We have some more.

Moment Of The Year

5. Brock Lesnar Lifts The Ring With A Bulldozer
4. CM Punk’s All Out Rant
3. Cody Rhodes Is Back
2. Stephanie McMahon Announces Vince McMahon’s Retirement
1. Steve Austin Wrestles Again

This continues to support my mantra of NEVER SAY NEVER in wrestling. Austin retired back in 2003 and has not wrestled since. But then, one day, Kevin Owens called Austin out for an appearance at Wrestlemania XXXVIII. You knew something was going to happen, but then it got even bigger as Owens challenged Austin to a No Holds Barred match. Austin gave an amazing face where you could see the wheels turning….and then he said yes. The bell rang and we were actually seeing it again. And then it was good! This was one of those things I never thought I would see but there it was, right in front of your eyes.

Angle Of The Year

5. Mickie James’ Last Rodeo
4. Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch
3. FTR vs. Briscoes
2. CM Punk vs. MJF
1. Bloodline

Where do you begin? It is very rare in wrestling for a story to keep going on for so long and not get dull. The Bloodline manages to find ways to keep going, even with Roman Reigns barely around a lot of the time. To top the whole thing off, you have Sami Zayn, who is trying his hardest to give the Bloodline a higher level of Ucey, but Reigns isn’t exactly pleased with what he’s doing. I want to see where things go week to week and that is not something I get to say very often.

Feud Of The Year

5. Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch
4. RKBro vs. Usos
3. Brawling Brutes vs. Imperium
2. MJF vs. CM Punk
1. FTR vs. The Briscoes

I was going back and forth between this one and MJF vs. Punk, but so much of MJF vs. Punk took place in 2021 that FTR and the Briscoes just beat it out. At the end of the day, there is nothing that is topping three instant classics like those three had and nothing was going to beat it. They had an awesome segment before their first match, because we can’t have the Briscoes on AEW TV so at least they had something in the way of talking. It was outstanding and they somehow kept it amazing throughout the entire feud.

News Story Of The Year

5. Wrestlers Return To WWE
4. HHH Is In charge
3. Naomi/Sasha Banks Walk Out
2. Brawl Out
1. Vince McMahon Retires

Ok so this one is already a little bit out of date, but there is nothing that comes close to touching this one. You can have your Brawl Out and all that, but the person who modernized professional wrestling and has dominated the industry for 20+ years walked away from the company he built into a global juggernaut. That is the kind of game changers that you do not see in wrestling ever and now we are dealing with the insane fallout. McMahon retiring was the story of the year, if not the story of the decade.

Match Of The Year

5. Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins – Hell In A Cell
4. FTR vs. Briscoes – Final Battle
3. Sheamus vs. Gunther – Clash At The Castle
2. CM Punk vs. MJF – Revolution
1. FTR vs. Briscoes – Supercard Of Honor

We’ll start with the best/and then there’s this (depending on which way this is posted), as you had two teams stealing the show on the biggest wrestling weekend of the year. It was the match that I knew I had to see and it blew away any and all expectations. Throw in the fact that it was a clean match that ran almost half an hour and never once felt long and you know you have something special. I can’t praise this match enough as it more than blew away the considerable hype.

Wrestler Of The Year

5. Bianca Belair
4. Josh Alexander
3. Sami Zayn
2. Jay White
1. Roman Reigns

One of the best things a wrestler can have is presence and that is where Reigns shines. You can feel something special whenever he is in on screen and it makes a huge difference. The Bloodline has featured some amazing moments, all of which revolve around Reigns. Throw in the fact that he has the matches to back it up and this is one of the easier picks of the year so far.

Now we get to some big ones.

Surprise Of The Year

5. NXT Concedes Wednesday Night Wars
4. The Ending Of All Out
3. Bron Breakker Is Good
2. Hook Is Good

1. CM Punk Returns

This is the one that got me. Punk had been away from wrestling for seven and a half years, which might as well be an eternity in the business. You just do not see wrestlers leaving for this long and then coming back but Punk returned and with a bang. AEW let you know it was coming, but until the guitar riff hit in the United Center, I wasn’t completely sure it was going to happen. Granted if it hadn’t, the building was going to go up in smoke, but they did what they needed to do and it was incredible, to put it mildly. And now I want some ice cream.

