End of Year Awards - The 2013 Edition

Major End-Year Awards

Company of the Year:

This was easily the most difficult year to decide this category since I started doing these awards. We’ll start with last year’s winners: TNA. TNA could not in any way follow up what they managed in 2012. They had a very poor 2013, mainly due to Ace’s and Eight’s clogging up the television and the under-utilisation of stars such as Austin Aries and Bobby Roode. They had given themselves hope of rectifying their year somewhat when they starting pushing AJ Styles back towards the main event. Taking inspiration from 96/97 WCW the direction they took AJ’s character was an interesting one (down the ‘Crow’ Sting path for those who haven’t been watching) but they didn’t quite execute it right. Him facing Bully Ray at Bound For Glory felt a lot less like Sting vs. Hollywood Hogan than it should have because they got the details of the story wrong. At the end of the day it was all for nought anyway as they weirdly attempted to turn AJ into a poor man’s CM Punk (something that is not his forte) and then completely botched the whole thing by allowing the best thing they’ve ever produced to leave the company. I know wherever he goes he will be a massive success, whether he manages to get signed to WWE (I’m not sure he’d want to go to NXT), goes back to the likes of ROH or even maybe goes to Mexico or Japan. This was a dark year for TNA and I think it may be a while, if ever, before the promotion recovers. WWE haven’t had a great year but they have had a very good one. They started off poorly, I still believe ending CM Punk’s title reign at the Royal Rumble and doing John Cena vs. The Rock at WrestleMania for the second year running were mistakes. They did improve as the year went on though helped by the fantastic work done by the upper midcard desperate to insert themselves into the upper echelons of the division. The likes of Dolph Ziggler, whose cash in and subsequent feud with Alberto Del Rio was one of the highlights; The Shield, who have shown that all three will be massive stars (providing WWE don’t attempt to shove Reigns down the fans’ throats) and in particular, Daniel Bryan. I’m not sure what the line of thinking was by putting him in The Wyatt Family but thankfully that particular storyline has already come to an abrupt end and the moment he fights back against Bray could be a great contender for next year’s ‘Best Moment of the Year’ award. Scrolling back to 2013 though Bryan was fantastic, the weak link storyline is one of the best bits of subtle storytelling WWE have done in a while and it truly made Bryan a star. His victory at Summerslam was amazing and although it was cut short and he was soon after taken out of the title picture I have to think he will be headed back there soon. Actually, alongside Batista I think he’s one of the favourites for the Royal Rumble. I think WWE would be smart to go with Bryan because we’re getting to the point where he is so over that the fans may well reject anybody else winning, even if it is Batista. In terms of pure wrestling this was probably the best year WWE has had since 2000. Overall though it still wasn’t quite enough to claim promotion of the year. ROH had a very good year as they continue their recovery from the unfortunate Jim Cornette era. They delivered some great shows such as The Anniversary Show, Supercard of Honor VII and All Star Extravaganza V which we’ll come on to later. There were plenty of highs such as the culmination of Kevin Steen’s brilliant World Title reign, the evolution and eventual destruction of SCUM, the crowning of a new World Champion in Adam Cole and the beginning of his reign. We also saw the emergence of reDRagon as a real force in the tag team division I think they have a very bright future in Ring of Honor and O’Reilly is definitely a future world champion in both ROH and PWG. That brings me nicely on to PWG who had a landmark year. Apart from DDT4, which at least had the emotional send off for PWG legend El Generico, every show this year was fantastic. The Battle of Los Angeles was probably the best edition of the tournament yet and Night Two was absolutely phenomenal, but we’ll get to that later too. As well as Generico they also have had to deal with the departure of the uber popular Sami Callihan and the lucha sensation Samuray Del Sol but as they always do PWG merely adapted to the departures and carried on producing amazing shows. Adam Cole’s title reign has been fantastic and the formation of Mount Rushmore is one of the greatest things I’ve seen in a while. Overall, due to the quality of matches, great moments and stories such as the Mount Rushmore one, which could seriously go anywhere in 2014, PWG just gets the nod over some stiff competition.

