One of the oldest of the awards we give out in the Year in Review is the John Carter Memorial Award, which goes out to the biggest flop of the year.

This has ben a tough year to judge this, because there has been a down year at the box office while movie studios still seem to greenlight large, potentially out of control budgets for films that have little chance to make that money back.

There has also been films that are pretty good to great that have not made the money that they wanted. Even the MCU films of the year did not reach the expectation of money made.

A film can be a flop and be really enjoyable. Thunderbolts* did not make the money that it should have, because that movie was damn good.

However, the movies on the list have been financial flops and most of them were not as good.

John Carter Memorial Award

Previous winners:  John Carter, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Lone Ranger, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Expendables 3, Jem and the Holograms, Pan, Rock the Casbah, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Robin Hood (2018), Mortal Engines, Playmobil: The Movie, The Rhythm Section, Reminiscence, Strange World , The Flash, Megalopolis 

Runners-Up for the John Carter Memorial Award Included: Disney’s Snow White, In the Lost Lands, Captain America: Brave New World, Mickey 17, Elio, Ballerina, Christy, Wolf Man, The Smashing Machine, and After the Hunt.

2025 John Carter Memorial Award recipient

Tron: Ares

The budget of the film was reportedly somewhere between $180-220 million dollars and it has only made $142 world wide.

This means that, potentially, the film could lose $130 million dollars.

This most likely ended the Tron big screen franchise once and for all.

John Feinstein

Michael Madsen

Andre Landzaat

Bob Uecker

Renee Victor

Doug Martin

Jack Marlowe

Drew Struzan

George Foreman

Ike Turner Jr.

Kysen Lacy

Jim Shooter

Lynne Marie Stewart

Polly Holliday

Pope Francis

Ruth Buzzi

Sam Moore

Sandy Alomar Sr.

Black Bart

Sam Rivers

Alice & Ellen Kessler

Jim Ward

Stanley Baxter

Joseph Byrd

Michelle Trachtenberg 

There have not been as many musicals this year as in the past. In fact, my winner this year is not, exactly, a musical. It does have a lot of music in the film and people in the cast sing. However, it was the one I enjoyed the most this year, so I’m giving it to them.

Movie Musicals

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Whiplash (2014), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), La La Land (2016), The Greatest Showman (2017), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), Rocketman (2019), Hamilton (2020), Tick, Tick… Boom! (2021), Matilda the Musical (2022), The Color Purple (2023), Wicked (2024)

Runners-Up: Wicked: For Good, Ka-Pop Demon Hunters, O’Dessa.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Spinal Tap returned for a special concert, despite their inter-band conflicts. The film had special guest cameos from Paul McCartney and Elton John (both who did songs).

Spinal Tap is always a good time and this sequel to the Hall of Fame film This is Spinal Tap was a lot of fun and creative.

And the way Stonehenge happened…. oh my goodness.

Big year in matches for the WWE. Here are the top 15 for EYG.

#15. Men’s Royal Rumble Match (Jey Uso winner)

#14. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins, cage match

#13. CM Punk vs. John Cena, Crown Jewel.

#12, Seth Rollins vs. CM Punk, 1st Netflix RAW

#11. Cody Rhodes vs. Kevin Owens, Ladder Match, Royal Rumble.

#10. DIY vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. Street Profits, TLC Match on Smackdown.

#9. Oba Femi vs. Trick Williams vs. Je’Von Evans, Stand & Deliver

#8. CM Punk vs. Gunther, SummerSlam

#7. Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley, Evolution.

#6. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn, Elimination Chamber

#5. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Iyo Sky, Wrestlemania 41

#4. El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Chad Gable, World’s Collide

#3. Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins, Wrestlemania 41

#2. John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes, Summer Slam

#1. John Cena vs. AJ Styles, Crown Jewel- Perth.

I was unable to watch this live. I watched a replay later. I had seen highlights and knew the winner. During that replay, I had tears in my eyes. It was such a love letter to Cena and AJ and their previous opponents that it made me emotional. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I had been able to see it live and did not know what was going to happen. It provided maybe the most emotion of the year and that is why it is Match of the Year.

