2004: The year I should hate, but somehow love

When wrestling fans talk about their favorite years in wrestling they typically pick times where their favorites were champions or otherwise a major part of the show. For me personally, I love 2008 because it is likely the best work of Chris Jericho’s career as well as when CM Punk became World Heavyweight Champion and when Edge became the top guy on SmackDown.

The other side of this is people often look back on times they hate and attribute it to the top guys being wrestlers they hate. People who hate John Cena to this day probably aren’t too fond of 2010, but what is weird about me, is that one of my favorite years in WWE history is 2004.

To understand why I should hate 2004, backstory about my personal liking of Ruthless Aggression era champions, JBL and Triple H are two of the wrestlers I dislike the most. For Triple H, I can recognize why people like him, and he’s had more than his fair share of excellent matches, however, if they’re are 1,000 reasons to love Triple H, then there are 2,000 reason to hate Triple H. I won’t go into too much detail here, but for his holding back and “burrials” of wrestlers, repetitive 20 minute promos every single week and numerous in-ring dissapointments, I am not a fan of Triple H.

While I may dislike a lot about Triple H, to be blunt, I flat out despise JBL. Fun fact about everyone’s second favorite APA member, after JBL and Cody Rhodes got into a heated exchange on Twitter, I tweeted to Bradshaw that if AEW wants to be successful, they should avoid booking an awful wrestler as world champion for a year, not that JBL would know anything about that, to which Mr. Bradshaw blocked me.

Back to Bad Santa himself, JBL is notorious for being a bit of a locker room nightmare for young talent, google “JBL bullying” and prepare to be enraged at what you see. JBL is the worst of wrestling and humanity rolled up into one obnoxious Texan.

in 2004, specifically the second half of 2004, Triple H continued his reign of terror as RAW’s World Heavyweight Champion, and JBL bullied the locker room as SmackDown’s WWE Champion, fun time for me, except, actually it was.

As the certified ”IWC Smark“ that I am, I understand that Triple H and JBL were supposed to be hated and that hating seeing Triple H and JBL cheating to be the champion is meant to enrage me so I pay my hard earned money to see a future Hollywood actor annihilate them at WrestleMania. As the type of fan I am I don’t appreciate “good heel work” when I actively despise the human being portraying the comic book character in his underwear out there. This sign says it best:

But for once as a wrestling fan fully aware of what he is watching, it just works for me. I feel like I am truly being dragged in to the story that they are telling, I hate the heel champions and I so desperately want to see a powerful baby face come along and beat them and give them what they deserve. I’m not booing Triple H and JBL because they break the fictional rules of this fictional sport, I boo them because I dislike Paul Levesque and John Charles Layfield. The real question in the blurred line of wrestlers and characters and the hatred associated with them is, does it matter why I hate them?

Think about it, does it really matter why I hate the bully on my screen if Stevie Richards bashes their head in with a chair. Does it matter that I hate the booking caused by the chaperone here if he’s getting speared by Goldberg? I’m cheering for John Cena, Booker T, Batista, whoever is trying to beat them. I want to see this villain I detest get beat up, have their title taken from them. I want the heels to gewhat they deserve, and isn’t that the entire purpose of wrestling?

While I hate the two biggest world champions of 2004 WWE, I can’t help but love 2004 WWE for what it makes me feel as a fan.