Month: December 2012
End of Year Awards, Ranking and Other stuff!
Ok, so originally I wanted to do a video for this, but honestly I doubt I’d have the time to get it done. Plus, I haven’t kept up to date with as much as I would have liked in order to really make a good end of year video. So instead I’ll stick with a written version, and next year I’ll do my best to keep records of things like matches, angles/storylines, promos and whatnot so I can really rank things and hand out awards :).
I’ll start with a couple of lists I put together and posted on a forum not too long ago. Beginning with ranking the WWE PPV’s for the year. I would do the same for TNA but honestly outside of a couple of matches I don’t remember nearly as much as I would like to.
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Came up with a way to rank the WWE PPV’s this year.
Points System:
Solid – 1
Good – 2
Great – 3
Epic – 5
MOTY – 2
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Royal Rumble – 3
Bryan Vs Show Vs Henry – Solid
Punk Vs Ziggler – Good
Elimination Chamber – 0
LMFAO I literally didn’t like ANYTHING from this show.
WrestleMania – 11
Kane Vs Orton – Solid
Undertaker Vs HHH – Epic
Punk Vs Jericho – Epic
Extreme Rules – 11
Sheamus Vs Bryan – Epic
Punk Vs Jericho – Good
Cena Vs Lesnar – Epic
Over The Limit – 7
Punk Vs Bryan – Epic & MOTY
No Way Out – 6
Sheamus Vs Ziggler – Great
Christian Vs Cody – Solid
Punk Vs Kane Vs Bryan – Good
Money in the Bank – 2
Punk Vs Bryan – Good
SummerSlam – 6
Jericho Vs Ziggler – Solid
Bryan Vs Kane – Solid
Punk Vs Show Vs Cena – Solid
Lesnar Vs HHH – Great
Night of Champions – 7
Orton Vs Ziggler – Good
Eve Vs Layla – Good
Punk Vs Cena – Great
Hell in a Cell – 4
Team Rhodes Scholars Vs Team Hell No – Solid
Show Vs Sheamus – Great
Survior Series- 2
Sheamus Vs Show – Good
TLC – 3
Shield Vs Team Hell No & Ryback – Great
Ranking The PPV’s
12. Elimination Chamber – 0
11. Money in the Bank – 2
10. Survior Series- 2 (preferred Show/Sheamus to Bryan/Punk from MITB)
09. Royal Rumble – 3
08. TLC – 3 (TLC match > Both RR matches combined)
07. Hell in a Cell – 4
06. No Way Out – 6
05. SummerSlam – 6 (SS had an extra match that I liked, plus HHH/Lesnar > Sheamus/Ziggler)
04. Night of Champions – 7
03. Over The Limit – 7 (Has my MOTY so beats out NOC on that alone)
02. WrestleMania – 11
01. Extreme Rules – 11 (2 Epics and a Great > 2 Epics and a solid)
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Next up, my MOTY list, this time including TNA as I at least remembered the BETTER matches from this year :).
Honourable Mentions:
Bully Ray Vs Joseph Park – Slammiversary
Austin Aries Vs Bobby Roode – Destination X
James Storm Vs Bobby Roode – Lockdown
Sheamus Vs Daniel Bryan – Raw Street Fight
CM Punk Vs Mark Henry – Raw (first of the trilogy)
William Regal Vs Dean Ambrose – FCW
Kane, Daniel Bryan & Ryback Vs Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns – TLC
Sheamus Vs Big Show – Raw (Christmas Eve show)
Top 10:
10. Sheamus Vs Big Show – Hell in a Cell – ****
09. Austin Aries Vs Bully Ray – Final Resolution – ****
08. CM Punk Vs John Cena – Night of Champions – ****1/4
07. Triple H Vs Brock Lesnar – SummerSlam – ****1/4
06. Austin Aries Vs Bobby Roode – Hardcore Justice – ****1/4
05. Sheamus Vs Daniel Bryan – Extreme Rules – ****1/2
04. John Cena Vs Brock Lesnar – Extreme Rules – ****1/2
03. CM Punk Vs Chris Jericho – WrestleMania 28 – ****1/2
02. The Undertaker Vs Triple H – WrestleMania 28 – ****3/4
01. CM Punk Vs Daniel Bryan – Over the Limit – ****3/4
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Wrestler of the Year
Honourable Mentions:
Bully Ray (TNA) – He’s worked some wonderful matches this year with guys all over the roster. His promos are great, and his character is awesome. Matches with Aries and Joseph Park are the standouts, the Aries match being a great wrestling match with a good story, and the Park match being a basic “wrestling” match with an incredible story and amazing character performances from both me. I’d love to see him get the TNA title in 2013.
