Wrestling Observer Year End Awards

[Ricky Jackson]

Raw certainly deserves worst TV show of the year. Didn't watch Impact, ROH or any of the other contenders though. I like what I've seen of NXT, although tonight's show was kinda dull. I don't even know if I can get Main Event with my cable package and haven't been motivated to download it yet.

[Tim Evans]

Main Event isn't on cable, it's over the air.

 

TNA is better now that Russo is gone but it's still kinda shitty. Mostly thanks to Aces and Eights and turning the best heel in the business babyface. Also Daniels/Kaz are below Primetime Players, Team Hell No and Thunder and Lightning on my list of best tag teams. They are better than the Briscoes though.

[KrisZ]

Dave upset at the voting on Feud of the Year

 

Ironically, it’s the pro wrestling feud that was No. 1 vs. No. 2, and MMA that had the grudge. I’d flip flop. There was simply too much attention and interest in Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen to rank it behind two guys who did draw a great television rating and sold out medium-sized buildings. Really, as brilliant as Tanahashi vs. Okada was in ring, and that’s enough for a top three, it’s hard, given what this category is about, to put it above Rock vs. Cena, which did deliver a good match and also garnered far more than a usual level of interest.

[Badlittlekitten]

I have never heard of:

 

BEST GIMMICK

1. JOSEPH PARK 154

8. Bray Wyatt 19

And I don't know who Jon Fitch is.

 

Joseph Park is Abyss, playing the role of Abyss's goofy attorney brother. They introduced him in an angle where Abyss went missing and Joseph sought to find him, but the gimmick got over and now Abyss is pretty much gone and I hope he stays that way. Bray Wyatt is Windham Rotunda (the former Husky Harris) doing the Waylon Mercy gimmick in NXT.

 

Both well deserved. If anyone hasn't seen Bray Wyatt yet check out his debut promo

 

 

Don't know much about Abyss but he seemed dull as fuck from what I've seen. Joseph Park is a revelation though, he's been incredible in the role of the out of breath and out of shape attorney/fan geek.

 

His OVW 'training' vignettes were class. Look out Danny Davies fans;

 

[Dylan Waco]

ROH was easily the worst promotion and tv show of the year.

[Minds_Eys]

Is TNA really better since Russo was canned or are people just pretending it's better in order to maintain their "Russo is Satan" narrative?

The Main Event had Kurt Angle unmask one of the Aces & 8's to reveal... MIKE KNOX! Tenay went on about how Taz knows this guy and how we know who it is. I didn't, until they mentioned his name in a bit.

 

 

Tenay and Taz are reasons 1 and 1A why I do not watch TNA. I go months without watching, then watch one week and enjoy the wrestling for the most part but can't overcome Tenay being so intense and excited about a show that has a million different things going on with little payoff. It's the announcer who cried wolf. If he would mellow and provide color like he did in WCW he would be bearable. Maybe TNA needs more luchadores for him to work with.

 

Taz rambles and does nothing for me and appears to have no business commentating. I was checked out of wrestling while he was in the booth for WWE but I assume I didn't miss anything that would leave a void in my life.

 

Does anyone else agree the purging of announcers would go a long ways in making TNA feel different than the terrible Russo booked shows?

[Dylan Waco]

I used to watch TNA solely for Don West. He is easily the best personality in the history of that promotion.

[Ricky Jackson]

I've never liked Taz and Tenay's soul was probably crushed years ago.

[Badlittlekitten]

Does anyone else agree the purging of announcers would go a long ways in making TNA feel different than the terrible Russo booked shows?

There needs to be a purging of announcers all across the board to make wrestling feel different. Taz, Tenay and Lawler are played out and have been phoning it in for years, Cole has only just reached a semi decent level and needs someone new/decent to work with, even JBl's becoming complacent alongside a useless robot like Josh Mathews. There really needs to be a change up in the commentary to freshen things up a bit but I don't see where its gonna come from. Regal's good on NXT but his soft spoken style and his obscure references to British indie pop bands isn't going to fly on the big shows. The Miz? I wouldn't be surprised if he gets on the big two eventually. Bleak times.

[Ricky Jackson]

I think one thing we can take from the results of the WON awards is that North American wrestling on a big time level is in desperate need of rejuvenation.

[Dylan Waco]

The one thing I took away from it is that NJPW is comically overrated

[Ricky Jackson]

That too.

[Ditch]

I have never heard of these promotions:

 

5. Extreme Rising 65

8. Inoki Genome Federation 32

9. Championship Wrestling from Hollywood 18

IGF uses a mix of pro wrestlers and MMA guys because that's Inoki's fetish. It runs only at mid-to-large venues several times a year and I can only imagine it's a yakuza money laundering outfit because it has to lose massive amounts of money.

