Once a week for the next few, we’ll be having different voices present you with their year end awards. Here’s Kyle Fitta with his version:
The wrestling year (going by Observer years) is over, and you know what that means… yep you guess it—the end of the year awards! The categories are overall wrestler of the year, worst overall wrestler of the year, most overrated wrestler of the year, most underrated wrestler of the year, best scientific wrestler of the year, best promo man or women of the year, best tag-team of the year, best match of the year, worst match of the year, best overall company of the year, worst major company of the year, and the biggest surprise of the year!
Overall wrestler of the year: John Cena. Hate him or love him, but there is nobody that has done better as an all-around performer this year than John Cena. His work inside the ring was solid this year, as he had two solid matches with Batista, decent matches with Sheamus, a good performance at Summerslam, and a surprisingly good match with Wade Barrett, among other solid matches on TV with wrestlers like CM Punk and Jack Swagger. His promos, despite his corny written promos, have been top-notch, especially the recent ones with Piper and then his farewell speech. His emotion and acting skills improved dramatically over the past year (quite possibility because of his movies). His main angles that he’s been in were some of the most entertaining feuds this year, especially his feud with Batista and of course his feud with Nexus. Furthermore, he is without a shadow of a doubt the bread and butter of the WWE. He’s the figurehead of the company that brings in the biggest profits for merchandise.
Worst overall wrestler of the year: Abyss. Yeah, you could say Khali or Kozlov, but at least they are not over-exposed and WWE has utilized them to a distinct boundary where they do not expose their flaws. You cannot say the same about Abyss, though. He’s been not only over-exposed, but he’s also been booked in some god-awful angles that make him look even worse; use the finish of the AJ Styles vs. Abyss match for reference or the “power of the ring†angle. His in-ring ability is awful, but even he knows that and so did other bookers other than the three stooges, who have exterminated every possible hardcore bump that Abyss use to do to get a reaction. Nowadays, a tack bump has just about as much substance as a wristlock. Abyss promos are also terrible. All he does is yell and spit into the camera; half the time, you cannot understand what he is saying. As said, this isn’t all Abyss’ fault, it has a lot to do with the booking too.
Most overrated wrestler of the year: Randy Orton. I know people love him, but I just don’t get the love. You could blame the poor booking for his failure of a title-run, but you cannot blame them for his sub-par, lackluster matches in big match situations. He is the prototype of the Buffalo Bills in wrestling, meaning he chokes. His matches mostly are very plotting and sluggish. They also have terrible baby-face psychology because of Randy Orton simply not knowing how to work as a baby-face. His promos haven’t been good; he delivers them very robotic and monotonous, making it hard to get behind anything he says, plus he is hit or miss on his facial expressions and mannerisms. Sometimes they are serviceable to the story, but most of the times, he oversells them to a degree where he looks like a cartoon character, which makes me want to laugh at him instead of feeling his anger. I do not like to bury wrestlers like this, but somebody had to be most overrated. Hopefully, Randy Orton can improve all-around next year.
Most underrated: Samoa Joe. I could have come up with about a dozen that could easily get this award. However, Samoa Joe has really had a rough year. Earlier in the year, he actually received a title-shot, but he lost the match. Then he was shortly kidnapped by ninjas. Yes, ninjas; I am not lying. He later came back in one of the silliest ways they could’ve possibly done this, to the point where even Taz—the color announcer/ sales-men for angles—couldn’t help but laugh at this absurdity. There was no explanation in what happened. TNA just acted as if it never happened, so the only thing that was accomplished was TNA keeping Samoa Joe off TV some more. Subsequently, at the very least, you’d think that this would fortify Joe as a suitable monster, something he’s been so great at, but nope, it went absolutely nowhere for his character. He then ended up in a buzz-kill angle, for any wrestler still not over their prime, with Jarrett, Nash, and Sting. Jarrett ended up turning on Joe, which all said and done established one thing: making Joe look like a total idiot again. Currently, he’s in an awful feud with Jeff Jarrett and has already lost a match with Jarrett in a singles match; and has to look forward to a sham MMA match with Jeffery. Talk about a terrible year for Samoa Joe, who is without question one of the best big men not only in the business right now, but also arguably in the top list of all-time, with his amazing agility and his realistic monster offense.
