Finally got round to doing the top 50. Only matches I saw count so I'm sure there are plenty of indie matches that I didn't catch which could have been included. Only one female match made it on to the list sadly.
Top 50 Matches of 2011:
1. CM Punk vs. John Cena (WWE Championship), Money in the Bank
2. Kevin Steen vs. El Generico (PWG World Championship - Ladder Match), Steen Wolf
3. Christian vs. Randy Orton (World Heavyweight Championship), Over the Limit
4. Triple H vs. The Undertaker (No Holds Barred), Wrestlemania
5. Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle, (Ultra Male Rules), Lockdown
6. Davey Richards vs. Eddie Edwards (Ring of Honor World Championship), Best in the World
7. El Generico and Ricochet vs. Kevin Steen and Akira Tozawa, All Star Weekend Eight
8. Kevin Steen vs. El Generico (Tournament Final), Battle of Los Angeles
9. Austin Aries vs. Jack Evans vs. Zema Ion vs. Low Ki (Contract Match), Destination X
10. Christian vs. Randy Orton (World Heavyweight Championship - No Holds Barred), Summerslam
11. CM Punk vs. John Cena (WWE Championship), Summerslam
12. Christian vs. Randy Orton (World Heavyweight Championship - Steel Cage), SmackDown
13. Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle, Against All Odds
14. Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio (World Heavyweight Championship - Ladder Match), Extreme Rules
15. SmackDown Money in the Bank Match, Money in the Bank
16. CM Punk vs. Randy Orton, Wrestlemania
17. SmackDown Elimination Chamber Match (World Heavyweight Championship), Elimination Chamber
18. CM Punk vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. The Miz (WWE Championship - TLC Match), TLC
19. Edge vs. Dolph Ziggler (World Heavyweight Championship), Royal Rumble
20. Austin Aries vs. Brian Kendrick (X-Division Championship), Bound for Glory
21. Kazarian vs. Samoa Joe, Destination X
22. Rob Van Damn vs. Jerry Lynn (Full Metal Mayhem), Bound for Glory
23. Immortal vs. Fourtune (Lethal Lockdown), Lockdown
24. Jeff Jarrett vs. Kurt Angle, Slammiversary
25. Dave Finlay vs. Kevin Steen, Battle of Los Angeles
26. El Generico vs. Christopher Daniels (Television Title), Best in the World
27. The Young Bucks vs. FutureShock (PWG Tag Team Championships), Steen Wolf
28. James Storm vs. Kurt Angle, Final Resolution
29. World's Greatest Tag Team vs. Kings of Wrestling (Ring of Honor Tag Team Championships), Honor Takes Centre Stage
30. CM Punk vs. Randy Orton (Last Man Standing), Extreme Rules
31. Kevin Steen vs. Steve Corino (No Disqualification), Final Battle
32. Alberto Del Rio vs. CM Punk (WWE Championship), Survivor Series
33. Jay Lethal vs. El Generico vs. Mike Bennett (Television Title), Final Battle
34. The Young Bucks vs. Generation Next (PWG Tag Team Championships), All Star Weekend Eight
35. Nicole Matthews vs. Jessie McKay (2/3 Falls Match), SHIMMER Volume 39
36. Christian vs. Randy Orton (World Heavyweight Championship), Capitol Punishment
37. Bully Ray vs. AJ Styles (Last Man Standing), Slammiversary
38. All Night Express vs. The Briscoe Brothers (Ladder War), Death Before Dishonor
39. Bobby Roode vs. AJ Styles (TNA World Heavyweight Championship - Ironman Match), Final Resolution
40. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels, Destination X
41. Christian vs. Randy Orton (World Heavyweight Championship), Money in the Bank
42. Cody Rhodes vs. Rey Mysterio, Wrestlemania
43. Beer Money vs. Motor City Machine Guns (TNA World Tag Team Championships), Genesis
44. CM Punk vs. Rey Mysterio, Capitol Punishment
45. Bobby Roode vs. AJ Styles (TNA World Heavyweight Championship), Turning Point
46. Triple H vs. CM Punk (No Disqualification Match), Night of Champions
47. Rob Van Dam vs. Christopher Daniels (No Disqualification Match), Turning Point
48. Alberto Del Rio vs. CM Punk vs. John Cena (WWE Championship - Hell in a Cell), Hell in a Cell
49. The Miz vs. John Morrison (WWE Championship - Falls Count Anywhere), RAW
50. Bully Ray vs. Mr. Anderson (Falls Count Anywhere), Bound for Glory
Monday 23 January 2012
Tuesday 3 January 2012
End of Year Awards 2011
Everyone was doing these so I thought I too would contribute. I had this
all sorted by New Year's Day, but it has taken me until now to post
them with other things getting in the way, lets get straight into them
though.
