This one comes down to two options as most angles either aren’t all that entertaining or get on my nerves with stupid twists.

I’ll throw in an honorable mention to Angle vs. Roode since TNA has had a really bad year.  This started off as a makeshift match for Angle but it’s turned into one of the few bright spots in TNA in the last few months.  Roode is looking like a killer for the first time in a long time and Angle is Angle.  Good stuff all around there.

Now to the real contenders.

First up: Heyman vs. Punk.  The premise was great, the beginning was great, the stuff with Lesnar was great, the ending…..was that the ending?  That’s where they lose me as the ending just kind of happened instead of building up to a big conclusion.  When I hear Punk talking about wanting to destroy Heyman for months, I need more than him just beating on Paul with a kendo stick on top of the Cell.  It didn’t help that Ryback and Axel are a long jump down from Lesnar.

The only other option is the winner: the rise of Daniel Bryan.  If anyone has had a hotter year in recent memory than Bryan, I can’t remember him.  He starts out the year as part of one of the best teams in years before moving up to beating everyone in sight.  Bryan got the rub of a lifetime with Cena selecting him as the Summerslam opponent and he capitalized on it with the running knee (that was awesome) to pin Cena 100% clean for the title.  I say rise of Daniel Bryan because everything after that was pretty horrible for Daniel, so much like Total Divas, we’ll just pretend none of that happened and that Daniel is still WWE Champion.

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Rookie of the year is a tricky award in wrestling.  What do you classify as a rookie?  Bray Wyatt debuted in WWE in 2013, but Husky Harris was around years ago.  There’s little argument that Shield has been a force in WWE, but they had one match in 2012.  It’s hard to come up with official criteria, but for the sake of these we’ll go with any new character in 2013.  I’ll leave Shield off because they’ll win enough this year.  Based on that, there are a lot of nominees this year.

A few honorable mentions:

Sami Zayn.  If you watch NXT, you get this one immediately.  Sami Zayn is the former El Generico and is currently chasing Bo Dallas’ NXT Title.  He is about as perfect an underdog as you can ask for and has put on some outstanding matches against guys like Antonio Cesaro and Jack Swagger.  He’s going to move up to WWE one day and will fit like a glove.

Ethan Carter III. He’s the Rick Rude of modern wrestling.  Now before you old school fans jump down my throat, think about this for a minute.  Rude was a glorified comedy wrestler in the WWF but once he jumped to WCW, he became a killer and the top heel in the company for over a year.  Carter was as goofy as you could ask a wrestler to be in WWE but he jumped over to TNA and is now playing a solid heel.  The guy is going to be a big deal in TNA and is a rare instance of TNA getting a good steal from WWE.

Now for some actual nominees.

Wyatt Family.  These guys are CREEPY.  If you watch Survivor Series 1990, the crowd goes silent for Undertaker’s debut.  Not because they’re bored, but because they have no idea what to make of the guy in front of them.  That’s the vibe I get from these guys.  Wyatt is so perfect for the character it’s unreal as well as a good sign.  Instead of lettting him be Husky Harris and having him lose for a year before cutting him, they realized the talent that was there and found something that fit him perfectly.

However, he might not have the most potential out of all of them.  I dig Luke Harper more and more every time he’s out there.  That discus clothesline of his is AWESOME and looks like it could take anyone out.  The look in his eyes is just disturbing and he’s got a great finisher to top it off.  What more can you ask for from a guy?  He’s got a future once the Family breaks up and the gimmick change is so easy too.

Now for the winner: Big E. Langston.  This guy is actually a rookie by WWE’s standards and looks like he’s going to be a big deal for a long time.  He’s been treated like a monster (save for that stupid loss to Del Rio) and is already in the main event scene.  They’re actually protecting this guy and he has the promo skills to back it up.  Considering he only started wrestling about four years ago and is just 27 years old, that’s remarkable.

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Second and the runner up is AJ Lee vs. the Total Divas.  As someone who watched every episode of Total Divas (good looking women in small outfits being completely over thet op in a fake scripted show with wrestlers making cameos?  You couldn’t sign me up fast enough), I was literally cheering for her as she ripped that show limb from limb.  The problem again here is the follow up.  WWE relied on the idea that the fans were going to like the Total Divas, even though AJ has run circles around them (literally at certain points).  AJ is portrayed as the heel here and that just doesn’t work, especially when AJ has mauled them at every opportunity.

This brings us to the winner: CM Punk vs. Paul Heyman after Money in the Bank.  Here’s why it worked: it had a history, it had logic, it had hatred, and most importantly of all, it was leading up to a professional wrestling match.  CM Punk vented his frustration against Heyman, swearing vengeance against Heyman for costing him the world title.  The obstacle in Punk’s way: the Beast Incarnate, Brock Lesnar.  This was setting up David vs. Goliath, but Goliath was standing in the way of David’s real target.  That’s wrestling in a nutshell people, and you had two of the best out there talking about it, and that’s why it’s the best of the year.

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Bruno Sammartino comes back to WWE.  This is minor by comparison but to see Bruno on Raw and at Wrestlemania was long overdue.

Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff leave TNA.  This is less of a news story and more of an answer to several prayers.  I won’t say these two were universally bad for the company but the bad outweighed the good.  The focuses on the Hogan drama and Garrett Bischoff from a few years ago dragged the good stuff down and it just never ended.  Hogan would have been great as a GM character who showed up once every few weeks and made a match and OCCASIONALLY got physical.  Having everything centered around Hogan got old fast and the fact that we never got a payoff to Hogan vs. Bully Ray really hurt things.

