Misused: He Panned It Now He Sucks

Note: This thread was proposed by Number 9 Robotic.

As the wiki is becoming more aware about complaining and gratuitous negativity, the more that the purpose of He Panned It, Now He Sucks! confuses me. According to the trope page's description, this should be a trope (or YMMV article, whatever exactly it's called haha) that primarily applies to reviewers and whatever platform they work off of, but more often than not, He Panned It, Now He Sucks! is used on pages of works themselves to highlight some random, unrelated reviewer's negative opinion of the work, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why that'd be something worth documenting, since it always comes down to "this person gave a meh score and fans got annoyed."

Wick check here. Semi-important note: good fraction of the wicks are used specifically for the bodies of trope pages as simple definitions (such as all the Dethroning Moment pages; it only exists to say "Please no He Panned It, Now He Sucks!). Will be disqualifying those examples for this check, but make of that what you will. My current findings:

• (1/50, 2%) Used in a reviewer's YMMV page more or less correctly for its intended purpose (and even then, it's a borderline case due to lacking elaborate context).
• (9/50, 18%) Used in a reviewer's YMMV page but have their own significant problems (misuse, ZCE, etc.) .
• (21/50, 42%) Used in a work's YMMV page to complain about someone's opinion.
• (8/50, 16%) Term used as definition (invoking, discussion, in-universe examples).
• (3/50, 6%) Other ZCEs.
• (8/50, 16%) Other forms of misuse

In general, there doesn't appear to be a real feasible middle ground between either over-explaining why the reviewer's opinion is disliked (treading very much into Complaining About People Not Liking the Show, occasionally with extensive rebuttals arguing against the person's criticisms), or simply not enough to even explain that something was "panned" to begin with. There's also a common trend of entries that openly admit that the person in question didn't pan the work but was merely lukewarm about it, which seems especially petty (wasn't Eight Point Eight disambiguated in part because of that?). Another pattern is people inverting the trope and documenting examples where critics like or praise something and that receives flack, despite YMMV "tropes" not allowing such modification.

One last thing that I didn't include in part of the wick checks are the dedicated He Panned It, Now He Sucks! pages for specific reviewers, such as Jimquisition, The Mysterious Mr. Enter, and The Nostalgia Critic. Most of the entires of these pages come off as having the same ramblingly negative tones you'd find in a Darth Wiki Horrible article than something that belongs in a typical YMMV article, and they all also suffer the aforementioned problems of either over-explaining the negativity, overstating the negativity, or providing no real reasoning for why a critic disliked a work but still feeling the need to document "fans hate him because of it."

What should be the fate of He Panned It, Now He Sucks!? Is it inherently too negative to really keep as is? Does it need a narrowing down of definition? Cleanup so it goes only on the pages of reviewers and not works? Let's discuss.

• A Dose of Buckley: He's gotten this a few times, particularly on his "Top 10 worst songs of [year]" lists. At the beginning of "The 10 Worst Songs of 2013", Buckley briefly laments how alternative rock "has went from this (plays clip of The Smashing Pumpkins) to this (plays a clip of "Breezeblocks")". Needless to say, this really didn't go well with alt-J fans. Especially when you consider Alt-J technically aren't even an alternative rock band in the traditional sense. Could probably use more context and trim out the natter "he's gotten this a few times" line, but establishes that he had a negative opinion and why people were upset for certain reasons decently enough.