The winner is: PWG

Superstar of the Year:

I would like to give a special mention to Adam Cole and The Shield here as I feel they have both had career years but they will both be discussed more in other categories later so I don’t want to take up all the material, but The Shield as a trio and Cole were the closest anyone got to the man who won this award. At the end of the day though there was no real competition this year for this award, it was always going to Daniel Bryan. His evolution from the start of the year in an, albeit successful, comedy team with Kane to the man who ended The Shield’s undefeated streak to the man who beat John Cena and won the biggest prize in the industry. He’s had a stellar year but he’s more than delivered on the entertainment front too. Even from the start with some of his comedy segments with Kane he’s always been one of the better parts of every RAW, SmackDown and PPV he’s been on. He really hit top form when the weak link storyline took hold. He became more aggressive and intense in the ring which led to some of his best matches since his ROH days, his mic work continues to improve and he’s just a well-rounded professional wrestler right now. I hope WWE realise what a star they have on their hands right now because this guy could and should main event WrestleMania, he’s that good and he’s that popular. The reaction to him everywhere they go whether it be when Cena announced Bryan was the man he was picking to face himself at Summerslam, or during the ascension ceremony supposedly about Cena and Randy Orton. I could go on and on, but he is so over right now that they would be fools not to capitalise on it. The way The Authority have continually screwed him is a perfect set up for him as well, the story is there, just use it!

The winner is: Daniel Bryan

Wrestler of the Year:

It’s hard to believe I am saying this but somehow, despite being in the three best matches of the year (spoiler alert for my Top 50 Matches which will be up once PWG releases All Star Weekend X and I can finish my list off), CM Punk didn’t quite do enough to win this award. The three matches in question against John Cena on RAW in February, The Undertaker at WrestleMania and Brock Lesnar at Summerslam were all amazing encounters but the rest of the year did not see many amazing matches from him. Post-Summerslam he was stuck in some awful feuds that didn’t really allow him good matches and he did miss part of the year through injury so despite those three incredible encounters he didn’t quite do enough to win ‘Wrestler of the Year’ this time round.  Kevin Steen also had a magnificent year. He somehow dragged an absolutely unbelievable match out of Michael Bennett at Final Battle, he had a – what stands as now with shows still to be watched – top 5 match of the year against Jay Lethal at The Anniversary Show and he’s had some incredible matches in PWG against the likes of Johnny Gargano at the Battle of Los Angeles and Adam Cole and Drake Younger in a three-way Guerrilla Warfare match at TEN. He didn’t do quite enough either though. I try to make a point whenever I am writing this award to distinguish between Superstar and Wrestler of the Year. The former is based on the whole package whereas the latter is purely based on in-ring performance. So it’s not a given that the same performer will win both, in fact, this year is the first year that it has ever happened. Yes, this year wrestler of the year goes to Daniel Bryan, his performances in numerous six man tags against The Shield, pretty much every PPV match he’s taken part in, specifically against Cena at Summerslam, his matches against Orton both on PPV and on RAW, his singles matches with separate members of The Shield, specifically one from June against Rollins, his incredible match with Cesaro – who was great in the ring in his own right this year – in the gauntlet on RAW. Everything he’s done in the ring this year has been nothing short of amazing.

