Note: Like last year, there are some awards the Wrestling Observer has that I don't really feel I can make a good choice on, so they're left with a N/A.
Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award (Wrestler of the Year): Kenny Omega
I debated long & hard on who I thought was the best wrestler of 2016. I was stuck between AJ Styles and Kenny Omega, but in the end, I went with Omega. In terms of moving up the card, nobody had a better year than Kenny Omega. Omega made the huge jump from the junior heavyweight division to the heavyweight division, and in one year went from defending the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in the middle of the card at Wrestle Kingdom 10 to winning the G1 Climax (thus becoming the gaijin to win the G1) and earning his spot in the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 11. On top of that, Omega won the IWGP Intercontinental Championship once and the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship twice with the Young Bucks, and has had some of the best matches of 2016 against the likes of Tetsuya Naito, Michael Elgin, and Hiroshi Tanahashi.Most Outstanding Wrestler: Cesaro
Cesaro never ceases to amaze me. It really does bum me out a bit how WWE doesn't seem to realize just how great he is. Everything he does is so precise, so athletic, and so incredible that you'd think the guy would have a gotten a singles title reign at some point. And honestly, there's no better example of this then his little sequence where he & Sheamus challenged the New Day and Gallows & Anderson for the RAW Tag Team Championships on RAW, where he ran through literally every opponent in about 20 seconds. It's remarkableBest Box Office Draw: N/A
Feud of the Year: The Miz vs Dolph Ziggler
Both the Miz & Dolph Ziggler had major career revivals in 2016, and it's mostly thanks to this feud. Before the brand split, the Miz was nothing more than a decent mid-carder who didn't really make much of an impact in WWE and Ziggler, while incredibly talented, had gotten incredibly stale and appeared to have cemented his WWE status as "midcard for life." Then the brands split and they started feuding and it was awesome. Both have been cutting some of the best promos of their careers (particularly Miz) and had some great matches, like their matches at No Mercy & TLC.
Tag Team of the Year: The Revival
The Revival are the best tag team in wrestling and I will fight anyone who thinks otherwise. Seriously, they're the best. Their old school heel-style of picking one body part and working it over endlessly and priding themselves on not doing high-risk moves and simply just being the best tag team in the world. Just go back and look at all of their big matches in 2016 and you can see how great they're. Whether it be against Enzo & Cass, American Alpha, or #DIY, they excel and bring the best out of all their opponents.Most Improved: Braun Strowman
The brand split was the best thing to ever happen to Braun Strowman. Back when he was in the Wyatt Family, people dreaded the idea of watching Strowman wrestle at all, with the mere idea of a match between him & the Undertaker at WrestleMania almost instantly getting rejected by fans. Now in 2016, he's finally found his footing. His run of squashing jobbers was entertaining and he seems destined for big things on the RAW brand.Best on Interviews: Enzo Amore
Enzo Amore might not be the best wrestler, but he pretty much makes up for it with how good he is on the microphone. Enzo always manages to make his promos entertaining no matter what they're about. He's so good on the mic that he's become beloved by the fans purely because of it. He even got a crowd to chant "Soccer Mom" at one of the best wrestlers in the world in AJ Styles. He's great.Most Charismatic: Chris Jericho
Chris Jericho pretty much reinvented himself in 2016 and he's have been fantastic ever since. Phrases like "stupid idiot" and just the word "it" aren't great on their own, but Jericho's so good at what he does and is so charismatic that he's gotten them over. And let's not forget the List of Jericho, which is one of the most over things on RAW right now and was involved in some of the most enjoyable segments of 2016.Bryan Danielson Award (Best Technical Wrestler): Zack Sabre Jr.
Zack Sabre Jr. has a lot of great submission holds and works over limbs & body parts during his matches near perfectly.
Bruiser Brody Memorial Award (Best Brawler): Tomohiro Ishii
Tomohiro Ishii hits people hard...really f*cking hard. Some of his matches with Katsuyori Shibata are absolutely brutal, with each man striking each other really f*cking hard and it's awesome.