• Black Critic Guy:
  • Faced a lot of backlash from his viewers for badmouthing Princess Tutu. Has since admitted he was probably too harsh and plans to try watching it again. ZCE.
  • Let's just say not a lot of people took kindly to his review of Kung Fu Panda 3. ZCE.
  • And again when he criticized Incredibles 2 for what his viewers found to be very silly and unfair reasons. Namely that by focusing on Elastigirl and using a female villain, the movie was "pushing a feminist agenda". His viewers were less than amused, pointing out that a) Tony had praised other media in the past for taking on issues like racism, b) he had no problem with the original movie which starred a male hero and villain but suddenly when it's a female pair it's "an agenda" and c) what's wrong with feminism in a movie anyway since gender inequality is still very much An Aesop that needs to be taught. Not merely documenting a disagreement, instead a diatribe on why he's wrong.
  • Inverted with his review of Cuties. There was massive backlash for his praising of the film. No inversions of YMMV articles, also a ZCE.
• Benthelooney: Many times during his original run, not helping matters by him being firmly behind a Nostalgia Filter. Most noticeably, Adventure Time, Regular Show, The Looney Tunes Show^note He likes the first two now but declared out of character that The Looney Tunes Show was the worst thing he reviewed on the entire show- though five years after his initial rant on it, he admitted that the show was harmless for what it was, but just wasn't his thing, but he could see why people like it., and Pixar (At least in the revival). It got so bad when it came to the latter that he made a video apologizing for the rant and admitted that he was too harsh on the animation studio. He recently revealed after a talk with a friend that he started rewatching some Pixar movies with a more open mind and has started to like a few of them now. Weird backpedalling; most of the entry explains why he doesn't pan them as much, no context on what he didn't like or why people were upset from it.
• Books Vs Movies:
  • Not as bad as it could have been, considering it was one of his early reviews, but his review of The Wizard of Oz, although many agree with his criticisms of Glinda sending Dorothy to see the Wizard when she knew the slippers could send her home. Weirdly waffling on whether people actually disliked his opinions or not.
  • He got a bit of flak for his negative opinion on Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989) as well, particularly because he didn't like Ariel as a character — though perhaps less than he might have, given that the most hateful comments against the movie are said by Regular Matt, who is supposed to be biased and unreasonable, and are immediately shot down by the more open-minded Matt Hatter. Also rather unsure of whether to say people disagreed with him and his opinions or not.
• Cinematic Venom: His review of the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy earned infamous status for this, and it was his most-viewed video after the videos about the "Change the Channel" controversy and his review of Home Alone 5 (at least before he deleted his channel). The issue isn't that he didn't like the films for most people, but more so that his reasons for disliking it came across as him having not actually watched the film, as he commonly mistakes elements of the film (such as at one point thinking Gimli was saying Frodo and Sam should die in the third film), misses the story reasons for certain things (such as why Aragorn didn't use the Army of the Dead against Sauron), or in general his criticisms are very shallow and he doesn't actually explain why they were bad. The fact he spends a good number of the review making jokes about Sam being gay for Frodo among other jokes like that, caused the video to be very negatively received by people. He later discussed this after the video became popular years later, acknowledging his mistakes with it the review but by then it was already years after he made it, and that he feels Old Shame for the review. Not exactly "panning", just not appreciating it as much as people thought he should and making jokes that didn't go over so well.
• Every Frame a Pause:
  • While EFAP viewers generally have no beef with the podcast taking potshots at a Sacred Cow, the same could not be said for Avatar: The Last Airbender. One of the main reasons was that the MauLer and Rags's criticisms could easily be applied to media such as the Lord of the Rings and the original Star Wars trilogies which they gave a pass. While MauLer received less flack because he admitted to judging the show based on a few episodes he watched and that fans should not take his opinions to heart, Rags especially got a lot of flack due to his extremely confrontational stance which can come off as just hating the show for the sake of it, even going as far as to attack fans of the show without backing up his reasoning as to why. No context for what was actually panned.
  • Their episode discussing Elden Ring, while not universally criticized since they did admit to liking it a lot and actually opened the discussion largely getting the negative stuff out of the way first, earned criticism for coming across as a bit overly critical towards the game, especially when they seemed to focus on comparing to the past games without judging the game on its own terms, such as how critical they were of the generally popular General Radhan fight, or how much they spent focusing on the reused bosses. While they do have valid points that most agreed with, their overly critical view of the game came across as nit-picky to some. Theo in particular earned some criticism from chat for being the most generally negative, and some felt Rags being in the conversation despite not having played it, didn't help either since he just criticized it from what little info he had. More self-justifying word cruft that can't seem to agree if people were upset by the marginal criticisms or not; doesn't even read as "panning".
• Gaming in the Clinton Years:
  • Go on YouTube and see how much bitching there is about the rating given to the game. ZCE.
  • Even back when the show was still on the air, viewers were incensed by Wood's unfavorable review of Final Fantasy VII. There's even a video rebuttal where the host responds to the viewers' complaints. ZCE.
  • With decades of hindsight this is now more frequently inverted, with people mocking Wood for giving high praise to notorious flops like Bubsy and the Virtual Boy. Incorrect inversion and also ZCE.
• Mark Kermode:
  • He suffers this constantly, most prominently with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, saying Superbad wasn't very funny, and being disappointed by Watchmen — not even a panning, just saying the movie didn't work for him personally. The entry even admits there was no "panning".
  • Inversely, he gets huge amounts of "He Praised It, Now He Sucks" for taking a liking to movie series such as High School Musical and Twilight. He was even a fan of Zac Efron, until he starred in the abomination that was Dirty Grandpa. More improper inversions.
• PeanutButterGamer:
  • His review of Sonic Heroes is basically a repeat of what a lot of critics of the series have already said for years, such as the characters speaking too much and how having Sonic as the sole playable character would be an "improvement". This just seems kind of petty? So what if the criticisms are common?
  • To a lesser extent, his MySims reviews. While most people aren't complaining (mostly because the series is really obscure compared to its parent series), those who did play the My Sims and enjoyed it were quick to criticize Peebs for being nitpicky and not paying attention to the game's positive merits, like the fun, interesting characters and cute aesthetic. This post, while not mentioning PBG by name, weighs in on the matter in more detail. Flimsy context.
• These Web Comics Are So Bad: Some fans of web comics tend to get offended by Sonty Mick's reviews, despite the tongue in cheek nature of the writing. ZCE and also improper use of Misaimed Fandom.

• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.:
  • James Hunt of Den Of Geek was unrelenting in his hatred of the show before handing off reviewing duties to someone else. Commenters spent as much time criticizing Hunt as they did discussing the show, especially since they believed that his dislike of it made him blind to an uptick in quality. Commenters were particularly unsympathetic to the way he ended his run as show's reviewer, saying that angrily declaring "I'm out" isn't the mark of a professional or even a mature adult.
  • Oliver Sava from The AV Club has gotten on some fans' bad sides for continuing to mostly find the show mediocre. In particular, he complains about its uninspired visual palette in almost every review, to the point that most commenters are wondering why he even bothers to bring it up anymore, and if he really thinks he hasn't made his point yet.
  • Kiel Phegley of Comic Book Resources, who handles the recaps for the show, who is regularly met with criticism in the comments for his reviews of the show, as he takes an extremely negative stance on the show. In particular, the fact Phegley complains whenever the show follows a common trope while also complaining whenever they subvert one instead, making people question what exactly he wants the show to do, while also frequently describing scenes in the show inaccurately to serve his complaints (such as omitting details that explain why events happen, so he can complain that they had no explanation). This got so bad that when he made a review that noted some positives, readers questioned if he was secretly replaced.
  • The nerdy feminist site The Mary Sue is not well thought of by fans of Daisy's character, for its treatment of her and Chloe Bennet during Seasons 1 and 2. In particular, many fans felt that the reviews of the episodes were overly antagonistic towards Bennet and Daisy/Skye, attacking the former's acting skills and accusing the latter of being a Creator's Pet, which many found hypocritical given the website supposedly protested against such unfair treatment of female characters and actresses that usually comes from mainstream nerdy sites. The website changed its opinion of her during Season 2's second half and the reviewer responsible for the harshest treatment had since left, but the website is still a sour point for some.
• Avengers: Infinity War: Lacey Baugher of The Mary Sue got quite a bit of flack for her article on how the movie "failed its women". Especially with her accusation that Gamora's arc was an overlong Stuffed in the Fridge plot.
• Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: Gene Siskel liked the movie a lot, but his statement that he didn't like the Joker's voice drew quite a bit of ire from fans. No description that he "panned" the performance.
• Black Panther (2018): Negative reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes are so scarce that the slightest one gets immediate attention and expected reactions across the board. This entry's just weird; it's documenting the LACK of panning?
• Broken Sword: Adventure Gamer's review about The Smoking Mirror received backlash from some people who enjoyed the game.
• Daredevil (2015):
  • Tim Goodman of Hollywood Reporter lost credibility for many commenters when his first paragraph was basically an attack on superhero fiction in general for taking away from "complicated films about real people with real emotions" and seeming to have a misunderstanding of Daredevil as a character and how his powers worked.
  • Oliver Sava of the AV Club received a lot of negative comments with his reviews of the first season, which often made complaints of the roles and treatment of female characters. The commenters thus make accusations of coddling female characters and criticizing any character flaws they possess. He also makes the same arguments that other viewers have (such as Karen's questionable methods of bringing Ben to meet Fisk's mother), but the commenters reacted negatively to that criticism as well. Fans are not excited to see how the Season 2 reviews play out.
    He didn't help himself at all by calling Elodie Yung's portrayal of Elektra on par with Jennifer Garner's, as they had opposite strengths and weaknesses. Plus an utterly bizarre criticism of how Elektra's characterization makes little sense until you get the reveal about her true motivation later on, when that's exactly the point the show was going for.
• Dorkly Originals: The video Mario Paint Torture received a bit of backlash from several Nickelback fans. No context, and also not a reviewer, and complaints coming from a work unrelated to that of the article in question.
• Fargo: Season Three: The AV Club's Zach Handlen sparked quite a bit of outrage with his middling reviews, with many accusing him of blaming the show simply for not being the exact kind of story he wanted, rather than judging the story as it is.
• Full Metal Jacket: Gene Siskel came down hard on Roger Ebert on Siskel & Ebert for giving Full Metal Jacket a Thumb's Down while giving Benji the Hunted a four-star Thumb's Up (both films were released the same year). This got parodied in The Critic. Also a ZCE.