The winner is: Daniel Bryan

Female Wrestler of the Year:

It wasn’t a banner year for women’s wrestling by any stretch of the imagination but it was far from the worst either. At the end of the year for me it came down to three women. 2011 winner Cheerleader Melissa, WWE’s most prominent diva AJ Lee and Candice LeRae. Candice only really entered the race towards the back end of the year and that’s maybe why she came up short. My obsessive watching of every WWE, TNA, ROH and PWG show and as many SHIMMER shows as I possibly can leaves little room for anything else so I didn’t catch anything Candice did outside of PWG. However, what she did do in the three shows (it will be five when they release All Star Weekend) of 2013 was mightily impressive. She’d been gone for quite a while before her return at TEN but she showed the entire audience what they’d been missing with some great performances the best of which was most definitely on Night Two of the Battle of Los Angeles when she teamed up with Rich Swann and AR Fox to take on the Mount Rushmore team of Adam Cole and The Young Bucks. This match was one of the best matches of the year and I would be surprised if it slipped out of my top ten (there would have to be a lot of good matches at All Star Weekend). I’d go so far to say as it’s one of the best six-man tag team matches in PWG history, just a tremendous match. But in reality Candice was never going to win, her performances on three shows are nowhere near enough for me to even consider her for this award but I have mentioned her because I feel her work deserved an honourable mention. Next up is the representative from WWE. I’ve had a big turnaround on this particular lady. I always quite liked AJ and thought she performed admirably at every role she was given, up until RAW1000 in 2012. She was appointed RAW General Manager and from then (July) until she was relieved of her duties for the purposes of the John Cena/Dolph Ziggler storyline (December) she was the most insufferable person on WWE television (quite the challenge in the latter half of 2012). However, how she performed in her on-screen relationship with Dolph and subsequent venture into the diva’s division full-time won back my favour. This year she participated in the first WWE produced female storyline I’ve cared about in years. The story, and match at Payback, she had with Kaitlyn was absolutely phenomenal. It was so well crafted and played to the strengths of both performers. In the ring her performances weren’t always great but the aforementioned match with Kaitlyn at Payback was very, very good and she had an equally good match – from a technical standpoint, it didn’t have the emotion or story behind it – with Natalya on Main Event in November. She has led the diva’s division to a position higher on the totem pole than it has been probably since the days of Trish and Lita. Although it hasn’t reached those heights and still isn’t taken seriously by the majority of people both within WWE and consuming it they are still in a far better position at the start of 2014 than they were at the start of 2013 and AJ deserves a lot of credit for that. The winner though, for the second time in three years, is Cheerleader Melissa. It astounds me that WWE don’t want to sign this girl. They’re threatening to create a half decent division in their developmental territory, NXT, with the likes of Emma and Paige at the forefront and the main roster has improved, as mentioned previously, Melissa would be perfect to lead either division. Alas, for whatever reason, they don’t seem to want to sign her but the only two-time SHIMMER Champion in history had a great year nonetheless with some great matches against the likes of Mercedes Martinez and Courtney Rush. The best match she had this year though took place over WrestleMania weekend in SHIMMER’s first ever iPPV where she defeated Saraya Knight inside of a steel cage to reclaim the SHIMMER Championship. The match was outstanding and showcased both women’s great skills. Melissa is a deserving two-time SHIMMER and now she’s a deserving two-time winner of my Female Wrestler of the Year award.

The winner is: Cheerleader Melissa

Match of the Year:

This year’s matches were among the highest quality I have ever seen, it was a fantastic year but as per usual with this award I don’t like to divulge too much about the other candidates as I will be releasing my Top 50 Matches of the Year in the not too distant future – hopefully. The match that won took place in Dallas in February on Monday Night RAW and it featured John Cena putting his Championship match against The Rock at WrestleMania he’d earned by winning the Royal Rumble on the line against the man who lost the WWE Championship to The Rock at the same pay-per-view, CM Punk. It was an encounter that in reality should have been quite dull, we’d see Cena and Punk face off multiple times in the last eighteen months and the result was a foregone conclusion, it was difficult so see how this match could be compelling. These two are so good though that they delivered a compelling match and then some. A back and forth encounter with great psychology showing how each man had learned from their mistakes in previous matches that even had the most ardent and jaded wrestling fan jumping out of their seats. At one point Punk hit Cena with a regular piledriver, a move that hasn’t been seen in a long, long time and I – despite being one hundred percent certain before the match that Cena was winning – was halfway through cheering a Punk victory when Cena kicked out. It was an awesome match, one that was perhaps even better than their encounter at Money in the Bank in July 2011. Truly phenomenal and an absolute cinch to win this award.

