think there is a baby being born, rather than a death (1, 2, 3)

[inkskinned]

today i love the red metal crane in her long neck arching her body over the boston skyline, which means i am okay for a moment. when i am unwell, everything is a little ugly. i always tell myself look for the beauty but when it is bad, i will look at birds and sunsets and little ducklings and feel absolutely nothing.

when my brother got his puppy, i was in a deep depression. what kind of monster isn't affected by a puppy. i was gentle and kind to her - i just didn't have an emotional reaction. she's five now and i feel like i spend all of our interactions apologizing to her - i don't know why. i just didn't feel anything. how embarrassing. i feel like if i admit that, i'll seem cruel and jaded. it comes in waves. like, two months ago when i went out into the world - it was like that. life behind a pane of stormglass. a firework could go off over your head - nothing. like dead skin, no reaction. not to ice cream or rainbows or baby chickens. life foggy and uninteresting.

i love goslings again. i love their little webbed feet splayed over grass. i love good food and live music and long walks. i like puppies. i feel like some kind of my soul has been starved - i keep staring at everything with wide eyes, trying to burrow the sensation into my stomach. it's real. beauty is real. when it's bad again, remember this. i stop and smell the flowers, feeling cliche in the moment. i like the white-to-red ombre of my neighbor's roses. i like colorcoding and yoga and cold drinks. i try to pass my hands over every moment, feeling like i'm squeezing joy out of every instant. remember this. for the love of god, it's real - just remember this.

[lady-raziel]

because there is nothing to lose the people saying biden should resign now so kamala can still be the first female president are absolutely right but why stop there? inauguration day is 70 days away let's make "president for a day" a real thing. say "fuck it we ARE going to do the arbitrary quota DEI bullshit you accuse us of" and speedrun first [category] presidents. revolving door type thing.

first female president. first openly gay president. first transgender president. first president who has been to space. first president gamer president. first mime president. just play president bingo and hit as many categories as possible while we still can. make all of trump's #47 merch unusable by forcing him to be the 115th president instead. who cares anymore let's peacefully transition power but do it in the most chaotic hot-potato way possible

[nevertheless-moving]

thinking fondly of that star wars body swap au where 3/4 of the protagonists are experiencing relatively standard body swap shenanigans: bewildering friends and confounding authority figures, learning about each other and themselves, going outside their comfort zones. Meanwhile Cody’s just kindof writhing in eldritch horror inside of Anakin’s force-stitched-together-meatsuit.

Anakin (as Padme): “Man I can’t believe that Senator actually called me sweetheart, I can’t believe how patronizing these men are.”

Cody (as Anakin): [Scratching at his arm] “Yeah, that’s great. Uh, hey, quick question—why does my shadow keep turning into a death head mask?”

Anakin: “Huh? Oh, hey! Would you like at that! I haven’t looked at my shadow in years! It’s—it’s totally normal! I mean except for how it’s Padme—”

Cody: “This is—your shadow just always—does it ever...I mean when you’re around other people”

Anakin: [sucks in his breath through his teeth] “Did it kill someone else’s shadow? I hate when that happens”

Cody: [scratches arm harder, eyelid twitching] “This...happens often? What—why—”

Anakin: “I try not to think about it, ha! Anyway, have you tried smoothies since—[voice fades into high pitched static noise, distant sound of respirator breathing]

Cody: [scratches arm harder] (muttering under his breath): “don’t think about it. don’t think about it.”

Obi-Wan (as Cody): “There you two are—oh Anakin—I mean Cody, you’re bleeding! What happened?”

Cody: “I...misjudged the strength of the mech arm.”

Anakin: [gives thumbs up]

[lucabyte]

Taking pride in One's own appearance.

[insomniac-arrest]

“Cutie mark” is such a random name for the physical manifestation of your purpose in life. Still kinda slaps. would give anything to have one.