Another long form Q&A. Thank you again to anyone who sent me a question and please ask another for next week if you’d like. Also make sure to watch the videos included in there if you can please.
https://wrestlingrumors.net/ask-wrestling-rumors-week-3-june-23-2018/
KB
That’s a rough one for me as I was always a big fan. He was one of the best big men ever and an absolute monster. His match with Sting at Starrcade 1992 is one of my favorite matches ever and it’s a shame that he didn’t get the WWF Title in 1996. At least he’s not in pain anymore.
https://www.facebook.com/wrestlingrumors/posts/1772444826165499
This one is even longer. Please check it out and drop some questions in the comments section on the Facebook page listed above. Also, check out some of the videos in the article (it’s a nice boost financially and doesn’t take any extra time).
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions and please do so again.
KB
Earlier this week I asked for some questions that I could answer in a long form column. Well, here you are.
https://wrestlingrumors.net/ask-wrestling-rumors-june-9-2018/
Thank you to all who asked me something and I’ll be doing this again for at least a few weeks. I might use some more from here as you all come up with some good stuff. Make sure to drop some comments on the Facebook page and ask any other questions you may want answered on there.
https://www.facebook.com/wrestlingrumors/posts/1762027177207264
KB
They’re back! So what if it’s mid-March? That’s totally fine in announcing the annual New Japan is Better Than You Awards and that’s what we have here. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards are back and I already have a bad feeling about them. As usual I’ll be listing the winners and giving a quick comment about each. I won’t list the top five for each unless something stands out to me.
1. Wrestler of the Year – Kazuchika Okada
Yep. Aside from AJ Styles, there’s no one in the same universe right now.
2. Most Outstanding Wrestler – Kazuchika Okada
I say it every year and I have it explained to me every year but I still have no idea why these first two both need to exist.
3. Tag Team of the Year – The Young Bucks
Maybe the Usos can win next year if they name a move after Meltzer.
4. Best on Interviews – Conor McGregor
Oh here we go. Again: it certainly must help when you only have to talk when you’re getting ready for a fight and have no restrictions. I have no idea why this is considered a fair comparison but maybe I’m just too much of a wrestling fan to understand these things.
5. Promotion of the Year – New Japan
Makes sense. WWE had a good but not great year and New Japan is almost always quality.
6. Best Weekly TV Show – New Japan on AXS
Being a highlight/Best Of show certainly must help. Being the Elite was fourth and Raw was NINTH. It’s really not that bad people.
7. Match of the Year – Okada vs. Omega – Wrestle Kingdom
No WWE match in the top five, Okada with four of the top five. You knew this was getting the top spot and nothing else was going to come close, but that’s to be expected.
8. Feud of the Year – Okada vs. Omega
I didn’t even have to look at the results. UFC had two of the top five spots.
9. Most Charismatic – Tetsuya Naito
Fair enough. I’ve liked what I’ve seen from him.
10. Best Technical Wrestler Zach Sabre Jr.
That guy does stuff that I can’t even describe and makes it look like the most natural thing in the world. It’s rare that I consider someone a treat to watch but that’s the case with him.
11. Best Brawler – Tomohiro Ishii
Not my style but I get it.
12. Best Flying Wrestler – Will Ospreay
Yep. Well maybe Ricochet, who came in second.
13. Most Overrated – Jinder Mahal
WWE got four of the top six (with five being a tie). Braun Strowman was ninth. Seriously.
14. Most Underrated – Rusev
I usually scratch my head at this one but there’s very little argument here.
15. Rookie of the Year – Ketsuya Kitamura
I’ve heard good things so sure.
16. Best Non-Wrestler – Daniel Bryan
This is a sentimental pick as Zelina Vega ran away with this thing (and finished second).
17. Best TV Announcer – Mauro Ranallo
You knew that was getting the pick and I can’t argue with it.
18. Worst TV Announcer – Booker T.
I’d have gone with Watson, who took second. At least Booker has a resume while Watson is just a person you might remember if you like stupid gimmicks and bad wrestling.
19. Best Major Wrestling Show – Wrestle Kingdom XI
I’d have gone with Takeover: Chicago but this is more than acceptable.
20. Worst Major Wrestling Show – Battleground
It had the Punjabi Prison match.
21. Best Wrestling Move – One Winged Angel
You know, that move that he hits over and over and barely ever wins with the thing.
22. Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic – WWE Promoting Jimmy Snuka As A Hero
Yeah that’s kind of hard to argue.
23. Worst TV Show – Raw
OH SCREW OFF! This award should be named after Impact but it’s WWE so we must run it into the ground. Good grief no.
24. Worst Match of the Year – Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton – Wrestlemania XXXIII
The title that Bruno, Hogan and Austin wore was involved in a match containing roaches and maggots. Moving on.
25. Worst Feud of the Year – Bray Wyatt vs. Randy Orton
It was either this or Mahal vs. Orton.
26. Worst Promotion – TNA
But remember: they had a better weekly TV show and not as bad of a pay per view!
27. Best Booker – Gedo
Again, didn’t need to look.
28. Promoter of the Year – Takaai Kidani – New Japan
Same duh as before.
29. Best Gimmick – Los Ingobernables de Japon
Velveteen Dream got second.
30. Worst Gimmick – Bray Wyatt and Sister Abigail
I’d go with Mahal for longevity as Abigail was only a few weeks long.
31. Best Pro-Wrestling Book – Crazy Like a Fox: The Brian Pillman Story
I need to get that as I’ve heard good things.
32. Best Documentary – Ric Flair: 30 For 30
Like it was going to be anything else.
I saved this one for last for…well no apparent reason actually.
While there are all kinds of great matches and promos, sometimes it’s something very simple that work better than anything else. The moments are the things that you remember more than anything else and some of these are bigger than others. Some of them are important moments and some of them are just fun, but they all belong on here.
Before we get to the regular nominees, we need to get a quick honorable mention. The night after Wrestlemania, Vince McMahon was about to announce the new General Manager of Raw. He mentioned the new GM being bald…..and here comes Teddy Long to accept the offer. Teddy started making a tag match but Vince said it wasn’t him. Teddy said “my bad” and danced off into the back. I laughed very hard and while it wasn’t important, it entertained me when I was sick and I’ll always take that.
Sticking with the night after Wrestlemania, there was the opening of Raw. Just….WOW. The opening sequence felt like it went on for an hour with the THANK YOU TAKER chants but once Reigns came out, the fans absolutely went off on him because he had taken their hero. This was pure anger from the crowd and that’s exactly what it was supposed to be. The follow up needed to be better but what an opening to the biggest Raw of the year.
What was the follow up? That would be Braun Strowman turning over an ambulance with Reigns inside. I’m not even sure what to say about that. Of course the visual was faked but at the same…..HE TURNED AN AMBULANCE OVER! What else can you really ask here? It was one of the coolest visuals WWE has put together in a long time and made Strowman feel like a star.
It’s been too long since we’ve gone down to NXT so we’ll have to look at Aleister Black saying Velveteen Dream’s name. I called this a promo but when the whole thing is four words long, I’m not sure you can really call it a promo. The idea of giving Dream everything that he wanted in the worst circumstances was poetic justice and an amazing moment at the same time.
We’ll stick around in NXT with Tommaso Ciampa turning on Johnny Gargano to split up DIY. They took the perfect amount of time to make this work and the Chicago fans were STUNNED. This is going to set up one of the biggest matches NXT has had in years and when Ciampa comes back, likely to screw Gargano over somehow, the reaction is going to be amazing. The split couldn’t have been better though and the beatdown worked very well also. Throw in the awesome shock and it’s very high on the list.
In a moment that I was lucky enough to be there for, we have the Hardys returning to WWE at Wrestlemania. I was in the stadium for that and heard New Day say that there was going to be another team. During the pause, I got to my feet and said out loud “they wouldn’t”. And then they did with the Hardys returning only a night after having a huge ladder match in Ring of Honor. This felt big and was the big moment that Wrestlemania needed. Well one of them at least.
The final two are about as different as you can be and we’ll start with the comedy option. Back on February 13, Chris Jericho was trying to show Kevin Owens that they were still great friends. This led to Jericho, in a shiny outfit that only he could pull off, presenting Owens various presents (including a painting involving the two of them and Jericho without pants) but the big finale made the whole thing. Owens gave Jericho a new list but it had Jericho’s name on it. Jericho pulls the list out of the box…..and it was the List of KO. The beatdown was on and the Wrestlemania match was made.
They got me. I’m not exactly easy to surprise in wrestling but I was actually shocked when that List of KO appeared. It was the perfect way to split up the team and Owens looked like the biggest heel in the world. At the same time though, Jericho looked like he was trying to be a good guy but Owens just turned on him. That’s how to make Jericho a face, and it worked to perfection. Amazing segment here and it’s going to take something special to top it.