The winner is: CM Punk vs. John Cena – RAW (25^th February)

Angle/Feud of the Year:

There were several good candidates for angle of the year this year. We start with the company of the year, PWG, and their fantastically entertaining new faction Mount Rushmore who formed at the end of this year. The stable consisting of Young Bucks, Adam Cole and Kevin Steen came together at the end of this year’s Battle of Los Angeles and made an immediate impact. They’ve wreaked havoc since but as this angle is very much in its infancy I feel it’s likely one that will be considered for next year’s award rather than this one. Moving on to TNA, they didn’t do much right this year – and even this one had flaws were it could have been massively improved – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely hooked by the evolution of AJ Styles over 2013. He returned as a dark, silent heel and morphed into more of a lone wolf tweener character before he turned face by helping the Main Event Mafia defeat Ace’s and Eight’s in a heavily promoted tag match on Impact. Unfortunately, TNA didn’t even execute this right by having it occur on a taped show rather than the live(ish) one and by doing it in an arena from a part of a country with very little knowledge of the product. This meant the audience didn’t react the way that they would have done in more of a TNA stronghold lessening the impact of the moment. Over to WWE and the star of the year Daniel Bryan. In the latter part of the year, before the weird transition away from the main event and into the feud with the Wyatt’s, Bryan feuded with The Authority, Vince McMahon and their handpicked corporate champion Randy Orton. Bryan raging against the machine was fun to watch for a little while but seeing him beaten down at the end of what seemed like every RAW soured it a little bit. There’s making someone look like an underdog and then there’s making them look like a chump. Unfortunately they veered awfully close to the latter quite often. Nevertheless this angle had its moments and, hopefully, once he wraps up his feud with Bray Wyatt this angle can come back to the forefront and be an angle for WrestleMania? If it is, and they pull the trigger on Bryan on the grandest stage of them all, I could definitely see this being in contention for next year’s award. Onto the next candidate. The RAW after WrestleMania is becoming a staple as one of the best RAW’s of any given year and this year’s was no different. The best moment of a top to bottom great show, for me at least, was Dolph Ziggler cashing in his Money in the Bank contract and winning the World Heavyweight Championship from Alberto Del Rio. Ziggler, who was a heel, got a massive reaction upon winning the belt and for once WWE seemed to listen. Fast forward through a concussion for Dolph to the Payback PPV and he defended his Championship against Del Rio. WWE decided to execute the lesser seen double turn with Alberto going heel and Ziggler going babyface. Boy, did it work. It worked gangbusters. The fans were on board and WWE had one of their hottest angles of the year. Sadly, they couldn’t finish it off properly. They never gave Dolph the Championship back and all of the excitement faded. All of the above was amazing to watch, the Payback match in particular where the crowd actually turned during the match was phenomenal. But their inability to follow it up with any kind of meaningful push for Dolph – which was what the fans really wanted to see ruled it out of contention. And so we come to the winner. The winner was an absolute goldmine of an angle. Not only was it richly entertaining to watch unfold but it also produced some of the greatest matches of this year and it turned an upper midcarder to occasional main eventer into a bonafide star. The angle was, of course, Daniel Bryan’s “weak link” angle. The story started with Bryan partially believing he was the weak link, partially believing the fans saw him as the weak link and one hundred and ten percent Bryan trying everything to prove he wasn’t. Bryan, and his tag team partner Kane, were at odds with the trio known as The Shield (I’ll get to them later) for the majority of the spring and summer. They regularly wrestled six man tags against them with different partners and they almost always came up short. With Bryan’s inferiority complex getting the better of him at times. Particularly when Randy Orton was their tag team partner or, in one case, Bryan’s only partner in a Tag Team Championship match against Rollins and Reigns. Bryan’s character was a major point of conflict between himself and Orton in particular. People have different ideas of when this particular angle came to an end, some say it stretched as far as when Bryan finally “proved himself, to himself” by beating John Cena at Summerslam. Either way, despite its weird positioning on SmackDown I’d say the defining moment of the angle came when Bryan scored the first ever victory (not counting disqualifications) against The Shield in the almost seven months since they debuted. Bryan forced Rollins to tap out to hand himself, Kane and Orton the victory and it was a massive moment (although, again, why it was on SmackDown and not PPV or at least RAW was baffling). It really cemented Bryan as a major player. The whole journey watching Bryan evolve as a character and in the ring (he really upped his intensity during this time) was amazing and led to some great moments and some great matches. Overall it was a truly phenomenal angle with a wonderful outcome and was nothing but pure entertainment from start to finish. Plus, it got Daniel Bryan to the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