Best Flying Wrestler: Will Ospreay
Will Ospreay really broke out this year and a lot of it has to do with his incredible high flying ability. His matches in the Best of Super Juniors were great, his matches KUSHIDA were also good, and his 6-man tag with Ricochet & Matt Sydal against Adam Cole & the Young Bucks was fantastic. All of these matches show off how great of a high-flyer the Aerial Assassin is.Most Overrated: Roman Reigns
I do feel a little bad putting Roman Reigns as the most overrated wrestler of the year because he has definitely improved over the years, but his placement on the card despite the crowd's reception of him earns him this spot. The majority of the crowd boos, yet for some reason he's still presented as the top guy on the RAW brand. Even though he's the United States Champion, he's still getting treated like the top champion over the Universal Champion Kevin Owens and that is not OK.Most Underrated: Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
Four wrestlers came to WWE from New Japan in 2016. One of them is WWE Champion. One of them is NXT Champion. The other two spent a month or so making jokes about testicles and being involved in some of the worst segments of the year. And that's not because they're bad, it's because they've been booked beyond horribly. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson were the top tag team in New Japan and should be big deals in the RAW tag team division, but instead, they're pretty much on the same level as the Golden Truth. They're so much better than the Old Day skit that they did, which was one of the worst moments of 2016 for WWEPromotion of the Year: New Japan Pro Wrestling
New Japan Pro Wrestling puts on most of the best matches of the year...that's all I can really say. My personal favorite match from New Japan this year was Kenny Omega vs Tetsuya NaitoBest Weekly TV Show: WWE NXT
Even though the show has dropped a bit in quality since Ryan Ward was moved up to SmackDown's creative team, NXT is still the best weekly wrestling show. With good storylines, well-developed characters, and some fantastic wrestling, NXT is still a great show.
Pro Wrestling Match of the Year: The Revival vs #DIY-NXT Takeover: Toronto
If this match isn't perfect, it's about as close to being perfect as humanly possible. After both these teams stole the show at Takeover: Brooklyn II, they were gonna have to pull out all the stops to top it. And they did in a 2-out-of-3 falls match. Some of the highlights of the match include the fact that each fall got a lot of time, the Revival countering Johnny Gargano's slingshot spear into a brutal Shatter Machine, Scott Dawson blocking Gargano's school boy enziguri with the title belt, Gargano surviving the move that he tapped out to in Brooklyn, and the double submission finish. It's a fantastic match that every wrestling fan needs to see.Rookie of the Year: N/A
Best Non-Wrestler: Dario Cueto
For someone who had no experience in wrestling prior to Lucha Underground, he certainly picked up how to be a great wrestling character quickly. Dario Cueto's purely evil character is one the most enjoyable and he's a fantastic villain for the insane world of Lucha Underground.Best Television Announcer: Mauro Ranallo
Since coming to WWE at the beginning of 2016, Mauro Ranallo has been a breath of fresh air for the commentary table. He's brought a sense of seriousness back to commentary and while his frequent pop culture references can get a bit much at times, he's still the best commentator in WWE today.Worst Television Announcer: David Otunga
I didn't think it was possible to be worse than JBL...I really didn't. David Otunga proved me wrong. He's only been a commentator for a few months now but he's unforgivably bad at his job. Not only does he fail to contribute anything to the show with his commentary. That fact that he has by comparison made JBL look good just shows how bad he is at commentary.
Best Major Wrestling Show: NXT Takeover: Dallas
Worst Major Wrestling Show: WrestleMania 32
I was stuck between this and SummerSlam, but I decided to go with WrestleMania 32 because this is supposed to be the biggest show of the year, and it was pretty bad. There were good moments like Zack Ryder winning the Intercontinental Championship, AJ Styles vs Chris Jericho, the women's triple threat, and Shane McMahon's dive off the top of the Hell in a Cell, but there was a lot of bad stuff too. The New Day vs The League of Nations was largely forgettable aside from the post-match stuff with Stone Cold, Shawn Michaels, and Mick Foley, Dean Ambrose vs Brock Lesnar was a major disappointment and possibly one of the worst matches of the year, and Undertaker vs Shane McMahon was largely poor aside from dive off the top of the cell. Roman Reigns vs Triple H main evented and it was a disaster, with the sluggish match going on far too long in front of a crowd that completely rejected the babyface Reigns. All that, along with a Rock segment that went far too long and the whole show going way too long, is what made this the worst show of the year in my opinion.Best Wrestling Maneuver: Kenny Omega: One-Winged Angel
I'll let the move speak for itself
Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic: Karl Anderson ripping the head off the Dusty Rhodes bear
This probably wouldn't count as a promotional tactic since it was just something they pulled on a random episode of RAW, but this was pretty bad. In a backstage segment, Bayley gave Goldust a teddy bear with polka dots and talked about how much Dusty Rhodes meant to her. Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson quickly showed up and Anderson ripped the head off of the bear. It was in pretty poor taste and only lead to a sh*tty throwaway match between the Golden Truth and Gallows & Anderson.
