wrestling / Columns

The 2010 411 Wrestling Year End Awards (Part 2)

January 4, 2011 | Posted by Michael Bauer

Welcome to Part 2 of the 411Mania.com 2010 Year End Wrestling Awards. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Part 1!

REVIEW: Before we get to it, let’s take a look at the winners we’ve already announced to this point:

Announcer of the Year: Josh Matthews (WWE)

Worst Announcer of the Year: Michael Cole (WWE)

Overall Rookie of the Year: Percy Watson (WWE)

Major Fed Rookie of the Year: Wade Barrett (WWE)

Breakout of the Year: The Miz (WWE)

Comeback Wrestler of the Year: Rob Van Dam (TNA)

Disappointment of the Year: More Deaths in Wrestling at a Young Age (Various)

Best Indy Show of the Year (non-PPV): CHIKARA Through Savage Progess Cuts the Jungle Line

And now that we have that out of the way…

2010 411 YEAR END WRESTLING AWARDS! (Part 2)

FREE TV MATCH OF THE YEAR

Honorable Mentions:
AJ Styles vs. Kurt Angle (TNA Impact 1.4.10) – 6 Points
Davey Richards vs. Eddie Edwards (ROH on HDNet, April 26) – 6 Points
Jack Swagger vs. Edge vs. Chris Jericho (Smackdown 04.16.10) – 5 Points
3rd Place: Rey Mysterio vs CM Punk (WWE Smackdown 2.12.10) – 14 points

2nd Place: Tyler Black vs. Davey Richards (ROH on HDNet 10.18.10) – 24 points

And your winner is…:

Motor City Machine Guns vs. Beer Money, Inc. – Best 2 out of 3 Falls (TNA iMPACT 08.12.10) – 42 points

Larry Csonka: The feud featuring Motor City Machine Guns vs. Beer Money, Inc was one of my favorite feuds of the year. While the CHIKARA vs. BDK feud was better done, and I enjoyed the DGUSA vs. CHIKARA stuff as well, as a series of matches go these guys truly entertained me. This was my free TV match of the year, with only one other match coming to the same rating for me, but due to the feud this gets the nod from me. All four guys are very talented, both teams work so well together, and as a fan of tag team wrestling, it warmed my heart to see them featured in the feud. And the thing is that even when the booking was questionable, they made it work. They succeeded and both teams have had a tremendous year with their matches, and should be proud of themselves. We can only hope for more in 2011. I for one am not sick of their matches, because they always do enough to make them feel fresh.

Michael Ornelas: While I’m not a fan of TNA, I made sure to check out all five matches in the series between the Alex Shelley, Chris Sabin, James Storm, and Robert Roode this summer. While a bit much of a spotfest at times, the matches all delivered. This match was pretty much regarded by all as the best match in the series and should really go to show TNA that sometimes the best thing to do for a feud is NOT add a gimmick. This match was exciting, fast-paced, and the psychology of the falls was a lot of fun to watch unfold. Beer Money got the first pin and the advantage on the champs, going straight into working Shelley over more, but their taunting the crowd left them exposed for Shelley to make the tag, which quickly let the Guns hit Skull and Bones to even things up. After giving up their advantage due to foolishness, Beer Money took out their frustration on the Guns, but Shelley and Sabin were able to use that to squeak past with a hard-fought victory. Also of note, the crowd was HOT the entire time. Everything about this match just worked, and I was glad to see the Guns come away victorious.

Aaron Hubbard: I’m sure this winner is going to get a lot of backlash from a certain segment of the readership that decries TNA and says they can never do anything good. And I’m sure there will be another segment who says that this was nothing but an overrated spotfest that shouldn’t even be considered for this category. They are of course entitled to their opinions. My opinion is that this was a fantastic showcase of two of the best tag teams in the business in the last five years and a sign of what TNA can be when they let the talent do the talking. It was the culmination of a five-match series, and each match before that had delivered great television. But here, the ladders, brawling, cages and wires were left aside so they can give us a tag team clinic. An amazing match that I hope makes it to DVD at some point; not only TNA’s Match of the Year, not just the Free TV Match of the Year, but a match that deserves to be remembered as one of the best of the year, period.

Chad Nevett: Expectations were high for this match. After five stellar matches (if you include their match at Victory Road that really began this series), this one needed to be bigger and better, and, man, that seemed impossible. It wasn’t, though, because they did it in a match that’s the best TV match of the year. The structure of the match played a large role with the first and final falls getting a lot of time, while the middle fall was run through quickly. I was surprised at how long the final fall got since it’s usually done a little quicker than that with the participants of the match tired and beat down, but Beer Money and the Guns made it longer, selling the idea that it was the hardest fall, the one where guys just wouldn’t give up, because it’s the one that really mattered. I’ve always loved that distinction between non-title and title matches: that added level of ‘won’t quit no matter what’ that gets brought into title matches. They sold the idea that if the first two falls where actually for the title, then they wouldn’t have ended so easily. The Guns winning the second fall quickly worked, because Beer Money was in a stronger position and there wasn’t that sense of immediacy that makes all the difference. Being one pin away from losing, the Guns stepped up in the second fall, while Beer Money was anxious and complacent. The first fall was a regular match between the two teams (and, by ‘regular match,’ I mean a really good match), the second fall was a formality and key to the overall story, while the third fall was something special. Every near fall could have ended it and most of them would have ended it in any other match. The Guns did crazy things, so Beer Money did crazy things (Roode’s dive over the top rope!), both teams trying anything and everything to get the match done and the titles won. The end of the match had me in a way few matches do. When Storm kicked out of the neckbreaker/splash combo, I couldn’t believe it. That kick out and second one was necessary to sell just how hard fought the match was. As always, all four guys worked effortlessly together, making it look so easy to hit double-teams and be in the exact right spot all of the time. The match delivered and, considering the expectations, that’s very impressive.

