2022 was a year for the ages, in the sense that every year is technically one for the ages, just by virtue of being a year. It was… Truly a year of contrasts. Whatever, I dunno, introductory paragraphs are hard. Stay with me here, and we’ll take a look back at the year that was, as well as taking stock of where we are right now, as we wrank some restlers once again.

2022 YEAR-END RESTLEWRANKINGS!

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION

Honestly, it probably should have happened earlier, but between President Evil‘s recent woes and Big Bird Machine disappearing for too long to appear on the list (more on that later), the King of Rage has jumped to the top spot in the division without a title belt. Honestly, he seems absolutely unstoppable at this point, and a lot of the Korn Demon retaining a high rank even after losing the EWX title has to do with him somehow being Rage Man Kryptonite. Meanwhile, Black Panther Mask has (very) quietly emerged as quite possibly STRUGGLE’s best young heavyweight.

WOMEN’S DIVISION

After a wild-ass ride, J-Gun accidental founder Jezebel Grim has risen from the ranks of lower-tier deathmatch wrestlers, leapfrogging her older (and much larger) sister Lorelei and theoretical underling Yumiko La Grange to capture the women’s title, freeing us from an endless cycle of Becky and PARTY TIGER swapping it back and forth. A major story here is Deadly Nightshade suddenly leaping into the top five, and if you want to know how to do that, just damn near cripple someone in the top ten and then make the reigning champion tap out. No big deal.

CRUISERWEIGHT DIVISION

Pac’s 2022 run was so strong that he somehow managed to win the cruiserweight title twice without ever actually losing it. Meanwhile, Captain STRUGGLE had a strong year after previously wrestling in tag matches and sitting at home while watching tag matches from someone with a similar mask and in-ring style. A possible problem here is that once you get past the top four, it just turns into a big interchangeable mid-card blob. Might be time to get Ol’ Hoss to start recruiting more cruisers to the Dojo.

TAG TEAM DIVISION

Welp. After only one team stepped up to challenge the Reapers, the Warrior Pro team maintains a run as the only tag team to successfully defend the modern version of the belt, as well as the longest-reigning champs. The tag division is honestly in really rough shape right now, with the decline of Bad Religion and the disappearance of the Coke Brothers, and to be honest, we may not have properly recovered from the Think Tanks leaving town a few years back, even. Annihilation has lived up to the hype so far, but they’ve only had one real test. Even then, they could be our best hope of bringing the belts home.

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR: TUPAC MACHINE

There are a few wrestlers on the STRUGGLE roster that you could pin the label “ageless wonder” on, but with the kind of year he had, it fits the allegedly-over-50 leader of The Broken Arm Retailiation Society better than anyone else. When he founded B.A.R.S., we all figured it was an older guy gracefully sliding back into a mentor role, but the Super Don Machine seemed rejuvenated, following up a respectable (yet controversial) run in Warrior Pro’s G2 tournament with beating Agent Fang for the cruiserweight title, and then beating him again a month later, after being stripped of the belt for mostly-bullshit reasons. Honestly, if 2023 sees him crumble to dust like the dude who picked the wrong cup in the last good Indiana Jones movie, 2022 will leave him with nothing to be ashamed of. But for now, it’s almost as if…

Honorable Mentions: President Evil, Screaming Rage Man, Jezebel Grim

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: DEADLY NIGHTSHADE

The year started on a low note, with the diabolical botanist losing a dark match to a freelancer, then missing her debut match while suffering from a mysterious fungus, but the last quarter of 2022 saw her go from yet another weirdo rookie to a genuinely feared competitor. In two matches, she came within a centimeter or two of ending Donita Zapata’s career and then followed it up with making Jezebel Grim tap out at STRUGGLEWEEN, (and not even with hr actual finishing hold, the Hemlock) and I’m too lazy to look back that far, but I’m reasonably sure that had never happened before. Now with the backing of the First Class Family, she represents a major problem for everyone in 2023.
Honorable Mentions: Them Mook Boys

MOST IMPROVED WRESTLER: JEZEBEL GRIM

The early parts of her career mostly saw her wrestling (and losing to) men in the hardcore division, and seemed firmly middle-of-the-road once she properly entered the women’s division, despite having something like a 50-pound weight advantage over most opponents. Basically, she was background noise for Lorelei‘s seemingly-inevitable glorious title run that never happened. Even after founding Jezebel-Gun, (seemingly by accident) she seemed to be a leader in name only, with local and/or Japanese legend Yumiko La Grange actually calling the shots. But at this point, I think we can definitely consider her a top dog in the division and truly Championship Material, which is a fine segue into another shirt that you can buy.

Honorable Mentions: Deadly Nightshade, Tupac Machine, Zippity Duda

MOST HATED WRESTLER: PRESIDENT EVIL

Seriously, we should have just disqualified him from this award and named it after him, going forward. Also, it ties into the next award, so let’s move on real quick
Honorable Mentions: Patience Halliburton, Becky With the Evil Hair, Crash Ferrari, Ugly Stupid Bob

FEUD OF THE YEAR: PRESIDENT EVIL VS. EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

It’s one thing for President Evil and the gang to run around pissing everyone off in STRUGGLE. This time around, they expanded this to Warrior Pro and Guerra De Sangre, and came very close to starting some shit with Tri-State Lucha Libre, with “El Presidente” making a deep run in their battle royal for a title shot. If we had more than 12 months to work with, and if not for the absolute collapse they suffered by the end of the year, the Evil Administration could’ve fomented a world war eventually, with the way they were carrying on in 2022.
Honorable Mentions: Screaming Rage Man vs. All Physical Matter, Zippity Duda vs. being like 100 pounds

FACTION OF THE YEAR: JEZEBEL-GUN

Honestly, if the year had ended in Sptember, The Evil Administration would’ve run away with this, hopefully never to be seen again. But here we are now, with Jezebel reigning over the women’s division, with Yumiko looking absolutely unbeatable just off to the side, and Toshiyo Nakano serving capably as their designated driver, I guess.
Honorable Mentions: The Evil Administration, B.A.R.S.

