Lou Thesz/Ric Flair Award: Wrestler of the Year

[Loss]

In 1996, the voters decided Kenta Kobashi was the Wrestler of the Year. This is head-scratching to me, even though Kobashi did have a very good year.

 

Kobashi won the Triple Crown in July by beating Akira Taue in an excellent match. He also had excellent defenses against Kawada and Hansen. Earlier in the year, he lost in a great match against Misawa as well. But during this time, it seems the focus was less on the Triple Crown and more on tag teams. Maybe it's just hardcore revisionist history based on the workrate and not what the biggest focus of the promotion was, but in some ways, Kobashi seems like sort of an MIA guy for 1996. The hottest feud seemed to be Misawa/Akiyama vs Kawada/Taue, which produced quite a few fantastic matches and was far more compelling than any of Kobashi's defenses, even if I did love both of the title defenses had that made this set. In terms of memorable performances, Doc and Ace might even rank ahead of Kobashi for the year.

 

I don't want to blame him completely for that. Kobashi was partnered with The Patriot in the tag league, who was less established in AJPW than the other guys. So it's not so much pointing to flaws in what Kobashi did that year as it is not understanding what made him stand out enough to get the award.

 

Many wrestlers had tremendous years in 1996. Kobashi was one of those wrestlers. But I think in a year this crowded, it takes quite a bit to stand out from everyone else. Within his promotion, Kobashi seemed less important than the other four, and on a global scale, Kobashi was just another "great wrestler" who popped up in some really good matches from time to time. That describes so many wrestlers that I think Wrestler of the Year needs to be something more significant. What I want to do is look at the four guys that I think have a strong case for Wrestler of the Year, and walk through their pros and cons before making my final pick. First I want to talk about Hulk Hogan.

 

HULK HOGAN

If this award was about redemption, Hogan would take it in a cakewalk. It gets said often, and I've said it often recently when going through the posts, but Hogan deserves tremendous credit for the turnaround he had in 1996. He started off on a terrible note. He was in feuds with the Horsemen and Dungeon of Doom, and was usually partnered with Randy Savage. The Flair/Savage issue was hotter than anything Hogan did for the first half of the year. If he wasn't being booed out of a building, he was getting at best a lukewarm response.

 

He had trouble clicking. As petty as they were, the Billionaire Ted skits did hit a raw nerve and touched on something real at the time: Hogan was growing irrelevant. He seemed old and washed up, and his gimmick felt like it was in a time warp. His descent during the first half of 1996 coincided with a fairly strong start on the WWF side. Bret was champ, Shawn was on the rise and Diesel was in a role that was clicking. All of them felt fresh and like their best days were ahead. Hogan felt like a guy clinging to his past.

 

For some wrestlers, this wouldn't be the most terrible thing in the world. But WCW was still building around Hogan as their key player. And he was an anchor that was sinking the ship in some ways. In April, when he took some time off, it felt long overdue. Flair and Savage's feud was drawing well on house shows while Hogan's act was wearing thin. Supposedly, Hogan and Bischoff were on the outs and WCW was starting to accept life after Hogan. His loss didn't seem to make much difference. While the WWF was winning the ratings war most weeks at this point, WCW was still competitive.

 

When Scott Hall and Kevin Nash jumped ship from the WWF, it was significant. They kickstarted an angle that was hot and they seemed on track to do good business. But Hogan's turn and leadership of the NWO made the angle red hot and started the hottest business period in WCW history.

 

Hogan completely reinvented himself. He wore all black and sunglasses. He grew a beard. He started calling himself Hollywood Hogan. He also started doing the best interviews of his career, beginning with one of the all-time great money promos at Bash at the Beach, when he told fans they could stick it and joined forces with Hall and Nash. At first, he was still Hogan, just angrier, doing "Whatcha gonna do?" screaming promos, only directed at babyfaces instead of heels. But the Hall and Nash influence was good in that it relaxed him a bit, and within a month of turning, he had his act down pat and would be consistently awesome as an interview through the rest of the year.

 

Hogan is not without his negatives. Obviously, one of those is that he didn't really have any good matches. He was nowhere near as bad in the ring as the perception was at the time, but he also wasn't a guy who was having solid title defenses. Part of that may have been that WCW had no Pat Patterson to lay out his matches. Hogan was still physically capable at this point, and even when facing guys like Savage, Piper and Giant, could have had decent matches had some attention been paid to the layout.

 

Also, by the time he was in a groove, over half the year was over. If it was a half-year award, I'd have a hard time not saying Hogan should take it, but when looking at the year as a whole, I feel like the weak first half does have to be taken into consideration. For this reason, Hulk Hogan, despite being resurgent, is NOT my Wrestler of the Year.

 

Next, I'll walk through the year of another guy that I think has a case: Nobuhiko Takada.