 

I have no idea what promotions these guys booked:

 

BEST BOOKER

1. GEDO & JADO 592

2. Joe Silva 154

New Japan and UFC, respectively.

 

I have no idea which promotion these guys promoted:

 

PROMOTER OF THE YEAR

2. Takaaki Kidani 289

New Japan

 

 

Also, I have a feeling New Japan is so popular in large part because of doing iPPVs and being what puro newbies of the last few years are following, along with the utter collapse of NOAH.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Extreme Rising is that deal that Shane Douglas has been putting on. I haven't really thought of it as a promotion, though I guess it kinda is.

[Jmare007]

I don't know if New Japan is overrated. I mean, it's not like there's a lot of promotions that deliver like them on a consistent basis and does good business.

 

But then again, it is true that some people praise them as if they were doing something exceptional when that is not the case.

 

Also, I have a feeling New Japan is so popular in large part because of doing iPPVs and being what puro newbies of the last few years are following, along with the utter collapse of NOAH.

I think Dave's pimping is a major factor on New Japan's rise in IWC popularity.

[Loss]

I'm happy that people like New Japan. I may enjoy this time period when I get around to watching it in 2034 or so.

[rzombie1988]

The thing with New Japan is that people are mostly talking about it because Meltzer talks about it. Take out his NJPW iPPV reviews and I guarantee there is a lot less interest in NJPW. It's similar to AAA and AJW in the 1990's.

[Badlittlekitten]

Kings of Pro Wrestling was pretty damn good though.

[jdw]

I've never liked Taz and Tenay's soul was probably crushed years ago.

Mike's been drawing a steady good sized paycheck from pro wrestling for more than a decade and a half now. Something tells me his soul feels perfectly fine. Since he was able to deal with the insanity of WCW, it's highly unlikely that anything in wrestling crushes his soul.

 

John

[tomk]

TNA is watchable since Russo left, I mean when I've watched it was filled with stupidity but it was standard wrestling stupidity and not Russo "what the fuck this makes no sense" stupidity. The couple times I've seen, there was nothing thaat hooked me in (the way Rin Ka King does), but nothing that made it unwatchable.

 

The thing with New Japan is that people are mostly talking about it because Meltzer talks about it. Take out his NJPW iPPV reviews and I guarantee there is a lot less interest in NJPW. It's similar to AAA and AJW in the 1990's.

 

So haven't subbed to Won in a while now, but last year when Tanahashi got the Thesz award Meltz complained that NJ was a minor promotion. He essentially makes the same complaint this year in the feud of the year category.

 

AAA was outdrawing anything else in the US in the early nineties. Not the same thing.

[rovert]

With the greatest respect I think some on this board as just out of step rather than it being New Japan overrated. They had an undeniable year on pretty much every level and firmly wrote the narrative of the year by the Spring of 2012 with the ascension of Okada. For the record I am a WWE guy. But WWE was a boated mixed bag of a promotion in 2012.

 

I think Dave's pimping is a major factor on New Japan's rise in IWC popularity.

New Japan's foreign iPPV buys don't reflect that. Although the buys for the 4th January show are a mystery it seems.

 

They only issue I had with the awards was Ryback winning most overrated. When you have Garett Bischoff benefiting from Nepotism, the annoyingness of Miz and Ken Anderson and the nonchalantness of Rob Van Dam it screams smarky anti-muscle guy bias.

[goodhelmet]

With the greatest respect I think some on this board as just out of step rather than it being New Japan overrated.

So if we don't like the current New Japan product then we are out of step? If we think Davey Richards is a robot who is incapable of stringing two logical sequences together, we are out of step? If being exposed to so much wrestling means that I can see a promotion as overrated because I have seen so much better wrestling... I'll be happy to be out of step.

[Dylan Waco]

With the greatest respect I think some on this board as just out of step rather than it being New Japan overrated. They had an undeniable year on pretty much every level and firmly wrote the narrative of the year by the Spring of 2012 with the ascension of Okada. For the record I am a WWE guy. But WWE was a boated mixed bag of a promotion in 2012.

They had an undeniable year in the universe of Dave and his readers which share a certain sort of aesthetic taste in wrestling. I didn't hate NJPW last year and even considered voting for Okada in the top three in Most Outstanding, but Dave and many F4W's talk about NJPW with a more glowing tone than I did 2010 IWRG. I didn't hate the Dome Show, but calling it the best wrestling show in history is either a case of extreme overrating or a case of a massive aesthetic disconnect that will probably never be bridgeable. In truth the answer is very probably both.