Best scientific wrestler: Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson). Daniel Bryan aka Bryan Danielson is becoming the Chris Benoit of this decade. His matches are technical masterpieces. Sadly, you cannot take in account his brilliant ROH matches, minus the Nigel McGuiness send off match. However, that did not stop him from becoming the best worker this year. He started off early with an action-filled, stiff match with Low Ki in FCW. In WWE, he worked some good short-matches, but he never got the time to show off what he was capable of until Summerslam, which was his re-debut after being fired. He came back with vengeance and, most importantly, intensity—something that has been omitted in WWE for a while—giving the most stellar performance in the match. Afterwards, he feuded with the Miz and had the best Miz match up to date.
Best on Promos: CM Punk. There were some other possibilities for best promo of the year—Miz, John Cena, Alberto Del Rio, among others—but CM Punk is simply incomparable to them in consistency and delivery. Punk is solidifying himself as one of the best talkers in the history of the WWE. His delivery is perfect; his facial expressions sell the story; and his mannerisms and body language are superlative. His promo of the year was bar none the one with Rey Mysterio and his family. His heel mannerisms were so brilliant, even the most jaded fans had a bit of a sense of dislike for him. Punk is even a decent announcer and does not have much experience at it. He is better than every color person in the WWE is.
Best Tag Team of the year: Motor City Machine Guns. Well, TNA are not going to win many awards this year, so they should be thankful they have something going for them. The MCMG, about two years late, finally won their first tag-team championship in a rather solid match with Beer Money. They followed that up with a few more in a best out of seven series. In the last match of the series, Beer Money and MCMG had one of the best matches this year in an incredible athletic performance by the MCMG. They went along to have a few more good matches with Generation Me. Then they actually have an impressive match with Team 3D, which should make them best tag-team wrestlers of the year by default. Their promos have been entertaining and just overall they are a team to for any fan from gullible to jaded to generally like because of their natural ability and likeable personas. Hands off to the MCMG for being a diamond in the roughage in which we call TNA.
Best match of the year: Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels, Wrestlemania 26: This wasn’t the best year for MOTYC matches, so this one wins by default. It was a terrific match with great storytelling and psychology by both men. Undertaker actually sold the knee probably close to the best he’s ever done at a sell-job. The build was also excellent leading up to the match; it had one of the best promo packages that I’ve ever seen building up the match too. In a nutshell, this had virtually everything you want pre, while and afterwards in a match: anticipation, drama, in-depth characters, psychology, storytelling, intensity, and an emotional, yet satisfying, ending.
Worst match of the year: Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. There are a few matches that happened this year that could in fact give this match a run for its money in awfulness; however, this match just beats them in the long run in it. This match was supposed to accomplish only two minor things: (1) Bret Hart to get his revenge on Mr. McMahon and (2) end it with a satisfying finish. They did in fact accomplish both of those things, but the execution is what murdered this match. Prior to the match, the build was hokey. Instead of just having Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon, they had to do this entire angle with Bret Hart getting hurt by a car when he was getting into his limo, but it was all bogus and planned by John Cena and Bret Hart for Vince McMahon to accept the match. To make matters worse, the booking was dreadful for the start of the show. Vince McMahon paid off Bret Hart’s family in order to turn on Bret; however, yet again, it was a ploy by the Harts, making Vince McMahon look like a moron, imploring the question of fans a kayfaboulous question, “How is this man the owner of the WWE if he’s this stupid?†The match itself was way too long for what it should have been. Bret Hart couldn’t take a bump due to the terrible condition he was in due to his stroke.
