2011 Pro Wrestling Thread

Welcome to the first annual SJ WWE Awards, I'm your host Gehrig. In tonight's show we'll have twelve awards to give out. Instead of choosing one clear winner for each categories, I just want to know your thoughts on who should win these awards. I'll throw out a few names/matches but you can go off the board if you like. It's just to help you remember some of the stuff that happened through the year. Here we go:

Superstar of the Year: Punk, Orton, Christian, Cena, Del Rio, Miz

Match of the Year: Punk vs Cena at MITB, HHH vs Taker at WM27, Orton vs Christian at Summerslam, Orton vs Christian at Over the Limit, SD Elimination Chamber

Tag Team of the Year: Air Boom, Ziggler/Swagger, the Uso's, Awesome Truth

Diva of the Year: Beth, Natalya, Kelly Kelly, Eve

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Edge's injury, Mysterio's injury, Sin Cara in general

Biggest Surprise of the Year: CM Punk's speech on RAW 6/27, Rock's return and promo on 2/14, Edge's retirement, Christian wins World title, Bryan wins World title

Best Show: RAW, Smackdown, NXT, Superstars, Tough Enough

Announcer of the Year: Cole, Lawler, Booker or Matthews

Most Improved: Mark Henry, Zack Ryder, R-Truth

Feud of the Year: Orton vs Christian, Punk vs Cena, Rock vs Cena

Worst Feud of the Year: Cole vs Lawler/JR, Kelly/Eve vs Bellas, Khali vs Mahal

Breakout Star 2012: Rhodes, Bryan, Ziggler, Barrett, Ryder, DiBiase

For the last award, I know that Ziggler and Rhodes are pretty close to being stars, but I mean main event status like Cena, Puck, Orton.

 

Superstar of the Year: Punk (technically, the Superstar of the Last 7 Months. He really didn't do that much in the first 5, unlike Miz, but anyhoo).

Match of the Year: Punk/Cena (Epic)

Tag team of the Year: Awesome Truth (for actually seeming like a good tag team. Air Boom is just OK.)

Diva of the Year: Beth (because you know, she can actually work, unlike KK)

Diappointment: Sin Cara (for someone so hyped up, he sure fell flat on his mask)

Surprise: Rock's return. (They kept it a pretty good secret, and it was a big mark-out moment. Edge's retirement is very close, just because no one saw it coming).

Best Show: Raw (although I really liked Tough Enough)

Announcer: Lawler (because Cole just became way too annoying)

Most Improved: Ryder (considering he went from nearly being future endeavored to main-eventing Raw in a year without the help of the WWE)

Feud of Year: Orton/Christian (because it went on longer than usual. Rock/Cena was one tag match and a couple of other confrontation).

Worst feud of Year: Khali/Jindal (It sucked. Cole/Lawler/JR was actually very good, it just dragged on too long).

Breakout star: Ziggler (He's worked his ass off, and I definitely see him main eventing more often in the future)

 

Superstar of the Year: Punk

Match of the Year: Punk vs Cena at MITB

Tag Team of the Year: Air Boom (Weak category. I went with the two that actually held the belts over a team that was together for a little over a month.)

Diva of the Year: Beth

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Edge's injury

Biggest Surprise of the Year: Edge's retirement

Best Show: RAW

Announcer of the Year: Matthews

Most Improved: R-Truth (I choose Truth over Ryder because how do we know Ryder wasn't capable of being like this all along? He was never utilized. Truth had numerous opportunities and was just stale until he turned to the crazy.)

Feud of the Year: Punk vs Cena

Worst Feud of the Year: Cole vs Lawler/JR

Breakout Star 2012: Rhodes

 

Superstar of the Year: CM Punk. Redefined WWE with the Summer of Punk.

Match of the Year: CM Punk vs. John Cena at MITB. Strong match elevated by the crowd and Punk's apparent imminent departure. Honorable mention goes to the Punk-Miz-Alberto Del Rio TLC match.

Tag Team of the Year: Awesome Truth. Mostly by default, especially since they didn't actually wrestle that many matches as a team. Entertaining for a spell though. Shocked the team of Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins wasn't nominated. Shocked, I tell you.

Diva of the Year: Kharma. She wasn't around long before her season-ending pregnancy, but what she did was way more interesting than anything anyone else did. Though if there were a Move of the Year category, Kelly Kelly would win going away with her banned-in-Memphis finisher, the roll-up.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Handling of Punk after his return. Who was he feuding with? Cena? Del Rio? HHH? Kevin Nash? Johnny Ace? Not that the Summer of Punk was sustainable, but he very quickly became a relatively ordinary upper-card guy once he returned to the rotation. When was his last honest-to-goodness pipe bomb deployment, anyway? Insider references to Laurinaitis's Dynamic Dude or All-Japan days just aren't doing it. Also, where the hell are the ice cream bars?