STORY/SURPRISE OF THE YEAR (NON-KAYFABE)

Honorable Mentions:
Christopher Daniels & Homicide leave TNA for RoH. (RoH) – 1 Point
Daniel Bryan gets re-hired and is given a solid push. (WWE) – 12 Points
Jack Swagger cashes in on the SmackDown after WrestleMania. (WWE) – 3 Points
Kanes buries the Undertaker. (WWE) – 3 Points

3rd Place: Bret & Shawn bury the hatchet on live TV. (WWE) – 19 points

2nd Place: Shawn Michaels retires at Wrestlemania 26. (WWE) – 27 points

And your winner is…:

WWE roster depleted by injuries and departures, leads to “youth movement”. (WWE) – 31 points

Len Archibald: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the WWE “Youth Movement” is necessarily a “surprise”, but it is the top issue this year. When Sheamus put John Cena through a table this time last year and became WWE Champion after being on the main roster for about half a year, it seemed inevitable that there would be others who would be tasting championship gold or thrust into the main event for the first time in their careers. The real surprise out of all this was Shawn Michaels’ retirement – no one saw that coming, but hindsight is a funny thing; looking back at it, HBK had accomplished everything he needed to do during his comeback. The Undertaker probably has two (maybe three) years left in his career and that’s only because he’s on the most limited schedule possible. Triple H looks to be on his way out as well as a performer as he moves into management and operations for the WWE. Add up injuries and “endeavors” galore, and suddenly we get The Miz, Wade Barrett and Nexus, Alberto Del Rio, Jack Swagger, and countless others a chance to step up to the plate. It may not look like much now, but I feel 2010 is going to be remembered as a year when the ‘E turned a corner and started a new “era” in the company’s history.

Ryan Byers: One of the biggest complaints that wrestling fans on the internet have had throughout 2007, 2008, and 2009 is that it seemed like it was almost impossible for WWE to establish a new main eventer. After John Cena and Batista were elevated in 2005, there was a certain level of stagnation in the main event scene, to the point that I was going to scream if I saw another match between John Cena and Edge, John Cena and Randy Orton, or Triple H and Randy Orton. Despite all of the complaints that you may be able to make about WWE’s approach to promoting professional wrestling in 2010, you can no longer make the complaint that the promotion is not elevating new stars. The trend actually began late in 2009 when Sheamus was made a WWE Champion after only a handful of months on the promotion’s main roster, and it continued when the Nexus storyline became the focal point of Monday Night Raw this past summer and turned Wade Barrett into a bona fide main eventer. More recently, Alberto Del Rio has debuted with an impressive clean win and subsequent rivalry with Rey Misterio, Jr., presumably making Alberto the heir apparent to Rey Rey’s slot as the promotion’s resident Latino superstar. Even the midcard has been freshened up with new talent, as Daniel Bryan, though not a main eventer, has been booked very strongly during his run as United States Champion. Though 2010 was the year that Barrett, Del Rio, Sheamus, and Bryan all broke out, we now head to 2011, which will be the year that determines whether they can continue to carry the promotion or whether they will go down as flashes in the pan.

Steve`Cook: WWE found itself in a bit of a pickle in 2010. Established stars like Triple H & Undertaker missed most of the year due to injuries. Shawn Michaels retired, and Chris Jericho took another sabbatical from wrestling. Pretty much everybody that was big in the 1990s was in TNA. WWE had no choice but to give the keys to the car to the youngsters, and hope that they didn’t drive it into the wall. NXT produced a whole supergroup of talent, led by a man who shows the potential to be a top hand for WWE for years, Wade Barrett. The Miz continued to step his game up beyond most peoples’ expectations, and by the end of the year was WWE Champion. Sheamus continued with the momentum he obtained in late 2009 and had a strong 2010. Smackdown was a place for guys like Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, Dolph Ziggler, Drew McIntyre & Dashing Cody Rhodes to find themselves as performers. Late in the year Alberto Del Rio debuted on Smackdown and became one of the brand’s biggest stars immediately after his arrival. WWE’s even surprised a lot of people on the Internet and given Daniel Bryan a chance to run with the ball after a brief pause in the action due to tie-related hijinks.

WWE did a great job in 2010 of developing talent that will carry it throughout the decade. Perhaps the results weren’t immediately evident, but several years from now when we’re still here handing out awards, we’ll see a lot of these names at the forefront. There’s still some more coming. WWE’s going to be all right, even after all these guys get old enough to go to TNA.