The winner is: Daniel Bryan’s “Weak Link” Storyline

One-off Show of the Year:

This year saw some extremely good shows. Two stood above the rest of the pack but I do feel I have to give a special mention to two other shows which in any other year would have been majorly in the running for the show of the year but unfortunately could not compete with the two contenders here. First, we head to ROH and their fifth offering of All Star Extravaganza. This was just a really well paced show that flew over. It took part during the World Championship tournament ROH had running last year. There were no blow-away matches on the card but almost every match was a really fun offering. From the World Title tournament matches such as Michael Elgin vs. Paul London, Matt Taven vs. Roderick Strong and Silas Young vs. Tommaso Ciampa to the triple threat tag team match between The Young Bucks, C&C Wrestle Factory and Adrenaline Rush. The best match of the night was probably Adam Cole vs. Jay Lethal though. Cole is a revelation and was a deserving choice to be Champion at the end of the tournament and despite Lethal’s utter blandness he can’t half put on a good match. If he was able to showcase an ounce of charisma when he wasn’t impersonating someone he’d be amazing. Maybe he needs a heel turn? Who knows whether it would do any good but hell, it can’t hurt. What let down this show in the end though was the fact that although every match was good or even very good, no one match was amazing and the main event between The American Wolves and The Forever Hooligans was very average – one of the weakest matches on the show. Onto the next show that just missed the cut – Payback. WWE’s June offering looked extremely average on paper but it delivered more than I think anyone ever expected. The surprise of the Del Rio/Ziggler double turn added a little something to that, CM Punk and Chris Jericho had a very good match even the triple threat opener between The Miz, Wade Barrett and Curtis Axel was better than it had any right to be. AJ Lee and Kaitlyn had one of the best women’s matches in WWE in recent memory and The Shield vs. Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton was great too. Once again though, the main event let this show down with a very poor Three Stages of Hell match between John Cena and Ryback. That and a poorer than expected Kane vs. Dean Ambrose meant this show just didn’t quite do enough. So now, we come onto the two real contenders: PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles: Night Two and WWE’s Summerslam. Ironically both shows took place in Southern California and were separated by less than 25 miles and 13 days. PWG’s annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament got off to a great start on Night One but Night Two was where they truly blew everyone’s socks off. We opened up with the four quarter-final matches: Drake Younger and Brian Cage had a short but crazy opener to get us off to a hot start, Kevin Steen and Johnny Gargano put on an absolute classic, Michael Elgin and Roderick Strong had a nice match and then Kyle O’Reilly and ACH blew everyone away with a phenomenal, hard hitting, athletic, psychology heavy match. Truly a great four matches. A fun six man tag followed and then the Semi-Final’s with Elgin and Gargano having another terrific match before an good but somewhat underwhelming – compared to the rest of the show – match between Drake and O’Reilly. What followed was one of the best