Company of the Year:
It hasn’t exactly been a landmark year for the WWE but it hasn’t been a terrible year either. The start of the year was distinctly average but it has grown in stature since then. We’ve seen great storylines such as Punk and Cena’s amongst other things. The failure to capitalise on this great angle was to detriment to the company as it seemed they were touching the realms of mainstream popular culture once more with it. In the end though it is mostly a failure from the other companies that gives WWE this award. TNA has been shambolic for most of the year and until October watching was at times painful. Since a very decent Bound For Glory, however, they have provided some of the most entertaining shows of the year but it was too little, too late for them in this category. Ring of Honor has had a poor year too by their standards despite a move to broadcast television and it was capped off by an underwhelming Final Battle and they rest in third place. I haven’t seen enough of PWG (although SteenWolf was exceptional), SHIMMER or others to make a judgement on how they have compared.
Superstar of the Year:
Wrestler of the Year
This is slightly different to the Superstar of the Year award in that I was only taking into account the matches rather than the overall package. I found this to be a far more difficult award to give. There have been so many people who have had great matches this year. Christian, Randy Orton, CM Punk, Kevin Steen, AJ Styles, Bobby Roode amongst others have all had great matches this year. I finally decided to give the award to the Generic Luchador though. The man carried on where he left off after the previous year’s mind blowing feud with Kevin Steen in RoH ended with a magnificent match at Final Battle 2010. He had some fabulous matches that I don’t really have the time to list here. But to give you an idea of his best one’s he had two fantastic matches with Steen in 2011 at the Battle of Los Angeles and the ladder match at Steen Wolf. He also had a mesmerising match at Best in the World competing for the Television Title with Christopher Daniels. At Death Before Dishonor I thought he had one of the best matches of the night with Jimmy Jacobs (despite it ending in a No Contest). And he had another very good match at Final Battle 2011 to end the year in a three-way dance with Jay Lethal and Mike Bennett. He was also part of a fabulous match earlier in the year for PWG teaming with Ricochet against the team of Steen and Akira Tozawa. I don’t think it can be disputed that as overall consistently entertaining matches go, El Generico rose above the rest.
The winner is: El Generico
Female Wrestler of the Year:
I don’t think I had any other choice in this category. It was never really going to be any of the diva’s and Melissa has just had one of those years. I’m yet to see the moment where she finally won the SHIMMER Title but I will be buying the DVD as soon as it becomes available. There have been some good competitors as Sara Del Rey had another great year as she always does. Mickie James also had a very entertaining year from start to finish. Nicole Matthews also has to be thrown into consideration along with SHIMMER Champion for most of the year Madison Eagles. Jessicka Havok has made waves in WSU too but none of them were quite a match for Melissa this year I didn’t feel. She puts on great performances at every show and I wish I could keep up with more of them but I always keep up with her SHIMMER stuff even if I do have to wait a fair amount of time for the DVD’s to come out and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award. She had great matches at the April tapings and although I’m yet to see them, she had a fantastic set of opponents for the tapings in October too.
The winner is: Cheerleader Melissa
Match of the Year:
This was a hard thing to do but I’m also planning on writing about my Top 50 matches of 2011 at some point so I won’t tell you who else was in consideration. Cena vs. Punk was more than just a wrestling match, it was the art of storytelling at its very best. It had the benefit of being in front of a super-hot Chicago pro-Punk crowd, on the back of weeks of excitement at the level which WWE had not seen for many years. The false finishes, the almost interference, both men trying to do absolutely everything to beat the other man, this match had everything. It was truly a great spectacle, and for the fact that it went over thirty minutes and felt like only five was truly amazing.
The winner is: CM Punk vs. John Cena, Money in the Bank 2011
Angle/Feud of the Year:
Despite the fantastic feud between Steen and Ring of Honor, this seemed the only choice possible. If it had been capitalised upon it would have been the best storyline in the past decade, perhaps even more. It very nearly launched WWE back into the mainstream and the buzz it generated amongst wrestling fans was immense. It cemented Punk as a mainstay in the main event and it all started from that magnificent worked-shoot promo, to the amazing promo he gave at the contract signing with Vince and Cena all the way up to him walking in to the All-State Arena in Chicago to receive the raucous reception he deserved so much. This angle was brilliantly done, even if it did all fall apart soon after with the involvement of Triple H, Kevin Nash, The Miz, R-Truth and Alberto Del Rio.