Aaron Hubbard: When I look at today’s roster of WWE stars and their respective positions on the card as opposed to last year, it is a major turn around. Major stars like Shawn Michaels, Dave Batista and Chris Jericho have retired or “gone on hiatus”. Longtime midcard acts like Shelton Benjamin, MVP and Matt Hardy have left the company. Triple H hasn’t competed (bar one special occasion) since losing to Sheamus at Extreme Rules. The Undertaker’s fall comeback saw him lose to Kane multiple times before succumbing to injury. Long term top tier heels Randy Orton and Edge have turned face and continue to main event in those roles, while acts like John Cena and Rey Mysterio have been feuding with newer talent. Kane shot up to the top of the card. But perhaps most important has been the breakout of new and exciting stars: The Miz, Wade Barrett, Sheamus and Alberto Del Rio have all had success at the main event level, and while Jack Swagger didn’t have the best run, he at least had a shot. Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler have become cornerstones of their respective brands as the United States and Intercontinental Champions respectively, with plenty of room to grow. Recently, John Morrison has been elevated with back to back PPV victories over Sheamus and a World Title Shot against The Miz at the Royal Rumble. The main criticism of WWE for the past several years has been their inability or unwillingness to create new stars. This year, WWE was forced into that position by retirements and injuries; they came through with flying colors and WWE’s roster is the freshest it has been since 2004.

Michael Ornelas: Wade Barrett, David Otunga, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Michael Tarver, Skip Sheffield, Daniel Bryan, Darren Young, Alberto Del Rio, Kaval, Alex Riley, Michael McGillicutty, and Husky Harris are all names that no one knew before 2010 (only exceptions were those in FCW that kept their names in WWE). They’ve all been given a considerable amount of TV time and four of them have even held championship gold. Dolph Ziggler, Cody Rhodes, Drew McIntyre, John Morrison, The Miz, Sheamus, Jack Swagger, and Kofi Kingston are all young guys who have held gold in 2010 (except Morrison, but he’s in the midst of a big push right now). Triple H, The Undertaker, Batista, Shawn Michaels, and Chris Jericho (all “older” guys) have either taken time off or retired this year. There has been a great opportunity for young guys to step up and get in that main event/upper card spot, and a lot of guys have. 2010 has been a great year for wrestling all around due to the overall freshness of it and I hope when the aforementioned veterans return, they make it a priority to help maintain the new stars’ upper card status instead of reclaiming their spots at the top of the mountain and keeping themselves there.

WORST STORY/SURPRISE OF THE YEAR (NON-KAYFABE)

Honorable Mentions:
Matt and Jeff Hardy continue to be total screw ups. (WWE/TNA) – 11 Points
NOAH attendance plummets, company near death (NOAH) – 6 Points
NXT concept not utilized to full potential (WWE) – 1 Point
“Stand Up For WWE” Campaign (WWE) – 5 Points
TNA Totally Screws Desmond Wolfe’s Push (TNA) – 4 Points

3rd Place: Monday Night War Bombs. (TNA/WWE) – 14 points

2nd Place: Daniel Bryan fired after choking Justin Roberts with his tie. (WWE) – 23 points

And your winner is…:

The Amazing Kong / Bubba The Love Sponge Saga. (TNA) – 35 points

Ryan Byers: I’m going to start this off with a statement that might prove to be somewhat controversial: Amazing Kong is one of the biggest stars in the history of TNA Wrestling. There are probably a lot of people out there scoffing right now, but stop and think about this one. What is it that makes a professional wrestler a star? Is it name value that he or she acquired during a run with another promotion? I would argue that it is not if that name value doesn’t result in any benefit to the wrestler’s current promotion. Christian Cage, Jeff Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Sting, Mick Foley, and Ric Flair have all come through TNA’s doors on its time with SpikeTV, and not a single one of them have meant one iota to the promotion’s level of success on a consistent basis. Yes, they all may have popped ratings up slightly here and there, but, a few weeks after their respective debuts, none of them mattered to the promotion’s bottom line. However, let’s take a look at Amazing Kong, who had almost NO name value as a wrestler in the United States before making her TNA debut. Before long, she was consistently in company’s highest rated segments, week in and week out. She was the person who more fans than any other were tuning in to see, even though she wasn’t a former WCW or WWE star. Yet, when she had a personal dispute with Bubba the Love Sponge, who was brought into the company as a flunkie of one of those former big league stars who wound up not justifying his big paycheque, TNA decided that they were going to punish Kong but not Bubba. This wasn’t simply unjust. It was just a flat-out stupid move from a business perspective, as TNA did nothing more than cutting the legs out from underneath the one person who actually brought more than a baseline level of fans to their shows. I’m not even going to get into the subsequent drama with the Sponge dropping n-bombs on Kong and challenging her to further physical encounters, because that’s the sort of low class tactics that people expect form a publicity whore like Bubba. One might expect more, though, from TNA as a company that should want to draw viewers and turn a profit. They didn’t do that because they were afraid of offending a guy who they mistakenly thought would do more for their business than Kong, and that’s what makes this story so unbelievable.

Chad Nevett: I think what made this so bad was that TNA stood by Bubba the Love Sponge. If they’d fired him, too, people would have been upset, but they would have understood. Kong was out of line in hitting him. That’s unprofessional behavior and warrants firing, no question. Now, did Bubba have it coming? Mmmmmmmmmmmaybe. Did he behave unprofessionally? Oh hell yes. Worse than that, he brought nothing to TNA. The fans hated him, the talent apparently hated him, and he seemed to openly hate being there. So why did TNA stand behind him only to fire him later? Who the hell knows. It was a mistake, one that was just another example of TNA management showing they had no clue what they were doing this year.