Worst Television Show: WWE RAW
While SmackDown has done well since the brand split, RAW is still suffering from the same problems it had last year. There's a lot of filler, an over-emphasis on the authority figures, a lot of average at best wrestling, and a bad split between a number of matches & talking segments. Not to mention the fact that the show is three hours long every week, which is too long for a weekly show.
Worst Match of the Year: Rebel vs Shelley Martinez-One Night Only: Knockouts Knockdown
It was actually pretty hard to pick a worst match for 2016 because honestly, there wasn't really any match that was too awful this year...then I saw this. Jesus, this was garbage. Coming from one of those One Night Only pay-per-views TNA does, Shelley Martinez took on Rebel and it was horrible. Some of the lowlights include the opening minute being nothing but yelling, Shelley selling a sh*tty submission hold by screaming "MY VAG!", and Shelley botching a suicide dive so poorly it's hard to even describe. Just take a look:
Worst Feud of the Year: Roman Reigns vs Triple H
If the goal of this feud was to get Roman Reigns over as the top babyface, then it failed...catastrophically. Actually, it was worse than catastrophic, because it did the exact opposite of getting Roman Reigns over. Not only was Reigns not cheered by the crowd leading up to the matchup between him & Triple H, but he was viciously booed throughout the feud while Triple H was cheered like a hero. When the feud does the opposite of what it was supposed to do, then it's easily the worst feud of the year in my book.Worst Promotion of the Year: TNA
Broken Hardy's aside, TNA has been pretty bad this year. A lot of the company's TV has largely forgettable and the business side of the company has been even worse. After the messy split from Billy Corgan, TNA went to court an unpaid debt to Corgan and the whole affair just hasn't been good for anyone.Best Booker: Ryan Ward
SmackDown has been a lot better than RAW since the brand split, and a lot of that has to do with Ryan Ward. The former head writer for NXT, Ward got moved up to SmackDown and now SmackDown is the better show for WWE's main roster. The wrestlers are obviously responsible as well, but Ward's contributions can't go unpraised.Promoter of the Year: N/A
Best Gimmick: Matt Hardy ("Broken")
How could it be anyone else? Broken Matt Hardy is without a doubt one of the most entertaining gimmicks in wrestling today and is constantly involved in some of the most enjoyable segments in TNA recently. The Final Deletion, Delete & Decay, and Total Nonstop Deletion were all loads of fun, and none of them would've been possible without Broken Matt Hardy. Not to mention that since becoming "broken", Matt Hardy has gotten a drone, a dilapidated boat, his child, his gardener, and the word "delete" over. I honestly don't think anyone else could have done that. It's Hardy's commitment to the gimmick as well that makes it great, as he never breaks character and always hams it up, no matter where he is.Worst Gimmick: Gallows & Anderson (Testicle doctors)
There were probably worse gimmicks in 2016 but...I'm sorry, one of the top tag teams in the world were turned into BALL DOCTORS! Piss off.
Best Pro Wrestling Book: N/A
Best Pro Wrestling DVD: N/A
Well, those are my choices. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed
I agree with a lot of your choices except one. The most overrated award should go to Brock Lesnar. At least Roman can deliver great matches, and his placement on the card is booking's fault. Lesnar has been on auto pilot ever since ending the streak. Suplex, suplex, suplex, F-5, repeat. His matches are nothing but overhyped bore fests, and he never puts anyone over. He's a worse version of Cena in the early 2010s.
ReplyDeleteRipping the head off of the Dusty Rhodes bear shouldn't be on this list and Cesaro (in my book) as long as he stays in the WWE will always be the winner of Underrated Wrestler of the year
ReplyDeletethe worst thing about WWE in 2016 (imho) has to be the over-emphasis on these manly "women" and mauro ranallo's fake radio voice.
ReplyDelete