The winner is: CM Punk vs. John Cena & the WWE
One-off Show of the Year:
It came down to three shows for me: Bound For Glory, Money In The Bank and Steen Wolf. Bound For Glory fell victim to the awful finish between Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode in the main event when it needed so badly that feel-good finish. That left us down to Steen Wolf and Money in the Bank. Each had high and low points. Steen Wolf was certainly more solid throughout whilst Money in the Bank seemed more bi-polar. In the end I went with Money in the Bank because for all the bad lows that were Kelly Kelly vs. Brie Bella and Mark Henry vs. Big Show. The highs more than made up for it. With the main event being my match of the year and Christian/Randy Orton having another tremendous bout (even if it was probably the weakest of their matches, it was still damn good). Plus it was supported by a very solid RAW Money in the Bank ladder match and an absolutely fantastic Smackdown Money in the Bank ladder match. Steen Wolf was a solid show throughout with a fantastic main event and it had the bonus of an epic return from Super Dragon, but it wasn’t quite enough to match up with Money in the Bank.
The winner is: Money in the Bank 2011
Best Moment of the Year:
I’m not even going to bother talking about any other potential contenders for this award because there was nothing in the entirety of the 2011 pro wrestling world that made me feel as happy as I did when Christian pulled down the World Heavyweight Championship belt at Extreme Rules. Sure two days later my extreme joy had turned to extreme disappointment and palpable anger but for the actual moment nothing came close. I have watched Christian since he first debuted in the WWF. When Edge & Christian, The Hardy Boyz and the Dudley’s were all fighting over the Tag Team titles I was always pulling for E&C because I thought they were so entertaining. When he turned on Edge I was very upset and it took me a long time to forgive Christian – I was still a kid at the time – but looking back that heel run was fantastic. I came to love Christian again when he became the Peeps Champion and had his solo heel run on RAW. I was screaming for WWE to put the Championship on him but they didn’t. A little while later I caught an episode of TNA and there was Christian. Up until that point I caught TNA when and if I could (it wasn’t always easy) but after I saw Christian was now there I made sure I saw it every single week, no matter how hard it was to find. He showed to me and everybody else exactly why WWE should have pulled the trigger on him. He had an amazing run in TNA and when he came back to WWE I felt sure they’d treat him right this time. Alas, nothing had changed and for whatever reason they didn’t see him as a star. So after all that, to see him win the World Heavyweight Championship, I imagine it is what it would feel like to see yor child win something important. I felt that much of a connection to Christian, he had entertained me so much over the years that to see him finally win the title that everyone knew was the one he wanted to win so much was perfect. I do feel like WWE could have done so, so, so much more with Christian than they did this year and I think that now his time is gone, I think WWE will never push him to the main event scene again but they can never take this moment away.
The winner is: Christian wins the World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules
Breakout Star of the Year:
This one is a bit of a cop out because they are obviously no longer a tag team. But I couldn’t separate these two as breakout stars of the year. They really came into their own as singles competitors and I hope they renew their rivalry over the World Heavyweight Title soon enough. They were joined in this category by Zack Ryder, Austin Aries, Daniel Bryan, Mark Henry and Bully Ray. All of whom, in different ways and at different stages of their career had massive breakouts to become stars in their own right. But I feel Storm and Roode both reached the next level with aplomb and earned the right to co-hold this award.
The winner is: Beer Money (James Storm & Bobby Roode)
Minor End-Year Awards:
Face of the Year: El Generico
Heel of the Year: Bully Ray
Commentator of the Year: Jim Ross
Gimmick/Character of the Year: Christopher Daniels’ arrogant “face of the company” gimmick
Tag Team of the Year: The All Night Express
Promo of the Year: CM Punk’s “Cena is a Dynasty” promo
Finisher of the Year: BRAINBUSTAAAH
Worst Moment of the Year: Jim Ross and Michael Cole’s Rap-Off
Televised Show of the Year (consistency-wise): SmackDown
Major End-Year
Awards
Company of the Year:
It hasn’t exactly been a landmark year for the WWE but it hasn’t been a terrible year either. The start of the year was distinctly average but it has grown in stature since then. We’ve seen great storylines such as Punk and Cena’s amongst other things. The failure to capitalise on this great angle was to detriment to the company as it seemed they were touching the realms of mainstream popular culture once more with it. In the end though it is mostly a failure from the other companies that gives WWE this award. TNA has been shambolic for most of the year and until October watching was at times painful. Since a very decent Bound For Glory, however, they have provided some of the most entertaining shows of the year but it was too little, too late for them in this category. Ring of Honor has had a poor year too by their standards despite a move to broadcast television and it was capped off by an underwhelming Final Battle and they rest in third place. I haven’t seen enough of PWG (although SteenWolf was exceptional), SHIMMER or others to make a judgement on how they have compared.