Mike Ornelas: I will say that the pictures of Bubba with his messed up eye that followed this made me smile a little bit, because he got what he deserved. However, assaulting someone is illegal, regardless of the motive. The scumbag said something completely insulting the situation in Haiti following their earthquake, a cause for which Kong was actively raising funds. I can only assume Kong surprised him with a big spinning backfist and an implant buster, but the whole situation was ridiculous. Bubba made a whole public affair out of this when it should have been settled quietly, quickly, and like adults. Kong was wrong in attacking him, and the fact that she lost her job was unfortunate, although understandable. If only TNA had never brought Bubba in to begin with, they wouldn’t have lost such a talented performer in Awesome Kong.

Jeremy Thomas: This is an example of TNA dumbfuckery at its finest. Bubba Army vets, skip this paragraph…or better yet, attack me via Twitter. I could use the followers that will come as a result. Anyway, I say that because I loathe Bubba as a human being. I always have. I think he’s a useless, brash and foul waste of space who is (or, thankfully, WAS) only on radio precisely because he was brash and foul. He’s the lowest common denominator in radio, the Jersey Shore, TMZ or Bridalplasty of the airwaves in that most people only listened to him in order to be shocked at what he was going to say next. I have never found him funny, intelligent or redeemable as anything other than that douchebag who is friends with Hogan. So needless to say, when it was learned that he would be working for TNA I rolled my eyes. Never did I think it would get to be as stupid as it was. Bubba added nothing of value to Impact and didn’t accomplish anything that Jeremy Borash could have done…except give TNA a reason to dump one of their top stars from the company. It didn’t take long, either. Two weeks after he announced that he had signed, Bubba proceeded to open his big, idiotic mouth and talk shit about Haiti, a country that had just been devastated by an earthquake. Now, that’s controversial, but it would have been just that—controversial and (in my mind) stupid, but a man’s personal opinions and thus ignorable. But no, when wrestling fans called him out for doing so, Bubba and his people decided to mock them and call them gay for being wrestling fans. Let me be clear here…a man who was employed by the second-largest professional wrestling company in the United States was insulting people for liking professional wrestling. And after all this, when Kong assaulted Bubba backstage—something that was not acceptable, true, but has happened more than once, including at TNA, and not warranted a departure from the company—it was Bubba that the company stood by, thanks to his friendship with Hogan, and Kong pretty much left the company as a result by asking for her release, then forcing the company’s hand by refusing to go on their UK tour. Meanwhile, Bubba said he was quitting TNA and went on a public tirade against the company for not having his back. Yes, after all of this, Bubba the Freaking Love Sponge said he was considering SUING TNA because they didn’t have his back. Luckily, he shot that in the foot because he showed up on the Cowhead show and ambushed Kong during a call-in interview, delivering a racially-charged string of expletives that finally caused TNA to see the light and drop him like a rock. This entire situation was so freaking stupid that words do not earn it justice. This would be like WWE hiring Michael Lohan, and then firing Wade Barrett after Lohan publicly insulted him. It’s one of the most boneheaded business decisions I’ve ever seen in the nearly thirty years I’ve been following professional wrestling. And when you consider the WCW years, that says a lot.

FEUD/STORYLINE OF THE YEAR

Honorable Mentions:
CHIKARA vs. BDK (CHIKARA) – 12 Points
CM Punk vs Rey Mysterio (WWE) – 2 Points
Daniel Bryan vs. Michael Cole & The Miz (WWE) – 11 Points
MCMG vs. Beer Money Best of 5 Series (TNA) – 11 Points

3rd Place: Kevin Steen (& Steve Corino) vs. El Generico (& Colt Cabana) (RoH) – 20 points

2nd Place: Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels (WWE) – 25 points

And your winner is…:

Nexus Takes Over Raw/vs. John Cena (WWE) – 26 points

Len Archibald: This was a no-brainer. The moment that Nexus arrived and destroyed John Cena and everything in sight, most of the wrestling world knew they were in for a treat. The Nexus/John Cena storyline went almost as far as it could have gone, even with John Cena being a reluctant member for a short while. The great thing about the storyline was that even when it looked like Nexus was finished, they came back and came back hard. They also were willing to adapt and evolve the stable internally, as they got rid of Darren Young, Daniel Bryan, Michael Tarver and loss Skip Sheffield due to injury. Each member of Nexus brought something different so it became a challenge for Cena to go through them. In fact, he is still dealing with them, and with Nexus now led by CM Punk, a whole new dynamic to the feud has set in. Will Wade Barrett return to stake claim of the leadership role he was dumped from? Will he reluctantly join forces with John Cena? There are lots of possibilities, and it’s those options for different twists and turns that can develop has what made this feud what it has been – excellent.

