2015 Awards: Non-Wrestler of the Year
This
Let’s get some of the easier ones out of the way first.
Renee Young is adorable. Like, too adorable. She’s going to wind up at ESPN at some point and WWE will lose one of their most versatile backstage people they’ve had in a long time. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, she’s witty and she knows she is. That’s a very powerful combination and she makes it work.
Lana…..dang how could they screw her up this badly? If there has ever been someone who seemed ready to explode on the Divas division and be one of the most over acts in years (not named Bayley or Sasha that is), this should have been it. Instead though, they put her with Dolph Ziggler where she disappears and then back with Rusev because all hail TMZ and now she’s disappeared even more. They had something here and then just completely overthought it and screwed the whole thing up.
Corey Graves is growing on me a lot in recent months but he’s not quite there yet.
Maria Kanellis was on fire in ROH this year as she was nailing the “yeah I know I’m gorgeous” characters and running with it as the Queen of the Kingdom. Unfortunately ROH didn’t really do much with her, though she was always awesome on screen.
William Regal is still the best GM in years, though he wasn’t around much this year.
Now we’ll get to the big ones.
Stephanie McMahon. To save myself from a rant, we’ll go with she’s awesome and if she actually got what was coming to her a few times (and learned how to speak like a human), she would run away with this almost every year. Oh and stop dancing. It’s not funny and doesn’t make us relate to you.
HHH…..can you really call him a non-wrestler? I mean, he wrestles every now and then. HHH is what an authority figure should be: he speaks very well, can go on some power mad rampages, but knows how to take a GREAT beating to make up for it. Unless you’re from WCW and then he must destroy you, after having a Terminator themed entrance with an Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo of course. Seriously what was that?
That leaves us with two, including Heyman himself. Here’s the thing though: he really hasn’t been around this year. When he’s there he’s great, but there’s no other Paul Heyman Guy to fill in time until Brock comes back from his multiple sabbaticals. Heyman can talk very well, but I can only hear him talk about knowing Roman Reigns’ family and how Undertaker is the last gunslinger or whatever so many times before I just stop caring. This was an off year for Heyman, and that’s probably due to ring rust.
Finally though, we have a concept you don’t often see in wrestling: an actor portraying a character to make it all the more awesome. That brings us to our winner: Dario Cueto of Lucha Underground. Dario has some of the most entertaining appearances and best speaking skills you’ll ever see. Above all else though, he makes you believe what he’s saying. It’s just fun to watch the guy and he’s evil for the sake of being evil. What more can you ask for than that? Cueto wins here and he more than earned it.
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“William Regal is still the best GM in years, though he wasn’t around much this year.”
Could that possibly be because the stories in the ring aren’t about him?!? Like its a throwback to early 90’s “Jack Tunney” or the always anonymous “WCW executive/championship committee” stuff.