Match Of The Year

5. Finn Balor vs. Pete Dunne – Takeover: Vengeance
4. Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan – Smackdown, April 30
3. Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker – St. Patrick’s Day Slam
2. Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson – AEW Grand Slam

1. Ilja Dragunov vs. Walter – Takeover 36

The original match between these two were one of the best things I have seen in wrestling in a long time and that was the case again here. These two beat the living daylights out of each other and it was everything I was hoping it would be. It was a physical struggle and felt like only one of them was going to be able to survive. Walter’s incredible United Kingdom Title reign finally ends, and my goodness what a way to wrap it up.

Promo Of The Year

5. Chris Jericho Might Be Saying Goodbye – Dynamite, August 25
4. Edge vs. Miz – Raw – November 29
3. CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston – Rampage – November 5
2. CM Punk’s Return Speech – Rampage – August 20

1. CM Punk vs. MJF – Dynamite – November 24

In what was the year of Punk in the world of promos, this one topped everything else. I know the First Dance has the emotion, but this was the night where they took the gloves off and went at it. These guys were throwing bombs at each other, such as MJF being a less Famous Miz and MJF calling Punk out for always having an excuse for not being the big star. This is the one that had me taking in every word and I don’t know if it is being topped for a long time.

Most Improved Of The Year

5. Tay Conti
4. W. Morrissey
3. Bobby Lashley
2. Britt Baker

1. Josh Alexander

I know Baker is the easy one here, but Alexander has a case not just for most improved but also the best wrestler of the year. Alexander was THE guy in Impact as the company got bigger and bigger. It was awesome watching him climb the ladder and I wanted to see what he could do when he finally got his chance in the main event. Then he won the World Title in the main event of the biggest show of the year, which he had certainly earned. This was an easy one for me and you should watch more of Alexander’s stuff.

Wrestler Of The Year

5. Roman Reigns
4. Serena Deeb
3. Josh Alexander
2. Jonathan Gresham

1. Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson

I don’t think this is much of a surprise, as Danielson is about as complete of a worker as you will find in the world today. The guy can do just about anything asked of him and that never seems to change. His AEW run will get the most praise, but don’t forget his first four months of the year where he had at least two classics, including the main event of Wrestlemania. Danielson is rapidly reaching that all time elite of the elite level and he was easily the best of the year.

Moment Of The Year

5. Hangman Page/Dark Order’s Entrance For Ten Man Tag
4. Becky Lynch Returns
3. John Cena Returns
2. The Fans Are Back

1. CM Punk Returns

This is one of those moments that AEW built up to perfection by more or less guaranteeing that Punk would be at First Dance. Then the show started and here he was, with the music, the pose, the dive into the crowd and everything else. They turned this into an event and I don’t think there is anything that AEW has done that tops this so far. Then there was the ice cream deal to make it even better. I loved this way more than I would have expected and it was as close to perfect as it could have been.

We’re (finally) wrap it up with a pretty important one because this is what people remember most. It might not be a whole match or a promo, but it’s just something that felt important, which you don’t get very often. The good ones are remembered for a long time to come though and that’s what we’re going with today, making it a nice way to end these things. Let’s get to it.

As usual, in no particular order until the winner at the end.

Note that I’m intentionally leaving off the Brodie Lee Tribute Show. As great as it was, there’s something that doesn’t feel right about calling anything associated with it a positive (if that makes sense).

Roman Reigns Is A Paul Heyman Guy

You can argue this being both the angle, surprise and moment of the year because that’s not the kind of thing you expect to see coming. Reigns has been the mega clean face for so long now and now he’s with Heyman? It’s in the “What are you doing with him Andre?” vein and that is some pretty special praise. Then he wound up being the best heel in recent years, but it all started with this moment.

Brodie Lee Squashes Cody

This is one of the my favorite styles of booking in all of wrestling as AEW completely shifted gears. They almost never do a squash and to do it against one of the biggest stars the company has took a lot of people by surprise. It felt like Lee was FINALLY being given a push that didn’t involve a Vince McMahon parody and I could totally go for that. Then the rematch was awesome too and this set a lot of the stage for that greatness.

Sasha Banks Beats Bayley

There is something great about setting up a match that far in advance and then finally going somewhere with it. Banks vs. Bayley had been built up for years in NXT and WWE and we were actually getting to the big blowoff once and for all. While a lot of this is because it came at the end of a great story, a lot of it is because they had a heck of a fight that was worthy of the Cell. It felt like Banks accomplished something and that isn’t a feeling you get very often.