I am a WWE fan so I give out the awards to WWE stars only. I hold nothing against any other organization, but I am just WWE.

Male Wrestler of the Year: Gunther. Runners-up: CM Punk, Oba Femi, Cody Rhodes, John Cena

Female Wrestler of the Year: Becky Lynch. Runners-up: Rhea Ripley, Charlotte Flair, Stephanie Vaquer, Asuka.

Tag Team of the Year: Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss. Runners-up: Street Profits, AJ Lee & Dragon Lee, Fraxiom, DIY, The New Day.

Manager of the Year: Paul Heyman. Runners-up: Adam Pierce, Nick Aldis

On the Mike: John Cena. Runners-up: CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Paul Heyman, Becky Lynch.

Feud of the Year: CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins. Becky Lynch vs. Lara Valkryia, Rhea Ripley vs. Iyo Sky, John Cena vs. Cody Rhodes.

Underused Performer: (TIE) Giulia/ LA Knight. Randy Orton, JC Mateo

Comeback of the Year: AJ Lee

Saddest Comeback: Goldberg

Celebrity of the Year: Jelly Roll

Moment of the Year: John Cena heel turn. Runners-up: John Cena’s final match, Heyman turns on Punk & Reigns.

Heel of the Year: Becky Lynch. Runners-up: Dominik Mysterio, Gunther, Drew McIntyre, The Vision

Face of the Year: Cody Rhodes. Runners-up: CM Punk, Sami Zayn, Jey Uso

Entrance Song: Joe Hendry.

Storyline of the Year: US Championship Open Challenge.

Best Broadcaster: Wade Barrett. Runners-up: Michael Cole, Joe Tessitore.

Breakout Star: Bronson Reed. Runners-up: Jacob Fatu, Lara Valkryia

Heel Turn of the Year: John Cena

Shock of the Year: John Cena turned heel

Faction of the Year: Judgment Day. Runners-up: The Vision, The MFT, The Wyatt Sicks

NXT Male Wrestler of the Year: Oba Femi. Runners-up: Ricky Saints, Je’Von Evans, Tony DeAngelo.

NXT Female Wrestler of the Year: Jacy Jayne. Runners-up: Sol Ruca, Jordynne Grace, Blake Monroe.

Every year we have some of the best female stars in Geek culture. Here are the top 15 of the year, including the winner of the Anna Devane Kick Ass Female Award. Here are the previous winners of this award.

The Anna Devane Kick Ass Female Award

Previous winners:  Rey (Star Wars), Mockingbird (Marvel Comics), Wonder Woman (DCEU), The Shirewolves, Captain Marvel, Kamala Harris, Wanda Maximoff, Pearl, Dorothy “Dot” Lyon (Fargo season five), Agatha Harkness (Agatha All Along)

#15. Becky Lynch. Becky is the best WWE wrestler ever… and it’s not just her saying it… Sports Illustrated is saying it. Becky has had a fabulous year this year.

#14. Ironheart. Ironheart had her own Marvel Studios Disney + series. It was better than I thought it would be and it ended with a major shock.

#13. Yellowjackets women. Misty. Shauna. Taissa. Liv. The Yellowjackets women were not just kick ass, but really pretty crazy.

#12. Iris (Companion). Iris is a robot, but she turned into another example of the eventual overlords of AI.

#11. Carol (Pluribus). Carol is one of the few people on planet earth who avoided the hive mind take over. She is straight-forward and hot headed, with a violent temper. I guess you can understand why.

#10. Wednesday. Wednesday’s second season was not as strong as the first one, but Wednesday is a force on that show.

#9. Storm. Storm got her own series in Marvel this year. She became an Avenger. She was being placed as a big deal in Marvel. About time.

#8. Emilia Harcourt (Peacemaker). Harcourt is co-lead of peacemaker, and her relationship with John Cena was the heart of the series. Plus, she just is kick ass.

#7. Elphaba (Wicked: For Good). The Wicked Witch of the West’s real story in Wicked: For Good shows how powerful this witch is… and retcons that ending of Wizard of Oz.

#6. Lois Lane (Superman). Lois was a huge star of the new DCU film, Superman. Played by Rachel Brosnahan, Lois was intricate to the story.