• (500) Days of Summer: Quite a few people didn't like The Agony Booth's recap. ZCE.
• Gamera vs. Barugon: Downplayed as he didn’t hate it overall per se, but James Rolfe got some flack from Kaiju fans for ranking this as his least favorite of the Gamera movies, stating how he didn’t enjoy it as much since to him it didn’t feel like the other films in the Showa series. Which is ironically the reason why fans liked this one better. Also trying to downplay/play with a YMMV article.
• Get Out (2017): The film's attainment of the rare 100% Rotten Tomatoes score being singlehandedly brought down by the infamous Armond White has not gone unnoticed by his detractors. ZCE.
• God Hand: The infamous IGN review that gave the game a 3.0 score is generally regarded as the worst piece of writing to ever be posted up on their site, and part of the reason the game flopped despite having such a cult following. Problems include complaining about things that aren't in the game and saying it's bad because it's too hard, finding the sense of humor to be weak, and other issues that make it seem like they hadn't played the game for more than a few hours. The review itself was also poorly written with multiple spelling errors that have gone unfixed to this day.
• God of War Ragnarök: The review by IGN Korea gave the game a 6/10 and summarized it as a "quickly brewed DLC", being notably the most scathing review in an otherwise acclaimed round of reception. Within days of the review's release, the review and its writer were torn apart on social media, leading to the writer to address the ongoing harassment.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Christian Frates accused of the cartoon of copying Lobo. Naturally, this didn't sit well with fans of Harley Quinn. Is that even "panning"?
• Heroes of the Storm: The game got a 6.5 out of 10 from IGN, a stark outlier among other review sites' scores. Additionally, the review demonstrated a poor understanding of the game. Fans have not let this go, and even Blizzard themselves have gotten in on the act — a banner◊ displaying the score can be found among the audience in the Arena. IGN has since re-reviewed the game with a much more positive score, and even acknowledged the memetic nature of their previous review.
• My Little Pony TV Specials: Expect anyone who dislikes Midnight Castle to get this treatment, even if they did have a well thought-out reason why. No examples or context why this might possibly be the case.
• Project × Zone:
  • Games Radar's review of the first game was heavily criticized for unfair comparisons against Fire Emblem: Awakening (Irony ensues given who appears in the sequel), and being very critical of other aspects without acknowledging the reasons behind them.
  • Gamespot and IGN's reviews for the sequel were hit with this simply for giving it a lower score than the original despite the improvements made to issues from the first game.
• RWBY Alternate: The first videos were titled RWBY, But Better and Jerry overall having a blatant dislike of the writing of RWBY. As a result, many RWBY fans dislike RWBY Alternate as a mean-spirited Fix Fic done by someone who thinks they can write a better story than Rooster Teeth.
• Tower (2016): San Diego Reader's Scott Marks gave Tower a 0/5 star "bomb" rating primarily because he hated the film's use of rotoscoped animation when "there seems to be no shortage of [documented] footage surrounding Whitman’s killing spree", believing that the "absurdity" of the animation Disneyfied the horror of the tragedy. His review caused the film to lose its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes after two years. While rotoscoping is disliked by animation buffs, most would actually agree that the use of the technique is justified in this film because what archive footage is available for that tragic day doesn't really tell the whole story, and that director-producer Keith Maitland did realize that the University of Texas at Austin would not permit him to film any live-action reenactments on the campus. Regardless, Marks received a number of responses invoking this trope in the Facebook comments attached to his review. His review remains the only negative professional review registered on RT as of 2023.
• Vanquish: Jim Sterling from Destructoid caught quite a bit of flak for reviewing Vanquish poorly. When he went on to give Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage an 8/10, you could hear people the world over call "Bullshit!" ZCE.
• Toy Story 3: Roger Ebert gave a notably lukewarm review of the film, calling it “a jolly, slapstick sequel focused on action and jokes more than character and emotion”. He received quite a bit of backlash considering how universally praised the film was otherwise, as he noted in his year-end ranking of animated films. When a fan wrote an extensive rebuke of his review, Ebert blamed the film’s use of 3-D. Being lukewarm on something is not panning.

