Boss Rock

The "Benoit never connected with the crowd" thing always confused me. I only really saw his WWE run but he was clearly a wrestler who fans were drawn to. I would argue Eddie had a bigger connection to the crowd, but Benoit was a very popular wrestler who could pull a crowd into what he was doing.

I haven't been too impressed with Cobb's indie work prior to LU, but I admittedly didn't see a ton of his stuff this year. Really hope he turned it around because outside of LU (where he's usually great), he's a guy I always WANTED to like.

Misawa and A.J. over Bret and Shawn, and I actually think they're both pretty similar in a lot ways. Both had awesome offense, great execution, and were overall just excellent jack-of-all-trades.

Really had a ton of fun doing this.

One of the issues was that the test that discovered the lesion really had no standard to compare to as it was still experimental and another doctor told Bryan that "lesion" is a vague term and doesn't necessarily mean it's dangerous. All the other doctors prior had cleared him and it was only until the lesion test that WWE told him he needed to retire.

Pretty much. Especially considering when he suffered that last concussion, they didn't pull him off the road right away.

I am so happy. Bryan was the guy who got me back into wrestling when my fandom had really waned. His Wrestlemania 30 story was the most invested I've ever been in a story. And I missed out twice on seeing him live. Can't wait!

Mark Henry is the next inductee.

I know the HOF doens't matter in the grand scheme of things, but I'm still hoping the Regal rumor was true.

Probably the best NJPW match this year, for sure. The Cup has overall been really good with Archer-Fale and Tanahashi-Taichi arguably being the only two skippable matches.

I think the Usos were pretty clearly the best tag team of the year. The New Day matches alone were fantastic and the Cell match was an arguable low-end match of the year contender. And even before New Day, they had really good stuff with American Alpha and fun work with Breezango. As for the Bucks, I thought they had some good stuff against Roppongi Vice.

Guessing it's an angle. Wouldn't be surprised if the match happens at Dominion.

And Limp Bizkit isn't! Ha!

Absolutely.

Gotta play a bit of catch-up today but really enjoyed Nak-Rusev.

Actually surprised Cena made it to the top 5. I was sort of second-guessing myself after submitting my ballot and might have gone Austin as #1 instead, but happy he finished that high.

I did enjoy the match with Hiromu more than others, but him screaming "MY NECK!" was peak Ospreay. I generally find the dude entertaining, but he needs to cut it out.

That's certainly fair. I just think the early goings of the Shane feud and the turn on Jericho were enough to keep him off my list.

Owens has been a letdown but I think he still had more positive moments than Natalya and Corbin.

I liked the match. Other than Ospreay screaming at every small submission move (arm twist, leg crank, etc), he was pretty reigned-in.

I think the issue with Reigns being Most Overrated (other than being a great wrestler) is that while he was always near the top of the card, his booking wasn't stellar. He lost pretty much every match with Braun and took the pin at Summerslam. Brock has a better case for Most Overrated than Reigns does. And Cesaro is a case where just because you're a terrific wrestler, it doesn't necessarily mean you should be a main eventer. Don't get me wrong, I'd love a Cesaro gold watch world title run and him wrestling regularly in the main event, but his promo and character work is not there. He was made to be a midcard workhorse or tag team specialist. This is like, his third tag team that's been really, really good.

I'd go Jinder for Most Overrated (shout-outs to Corbin and Natalya as well) and Becky for Most Underrated (shout-outs to Naomi, Mojo, and Harper).

Thought the Anniversary Show was a very solid top-to-bottom card. Okada/Ospreay and Suzuki/Makabe were definitely the best matches. Makabe was sloppy as hell and had some miscues but Suzuki really turned in a tremendous performance to make it look like an actual, chaotic fight. Ospreay-Okada took a bit too long to get going (especially considering neither guy are great matworkers) but really took off after the first five minutes. Thought Taichi delivered in a big way even if I don't think he'll ever be "really good". SANADA/YOSHI-HASHI was really slow in the first half (and I'm really disappointed they blew a spot for a Skull End count-out attempt) but thought the second half was really good.

Yep.

This was a perfectly good plunder match. Not great, but it worked. Shawn's selling was bad near the end (particularly when he just pops up after jumping off the ladder), but Haitch did a surprisingly good job heeling. Instead of needing to be an ass-kicker, he instead targeted the injured back. ***1/4-***1/2.