And then the Undertaker retired (I’m going with that until I see otherwise). He took his gear off and stood in the middle of the ring in front of the Orlando crowd and then put it back on for one final time. When I looked at him, I saw Mark Callaway in Undertaker’s clothes, which was the first time that had ever been seen. Undertaker walked up the aisle and then descended through the stage to say goodbye. This one doesn’t need much more of an explanation and if it stands, will be one of the best moments in wrestling history.
Who says you have to be a wrestler to be in wrestling?
While this might as well be called the Paul Heyman Award, there are certainly several candidates for it this time around. It might be an announcer or an interviewer but there are a variety of options this time around. I’m not sure if anyone is going to get past Heyman this year, but when you show up every now and then, it’s easier to look great.
Actually yeah, this year someone can pass Heyman for the exact reason mentioned: he’s not around very often and that brings him down a lot. Sometimes you need to do more than talk about how awesome Brock Lesnar is and while Heyman can do that better than anyone else, I’d like to see him around a little more often to declare him the best in this role.
We’ll go with someone who is more of a jack of all trades now with Corey Graves. Is there anything this guy can’t do? He hosts shows, he does commentary on both major shows and he rips on Byron Saxton like no one else can do. Graves is fun to listen to and has some rather good heel roles in there, which few others know how to do anymore. He’s very talented and I’d love to see him do this for a very long time to come.
There’s also perennial nominee Dario Cueto, who brings a completely new dimension to this by being an actual actor. He’s capable of being incredible menacing while also calculating, but that evil smile is just perfect for looking like the biggest villain in the world. I’m really hoping he’s back for the next season as the show really wouldn’t work without him.
If Corey is a jack of all trades, Renee Young is a jill of them. She’s the perfect combination of smart, funny, edgy, flirty and interesting that you can imagine her pulling off anything you ask her to do. She does the occasional storyline but for the most part, she’s the most polished interviewer WWE has had in a very long time. There’s a certain charm to her that you can’t make up and it works like a….well a charm actually.
Above all though, there’s Zelina Vega. To have showed up from pretty much nowhere and become the best manager in NXT is quite the accomplishment. Vega and Andrade Cien Almas are one of the best pairings around as Vega is the perfect compliment to her. She’s stunning, manipulative, evil, conniving and can be physical when she needs to be. It’s made Almas interesting, which seemed to be one of the most impossible tasks in all of NXT. Vega pulled it off though and that’s enough to win this hands down.
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.
This might be my favorite one.
Something a lot of people forget about wrestling is the importance of the talking aspect. If there’s no story to build things up, the match is just two people doing moves to each other. I need a reason to care about what I’m seeing and that’s where the promos come in. This year had some excellent promos, meany of which were only a few words line. Still though, they did their job and that’s what matters most.
First of all, I’m leaving the Festival of Friendship off because that’s more of a segment than a promo.
Since this is probably the hardest award of the entire year, I’m going to knock off one of the only ones which isn’t bouncing around my head as a possible winner. Samoa Joe was already the #1 contender to Brock Lesnar’s Universal Title but he wasn’t done yet. Instead, on the June 5 Raw, Joe went after Paul Heyman, telling him that he wanted Brock Lesnar before choking Heyman out. Joe is often described as one of the few wrestlers who feels real and that’s what he did here. It was a great moment and made Joe look like a real threat to Lesnar, which is exactly the point.
Next up we go down NXT for one of those short form promos that also capped off a story. For some reason, Velveteen Dream was obsessed with getting Aleister Black to say his name. This led to a downright bizarre feud with Dream seemingly being attracted to Black, who refused to say his name. They had a rocking match at Takeover: WarGames with Black kicking Dream’s head off. After the match, with Dream waking up, Black said “enjoy infamy….Velveteen Dream.” It was a great moment and capped off a great story with Black both giving Dream what he wanted but not in the same way. This was a really strong candidate.
Back to the main roster now with the one I enjoyed the most, albeit maybe not the best. Due to reasons that I really don’t agree with, one of the big matches at Wrestlemania saw Nikki Bella/John Cena vs. Miz/Maryse. This was a great way to give Miz exposure (and to give us a plot device for Total Divas) and Miz took advantage of it, leading to a series of “lost” Total Bellas episodes featuring Miz and Maryse as Cena and Nikki. These were some of the funniest things I’ve ever seen with the two of them perfectly mocking the ridiculous nature of the show. Throw in Maryse being a hotter Nikki than Nikki and these were GREAT.