Biggest Surprise of the Year: FINALLY the ROCK has come BACK to WWE (via satellite)

Best Show: Smackdown. More for what it doesn't have -- goofy GM drama, Michael Cole/Jerry Lawler butthurt and pic related:



Announcer of the Year: Punk

Most Improved: Dolph Ziggler. Stepped up his game in-ring and on the mic. Cody Rhodes is an awfully close second.

Feud of the Year: Randy Orton vs. Christian. More for sheer repetition than anything else. No real blood feuds this year.

Worst Feud of the Year: Cole vs Lawler/Jim Ross. Insufferable and my vote for Gooker of the Year.

Breakout Star 2012: Wade Barrett. Ziggler, in my eyes is already there. Barrett takes that step in 2012.

 

Superstar of the Year: Miz (Might get some flack for this but he has taken his career off to a whole other level. He was mid-carding, tagging last year with Morrison. Then they turned him and he becomes the top heel on Raw. He can put on a great match, he's got charisma and he did hold the title for a long time.)

Match of the Year: Punk vs Cena at MITB (hands down. And the last time we heard Punk's old theme.)

Tag Team of the Year: Awesome Truth (Elevated R-Truth and put Miz back in a spotlight to where he could shine off someone else as well. Plus, none of the others have half the mic skills).

Diva of the Year: Eve (The others were pretty much established. Eve really put in a great effort this year and she can wrestle.)

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Sin Cara in general (crickets.)

Biggest Surprise of the Year: Edge's retirement (not sure if anyone saw this coming).

Best Show: RAW (I don't watch SD).

Announcer of the Year: Cole (Hate to say it, he's annoying, but he's over as a mega-douche heel).

Most Improved: R-Truth (Haven't seen a lot of missed spots from him during past few matches I've seen. Plus, he hasn't forgotten what city he's in lately!)

Feud of the Year: Rock vs Cena (It's gotten the most hype and whenever either one makes a mention of the other the crowd immediately sits up and takes notice).

Worst Feud of the Year: Cole vs Lawler/JR (if I was in the ECW arena and this shit was still going on, I'd be the first to start the "END THIS MATCH" chant.

Breakout Star 2012: Tie: Ziggler/Ryder. Ryder struggled all year to get noticed through his internet show/Twitter account. Ziggler has been in the ring making waves all year. I would love to see a more extended feud between these two. Maybe a best two out three TLC match or something.)

 

Superstar of the Year: CM Punk. He has become the face of the company, thanks to that program with Cena, even though I still don’t feel like he has the full support of the company. (Where’s my ice cream bar???)

Match of the Year: Punk vs. Cena at MITB.

Tag Team of the Year: Awesome Truth, even though they only wrestled as a pair a few times. The only other contender to me was Air Boom, but they didn’t really get to do much of anything with the belts.

Diva of the Year: Beth Phoenix. Despite the WWE portraying her and Natty as heels, I think the audience actually wants to cheer them as faces.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: Sin Cara. He sucks.

Biggest Surprise: Edge’s retirement. It came out of nowhere, and it wasn’t an angle.

Best Show: Raw, kind of by default though. While I think Smackdown is better from start to finish, nothing really important happens on it.

Announcer: Lawler, by default, edging out Josh Matthews and Todd Grisham / the other generic guys. Anyone but Cole.

Most Improved: Zach Ryder. He’s gone from a guy who was probably really close to being future endeavored to a bonafide middle card star.

Feud of the Year: Punk vs. Cena / McMahon / WWE establishment. Not including the Johnny Ace shit in here, which sucked, but everything up to MitB was pure gold between Punk and management.

Worst Feud of the Year: Cole and JR. Pure “go away” heat from start to finish. Every single moment JR was on my television, I felt bad for him.

Breakout Star: Since Punk already was a star and a world titlist to me, I’ll go with Dolph Ziggler.

 

Superstar of the Year: CM Punk. Despite a shitty, shitty job by the WWE booking this man following the explosive MITB, this was clearly the year of Punk. He has established himself as the clear No. 1 in the ring and on the mic and, sadly, every other potential main star has struggled to do much over the past 12 months to brand themselves and put themselves in a better position than Punk is right now.

Match of the Year: No brainer. Punk vs. Cena was one of those rare matches where you forget, for an instance, that this all scripted. I don't care who you were, if you were watching that PPV live, you felt like a kid again. Epic, epic match. Honorary mention goes to the Raw MITB earlier in that very same show and just about every PPV bout between Orton and Christian.

Tag Team of the Year: What a shitty year for Tag Teams. Air Boom needs to be disbanded, fast. The USOs have great chemistry in the ring but are boring as shit. I guess I'll have to go with Awesome Truth as they were at least somewhat relevant this year.