• Borderlands 2.Tropes D to N: Torgue holds this opinion about the ECHOcast game reviewers in the Badass Crater of Badassitude, In-Universe. In fact, having an opinion about a game that he disagrees with is such a Berserk Button for Torgue that he sends you off to kill them!
• Creator.Josh Scorcher:
  • Played for Drama in his review of Lullaby for a Princess where he stated that he doesn't enjoy this because: A. He feels left out. B. He feels like others view him as a scrooge. This first entry I think is an adequate discussion of the trope.
  • In his Top Ten First Bosses video, he has clarified (by onscreen text) that in the case of The Legend of Korra, it's okay for people to like the show, even though he personally didn't enjoy it. This, meanwhile, I think is misuse since the entry doesn't say he actually "panned" it, nor does it have any mentions of people (hypothetically or not) disliking him for his opinion.
• Funny.SCXCR: The Stinger in War Gods where a deranged fan calls out SCR for not liking the game in question, followed by SCR being hilariously dismissive. This is followed by the fan telling a story that seems like it'd enter into Squick territory.
• WebVideo.Critikal Complaining About People Not Liking the Show: Discussed in this video, where he calls this phenomenon "The Uncharted Effect". He explains that he received criticism simply because he didn't like Uncharted 4, and that this attitude makes it difficult for people to criticize any overly hyped-up game, which leads to games not receiving the criticism they deserve, which in turn leads to developers not learning from feedback and thus not improving.invoked
• Podcast.The Weekly Planet: Artifact Title: "Caravan of Garbage" often results in the podcast becoming the subject of ire when they cover properties that are generally widely-loved under the "Caravan of Garbage" banner. On numerous occasions James and Mason have had to interrupt the opening spiel to assure viewers that the title doesn't necessarily mean they're watching a garbage movie and that they aren't hating on a beloved classic.
• Referenced By.Peanuts: * The Angry Video Game Nerd: In his Metal Gear review, the Nerd mentions that he dislikes the NES port of the game, and if his fans want to rip him a new asshole, it's fine by him. He then mentions that he has twelve assholes, or as he likes to call it, "Charlie Brown ghost ass".
• Web Video.The Dom Reviews: * He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: (In-Universe) In the Lost in Adaptation: Starship Troopers video, we find out that fans of Homeworld 2 did not appreciate Dominic's scathing review in an earlier episode.
• Web Video.The Double Agent: In-Universe, Ethan has joked in videos about murdering Anthony Fantano for giving a negative review to "Circles" by Post Malone.