Michael Ornelas: While this was my third place vote (behind the BDK vs. CHIKARA story and the Steen/El Generico feud), I can see why it won. This story played out over six months and had some excellent developments. It started with the Nexus simply wrecking shit up and not caring about the repercussions. They started doing this for about the first month or more and every attempt at fighting back proved unsuccessful. John Cena attempted to get a team together for SummerSlam to fight them off, but they weren’t united. They agreed with the cause, but there were just too many egos, too many self-serving interests, and leading up to the show, we didn’t even know if he’d be able to get seven guys together. On the night of the show, he enlisted the help of Daniel Bryan, the frst and (at the time) only member to be excommunicated from the group, to help take them out. His return was very exciting and led to what has since been a very successful singles run, but was quickly over the Nexus storyline. John Cena, however, wasn’t satisfied. Simply beating the Nexus wasn’t enough; he wanted them to dismantle. Cena was too overconfident in his ability to do it by himself though, and he made the stakes too high at Hell in a Cell, where, in losing his match to Barrett, he was forced to join the Nexus. He reluctantly followed orders and did the bare minimum to get by, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to get Stockholm syndrome and side with his captors. He wanted to destroy Nexus from the inside out. This all led to Barrett making him the referee in his championship match against Orton at Survivor Series, and if Barrett didn’t win, Cena would be fired. Well Cena couldn’t turn his back on the WWE Universe, so he did the moral thing instead of looking out for himself and counted the pin for Randy Orton. What the Nexus didn’t count on was that the same ringside security crew they decimated in June wasn’t going to protect them from John Cena, the rabid “fan” attending event and interfering in their matches. This was brilliant and made perfect sense. The feud is thought to be over now when John Cena was reinstated because of a threat of mutiny by David Otunga and the other members of Nexus to Wade Barrett, and he soundly defeated him at the TLC PPV in a chairs match, and then pulled the set’s chain of chairs down on Barrett. This was great. The Nexus was constantly getting the upper hand on the WWE, but John Cena took advantage of any weakness he could find while also being strong enough to take it to them if the conditions were right by himself. The good guy won in the end, the rookies were elevated and featured heavily throughout the year, and in the end, the WWE’s product was fantastic this year.

Stephen Randle: Although the handling of the Nexus faction, at many points, could have been done much, much better (winning the SummerSlam match would have been a start), and the group has gained and lost members almost as fast as the nWo, no one can argue that the Nexus was the main focus of WWE’s flagship show for nearly all of post-Mania 2010, and it provided some of the most compelling television that WWE has produced in a long time. From the opening attack on John Cena to the shot of new leader CM Punk saluting his newly focused squad that closed the year, Nexus has dominated WWE storylines and, not by chance, elevated several new Superstars over the course of the year. From the obvious in Wade Barrett to the somewhat surprising in Skip Sheffield, many members of Nexus have used their time in the spotlight to establish themselves as solid additions to the WWE roster. Throw in short-lived Nexus member Daniel Bryan, who is now entrenched in WWE as United States champion and the best wrestler on either brand, and there have been more successful debuts in WWE this past year than there has been for a very long time. Plus, by doing absolutely nothing redeeming or honourable as a group, they’ve succeeded in making John Cena even more of a fan favourite, to the point where some nights, there’s no split crowd at all. The NXT program may have been mocked repeatedly since its debut, but when everything shakes out, it may have been the best thing WWE put out in the past year, because without it, there would likely never have been a Nexus.

Greg DeMarco: No one saw June 7 coming. It was the end of a lack luster episode of RAW, the Viewers Choice episode. Ironically, the main event was CM Punk vs. John Cena, and NXT Season 1 winner Wade Barrett made his way to the entrance way. Shortly after that, all of the eliminated NXT1 rookies joined him, and the attack on John Cena was on! They would become known as The Nexus the next week, but this group of “rookies” destroyed Cena, Punk, Gallows, Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole, Justin Roberts, the ring, the ringside area and more. A feud with John Cena followed, and regardless of the blowoff, all active members of The Nexus are better off.

WORST FEUD/STORYLINE OF THE YEAR

Honorable Mentions:
Abyss vs. Desmond Wolfe (TNA) – 3 Points
NXT Season 2 Finale Beatdown & Lack of Follow-Up (WWE) – 4 Points
Rasche Brown & Friends vs. The Embassy (ROH) – 1 Points
The Rise of the Immortals (TNA) – 7 Points
The Saga of the Beautiful People (TNA) – 3 Points

3rd Place: LayCool vs Mickie “Piggy” James (WWE) – 16 points

2nd Place: Formation of EV2.0 (TNA) – 22 points

And your winner is…:

Abyss and “The Ring” (TNA) – 37 points

Chad Nevett: What still kills me about this storyline, more than the idea of Abyss as the top face in TNA or even more than the idea of a magic ring that gives Abyss the power to withstand massive beatings and no sell everything, is that this story was about the WWE Hall of Fame rings given to Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. There was much debate over which Hall of Fame rings were used, but, as time went on, it became clearer and clearer that, yes, they were the WWE rings. This storyline encapsulated so much of where TNA went wrong this year in their efforts to make themselves bigger and ‘better’ by using WWE scraps and cast-offs instead of its own homegrown talent. Abyss wasn’t worthy of a main event spot really until he had a Vince McMahon Magic Ring, the item that meant the most to Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. It was TNA’s 2010 summed up in one little object. Had Hogan simply put over Abyss and backed him, things would have been fine. It was the ring that killed it. And, by the end, this story just petered out. I can’t remember who has which rings anymore and I don’t care.

