2017 Awards: Entrance of the Year

Kind of a perfect way to get started no?

It’s that time of year again and this time around, I’m going to make sure to get these up in a much, much more realistic amount of time. Hopefully it’s going to be one a day for twenty one days but I’ll throw in a bonus this time around (which might be more often if I can remember to do them. There are a few new categories this year and we’re starting with one of those today.

Entrances really are one of the more important things in wrestling. Whether it’s Hulk Hogan firing the crowd up or Undertaker just being creepy and chilling, you need someone to come out looking awesome to really sell what’s going on. That’s what we’re looking at today, though in this case it’s going to be looking at individual entrances instead of general ones.

These are in no order.

First up is one I was there for in person for: Aleister Black rising from the shadows at Takeover: Orlando. Keep in mind that this was his debut and tell me how it could have been any cooler. The guy literally rises from the blackness and is instantly ready to go. You knew it was something cool and you knew it was something that was in the vein of the Undertaker, which is as awesome as it gets.

Next up is something a little more glorious with Bobby Roode at Takeover: San Antonio. This was straight out of the Ric Rude playbook as Roode made his full entrance but came out with eight good looking women because he’s just that big of a star. Roode was great at making himself look bigger than anyone else on the roster and that’s what this entrance did. You really could pick any of Roode’s entrances from the year and the song alone is more than enough to carry him as high as he needed to go.

Speaking of that song, we’ll move on to the person it was originally intended for. It was no secret that Shinsuke Nakamura was getting the call up to the main roster after Wrestlemania, but the question was where would he go from there. That question was answered on the April 4 Smackdown when he made his main roster debut by interrupting Miz and Maryse as John Cena and Nikki Bella. I mean, counting Maryse as Nikki (just….dang that look worked for her) and then cutting to the violinist to play Nakamura’s theme and this was completely awesome.

I’m going to break my own rule a bit here and pick a more general entrance (kind of). Sami Zayn turned heel earlier this year and that opened up a bunch of questions. Was he going to be able to pull off a heel character? Would the fans cheer him anyway? Where can I get one of those snappy hats? It turns out that he can rock the heel run and that was never more evident than his dancing around Kevin Owens during the entrances, looking like the biggest jerk of a heel in years. I’m digging the heel character and the dancing entrance is probably the top reason.

That leaves us with the winner, which is one I never would have guessed. I’m going with Naomi at Wrestlemania XXXIII just for the pure spectacle of it all. I’m not a big Naomi fan (and her winning the title still isn’t a big deal, just like her winning the title back in her hometown) but that entrance is something else. Putting it in a massive stadium in front of 75,000 people was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had at a wrestling show and it more than does the trick. I wasn’t expecting to pick this but the more I thought about it, the more blown away I really was.