Le Dinner Debonair

Your tastes may vary on this one but it takes a lot to make my jaw drop in wrestling. The stuff with the two of them messing with the waitress was good enough but then they started singing and had wrestling lyrics to a song and dance routine. It isn’t going to please a lot of people (and believe me I get that), but WOW this was a spectacle and you don’t get those very often (at least not in a positive way).

Edge Returns

If you have followed me for a bit, you know that one of my favorite things is to be wrong about saying never. After nearly nine years out of the ring, it would have been very easy to believe that Edge would never wrestle again (I’m not sure if anyone other than him believed he would.) so hearing Alter Bridge in the Royal Rumble was the kind of moment that made my head snap around. I’d say that warrants a mention.

I’m going with the personal favorite here and I can’t help but smile.

Drew McIntyre Wins The WWE Title

I’ve been a big McIntyre fan from the time he was in Impact to the time I had a rather nice chat with him at WrestleCon and then saw him debut in NXT the next night. It is pretty rare for me to actively cheer for someone to win but as soon as he eliminated Brock Lesnar from the Royal Rumble, I knew what I wanted to see closing Wrestlemania. It’s a shame that he didn’t get to do it in front of 70,000 people, but what a moment it was and I got to smile at wrestling at a time when a lot of us needed to. That’s the Moment of the Year.

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AND

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IMG Credit: WWE

These are the things that you remember the most. Wrestling is all about the moments and those can take place either in the ring or elsewhere, because a lot of the time it is something in a segment rather than a match. When you get a good one of these you can feel it though, and you know how big of a deal it really is.

Jon Moxley Debuts In AEW

This is a special one because it showed you that things were serious. AEW was something that had just gotten started and this was their first actual show after the company was named. That makes things special and they needed a big moment to make it seem like things were really going to be different. This was their Hall Jumps The Barricade moment and it felt like it was something that mattered in a big way.

Above all else, it was how soon after Moxley left. Moxley did a brilliant thing by waiting his contract out and eliminating the ninety day no compete clause. That changed everything and it was a special feeling. AEW had arrived as a big deal and while they had a lot to go, it was a great moment to end an awesome show.

Finn Balor Returns To NXT

As soon as it was announced that AEW and NXT would be airing head to head, you knew the war was coming. AEW made its first move by having their show on at the same time so it was NXT’s chance to retaliate. They have a lot of advantages over AEW and one of them is the amount of wrestlers that they have to throw out there. That’s what they did on the first night of head to head.

Balor is a hybrid of a main roster star with some titles to his credit and an NXT legend with the longest NXT Title reign in history. That made him a special option and it made it clear that WWE was taking this whole thing seriously. NXT could have all of the wrestlers that they want with the resources that WWE has and that makes everything all the more interesting against AEW. It had to start somewhere though and Balor kicked it off.

Roman Reigns Is Cancer Free

I wasn’t sure if I should have included this one but this is something worth celebrating. Reigns announcing that he had to step away was horrible and the kind of thing that goes way beyond the realm of wrestling. Then he got to come out and announce that he was back, which put a smile on everyone’s faces. You don’t get a feeling like that every day and Reigns got to do it in a special way.

This was a moment where it didn’t matter what you thought about Reigns. It was something different and the kind of thing that was a lot more important than Reigns being pushed or being popular or anything like that. Reigns is a person and this was about him being healthy, which is a lot bigger than whatever he does between the bells. I smiled big when he made his announcement and it was a special moment.

Dynamite Debuts

They actually did it. This is the kind of moment that was big both in the short term and long term because we have no idea where this is going to go. For the first time in about twenty years, we had a major wrestling company running a weekly television show on a top level network. That was a dream not very long ago and now it is actually happening.

It’s the kind of thing that you do not ever see in wrestling and it is something that is going to change everything about the industry. Fans have been waiting for this for a very long time now and after a few months, AEW has blown any reasonable expectations out of the water. I’m looking forward to see where things go because this is the kind of thing that could make a lot of the problems over the last few decades go away. It started with that one show though and that’s the thing people should remember.

