2017 Awards: Show of the Year

It all kind of depends on this no?

Sure there are good matches and good promos, but which of them come together to make the best overall presentation? Some of them are of course better than others and some don’t need to exist (which they don’t) but when they work well, they can be some of the best shows you’ll see in a long time.

We’ll start things off at the beginning of the year with Wrestle Kingdom XI. The Wrestlemania of New Japan almost never fails to impress The main event was one of the best matches of the year and while I liked Kushida’s match better (which tends to be the case more often than not), this was an excellent show from top to bottom. A bit long for my taste, but the biggest show of the year should be longer.

Speaking of the New Japan Wrestlemania, I’ll throw in the WWE’s Wrestlemania as well. The show didn’t quite live up to the standards of some of its predecessors but that’s not to say it wasn’t very good. The Hardys return was a great surprise and the ending made it feel historic, definitely giving this some great moments top to bottom. If this had that one blow away match, it would probably win the whole thing.

We’ll wrap up the main roster potion here with Royal Rumble, which did have that blow away match as John Cena defeated AJ Styles to win his sixteenth World Title. The Rumble itself might not have been the classic it needed to be, but the drama near the end was very good and there wasn’t a really bad match on the show. It’s one of my favorite shows of the year and this one didn’t disappoint whatsoever.

But yeah, this is all about Takeover and that’s really not a surprise. We’ll start with Takeover: Chicago, which had the Match of the Year in Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne II but also a heck of a ladder match for the Tag Team Titles, followed by the awesome split of DIY. The triple threat for the Women’s Title was very good and the NXT Title match worked as well, because as is the rule in NXT: you really don’t have a single bad match.

Overall though, Takeover: WarGames is the Show of the Year and it’s not even close. Where do you begin with this one? The NXT Title match was a great surprise, WarGames actually delivered in spades and there’s the amazing (and still underrated by me) Velveteen Dream vs. Aleister Black match. The Women’s Title was won by someone new and the opening hoss fight were good as well. This one delivered as only NXT can and it beat everything else in the year.