matches of the year as the new relationship between über heel’s Adam Cole and The Young Bucks continued as they took on AR Fox, Rich Swann and Candice LeRae. The match was absolutely insane and had the crowd on the edge of their seats every step of the way. Both teams worked so well in tandem and Candice was an absolute star in the match. There was a near fall near the end of the match which was among the best near fall’s I’ve ever seen when Candice hit a suicide dive DDT on Cole on the outside followed immediately by Rich Swann hitting a standing 450 splash on one Jackson brother while AR Fox hit a regular 450 on the other. It was truly amazing and the whole match was like that. It’s the most fun I’ve had watching wrestling in a long time, magnificent match. Then came the main event as Elgin took on O’Reilly in the main event. It struggled to follow the craziness that was the six person tag but they did well and had a good match all things considered. After the match though Adam Cole came back out and started taunting the winner O’Reilly, he received a kick to the head for his troubles but the Bucks came out and beat Kyle down. A clearly hurt Candice came out to try and make the save but was beat down herself. Next out was Joey Ryan, infamously Candice’s arch nemesis. He seemed happy with proceedings but then said “Guys, nobody beats this girl up but me” and superkicked Cole. He too was beat down though as was Drake when he tried to make the save. Then referee and professional Young Bucks hater Rick Knox got in the ring with a chair as did Kevin Steen. Steen shocked the world though by attacking Knox and hitting him with a package piledriver. He then hugged three men everyone thought he hated. He hit a package piledriver on Candice and snapped the Battle of Los Angeles trophy in half for good measure too (watch the video here). It was an amazing show from every viewpoint you could have: story wise, wrestling wise, this had everything. WWE’s Summerslam was their best offering of the annual show in eons. The show actually started off badly with a horrific match between Bray Wyatt and Kane but once that was done the show started to take off. Cody Rhodes and Damien Sandow had a good outing and then Christian and Alberto Del Rio took it to another level in their World Heavyweight Championship match putting on a sublime performance that would have been match of the night on any other show. When CM Punk and Brock Lesnar came out for their No Disqualification match the intensity ramped up another notch and the match was almost perfect. This was definitely Punk’s best match since his return and one of the best of his career. Everything about this match was great and both men came out of it looking like machines, truly brilliant. The main event was a thing of beauty as well as Daniel Bryan finally won the biggest title in the wrestling world by unseating John Cena to win the WWE Championship. It was an amazing match with an amazing ending and a truly ‘feel good’ moment. The fact that Randy Orton cashed in to beat him for the Championship actually made the show even better because of the intrigue of where they were going to go with this story next. Of course we haven’t had a satisfactory ending… yet. After a lot of deliberation I decided to give the victory to the Night 2 offering of this year’s Battle of Los Angeles though, simply because it was a slightly more consistent show and the ending segment being among the best I’ve ever seen.