Stephen Randle: When the Hogan-Bischoff era began in TNA, the Hulkster decided that he was going to use his powers to help one of his favourite TNA wrestlers. A man who had power, skill, and was, in Hogan’s mind, being criminally under-appreciated by TNA. That man was none other than Abyss. And if turning the former monster of TNA into a deranged version of Evad Sullivan (even remixing his awesome creepy theme music to include “I Wanna Be A Hulkamaniac”) wasn’t bad enough, Hogan had one final touch that would help Abyss realize his true power. I’m speaking, of course, about Hogan’s Hall of Fame ring. Abyss took the ring and…well, he did start to beat people, I guess. And then he feuded with Ric Flair in an attempt to secure Flair’s Hall of Fame ring as well, in the biggest battle over rings since Hal Jordan became Parallax and tried to destroy the universe. Or something. Anyway, the true insanity of this storyline was that the rings in question were both WWE Hall of Fame rings. That’s right, TNA was openly promoting and giving legitimacy to WWE’s Hall of Fame, something that even real wrestling fans won’t do depending on who they announce as entering in a given year. Even better, Hogan and Flair would cut promos about how much those WWE rings meant to them personally and professionally, and oh yeah, Hogan’s apparently was the focus for all his Hulkamania powers. Eventually Abyss gained control of the powers of the ring and turned on the Hulkster, at least until he was revealed to be part of Immortal, where I presume he gave the ring back to his mentor. Or not, who knows. Really, nothing about the whole thing made a lick of sense, and for bonus points, we got to watch Hulk Hogan vs Ric Flair one more time, which I assume was to remind us that it’s happened way too many times in the last decade and nearly every single match has sucked. And to finish off, let’s not forget that this was one of the major storylines that TNA decided to run during their move to Monday nights. No, I can’t imagine why ratings dropped like a rock, why do you ask?

Michael Ornelas: This was just ridiculous. This would work in CHIKARA where it’s consistent to do goofy things in their stories, but in TNA where they try to hold on to an edgy image that’s an alternative to WWE. They jab at the “PG crap” the WWE is doing, so clearly their target audience isn’t little kids. Having established that, why would they follow through with a Lord of the Rings-type stereo type where Hulk Hogan’s supposedly “non-WWE” (but totally WWE) Hall of Fame ring gives Abyss some special power? The idea that it inspires him and motivates him is one thing, but they didn’t play it that way. Using fantasy in such an established reality-based story is stupid. This would be like if Tim Robbins started shooting fire out of his hands halfway through the Shawshank Redemption. I hated every minute of this and it definitely earned this award.

Greg DeMarco: Oy. When Hulk Hogan first started with TNA, Abyss was one of the guys he touted as having a bright future. I believe the term he used was “TNA’s John Cena.” Oy. But Hogan was behind Abyss, and to give him the rub he gave him…The Ring. Hogan’s Hall of Fame ring. His *WWE* Hall of Fame ring! He told Abyss it would make him a “God of Wrestling.” Hogan even teamed with Abyss in his return match against AJ Styles & Ric Flair. Abyss later “defended” Hogan’s ring like a title against possession of Ric Flair’s Hall of Fame ring, and when Abyss won, Hogan got possession of Flair’s ring. Yeah, I know! (Flair’s ring was later given to Jay Lethal, by the way.) Abyss later turned heel, shoving the ring down Hogan’s throat as part of his turn. He would eventually walk around touting “They” until that was revealed to be Immortal, where Hogan & Abyss were back on the same team. I don’t know what storylines will contend for Worst of The Year in 2011, but they have some large shoes to fill with this one!

WORST FED OF THE YEAR

Honorable Mention:
World Wrestling Entertainment – 9 points

3rd Place: Half-Pin Brawlers 12 points

2nd Place: Wrestle-licious 19 points

And your winner is…:

Total Non-Stop Action49 points

Chad Nevett: 2010 was not a good year for TNA. It was to be the year that Hulk Hogan saved TNA and made it into competition for the WWE. Impact moved to Monday nights… and quickly moved right back to Thursday, tail tucked firmly between legs. It was a year of constant swerves, illogical booking, a world title rankings system that lasted three months, a world champion stripped of his belt for medical reasons and was back wrestling before a new champion had been decided, at least two nWo retread attempts, the appearances and disappearances of Hogan buddies that couldn’t hack it anymore, the repeated attempts to make TNA popular by picking over the corpses of wrestling nostalgia be it ’80s WWF, ’90s WCW, ECW, or just by taking in any and all wrestlers that the WWE no longer wanted. Every other week, it seemed Dixie Carter promised something that would change TNA and wrestling forever… and nothing. Nothing has changed. TNA still draws a 1.0. It’s first attempt at a second show in North America, ReAction? Wasn’t even a proper wrestling show and has been cancelled despite cheap attempts to boost ratings by carrying over the main events of Impact into another show. It was a year of throwing anything and everything to wall, hoping something would stick, and never waiting long enough to see if it did. This is a company that went into 2010 with AJ Styles, Daniels, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, and Desmond Wolfe as main eventers, earning critical praise for the caliber of wrestling it was putting on. It could have been the year that TNA clearly defined itself as the wrestling alternative to the WWE’s sports entertainment. Instead, it became the company that the WWE doesn’t even see as competition. And why would it?