Diva of the Year: While the Diva of the Year is clearly Kelly Kelly, I do not mean that as a compliment. If anything, Kharma's sizzle out and Michele McCool's departure really showed show weak the Divas division is right now. Sure, Beth Phoenix is pretty awesome in the ring but she's boring as hell and Natalya is the same. So, yeah, Kelly Kelly gets my nod here. Begrudgingly.

Biggest Disappointment of the Year: While there are a lot of things I'd like to vote for here, from Edge retiring to Sin Cara as a whole and to each of Del Rio's title runs, I've got to agree with an earlier poster who said the biggest disappointment was, by far, the fizzle-out of the heat Punk drew following MITB. They should have kept him off TV and relegated him to the viral marketing they were doing so well for a couple of weeks. Instead, he comes back, loses the title three weeks later, feuds with Kevin Nash (?) which never gets resolves, feuds with HHH and gets one good match but nothing else and feuds pointlessly with John Larenitis, the worst presence on any wrestling show of the past five years.

Biggest Surprise: The overall lack of creativity within the WWE writing department regarding the Money in the Bank briefcase. When Del Rio and Bryan won, you just figured one of them was going to cash it in and lose or at least cash it in in a different way than EVERY OTHER PERSON ever. And when Bryan said he'd cash it in at Mania, I thought this was where the WWE writers were finally going to take the concept in a new direction. Nope. Same ol' run in. Same ol' victory. BORING. It needs to change. Now.

Best Show: Raw. Kind of hard to answer otherwise when every year Smackdown gets raided like a prisoner's cell during the draft.

Announcer: Like him or not, Cole is clearly over with the crowd and, when he's not playing the mean douche on commentary, he's actually not that bad to listen to.

Most Improved: Cody Rhodes. I never thought I would say this but Rhodes impressed the hell out of me this year. From his awesome match with Mysterio at WM27 to his turn as a broken-down, mask-wearing heel, Rhodes has become Smackdown's top heel and is an up and coming star that I expect big things out of in 2012, including a title run with Goldie.

Feud of the Year: Orton vs. Christian. Provided the best series of PPV matches in recent history and, at least early on, was riveting to watch based on how quickly they screwed Christian out of the belt following his win.

Worst Feud of the Year: CM Punk vs. HHH/Kevin Nash/Johnny Ace/Miz/Del Rio/whoever else. Like I said before, the way the WWE ruined the Punk heat will go down, to me at least, as one of the worst booking attempts I've seen since the Invasion angle.

Breakout Star: Dolph Ziggler. Man has truly come in his own this year. I expect him to be headlining PPVs withing the next 12 months. Solid in the ring, solid on the mic, has a good character, a good look and seems ready to shine in 2012.

 

Just throwing it out there after his retirement last night: 1-02-12 return of Lesnar? Probably not but it does coincide nicely.

 

No way. From what I hear, Lesnar got crushed. No way he goes back to WWE right after that failure. He'll take some time off and show up in time for either Summerslam or Mania next year.

And there's no way he returns for anything but a short run.

 

It's amazing what Punk's been able to do despite horrible booking in 2011.

He had an unbelievable year despite of creative. They just need to get out of the way and let Jericho-Miz-Punk handle this WrestleMania build. I think they'll be OK.

All in all, I think we'll remember 2011 as a "changing of the guard"

Ryder, Bryan, Ziggler, Del Rio, Miz, Punk, Rhodes all had their moments.

Most improved: R-Truth. I went from booing him live in 2010 as loudly as I could for his horrible rap to laughing at him almost every time he was on screen in 2011. Best turn of the year other than Punk's.

 

Random MMA comment: Wow, if there is one sport that fans just cheer for the laundry or the action, it's MMA / UFC. Lesnar looked like a monster in that sport, and now after eight fights, he's done. You can't really get that attached to fighters, since it seems almost impossible for them to put together long winning streaks.

As far as Lesnar coming back to the WWE, there is too much money there for him and McMahon to stay apart forever. I can't see him coming back on 1/2, because that's WAY too soon and there is no way the promos are for him, but maybe an appearance at Mania and hyping a match at the next PPV, a la what they did with Rock and Cena but quicker?

 

I could see them building it as a "Is this real or not?" type angle in which HHH (or whomever is "in charge of the company" at the time) "pursues" him to return to the ring, rumors spread around the net but Brock says, point blank, that wrestling is beneath him and he would just annihilate anyone he gets in the ring with.

Then you book him to go up against some other unstoppable force (I'm thinking Cena as he's really the only person I could see going over Lesnar) and have Lesnar spend months just saying that "Cena's not worth my time". Have Lesnar show up at a random PPV (Rumble?) and have Cena taunt him/spit in his face, e.t.c.

There's your main event for WM29. Crowd would eat it up.

Oh, and for bonus points, if Vince REALLY wants to do something special, have him bring in Dana White to be in Brock's corner.

I'm dreaming of course.