TNA running out of money.  It isn’t as high on the list because of one simple things: there isn’t much of a surprise here.  TNA has cut PPVs down to like three a year, moved onto the road and hasn’t cut any major salaries.  I’m no economist, but it’s clear that a model like that isn’t going to last long at all.  Things seems to have stabilized in recent months with Hogan and Bischoff leaving and moving back to Orlando.  Yeah it’s a step back, but it’s either step back or fall off a cliff.

Death of Paul Bearer.  Not so much of a story as it is a big surprise.  Bearer seemed to be in far better health and was certainly more normal sized than when he weighed well over 500lbs.  From what I can find people saw him looking bad on March 2 and he was gone on March 5.  That’s a very quick turnaround and was a shock to wrestling fans everywhere.

This brings us to the winner: Darren Young coming out.  No it hasn’t meant much since, but think about this for a minute.  The NBA has one active player who is out (yet not on a roster), MLB, the NFL and NHL have zero.  Darren Young is in a physical contact sport in very little clothing yet came out anyway.  Luckily there hasn’t been a lot of backlash that we know of and might be helpful for others in the future.  It hasn’t meant much since, but this was big at the time.

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It’s Shield.  It just is.  Moving on to the other nominees.

FIrst team I want to talk about is Bad Influence.  These guys are what happens when you let entertaining guys be entertaining instead of trying to make wrestlers into comedians.  Every week these guys go out there and make me laugh which is something WWE very rarely does anymore.  Bad Influence is a good example of playing to wrestlers’ strengths and that’s the best thing that can be done a lot of the time.

Then we have the Rhodes Brothers.  If there’s been a better renaissance than the one Goldust is currently on, it’s been more years than I can remember.  These guys are going out there and stealing the show every night and I’m still not tired of them.  I’d also like to point out how important a story can be.  The Brothers got over with the audience not because of their in ring work (which has been very good) but because the fans can relate to their problems.  Cody just got married and lost his job and Goldust is out of work.  They’re given a chance to fight back and that’s exactly what they did.  A story like that connects with so many fans and that’s why it worked so well.  Do more of that, though it helps to have one of the best tag teams going today involved.

Finally, we have the Usos.  They’re a pretty distant fourth, but they deserve some recognition for how consistently good they are.  A lot of the time you just need a pair of interesting guys who can fly around the ring and pop a crowd.  Right now no one is as good at that as the Usos and I’m a big fan.

But yeah, if you didn’t know this was going to be Shield you haven’t paid enough attention.

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I’m going with Chavo Guerrero.  I’ve watched wrestling for a long time and I can’t remember anyone that made me lose interest faster than Chavo.  His matches are usually good but I just do not care about anything he does or says.  His character is simply “I’m Eddie’s nephew!” which is even less than people like Miz or Alex Riley, the black holes of characters.  Most of the time I can bring myself up to indifference, but Chavo brings me down to a level that no one else is capable of.  Chavo wins this but thankfully he’s gone for now.

The runner up is Big Show vs. Randy Orton from the same show, though I didn’t find it nearly as bad as everyone else.  That being said, one thing is clear: Survivor Series SUCKED.

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Zeb Colter has been responsible for making Jack Swagger something resembling interesting again.  That’s nothing short of a divine act.

Then there’s someone who goes higher and higher every time I watch a show: Renee Young.  This girl has everything you could want from someone in her job.  First and foremost, she’s incredibly cute.  Usually the first thought about a Diva is that she’s gorgeous or sexy etc, but Young is more reserved, wearing blouses or full outfits which is a very nice change of pace.  She has a very cute look to her face as well and it works very well for her.

Second, and this is something you get if you watch NXT, she’s very intelligent and witty on commentary.  Above all else though, she comes off as natural.  She sounds like someone watching a match and giving some intelligent thoughts on what she’s seeing instead of reading from a script or reciting lines fed into her earpiece.  It’s very different and works really well.  I could easily see her being a big media personality on a major network or an NFL reporter etc.

BUt yeah, Heyman wins.

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Dolph Ziggler cashes in MITB.  The pop for this is absolutely amazing with the New York fans going insane for the smark hero of the day winning a world title.  The problem with this is it doesn’t really mean anything long term as Ziggler was having a musical instrument match with Sandow seven months later.  Still though, awesome moment.

Rhodes Brothers get their jobs back.  This is one of the rare stories that connected with people on an emotional level.  You have Cody who gets fired because he dared to stand up to the boss and had to fight for his job while Goldust needed a job as well.  This was about standing up to the man and the fans bought into it.  The match was awesome as well and the celebration with Dusty was a great moment.

Orton cashes in.  This is one of those ideas where people knew it was coming but it was still awesome.  That slight delay after Bryan wins the title before Orton’s music hit made me wonder what was going to happen.  That’s what makes a moment work to perfection and the shock was great.  HHH turning heel makes it even better and sets up the next four months worth of stories.  It was much more about the surprise than anything else and that’s a good thing.

Undertaker’s tribute to Paul Bearer.  I don’t think this really needs an explanation.

That brings us to the winner.

John Cena selects Daniel Bryan.  This promo was the culmination of Daniel Bryan having the year of his life and being rewarded for it.  Cena comes off looking like the people’s champion, the fans feel like their influence meant something and we got a classic match to close out the best show of the year as a result.  When a moment is awesome as well as sets up months worth of stories and an awesome match, what more can you ask for?

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