Ryan Byers: I don’t care what TNA did for the rest of 2010. No matter what they did from June through December of this year, I would be picking TNA as my worst promotion of the year because of the absolute debacle that was their attempt to spark a “New Monday Night War” from January through May. The promotion was sold a bill of goods by Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, who were deluded enough to believe that they and the cast of characters that the Hulkster usually hauls with him from wrestling promotion to wrestling promotion were such huge stars that TNA running Monday nights with his troupe would be guaranteed to be a success against WWE Monday Night Raw. Some people might try to defend Bischoff and the Hulkster by claiming that the duo was able to turn WCW into a viable threat to Vince McMahon’s empire by moving their main program to Monday nights. However, those people fail to comprehend a few differences between WCW’s position in 1995 and TNA’s position in 2010. Chief among them is that, in terms of viewership, WCW and WWE were equals in the mid 1990’s, while, prior to TNA’s jump to Monday nights they were the number two promotion by a wide margin. The second thing that TNA failed to understand in making its move is that, no matter how much some of their most vocal fans may be disillusioned with the pro wrestling product presented by WWE, the vast majority of current wrestling fans are NOT looking for an alternative product. They ENJOY what Vince McMahon is producing and are going to stick with it instead of taking a gamble on another promotion. There were several wrestling fans disillusioned with WWE’s product after WCW folded and their favorite promotion was gone, but the fact of the matter is that those fans stopped watching pro wrestling altogether almost a decade ago, and there’s almost nothing that is going to bring them back, let alone a rehash of the same wrestlers that they were watching in the late 1990’s. Rather than stopping to think about any of these points, which many observers were raising before TNA’s ill-fated move to Monday nights, they were ignored and the company decided to push on with a poorly planned move that turned into nothing short of a public embarrassment, as Impact was drubbed in the ratings by Raw and TNA was sent with its tail between its legs back to Thursday nights. I’ve said for many years that the people who run this company have no clue what they’re doing, and if the “New Monday Night War” isn’t clear evidence of that, I don’t know what is.

Michael Ornelas: I feel I could just check last year’s Year End Awards and copy paste what the problems were with TNA and they’d be applicable here, but things were worse in 2010 because they took a lot of chances that didn’t pay off because of ill-advised ideas coming to fruition (bringing in the Nasty Boys sounded like a good idea to someone??). Moving to Mondays was a good idea, but not yet. They suffered big time in the ratings when they tried and slowly decided to move back to Thursdays. They put a man on trial for felonies in their main event, gave him their championship, and made him the centerpiece of the biggest storyline they did in 2010. TNA again let talented, home-grown wrestlers fall by the wayside for older washed-up guys who were big in the nineties or WWE cast-offs. They only guy they did something good with was Ken Anderson. Overall though, TNA’s product has been horrendous. There were some shining moments (Kurt Angle’s top 10 ranking story, the Motor City Machine Guns/Beer Money series, etc.) but overall TNA has shown that it can’t or won’t learn from its past mistakes. They’re doomed to cycle in mediocrity until they do away with the non-stop twists, the old farts, and about a quarter of their roster (or get a second weekly televised show). The verdict for 2010 though is that TNA was the worst promotion around. If only they didn’t waste so much potential…

Jeremy Thomas: I hate that this is the case. Obviously, there is some backyard “promotion” out there that charges two bucks a pop to watch eighteen-year-old retards hit each other with barbed wire-wrapped chairs that is worse than TNA on every measurable level. However, I don’t know the name, and the point here is that never has a company done so little with so much. Truth be told, I’ve enjoyed large swaths of TNA over the last six months, and if it was not for the idiocy they displayed at the beginning of the year I would be vehemently opposed to them being listed as the Worst Fed. But the first several months of 2010 were a complete and utter disaster for the company, and they dug their own grave. Their move to Monday nights could have worked as an alternative to WWE, except they didn’t provide a reason that they were legitimately an alternative and something different than what McMahon and company had to offer, other than the faces. They made stupid decisions like siding with Bubba the Love Idiot over Awesome Kong, and allowed their Knockout Division—which was getting the highest ratings of anything in the company, by the way—get gutted as a result. They tried desperately to make it seem as if they were trying to beat WWE on Monday nights, not just hang in there, and that invited people to make the point that they were losing and thus second-rate as compared to the company they set themselves up as an opponent to. They hired Jeff Hardy when he had a truckload of criminal charges relating to several truckloads worth of drugs, and then put the World Title on him. Now, as I said they had successes. I do not hate TNA, and I think they’ve made some few strides. But the way they squandered any goodwill the majority of wrestling fans were willing to extend them over the past 12 months cannot go unnoticed, and there is little to no doubt in my mind that when you compare what a company is capable of doing and what they achieved, TNA came up the shortest by far.

