The New York Knicks are going to the NBA Finals, thanks to some help from a wrestling ghoul.
That’s not a small thing. That just happened. The Knicks are headed to their first Finals since the Clinton administration, and a sane portion of the Internet is crediting Danhausen — a vampire-gremlin-ghoul character from the pro wrestling world who makes a habit of cursing people who annoy him — for nearly tearing it all down.
The Knicks have taken over New York City – and the Internet
We say ‘derail’ because Danhausen first cursed the Knicks before their first round series against the Atlanta Hawks. During an appearance on ESPN First TakeStephen A. Smith, who has never been accused of being easy to deal with, apparently rubbed Danhausen the wrong way. Danhausen then cursed the Knicks, and the New York team lost 2-1 to the Hawks team that was highly favored to beat them.
He then who is not cursed The New York Knicks after a pro wrestling podcaster paid him to Cameo to do so. “Okay, I think I’m paid, so the New York Knicks, I think you can be cursed.”
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The upset happened early in Game 6. The Knicks won by 51 points, the sixth largest margin of victory in NBA playoff history. They then went on to win their next eight games without a loss, finishing the season with a 10-0 run – the fifth-longest playoff winning streak in NBA history, one game shy of the 11-game streak achieved by the 1989 and 2003 Lakers.
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Conflicts between the NBA and pro wrestling are rare. Dennis Rodman made a famous appearance in an episode of WCW Nitro midway through the 1998 NBA Finals against the Utah Jazz. Shaquille O’Neal has made several appearances in WWE and was a standout in the early days of All Elite Wrestling. That iconic meme of a young LeBron James taking a picture with his flip phone is from a 2003 episode of Monday Night Raw. Most recently, in 2024, Knicks star Jalen Brunson stepped into the ring with Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton on a June episode of Smackdown – just weeks after Haliburton knocked New York out of the Eastern Conference Finals.
So the vampiric wrestling gremlin paid to Cameo to not start the Knicks is, to anyone who has watched pro wrestling, probably the most surprising thing on this list. For everyone, it is admittedly very strange.
Danhausen is in line with it. He is still selling t-shirts commemorating the uninitiated. He made his WWE debut last February and got off to a rough start, but has become the company’s number two in the merchandise despite having exactly two matches since his debut.
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So, did the wrestling ghoul’s cameo change the trajectory of the professional basketball team? Probably not. Jalen Brunson very good in basketball. Karl-Anthony Towns is a seven-footer who can shoot the three and run the offense. These things are more important than curses. However, they won the playoff game by 51 points, the same morning Danhausen was paid for carelessly beating them. They are going to the NBA Finals for the first time in 27 years.
Maybe it was a coincidence. It was probably a coincidence. It’s the kind of risk, though, that Knicks fans will be telling their kids about.