Best Overall Company: WWE. This is like winning the NFC West Conference this year. Most companies didn’t have a great year this year, but WWE had a decent year and since nobody comes close to decent year, WWE wins by default. WWE’s product this year has been inconsistent to say the least. Raw has been up and down this year, with the ups being really high and the lows being really low, especially the goofy, overly scripted backstage skits and 99.9 percent of the Guest Raw skits. However, they delivered as a show when the time was most needed. The hype for Wrestlemania on Raw was intriguing, as it made you get invested into the angles on the show, making you want to order/watch the show. The Nexus angle was pure brilliance when they needed something desperately, too. Along with the entire Cena-Wade Barrett angle—which even though it has plot points where you could criticize—has delivered on anticipation week-to-week and intrigue to see where they go with the angle. Smackdown was a hit or miss show that you could watch if you had nothing to do, or have TiVo, or download it until they went to Syfy. Now the show is dreadful, but nonetheless, it was hit or miss throughout the year. NXT season 1 was intriguing for a while, while the others were just god-awful. And although I do not get Superstars, I hear it was a solid wrestling show this year. Their PPVS have been also inconsistent. Some PPVS like Elimination Chamber, Wrestlemania, and Money in the Bank were solid PPVS. However, there were some terrible ones as well, such as Bragging Rights and Over the Limit. Their buy-rates have fallen badly this year, though, and their ratings have not been too remarkable. So, all and all, as you can see, WWE has been an inconsistent year, giving you some good and bad, but they win this by default just because of the competition.
Worst Overall Company: TNA. TNA has no competition in this award, as they are easily the worst company this year. Sure, you could prove to me that they have had good matches this year, which they have, but good matches time to time doesn’t make you a good company. This company is such an epic failure in terms of management and booking that I need a two Morning Backlashes to get into details. What makes it so sad is that they have such a talented roster. In fact, they have the most talented roster in professional wrestling. Yet Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, and Hulk Hogan cannot book anything that start to finish delivers as an angle. There is always a major hole in the story, making it not realistic; there is always backwards booking where they face does heel-tactics making him more of a jerk than a good person and the heel has the sympathy on him. There is always some dumbfounded booking decision that as a fan you cannot just build any interest or trust in this company. Of course, this is just my opinion, but the cold-hard facts are objective, not subjective. They made a big deal about Hulk Hogan coming to TNA and going to Monday nights. They were destroyed and humiliated just about after the first Impact where they dropped the ball immensely, which caused them to put their tails between their legs and walk back with their heads down back to Thursday nights. They could’ve even establish a 1.0 rating for quite sometime when they even went back to Thursday, which mostly every wrestling fans knows if the world was in danger of ending on a Thursday night, TNA would still get a 1.0. Also, since Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff have came in the PPV numbers have dropped to an absurd number. In fact, they only did like around 8,000 buys on their second biggest show of the year. Oh, and must I not forget the annoying surprises on just about every PPV that either had (a) no surprise or (b) they hyped it up as The Rock was coming to TNA when it was Tommy Dreamer. Concisely, this company is a train-wreck. And until they fire their “creative†staff, I do not think they will ever not be nominated for worst company of the year.
Biggest surprise of the year: Vince Russo surviving another year as TNA’s head-writer. This shocks me more than anything does by far. At first, you have Hogan and Bischoff come in and from their past experiences, you think for sure Vince Russo is gone. However, he still maintains his job. Then you have the rumors of Paul Heyman wanting to take the position. However, Paul Heyman declines the offer and Russo keeps his job. Afterwards, Vince Russo states that he wants to take a league of absent from writing from TNA. However, for some reason, he doesn’t quit. Additionally, he hasn’t accomplished one major thing in TNA for the company’s own benefit. He’s been the most detrimental thing that has ever happened to that company in fact, with Hogan and Bischoff coming in runner-up. He doesn’t know how to get anyone over; he doesn’t know how to book anything in order to make money off it; he hasn’t helped the ratings; and he has affected the buy-rates in a terrible way. He also openly admitted he hates to read. He said he gets sick of wrestling fans crying about his fake written wrestling shows. He has a serious case of ADHD. His writing has never made logical sense, making his angles impossible to follow. And every single minor/major detail in basic, 101 booking, he simply does the opposite. In addition, for the most part, none of the wrestlers likes him as well as a lot of other people. Yet for some oddly, unfathomable reason, Vince Russo still has a job. It’s astonishing.
If you like for me to answerer one of your questions in a certain possible award, feel free to do so. I will either (a) answer it or (b) tell you I cannot answer it because of a particular reason, such as best announcer of the year, because I could not tell you who I think could be considered the best out of Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Matt Striker, Mike Tenay, Taz, Prazak, etc.
Until then I am out until next Friday. Enjoy your weekend and be safe.