MATCH OF THE YEAR: YUMIKO LA GRANGE VS. VIOLENCE KHUNBISH (FALL FORWARD #3)

On one hand, with this having literally just happened on our last show, there might be a giant case of recency bias here. On the other hand, holy shit. The phrase “leave it all in the ring” get tossed around a lot, but these two took it literally, with both wrestlers damn near bleeding to death in a match that saw the local legend prevail over a much larger opponent who literally wasn’t born yet when her career started. Somehow, with a career somehow spanning over two-decades despite a litany of injuries and seemingly resigning herself to a support role in her faction, Yumiko remains absolutely fucking terrifying sometimes.
Honorable Mentions: At least three different Captain STRUGGLE vs. Uno Muerte matches.

STORIES OF THE YEAR:

STILL NO HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE – One of the biggest problems STRUGGLE has had since the relaunch continued through 2022, and that was the lack of a heavyweight title. No matter how good the women’s, tag team, or cruiserweight divisions may or may not be at any given point in time, the heavyweights are pretty much always still the main money draw, and the lack of a main title has been a big source if the financial woes around here. Also, this has left the company’s largest division without a prize to fight for, so there’s a big chunk of the roster just floating around aimlessly. Maybe 2023 will finally be our year? Probably not.

STRUGGLE’S ANTI-YOUTH MOVEMENT – STRUGGLE’S wrestler of the year is over 50 and started wrestling in 1996. President Evil and Ace La Grange are in their 40s, Yumiko La Grange isn’t there yet, but has still been wrestling for nearly a quarter-century, and Hoss Gracie, Hillbilly Grim, and Big Bird Machine are all old enough to collect Social Security. The company went out of business, stayed dead for ten years, then came back with mostly the exact same people on top. The young lions simply haven’t been good enough to get rid of the old lions so far, and this could be a huge problem soon.

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING WRESTLERS – Big Bird Machine hasn’t been seen since since suffering what was believed to be a minor neck injury versus Rampage Hunter. Tyrannosaurus Plex has been missing for over a year with a shoulder injury with a recovery time normally measured in weeks. The Coke Brothers lost the titles to the Grim Reapers in what was otherwise the performance of their lives and have never been seen or heard from since. Taco Belle lost her corporate sponsorship and stopped returning our calls. Garfield Vanzetti… Well, we know where he is, but we’re not getting into that just yet. Just… Just know that it’s probably pretty much what you expected.

EVIL NEVER… WINS? – The Evil Administration started the year hot, with Another Perfect Year seeing Agent Fang end Immortan Jimmy‘s long reign as cruiserweight champion, followed by new member Becky, now sporting Evil hair, regaining the women’s title from PARTY TIGER. Then, the planets somehow aligned for President Evil to take a shot at Doc Wyatt‘s Warrior Pro championship, heralding the coming of a new 1,000 year reign of evil. Then, Fang lost his belt to Tupac Machine and Becky lost hers to Jezebel Grim. Then, the Warrior Pro title match happened, and saw Evil not only lose, but stagger off to the disabled list with a bum neck. Now, all of a sudden, the Administration may literally be at its lowest point, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.

INTERPROMOTIONAL WARS – As alluded to in earlier talk of Tupac Machine and President Evil, STRUGGLE wrestlers did some traveling this year, with Pam From Human Resources and the entirety of both The Evil Administration and B.A.R.S. possibly spending more time in Warrior Pro than they did here at home. And of course, with Evil being Evil, he pretty much plotted to take over the damn place, coming within a few unfortunate neck ligaments of winning their world title. Meanwhile, Tupac Machine somehow stumbled into a feud with a completely different promotion, La Guerra de Sangre, after a controversial G2 match against Super Mohan. Meanwhile back in the Tri-State Area, The relationship between STRUGGLE and EWX somehow led to STRUGGLE wrestler The Korn Demon losing the EWX title to Pitbull Van Scorpio, and EWX guy who used to wrestler for STRUGGLE. Whew. And that’s before you even think about the relationship between STRUGGLE and Notoriety involving Violence Khunbish being sent here to basically wrestle-assassinate Yumiko La Grange, based on some old shit from OJW. 2023 promises to be even more confusing, yeeeeaah!

STRUGGLE TAG TEAMS LIVING UP TO THEIR NAME – Yep, the key word remains “struggle” for our local teams. Not only have The Grim Reapers kept their death-grip on the STRUGGLE tag belts, but they’re also officially the only team to successfully defend the straps since the return of the title. Perhaps the answer here is to hire a team from a third promotion to go after them, because it’s clear that our local guys have a tendency to forget how to win once they’re involved in a championship match.

NEW FACTIONS ON THE RISE – Jezebel-Gun ascended from awkward accidental team-up to real powerhouse, B.A.R.S. exploded onto the scene with Tupac Machine suddenly de-aging by about 25 years, and Johnny San Diego‘s First Class Family looks like it may overwhelm the competition through sheer numbers as it continues to come together. Meanwhile, with the Think Tank skipping town a couple years back and the seeming decline of The Evil Administration, this may be the closest thing to an actual youth movement around here.

WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2023?

Who fucking knows. In the meantime..

BUY SOME MERCH!