#5. Eleven (Stranger Things). Eleven is no doubt a kick ass character, but she may still have some major action in the final season of Stranger Things at Christmas time.

#4. Yelena Belova (Thunderbolts*) Played by Florence Pugh, Yelena was the main character in the ensemble film, Thunderbolts*. Yelena was sensational in the film.

#3. Rumi, Mira, and Zoey (K-Pop Demon Hunters) One of the big surprises of the year, the K-Pop Demon Hunters battled demons and sang songs.

#2. Black Canary. One of my favorite mini series this year, Black Canary: Best of the Best wa one of my favorite DC books of the year, and was one reason why I started buying as many DC books as I did.

#1. Invisible Woman

She gave birth in space. She used her invisible shields to push Galactus through a portal, and it nearly cost her her life. Thankfully her ultimately powered baby was able to save her.

Vanessa Kirby was a major star of Fantastic Four: First Steps. Her final scenes with Galactus showed the power of a momma.

And the Anna Devane Kick Ass of the Year Award winner.

The Expendables Awards are BACK!!!

Best Movie starring an Expendable: The Running Man (starring Glen Powell). The rebooted film of the classic Schwarzenegger film turned out to be a solid fun time.

Best Actor: Glen Powell. Powell looked like an action star in The Running Man.

Worst Movie starring an Expendable: Old Guard 2 (featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor). I just recently saw this one and it was so bad. Quite a step down from the previous film.

Bruce Willis Quantity over Quality Award: Eric Roberts. Three feature films and two podcasts. It may not be Bruce Willis-like, but it is quite the bunch.

Best Expendable Cameo: David Zayas, Dexter Resurrection. Zayas appeared in several episodes of Dexter: Resurrection as Angel Bautista, though he did not make it through the season unscathed.

Best Expendable Supporting Actor: Antonio Banderas, Paddington in Peru. Weakest of the Paddington movies is still awesome.

The Reddest Expendable Actor: Harrison Ford, Captain America: Brand New World. Red literally… as Harrison Ford became the Red Hulk!

A movie with a group of actors that might lack a leading actor is a great thing. We have had some great ones this year.

The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award

Previous Winners:  Avengers: Endgame (2019), The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), In the Heights (2021), Mass (2021), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022), Oppenheimer (2023), Saturday Night (2024)

Runners-Up: Wicked: For Good, Weapons, Fantastic Four: First Steps, Sinners, Nuremberg, A House of Dynamite, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, The Life of Chuck, Phoenician Scheme, and Warfare.

2025 EYG The Avengers: Endgame Ensemble Cast of the Year Award

Thunderbolts*

Marvel Studios’ new film Thunderbolts (aka New Avengers) was such a great movie and it was because this group of low level characters were such a sensational group together. The film worked story wise is because of this ensemble.

The ensemble included  Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

The movie was emotional and the performances were fantastic. The film did not make as much money as you would want. There are a lot of reasons, but they were not a really well known group of characters. Still, as an MCU fan, I loved this film and the cast was the main reason.

The second In Memoriam for the EYG Year in Review features the following:

Robert Redford

Roberta Flack

Wayne Osmond

Anita Bryant

Chris Robinson

Connie Francis

Dawn Little Sky

Denise Alexander

Leslie Charleston

Brenton Wood

Garth Hudson

Bobby Jenks

Irv Gotti

Udo Kier

Georgio Armani

Danny Seagren

June Lockhart

Jellybean Johnson

Tristian Rogers

Tom Lehrer

Terrance Stamp

Jane Goodall

Malcolm Jamal Warner

Marshawn Kneeland

Peter Yarrow

Rick Derringer

Steve “Mongo” McMichael

RIP to all

We just had the Confirmed.. or is it? Award, which dealt with the Internet getting fooled. Now, we have the internet getting mad.

This happens daily.

Things cause so much rage-bait on the internet all the time. So this award is here to offer up the Insane Internet Rage Scandal of the Year… known as The Don’t Feed the Trolls Award!

The Don’t Feed the Trolls: Insane Internet Rage Scandal of the Year

Previous Winner:  Baby Yoda eats frog’s eggs (2020), Masters of the Universe: Revelations part one (2021), She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022), Twitter becomes X (2023), Trump (2024)

This year had a couple of runners-up. They were: Snow White and the CGI dwarves and Brock Lesnar’s return to the WWE.