Austin Aries (TNA) – Started off the year hot as the X-Division Champion. Cut great promos and had great matches and literally carried the division while he was champion. Then he got SO HOT the company just had to put him in the world title picture where he actually shocked the world and won. A great moment. His title run was unfortunately in the background to the Aces & Eights storyline as well as the BFG series, but the two PPV matches with Roode added to his already great resume of matches this year. Turning back heel towards the end of the year has been great too, just a shame he lost the title to Jeff Hardy and continue to have to work with him.
Daniel Bryan (WWE) – Started the year as the World Heavyweight Champion. Worked some great TV matches with Big Show and Henry, then managed to hold on to the title going into WM. Then he lost the fucking belt in 18 seconds. AND GOT SO FUCKING OVER FROM IT. He lost the world title in 18 seconds at WrestleMania, and it got him more over than he’s ever been. HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN? I don’t know, but it did and its awesome because Bryan is a rare talent in the ring and truly deserves to have the fans react to him so strongly, and deserves another big push. Sheamus match at ER was tremendous, and definitely what the WM match should have been. He also had a strong series with Punk on TV before WM, then would continue to do so on PPV, with their OTL match being my MOTY. After that he started a program with Kane, and their anger management segments were genuinely hilarious (comedy in wrestling is rare, as most of it is awful lol). Their run as a tag team has been great, and they ended the year at TLC in that incredible 6 man TLC match against Shield. I only hope he can drop the tag belts soon and move back into the world title picture, though if that were to happen it likely won’t be until after WM.
Sheamus (WWE) – Yeah, he’s a contender for WOTY. The amount of hate I see Sheamus getting just boggles my mind. So he isn’t the best promo cutter or anything, so people might not latch onto his character as much, but his ring work speaks for itself. He won the RR by eliminating Jericho last, then would go on to have a great TV match against Jericho. His series with Bryan was great (aside from WM), and a match I forgot to mention for Bryan was their Raw street fight, which made my honourable mentions list for MOTY. Sheamus has also worked great TV matches with the likes of Sandow, Punk (Main Event), Tensai (yes, Tensai) and many others. His PPV matches have been solid encounters at least, but unfortunately a good portion of his PPV matches were against Del Rio who is so fucking dull. However matches against Ziggler and the awesome Big Show series as well as the Bryan match really put him in contention for WOTY, and haters need to see this!
Wrestler of the Year
CM Punk (WWE) – Yep, Punk. He’s been the WWE champion for the entire year. He just passed 400 days as champion. He’s worked some amazing matches against the likes of Henry, Bryan, Sheamus, Jericho, Ziggler and Cena. He cut some really good promos. While he went downhill for the last few months, he still did his best to stay interesting and relevant despite being paired on PPV with Ryback. Even on crutches now he’s probably the most entertaining superstar going. His segment with Flair at the Slammy show was tremendous, and his promo the next day on Live Smackdown was awesome. Looks like he’s getting back into the swing of things, and he just needs to get through one more match with Ryback and then he can move onto bigger things (Rock, then WM). I really cannot imagine how horrible Raw would have been in 2012 if Punk wasn’t there.
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Random Thoughts
2012 has been an odd year for the WWE. Raw went to 3 hours, and they used that extra hour to throw more crap at us. SD became a complete afterthought. Storylines were often dull, stupid and illogical. But on the other hand, the quality TV and PPV matches we’ve had this year has been INCREDIBLE. And for me that makes 2012 a success for the most part. I’m a WRESTLING fan first and foremost. If I get good WRESTLING matches then I’m happy. Sure, having great storylines is awesome, and having them combined with the wrestling matches is preferred, I’d much prefer crap stories and great matches than great stories and shit matches. After all, what are the stories without a match at the end? In wrestling; nothing.
TNA has had a very up and down year too. Started off not so great, then around June-ish to September it got real good. The shows were well put together, character development was great, storylines while not mind blowing were solid and coherent, and they were giving us some real good matches on PPV and some all round entertaining TV shows. Then BFG came around and things went downhill. Jeff Hardy won the BFG series, then the world title. Aces & Eights, the group that started off ok then became must watch TV just began floundering and have done nothing noteworthy for quite some time. I looked it up, and they will have been around for 7 months on Jan 14th. In that time, they’ve attacked people for no reason, got D-Von his TV title back, and had 2 members unmasked. No word on WHY they are doing any of this stuff. They just seem to randomly do shit. And what’s with the masks? How does being unmasked effect them in any way? D-Von got unmasked. Didn’t matter in the slightest. Gallows got unmasked. Didn’t matter in the slightest. So why even bother? The angle has really slowed down and needs a huge resurge in 2013 imo, hopefully with the VP unmasking and giving us some answers, then building up to who the actual leader is.
Weekly Wrestling Roundup Episode 62 w/Tom Fyrehart and CHRISTMAS
Weekly Wrestling Roundup Episode 61
Weekly Wrestling Roundup Episode 60
Weekly Wrestling Roundup Episode 59