The winner is: WWE.
Superstar of the Year:
This was a very difficult category to identify who would go
down as superstar of the year. I considered many wrestlers until I finally
narrowed it down to three. Kevin Steen, CM Punk and Randy Orton. Steen, who
only wrestled one match for RoH all year was very prevalent in other companies
and Mr. Wrestling continued to entertain us like only he can but I decided he
hadn’t quite done enough this year to earn the moniker of Superstar of the
Year. Randy Orton may appear a strange choice to many but the man has had a
great year. His feuds with Christian and CM Punk produced some stellar matches
and even though he won too many times for my liking in them, he was redeemed by
putting over the likes of Mark Henry, Cody Rhodes and Wade Barrett later in the
year. Despite all this I realised Orton probably had the weakest claim of the
three to the title. The winner was fairly obvious to me in the end, nobody has
quite had the year that CM Punk has had. From his fantastic set of matches with
Orton, his amazing commentary, his good if a little short-lived feud with Cena
in the very early months of 2011, his wrestling-world halting worked shoot
promo in the summer, his matches at Money in the Bank and SummerSlam with Cena
to his very entertaining championship reigns. He has had quite a year.
Hopefully he will continue to do so throughout 2012.
The winner is: CM
Punk
Wrestler of the Year
This is slightly different to the Superstar of the Year award in that I was only taking into account the matches rather than the overall package. I found this to be a far more difficult award to give. There have been so many people who have had great matches this year. Christian, Randy Orton, CM Punk, Kevin Steen, AJ Styles, Bobby Roode amongst others have all had great matches this year. I finally decided to give the award to the Generic Luchador though. The man carried on where he left off after the previous year’s mind blowing feud with Kevin Steen in RoH ended with a magnificent match at Final Battle 2010. He had some fabulous matches that I don’t really have the time to list here. But to give you an idea of his best one’s he had two fantastic matches with Steen in 2011 at the Battle of Los Angeles and the ladder match at Steen Wolf. He also had a mesmerising match at Best in the World competing for the Television Title with Christopher Daniels. At Death Before Dishonor I thought he had one of the best matches of the night with Jimmy Jacobs (despite it ending in a No Contest). And he had another very good match at Final Battle 2011 to end the year in a three-way dance with Jay Lethal and Mike Bennett. He was also part of a fabulous match earlier in the year for PWG teaming with Ricochet against the team of Steen and Akira Tozawa. I don’t think it can be disputed that as overall consistently entertaining matches go, El Generico rose above the rest.
The winner is: El Generico
Female Wrestler of the Year:
I don’t think I had any other choice in this category. It was never really going to be any of the diva’s and Melissa has just had one of those years. I’m yet to see the moment where she finally won the SHIMMER Title but I will be buying the DVD as soon as it becomes available. There have been some good competitors as Sara Del Rey had another great year as she always does. Mickie James also had a very entertaining year from start to finish. Nicole Matthews also has to be thrown into consideration along with SHIMMER Champion for most of the year Madison Eagles. Jessicka Havok has made waves in WSU too but none of them were quite a match for Melissa this year I didn’t feel. She puts on great performances at every show and I wish I could keep up with more of them but I always keep up with her SHIMMER stuff even if I do have to wait a fair amount of time for the DVD’s to come out and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of this award. She had great matches at the April tapings and although I’m yet to see them, she had a fantastic set of opponents for the tapings in October too.
The winner is: Cheerleader Melissa
Match of the Year:
This was a hard thing to do but I’m also planning on writing about my Top 50 matches of 2011 at some point so I won’t tell you who else was in consideration. Cena vs. Punk was more than just a wrestling match, it was the art of storytelling at its very best. It had the benefit of being in front of a super-hot Chicago pro-Punk crowd, on the back of weeks of excitement at the level which WWE had not seen for many years. The false finishes, the almost interference, both men trying to do absolutely everything to beat the other man, this match had everything. It was truly a great spectacle, and for the fact that it went over thirty minutes and felt like only five was truly amazing.