Johnny Gargano Wins The NXT Title

I’ve long since said that NXT is all about the journey instead of the final destination but this was a mixture of both. Gargano was very similar to Sami Zayn or Bayley in that the fans had been with him every step of the way because he was so easy to support. Gargano is one of those guys who anyone can get behind because he’s the everyman. We’ve seen him go up and down over the years and then it was finally time for him to cross the finish line.

That’s what happened at Takeover: New York in the biggest NXT show of the year. Gargano finally, after all of the setbacks, defeated Adam Cole to become the new NXT Champion. It was the kind of thing where you felt like you had wanted to see him finally get there and that’s exactly what they did. It was a great moment with a great match to go with it, so well done.

I think you know what this is.

Kofi Wins

This is a similar situation to Gargano winning, but at the same time it was its own thing. Gargano had been chasing glory for years while Kofi had never actually had a one on one match for the WWE Championship. That all changed at Wrestlemania 35 and Kofi won the title in a great match at the biggest show of the year. If not for the women’s triple threat, this should have been the big closing match and I don’t think anyone would have complained.

What made this work though was the celebration. The rest of the New Day was right there to celebrate with Kofi, as they should have been. They unveiled the classic championship design and presented it to Kofi, along with Kofi’s son and the new t-shirt showing Kofi as champion. This one brought a lot of tears to a lot of eyes and it was the kind of thing that felt special because it was special. You can’t create that and as is always the case with something like this, you’ll remember it for a long time to come.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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IMG Credit: WWE

This is pretty much spot of the year without taking place in a match, though sometimes there’s a bit of a twist involved. In this case you might have something in a match, but at the same time it’s something with a deeper meaning. That could be multiple different things, but in this case there were some major moments, many of which were downright shocking.

Steve Austin Stuns The McMahons – Raw 25

This one isn’t the biggest or really a contender, but it’s something that came on one of the biggest episodes of the show ever and deserves at least a mention. Austin Stunning McMahon over the years was a tradition and something that had to happen one more time. Vince saying he’s an old man but his son Shane was young and healthy was hilarious and the fact that Austin (who looked better than he did back in the day) didn’t say a word was even better.

DIY Meets In The Middle On Aleister Black – NXT – December 19

There are moments that make you sit up and go OOO and this was one of them. The saga of DIY is one of the best stories that WWE has done in forever and I want to see where it goes. Gargano has hated Ciampa for the better part of a year but now he’s starting to act like him. When you go from that to Ciampa helping Gargano win a big match, it’s quite the moment that makes you wonder what is going on.

Ronda Rousey’s Debut – Royal Rumble

You knew Rousey was going to be on here and while the in-ring debut is incredible, the reaction of Bad Reputation blaring to end the show was something else. I know the pointing at the sign looked horrible but to see Rousey show up after being told that she wasn’t going to be there was something special. No one knew how good she was going to be, though it was clearly a big deal with everything they had.

The New Daniel Bryan – Smackdown – November 13

I know the explanation got rave reviews (including from me) but I like the heel turn more. This was the kind of moment where you sit there looking at the TV for a little bit and wonder how this could happen. Bryan turning didn’t seem possible but he managed to make it work, and is arguably a better heel than he is a face. The turn has worked since then, but that first moment where he won the title (shocking in itself) was hard to top.

Becky Lynch Invades Raw – Monday Night Raw – November 12

I was going back and forth on this one and you could pick either this or the winner with no arguments either way. Becky Lynch had the year of all years in the women’s division and this was her crowning moment. To come into Raw, unannounced, and wreck the place made it clear that this was something different. Lynch was a monster and the first person to leave Ronda Rousey laying. (What should have been) the last shot of the show with the bloody Lynch posing in the crowd as Rousey looked up at her should have set up the fight of all fights with the moment/image of the year, but Nia Jax had to screw things up. Either way, this was incredible and is only topped by one thing.

Daniel Bryan Walks That Aisle – Smackdown – March 20

I’ve seen a lot of wrestling in my day. Like, a ridiculous amount really. There isn’t much that I haven’t seen in one form or another and it takes a lot to truly surprise me. I did not believe that this would ever happen and I was wrong. This truly and honestly stunned me as I never in my life would have believed this would have been the case. Bryan actually being able to get back in the ring after so many years didn’t seem possible and then it happened. It’s made me stop saying that something is never going to happen because if this can happen, anything in wrestling can.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 1997 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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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.

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