FED OF THE YEAR

Honorable Mentions:
CHIKARA – 11 Points
New Japan Pro Wrestling – 1 Point
Pro Wrestling Guerilla – 1 Point

3rd Place: Dragon Gate (including Dragon Gate USA)19 points

2nd Place: Ring of Honor23 points

And your winner is…:

World Wrestling Entertainment41 points

Ari Berenstein: My vote for number one was ROH by the way (yeah, I know, no big surprise for some, but hey, I didn’t vote that way last year). Yet, as always, it’s the BIG ‘E that is the big dog of the professional wrestling / sports entertainment world and it takes a lot to knock them off their perch for consideration of a major award like wrestling promotion of the year. For every mistake they make, there is always something that is quality that can equal it out or better it. Really though, I think the reason WWE won this go round is more because of the efforts of the wrestlers than the promotion and creative. It’s the wrestlers like Rey Mysterio and CM Punk who busted their butts in the ring to tell a great grudge feud, but in which the booking end of the things curtailed the potential and pulled the plug too early. Mysterio never joined The Straight Edge Society, but John Cena did join the Nexus. Even so, that part of The Nexus angle started off so brilliantly but nosedived when the bookers rushed the process of Cena fighting back. The Nexus angle as a whole had its highs and lows, but Wade Barrett and John Cena gave their all in doing what they were asked.

The one major success I’ll give WWE great credit for is the pushing of new wrestlers up the card and creating certified main-eventers out of the younger set and though they did it out of necessity with the hiatus of Triple H, the retirement of Shawn Michaels and the departure of the likes of Batista (who was smoking white hot as a top heel going into Wrestlemania 26), at least they did go through with it. The likes of Sheamus, Barrett, Morrison, The Miz, Dolph Ziggler and even Daniel Bryan (once he made it through the testing process) have shined brightly with the added attention. From a wrestling standpoint, it’s the same old song—WWE can deliver when it chooses to do so. They gave Daniel Bryan time in the Ziggler series and he produced. They let Shawn Michaels and Undertaker main-event Wrestlemania 26 and they created history. Jericho gave one-hundred percent all the way through his last match under contract and on and on. There’s a lot that went on in WWE this year and thus, a lot to appreciate.

Greg DeMarco: Where would the competition come from? TNA? Not even close. Ring of Honor? They showed plenty of improvement, but can’t hold a candle to the WWE. Dragon Gate USA? Evolve? Please. PWG? Sorry. Japan? In a state of flux. Chikara? Possibly the closest of all the competitors with the great year they had. 2011 saw many successes for the WWE, including another stadium WrestleMania, the Randy Orton face turn, huge pushes given to Wade Barrett, The Nexus, Jack Swagger and of course The Miz. The WWE also faced talent challenges when Shawn Michaels retired, The Undertaker and Triple H both got hurt, and Chris Jericho & Dave Batista (both WresteMania main eventers) leaving the company. Steady mid-carders Shelton Benjamin, Matt Hardy, Carlito and MVP left as well. The ECW experiment was finally put to rest, and NXT was born (giving us The Nexus, of course). Smackdown seamlessly changed networks. And the WWE continued to churn out good results. To end the year, even more new talent is getting heavily pushed, including Alberto Del Rio and John Morrison. Now the WWE kicked off a hot angle to peak some interest at the start of 2011 in John Cena vs. CM Punk. Of all of the candidates, the WWE had the most consistently successful year in all of wrestling. Not an outstanding year, but a good year.

Ryan Byers: In 2010, I started writing the Monday Night Raw Instant Analysis for this website. As a result, I have a group of people who show up in the comments section virtually every week and accuse me of hating WWE’s product. In all honesty, nothing could be further for the truth. There are some things that I’m critical of, but there are just as many segments that I like, and I’m free with my praise when something good happens. The fact of the matter is, I’m a big fan of this promotion and I enjoy watching them more often than not, which is why I’ve continued to follow their product for almost twenty years now and why I devote a significant amount of my free time to writing about their business. There is some occasional criticism, but there will always be parts of a product that a long-time fan feels can use improvement unless said fan is going out of his way to be positive. All in all, WWE presents an enjoyable form of entertainment. Even if they didn’t, there’s still one major consideration which almost necessitates them winning a promotion of the year competition. The point of a professional wrestling promotion is to MAKE MONEY, and the indisputable fact is that WWE makes several times more money off of professional wrestling than any other company on the face of the planet. They’re a multi-million dollar a year business, and the company that casual observers are most likely to peg as their closest competition actually operate at a loss every year. When you look at it that way, it’s almost impossible not to name WWE the promotion of the year.

Len Archibald: Oh – see now, we just gave Ring of Honor pay-per-view of the year, but WWE is still the fed of the year. Really, there wasn’t much overall competition. It pretty much started on January 4th, when TNA decided to go head to head with Monday Night RAW and start a new “Monday Night Wars” – of course, that decision is now known as the “Monday Night Massacre”, since TNA fell so far so fast in a matter of weeks that if they didn’t retreat back to Thursdays, it could have spelled immediate doom for the company. Storyline wise, WWE was on top of their game, as there were many memorable moments; Shawn Michaels” failed quest to end The Undertaker’s “streak”; Bret Hart returning to the WWE, burying the hatchet with hated rival Shawn Michaels and feuding with Vince McMahon; Legacy’s implosion that led to Randy Orton becoming one of the top faces in all of wrestling; John Cena’s WrestleMania rivalry with a newly turned heel Batista, who showed how insanely talented he is as a performer when he’s turned to the darkside; Sheamus taking out Triple H – and this was just the beginning of the year. 2011 is here, and now we have a new first-time WWE Champion in The Miz, The Nexus running rampant, a slew of new stars and bright prospects for the future.

Be sure to check out Part 3 tomorrow, and Part 4 on Thursday!

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Michael Bauer

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