The winner is: Battle of Los Angeles: Night Two

Best Moment of the Year:

There were so many great moments this year it is unfair to make pick. Going in chronological order we start the day after WrestleMania with a moment we’ve already touched on when Dolph Ziggler cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Dolph’s cash-in was amazing to see and will go down in history as one of the all-time great moments. Next up was the moment when John Cena announced he was picking Daniel Bryan as his opponent for Summerslam. The moment was long and drawn out but the pure joy I, and the entire arena who were lucky enough to be in attendance, felt when we heard that name was immeasurable. The disbelief was pretty big too because although I hoped they would pick him I didn’t actually believe it could happen. Next up is a moment we’ve already discussed, the moment where Daniel Bryan beat John Cena in that subsequent match for the WWE Championship. I was out of town on holiday in the middle of nowhere when Summerslam aired so for a week I went without a phone and didn’t touch a computer to make sure I avoided spoilers. Coming back and watching it on the Friday night almost a week after Summerslam took place and seeing that moment made it worth everything. Amazing. Next up is AJ Styles returning to his ‘Phenomenal’ self. The moment where AJ turned back face by helping the Main Event Mafia defeat Ace’s and Eight’s. Now in true TNA fashion they made a bungle of what could have been a huge moment but nevertheless as an ardent AJ fan I thought it was brilliant. It gave me goosebumps when he was stood halfway down the ramp and Evil Ways stopped playing and Get Ready To Fly started. Then came the infamous Mount Rushmore of Wrestling formation. This moment is the one mentioned in detail when I was talking about Battle of Los Angeles: Night Two earlier. Steen, Cole and The Bucks refer to themselves as Mount Rushmore and I can’t say enough good things about that moment when the group came together. It was amazing. Finally, we come to December and Monday Night RAW in Seattle. The ascension ceremony for the unification of the WWE Championship and the World Heavyweight Championship was meant to be all about John Cena and Randy Orton but it turned into a Seattle loves Daniel Bryan segment – and it was brilliant. In the end though, nothing quite topped Daniel Bryan lifting that WWE Championship in August at Summerslam. I’ve been watching Bryan since 2004 and after nearly a decade of watching him claw and scrap, knowing he was one of the best in the world, it was amazing to see him finally win the Championship he so richly deserved. It may have only lasted for a few minutes but it filled me with so much pride to see him finally “make it” on the big stage. I can only hope it is not the last time we see Daniel Bryan holding the WWE Championship, hopefully we will see him win it back at WrestleMania this year – it would be too perfect.

The winner is: Daniel Bryan wins WWE Title

Breakout Star of the Year:

There have been plenty of people who have had good years and risen up the ranks in 2013 but there are three men, all of whom win tonight because this year’s breakout star had to go to a faction – The Shield. The Shield debuted late last year with a shocking and memorable attack on John Cena and Ryback at Survivor Series. They followed that up with a hellacious and fantastic first match on the roster, a six man tag TLC match. They only went from strength to strength in 2013 with great matches such as vs. John Cena and friends at Elimination Chamber, Team Hell No and Kofi Kingston on RAW (as well as numerous other matches against Hell No plus a partner) and played a great part in a very good 5-on-5 Elimination match at Survivor Series a year after their debut. The Shield also held gold this year as Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns held the Tag Team Championships from May to October whilst Dean Ambrose won the United States Championship in May and still holds it as of this writing. The Shield actually helped to form three distinct parts of the year. The first part of the year they seemed to be facing the all-star’s and giving them something to do in the lead up to WrestleMania. After that they started to feud with Team Hell No and played a pretty integral role in Daniel Bryan’s weak link storyline. And for the latter part of the year they feuded with The Rhodes Family which led to some memorable matches including a phenomenal match at an otherwise abysmal show called Battleground which saw the Rhodes Family win their jobs back. It was a truly amazing year for these three and I’d be very surprised if all three aren’t main eventers when The Shield goes their separate ways. It seems like they’re grooming Roman to be the star, I just hope they don’t force it. Ambrose is the one that will get over organically but they may be reluctant to push. Whereas Rollins is the one most likely to be lost in the shuffle but as a babyface – although his mic skills aren’t great – he has this innate Jeff Hardy like in ring charisma that will get him over. I can’t put over these guys any more than this: if we get to WrestleMania 33 and any one of these three haven't main evented the grandest show of them all I will be utterly shocked.

The winner is: The Shield

Minor End-Year Awards:

Face of the Year: Daniel Bryan

Heel of the Year: Adam Cole

Commentator of the Year: Todd Kenneley

Gimmick/Character of the Year: Daniel Bryan’s inferiority complex character (weak link storyline)

Tag Team of the Year: The Young Bucks

Promo of the Year: Mark Henry’s retirement speech

Finisher of the Year: Bryan’s Baisuku Knee

Spot/Bump of the Year: CM Punk piledrives John Cena

Worst Moment of the Year: John Cena’s performance on the 14^th January edition of Monday Night RAW in the Steel Cage match with Dolph Ziggler which made Pierce Brosnan laugh at its lack of realism

Televised Show of the Year (consistency-wise): RAW