 

NJPW appears to have had a good business year, though I went through all the data I could find when working on my Observer ballot (yes I'm that much of a geek) and I think the degree to which they had a good business year has been massively overhyped.

 

It's also insane to say they "firmly wrote the narrative of the year." They didn't. The only company in the world that writes "the narrative" in any given year is the WWE.

 

For the record I generally agree with you on WWE last year.

[blueminister]

They only issue I had with the awards was Ryback winning most overrated. When you have Garett Bischoff benefiting from Nepotism, the annoyingness of Miz and Ken Anderson and the nonchalantness of Rob Van Dam it screams smarky anti-muscle guy bias.

But nobody rates those guys whereas for some reason a lot of people were talking about the Goldberg clone derailing the year-long Punk angle as A Roll of the Dice That Needed to Happen to Shake Things Up.

[anarchistxx]

I think one thing we can take from the results of the WON awards is that North American wrestling on a big time level is in desperate need of rejuvenation.

I don't think we needed the WON awards to tell us that, US wrestling has needed a major rejuvenation for about ten years. These days there isn't even a ROH circa 2002-2006 to provide a genuine alternative for the hardcores. All the 90s workrate idols are gone, leaving even less to care about on the major shows. WWE relies on special attractions to generate interest.

 

TNA still hasn't got beyond wheeling out decrepit has-beens for whatever reason - they need to learn it is angles and characters that get people interested/invested rather than just getting a load of star names. They are like the clubs in China or America who throw a load of money at football superstars who are well past their best, expecting the name value to rocket their leagues into the global marketplace, without working on other aspects. Or maybe QPR is a better example, buying up as many names as they can without working out how they're going to use them all. Bad analogies all round, I think, but the point is TNA desperately needs its own identity.

 

I really think there is room for a third promotion, that offers something genuinely unique and a wide range of talent, with challenging angles and interesting characters. Like ECW, I suppose, but slightly sanitised and with better presentation values*.

 

* By better presentation values I don't mean clean, high definition and like the WWE - I mean a genuinely unique, interesting look.

 

It also needs a new approach, as mainstream NA wrestling is so stale in terms of both booking and aesthetics. A cool set, better music, a more casual feel, less regimented, less scripted, more relaxed, different styles and looks, less forced, interludes for stuff that isn't long, lame awkward promos (i.e. include upcoming music acts in the show, perform a song, hang in the back, maybe do interviews etc. And not the tired old rock acts the WWE pedals out, actually exciting and hyped electronic acts, hip hop etc).

 

It also needs to be economical with time. Streamline everything, no drawn out promos or contrived scenes, keep it sharp and lean, letting everyone come in and do what they do best without exposing their flaws. Ninety minutes is more than enough for such a show, probably too long even with that. And it needs to ditch the PPV model, it is outdated in the internet age. I know WWE still sells a fair few but they have name value, and the fact that people have been buying them for years. Concentrate on merchandise sales, advertising revenue, attendance and other forms of income.

 

I'm convinced that with the right presentation and some great booking you could build a show around:

 

- Upcoming indie talent. Not especially workrate guys, but guys who can talk, have presence and charisma. Obviously them being fantastic in ring is a bonus, but you can get carried to a good match a lot easier than you can wing a good promo. You can either cut an interview or you can't. They need a decent look, too - and again, I don't just mean chiseled and clean cut, I mean a genuinely intriguing look. Necro Butcher, for instance, has an amazing look, without fitting the traditional mould. Same with Sabu.

 

- A couple of established names - not too many, just enough to get people to take notice.

 

- A handful of brilliant in ring workers

 

- Some charismatic guys to work as managers, commentators

 

- Guys who have a distinct personality and style already, without having been tarnished by WWE and TNA i.e. Briscoe Brothers, Young Bucks, Kota Ibushi

 

Things to avoid are stale tropes like authority figures, repetition, overly scripted promos, promoting ex-WWE guys like Matt Morgan and Tyson Tomko as big stars despite their obvious lack of star power. It also needs to be kept fairly young, so as to seem fresh and a genuine alternative.

 

Unfortunately it would take serious capital to start something like that up, so until we get a persuasive, dogged visionary and a sugar daddy it isn't happening.

 

--

 

On a sidenote, I saw four or five matches from NJPW last year recently, and on that scant evidence it probably deserves the awards. Tanahashi in particular surprised me a lot, I don't remember many people rating him when I was in the Puro loop a few years back. It was certainly a lot more enjoyable than the WWE I have watched this year, especially Raw which is torturous to get through.