But this year’s winner….

Superman (2025) is too woke!

Complaints about the new Superman movie went everywhere online. James Gunn dared to call this an immigrant tale and all the right wing haters came from everywhere to dump on this movie.

There are other haters, such as those who believe that Superman should not be covering his face (picture above). So much anger directed toward this film and there was too much joy from some when Superman did not make the amount of money they thought it should have.

Many believed that they made this too political (hey there Dean Cain) and had taken away his patriot symbol (“Truth, Justice, and the Human Way”… not American way???). It was all just noise to distract.

Superman was a great movie and any one claiming it was too woke… well, they do not have to watch it.

The internet is a wonderful place.

Every year there are rumors that spread about a certainty because someone has said it somewhere on the net. Many times, these rumors just are not true.

A few years ago, we added this award to go to the rumor that seemed to be the most secure.. only to turn out false.

Confirmed… or is it? Award

Previous Winner: Mephisto is in WandaVision (2021), Fantastic Four has been cast (2022), Everyone is cast as Reed Richards (2023), Spider-Man 4 was being secretly filmed (2024)

It’s ironic that our first winner of this award was how everyone believed that Mephisto was going to be introduced on WandaVision… but he was actually introduced this past year on Ironheart.

This year, the Confirmed… or is it? Award goes to…

WWE Rumors (Seth Rollins)

There are rumors of WWE every day. It has gotten to the point where I do not believe anything the dirt sheets have to say until I see it on the screen at a Premium Live Event, RAW or Smackdown.

Seth Rollins trolled the entire world with a knew injury he suffered in a match with LA Knight on Saturday’s Night Main Event. The injury was a work, and Seth was back at SummerSlam to cost CM Punk the title. There were people confirming Seth’s injury all over the place. Seth even used crutches to take his daughter to school.

The WWE and Seth trolled the world. Seth went on the Rich Eisen Show and lied his face off.

Of course, Seth Rollins injured his shoulder and is out, and the WWE is pretending that Seth donned a black mask and a black outfit and stomped Punk during the War Games. And with Seth’s history, who knows if it is true.

Our first of four In Memoriam collages kicks off with the following individuals who have passed away in 2025.

Gene Hackman

Ace Frehley

Brian Wilson

Chuck Mangione

D’Angelo

David Lynch

Diane Ladd

Vice President Dick Chaney

Graham Greene

Julian McMahon

Jimmy Swaggart

Loni Anderson

Loretta Swit

Ozzy Osbourne

Poor Stacy

Rick Buckler

Sabu

Sly Stone

Val Kilmer

Hulk Hogan

RIP to all

In 2025, we are looking at our EYG Star of the Year. This can be from any level of entertainment: TV, Movies, Sports, Music, Production companies, etc.

Here are the previous winners:

EYG Star of the Year Previous Winners:  Gal Gadot, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jennifer Lawrence, Marvel Studios, J.J. Abrams, Josh Brolin, Damon Lindelof & Regina King, Netflix, Andrew Garfield, Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift, Ryan Reynolds

Runners-Up: Shohei Ohtani, Taylor Swift, Jack Black, James Gunn, David Corenswet, Florence Pugh, Pedro Pascal, TikTok

2025 EYG Star of the Year

John Cena

John Cena returned to the WWE this year for his retirement tour. After 20 years, John Cena put on several huge matches against such opponents as Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, AJ Styles, Dominik Mysterio, and Randy Orton.

John Cena won his 17th World Championship, breaking the record of Ric Flair.

John Cena won the Intercontinental Championship, becoming a Grand Slam Champion.

John Cena turned heel, in one of the most shocking moments of the year.

While Cena’s heel run was not great (mainly because the fans did not really want to boo him), he put everything he had into it.

His final match takes place on Saturday Night’s Main Event on Dec. 13.

He also starred in the HBO Max series Peacemaker season two. He cameoed in Superman. He starred in Heads of State with Idris Elba.

John Cena has been at the forefront all year long and he deserves his flowers. He is out EYG Star of the Year.