The winner is: CM Punk vs. John Cena, Money in the Bank 2011
Angle/Feud of the Year:
Despite the fantastic feud between Steen and Ring of Honor, this seemed the only choice possible. If it had been capitalised upon it would have been the best storyline in the past decade, perhaps even more. It very nearly launched WWE back into the mainstream and the buzz it generated amongst wrestling fans was immense. It cemented Punk as a mainstay in the main event and it all started from that magnificent worked-shoot promo, to the amazing promo he gave at the contract signing with Vince and Cena all the way up to him walking in to the All-State Arena in Chicago to receive the raucous reception he deserved so much. This angle was brilliantly done, even if it did all fall apart soon after with the involvement of Triple H, Kevin Nash, The Miz, R-Truth and Alberto Del Rio.
The winner is: CM Punk vs. John Cena & the WWE
One-off Show of the Year:
It came down to three shows for me: Bound For Glory, Money In The Bank and Steen Wolf. Bound For Glory fell victim to the awful finish between Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode in the main event when it needed so badly that feel-good finish. That left us down to Steen Wolf and Money in the Bank. Each had high and low points. Steen Wolf was certainly more solid throughout whilst Money in the Bank seemed more bi-polar. In the end I went with Money in the Bank because for all the bad lows that were Kelly Kelly vs. Brie Bella and Mark Henry vs. Big Show. The highs more than made up for it. With the main event being my match of the year and Christian/Randy Orton having another tremendous bout (even if it was probably the weakest of their matches, it was still damn good). Plus it was supported by a very solid RAW Money in the Bank ladder match and an absolutely fantastic Smackdown Money in the Bank ladder match. Steen Wolf was a solid show throughout with a fantastic main event and it had the bonus of an epic return from Super Dragon, but it wasn’t quite enough to match up with Money in the Bank.
The winner is: Money in the Bank 2011
Best Moment of the Year:
I’m not even going to bother talking about any other potential contenders for this award because there was nothing in the entirety of the 2011 pro wrestling world that made me feel as happy as I did when Christian pulled down the World Heavyweight Championship belt at Extreme Rules. Sure two days later my extreme joy had turned to extreme disappointment and palpable anger but for the actual moment nothing came close. I have watched Christian since he first debuted in the WWF. When Edge & Christian, The Hardy Boyz and the Dudley’s were all fighting over the Tag Team titles I was always pulling for E&C because I thought they were so entertaining. When he turned on Edge I was very upset and it took me a long time to forgive Christian – I was still a kid at the time – but looking back that heel run was fantastic. I came to love Christian again when he became the Peeps Champion and had his solo heel run on RAW. I was screaming for WWE to put the Championship on him but they didn’t. A little while later I caught an episode of TNA and there was Christian. Up until that point I caught TNA when and if I could (it wasn’t always easy) but after I saw Christian was now there I made sure I saw it every single week, no matter how hard it was to find. He showed to me and everybody else exactly why WWE should have pulled the trigger on him. He had an amazing run in TNA and when he came back to WWE I felt sure they’d treat him right this time. Alas, nothing had changed and for whatever reason they didn’t see him as a star. So after all that, to see him win the World Heavyweight Championship, I imagine it is what it would feel like to see yor child win something important. I felt that much of a connection to Christian, he had entertained me so much over the years that to see him finally win the title that everyone knew was the one he wanted to win so much was perfect. I do feel like WWE could have done so, so, so much more with Christian than they did this year and I think that now his time is gone, I think WWE will never push him to the main event scene again but they can never take this moment away.
The winner is: Christian wins the World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules
Breakout Star of the Year:
This one is a bit of a cop out because they are obviously no longer a tag team. But I couldn’t separate these two as breakout stars of the year. They really came into their own as singles competitors and I hope they renew their rivalry over the World Heavyweight Title soon enough. They were joined in this category by Zack Ryder, Austin Aries, Daniel Bryan, Mark Henry and Bully Ray. All of whom, in different ways and at different stages of their career had massive breakouts to become stars in their own right. But I feel Storm and Roode both reached the next level with aplomb and earned the right to co-hold this award.
The winner is: Beer Money (James Storm & Bobby Roode)
Minor End-Year Awards:
Face of the Year: El Generico
Heel of the Year: Bully Ray
Commentator of the Year: Jim Ross
Gimmick/Character of the Year: Christopher Daniels’ arrogant “face of the company” gimmick
Tag Team of the Year: The All Night Express
Promo of the Year: CM Punk’s “Cena is a Dynasty” promo
Finisher of the Year: BRAINBUSTAAAH
Worst Moment of the Year: Jim Ross and Michael Cole’s Rap-Off
Televised Show of the Year (consistency-wise): SmackDown
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