• Characters.The Critic: What the in-show public thinks about him.
• Serious Business.Web Original: Rotten Tomatoes / Metacritic / Game Rankings scores, as discussed in other places. Also just reads as general misuse.
• The Scrappy.Live-Action TV: X-Play: Despite being the main reviewers on the show, Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb could qualify. Post-Seasonal Rot, they suffered from massive Flanderization that made them seem to worship Microsoft, no matter how bad their games are, as well as massive backlash from the He Panned It, Now He Sucks! train of thought. No actual elaboration on the stuff that they pan; all context is based on them PRAISING Microsoft.

• Awesome.Mr TARDIS Reviews: This response video to a Jerkass user attacking Trilbee for his review of Come Fly With Me, where he points out that just because something makes a lot of money does not automactially make it a good product. Not to mention calling the guy out for his hypocrisy in calling his review childish when the user himself was using childish insults, and pointing out all the flaws in his arguments. This entire entry seems like a meta/real-world "pwnage" that shouldn't be covered in Moments pages.
• Base Breaking Character.Big Brother: ** Miesha. Many dislike her for her association with Todrick, who is widely considered the biggest Scrappy of the season, while others dislike her aggressive gameplay. Others didn't like her wanting to get Carson out when Carson was a fan favourite. However, there are also many who like her for actually being a pretty good player and many who felt that she deserved to win more than anyone for the sheer amount of competitions she dominated and her effective manipulation. While many considered her a Jerkass at many points, she was at the very least considered the Lesser of Two Evils between herself and Todrick, and most were still happy to see her win over him regardless of how they felt about her. That's not panning a work, that's just not liking a person.
• Creator Backlash.Web Original: In January 2013, Cyndi Seidelman of Game Show Garbage made an induction bashing a fan site of The Price Is Right. She removed it in September 2017 for this reason: Nowhere is it stated who is the person unhappy with the negative opinion except for the creator.
  "The Golden Fanbois induction is deleted and won't be returning to the site anytime soon. It was a terrible induction in poor taste and I fully regret it. I need to build bridges rather than burn them."
• Recap.The Nostalgia Critic S 12 E 9: Inverted. Before he starts reviewing the film, the Critic armors himself for protection when he says that he has a soft spot for the film. Cue angry fans shooting him for saying something positive about the movie. You can't "invert" or otherwise play with YMMV articles.
• Series.Media Watch: Needless to say, it is hated by the less honest media figures in the country, and the show just loves the hate. '''This is used as part of the work's introduction; I don't think it's correctly used here both in spirit of the trope as well as in proper wiki etiquette for work descriptions.
• Web Video.GameXplain: That Came Out Wrong: The "Under the Super Scope" episode about The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was initially titled "Spirit Tracks: Improving Upon the Worst Zelda". Many people interpreted it as clickbait and another roasting, not realizing that "the Worst Zelda" was referring to the Phantom Hourglass episode where he called it the worst main Zelda game —this video being its followup praising the sequel's additions— resulting in a huge dislike ratio. Many of the initial dislikes were however reverted after people actually saw the video, and the name was changed to "Getting Zelda Back On Track". This is a main-page entry of a series of real-life audience reactions that probably shouldn't be troped in general.
• YMMV.No Man's Sky: Sacred Cow: Prior to the game's launch, a very, very extreme Vocal Minority of fans took to attacking any critic that had anything negative to say about the game. For example, one journalist was sent death threats just for announcing that the game had been pushed back two months. This further fractured the game's reception. After the launch this trope became inverted, with people harassing and insulting the few fans who enjoyed the game. This one's just a really bizarre misuse of a different trope (Sacred Cow) for a work that wasn't even released yet; another improper use of "inverting" a YMMV trope.
• YMMV.Ric Flair: Ric Flair is not being addressed here as a reviewer or even a wrestler, but rather a real-world person with opinions on stuff outside of kayfabe.
  • Bashing ROH and TNA in favor of NXT was annoying but to be expected, it being part of the company currently paying him and the show his daughter being was featured on. What pissed people off was that he said NXT was better because it had more wrestling and less talking. While that was sometimes true of post Bischoff, last days on Spike TV TNA, who alternated between great shows full of wrestling and empty shows with little action, the most consistent complaint about SBG ROH, more than being New Japan's bitch, television being behind pay per view or classic material not being available, was that there was too much wrestling without context or emotional stakes. "No story lines" as WWE "loyalists" liked to claim. So there was hardly anyone who believed there was any sincerity in the claim lack of wrestling was ROH's problem(and until 2016-18, post reality competition NXT could be described as "If ROH had a budget three years ago.")
  • After already backsliding into The Scrappy due to his overly-prominent role as Charlotte's manager in the early stages of her 2016 top heel run, Flair's reputation with wrestling fans took a further hit when he fired shots on the instant rise of Finn Bálor from NXT draftee to Raw Universal Championship #1 Contender by stating that Bálor is not a superstar, no cruiserweight will be world champion or main event WrestleMania (especially given it's happened multiple times including the friend who later retired him), and Roman Reigns should've beaten Bálor for the top contendership based on looks alone.