2013 Awards: Surprise of the Year
Another one with more options than I was expecting.It’s rare for me to be surprised in wrestling but this year it happened several times.
First up, a note about TNA. This is usually a category where they can pull off some good entries but there’s nothing this year. It’s seemed like you can predict just about everything that happens every time they have a big show. That’s a really bad sign and something they need to work at.
Anyway, on to the nominees. There are twoof these that happened in the span of about five minutes.
First up, Daniel Bryan pinning John Cena clean. The question here wasn’t would Bryan win, but rather how he would do it. People had been expecting to see something like a rollup or a cradle, but to debut a brand new move and cave John Cena’s chest in with a running knee was a big surprise. I had the words “for two” written but had to backspace furiously.
Orton cashes in. Yeah people thought it might happen, but the way they executed it was nearly perfect. That delay before Orton’s music hit was the perfect way to sucker the fans into believing nothing was happening. I snapped up when the music hit, which is the sign of a good surprise.
This brings us to the winner, which ironically is kind of obvious.
Mark Henry fakes retirement. it led to a one off match, it doesn’t hold up incredibly well when you look at the details, but it was AWESOME live. I completely bought that Henry was retiring and that this was the end for him. The speech was great, the reaction was great, and the turn was great. I loved this and it was another example of why Mark Henry is underrated.
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I agree that the Cena being there was a little bit of a giveaway, but to Cena’s credit, he stood on the apron and seemed more or less unobtrusive. I think it actually worked for me (I was there live) because it walked the fine line between “oh, i see where this is going” and “wait a minute, is it really this?” We all guessed Henry was going to attack Cena but as it went on and Henry kept talking and the emotion seemingly built, we wondered if he was really retiring…and then we lost our minds when he hit the WSS.
I liked the Henry thing but one thing that spoiled it for me was that Cena never left the ring. I know he needed to be there for the angle but that’s why that didn’t shock me. I knew it was gonna happen mainly cause Cena was not only standing there the whole time but he was in the camera shot for 75% of the speech. They could have had him leave then come back out to shake his hand but that’s nitpicking.