It took me awhile but I finally managed to decide between the top two. In what might be the most to the point yet stretched out sentence that I’ve ever heard, Roman Reigns took the crowd to new levels of hatred. The night after Wrestlemania, Raw opened with nearly four minutes of fans chanting for Undertaker, who Reigns seemed to retire the night before. Reigns came to the ring and after standing for nearly five minutes with the fans not letting him get a word in because they were not having it, Reigns merely said “This is my yard now” before leaving.
If this had been followed by by Reigns being edgier or even turning heel, it’s the promo of the year easily. As it is though, it’s one of the most amazing displays of the fans being led exactly where WWE wanted them to go. Reigns looked like the biggest heel in the world here and it worked to pure perfection with the fans absolutely HATING HIM the entire time. This worked, but it wasn’t the best thing Reigns was involved in all year.
We’re going to August and back to one of the best talkers of all time. On August 28, John Cena and Roman Reigns signed the contract for a match at No Mercy. At the signing though, Cena tore into Reigns like few people have ever torn into anyone else, talking about how Reigns was supposed to be this next big thing but couldn’t do it because he was a corporate made John Cena bootleg. When Reigns fumbled his lines, Cena said it was called cutting a promo and if Reigns wanted to be the big dog, he better learn how to do this. Cena burned him several more times as it was as one sided as you could have gotten.
The big reason this worked though was it felt real. Just like with Rock vs. Cena from a few years ago, this felt like two people who had real animosity towards one another, leading to the two of them going off with the insults. Reigns tried his best but when you get personal with Cena, he just hits another level with the shots and promo work. It made Cena look like one of the biggest stars ever while Reigns was just left in the dust. Reigns won the match, but he lost this one handily.
That’s an upgrade.
One of the fun things to do in wrestling is look back and see who wasn’t such a big deal back in the day but then got better over the course of time. In this case we’re looking at the improvement over the course of a year, in which there were a lot of names who got far better than you would have expected from them.
As is so often the case, we’ll start down in NXT where they grow stars like few other places. One such star is Lars Sullivan, who came from practically nowhere and turned into one of the best monsters the show has ever seen. Throw him out there as a monster and let him run people over while showing no fear and no pain. It’s a story that has worked for years and there’s no reason Sullivan can’t pull it off exceedingly well.
Sticking in NXT (that might be a theme today), we have the current NXT Champion Andrade Cien Almas. Now this one might be a lot more about Zelina Vega being amazing and one of the best managers in a long time but Almas himself has turned into quite the act as well. He’s gone from someone who looked to be a lost cause to being someone who is a top star in the promotion and looking like a legitimate big deal. They have a good act together and one that looks like it could work for a very long time.
We might as well knock off the other NXT option with someone who shocked the heck out of me. Velveteen Dream looked like he was going to be any other effeminate character but wound up being not only a solid in-ring performer but one heck of a character who is almost mesmerizing to watch. His feud with Aleister Black was a major high spot but it was also the only major thing he did all year. Still though, one great thing is more than most people get in any given year.
We’ll head up to the main roster now with someone who didn’t do much in NXT but has found his calling in WWE. In this case we have Elias, who sings a song about every city he’s in and manages to get the fans to hate him every single week. It works like a charm and the in-ring work has been quite good as well. Elias might not be a top star but he’s a solid midcard hand and there’s nothing wrong with doing that for a long time.
Next up is someone who I had pegged to win this for a good chunk of the year with Neville. He was always talented and one of the better cruiserweights on the roster but the King of the Cruiserweights character was something fresh and new which made him feel so much better in a hurry. It’s a shame that he left the company under such bad circumstances but hopefully he’ll be back and no longer jobbing to Enzo.
Finally though, and this isn’t much of a surprise, we have Braun Strowman. Where do you even begin with the year this guy had? Strowman came into 2017 as just another strong man and came out as a fan favorite and someone you could see winning the World Title at some point in the near future. To take a fairly one note gimmick and knock it so far out of the park like Strowman has is quite the accomplishment and I’m looking forward to seeing just how far he can take it. Starting where he was back at the beginning of 2017 is all the more impressive, making him the most improved wrestler of the year.