[Loss]

I have less to say about Takada than Hogan, but I still think he's a worthy candidate for Wrestler of the Year, if only because he headlined the two biggest shows of the year -- against Muto in January and against Hashimoto in April. I'm not sure how he isn't the biggest box office draw. He also had some terrific matches against Hashimoto, Tenryu (twice), Koshinaka, Takayama and others.

 

But I think what hurts Takada is how infrequently he pops up. I say that acknowledging that his year is impressive by most standards, but there were quite a few wrestlers in All Japan, New Japan and WCW that were more active.

 

I also don't want to get too into the discussion of Takada as a worker. That's more a topic to discuss in the "Most Outstanding Wrestler" (where I don't think Takada really has a case like he does here), but across the board, in every match I've seen him in on this set, Takada is working with a superior opponent who makes the match as good as it is.

 

So for those reasons, Takada is NOT my pick for Wrestler of the Year.

 

Next, I'll talk about Shawn Michaels.

[jdw]

I probably would go Hogan, Hash, Takada in some order. I think I had Hogan in the Torch Awards, which were US based. Can't remember if I had Hash ahead of Hogan in the WON awards.

 

John

[jdw]

Misawa had an underrated WOTY year. Not one of his frontline years in that regard, but a bit more subtle: his job was to get others over, and he did a rather good job of it. I don't think the promotion did a good job of nailing any of them:

 

* Taue's shinning moment was quashed by Kobashi getting the belt

 

* Jun seemed to spin his wheel in 1997, then the pairing with Kobashi was a regression

 

* Kawada wouldn't advance form 12/96 until 5/98

 

But that doesn't take away that Misawa did what he needed to in 1996, pretty well.

 

John

[Loss]

Let's also discuss Shawn Michaels.

 

I think it's fair to say Shawn started the year off on the right foot. I think it's also fair to say that while Bill Watts thought they should stick with Bret on top, the WWF putting Shawn in the driver's seat was an understandable decision. Diesel bombed as champion, and Michaels was the most over guy on the roster for most of the previous year. The concussion angle was also the perfect story to carry him to Wrestlemania.

 

But something went wrong. Some was in his control and some was out of his control.

 

Business was good early on. The roster was still strong. While Bret bailed after dropping the belt, Diesel and Shawn had an excellent PPV main event where Shawn went over strong. But Diesel, Bret and Razor all could have done quite a bit with Shawn as champ, and none of it happened. Instead, he ended up programmed with Davey Boy Smith. The feud was put together really well, but it was a step down from what Shawn could have done.

 

The Vader feud should have been really hot. In January, Shawn came to the save of Gorilla Monsoon after a Vader attack, and the heat was strong enough that we could see there was something there. That match in six months could be big. Vader was even pushed reasonably strong going into it. But during that six months, WCW overtook the WWF. Hall and Nash were gone. Nothing Shawn could do could compete with a Hogan heel turn.

 

The pressure of being champion seemed to get to him at times. He would lash out at fans and yell at wrestlers who were out of place for spots during his matches. He also wasn't presented in a light that would get the most out of him, as the announcers oversold him and his sex appeal, and by the time Survivor Series happened, the MSG crowd had completely turned on him and were excited to see him drop the belt to Sid of all people.

 

The story of Shawn in 1996 is one of missed opportunity. Had he been booked in the right way against the right opponents (He needed more Mankind and Diesel-like brawls to get him over as a tough guy) and had the announcers toned down the lovefest, Shawn would have been a successful champion and probably would be the Wrestler of the Year.

 

But he's not Wrestler of the Year.

 

That is ... the next wrestler I'll talk about.

[Loss]

So my pick for WOTY is ... Shinya Hashimoto.

 

Was Hashimoto the biggest draw in the world? No. One could argue Takada was a bigger draw. But I'm not sure I'd put anyone else above him in that category.

 

Was Hashimoto the best worker in the world? No. But only a handful of guys were better.

 

So based on the Ric Flair standard of combining good main event matches with drawing power, Hashimoto is the guy who stands out the most.

 

Even in losing, he was so good at getting the big picture over so well. Choshu's G-1 moment would not have had the dramatic impact it had if Hashimoto hadn't worked so hard to put him over. He's the guy who could do the least and get the biggest reaction, but still worked really hard. He did this in singles matches and tag matches, on big shows and small shows, against native talent and foreign talent, and against guys in their physical prime and guys who had seen better days.

 

No one was quite as valuable to their promotion from January 1 to December 31 as Hashimoto was to New Japan in 1996.

 

That's why he is my pick.

[Tim Evans]

If this was best character, I'd give it to Hogan easily. My pick is Tenyru. The matches with Takada were just great. If Savage had stayed around longer, I would have picked him probably.