Jimmy Redman Posted March 3, 2014 Report Share Posted March 3, 2014 So I wrote a little* piece for Wrestling101 about my Top 100 matches of 2013 for WWE. TV was so great last year I couldn't limit myself to anything less. Since a lot of you folks are closely following WWE and there's been a lot of talk about the quality of WWE TV lately, I'd love to hear your thoughts and disagreements. http://www.wrestling101.com/home/2014/03/the-redman-report-top-100-wwe-matches-of-2013/ * Not little Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 3, 2014 Report Share Posted March 3, 2014 Disagreed with a ton of it, but a fun read and a great resource for the future. I was pleasantly surprised to see that awesome Sheamus v. Barrett main event match pop up so high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim Posted March 3, 2014 Report Share Posted March 3, 2014 There's a bunch of pretty highly ranked matches that I don't even remember. Good stuff. Heck of a year for TV wrestling. Here's a top 25 I made for a poll on another forum: 1. Brock Lesnar vs. CM Punk, Summerslam2. John Cena vs. Daniel Bryan, Summerslam3. Daniel Bryan vs. Antonio Cesaro, RAW 07/224. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins vs. Goldust & Cody Rhodes, RAW 10/145. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins vs. Goldust & Cody Rhodes, Battleground6. John Cena vs. CM Punk, RAW 02/257. William Regal vs. Kassius Ohno, NXT 03/218. The Shield vs. Daniel Bryan/the Usos/PTPs/R-Truth/RVD/Kofi Kingston/Zack Ryder/Justin Gabriel/Dolph Ziggler, RAW 9/239. Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins vs. The Usos, Hell in a Cell10. The Shield vs. John Cena, Ryback and Sheamus, Elimination Chamber11. Antonio Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn, 2/3 Falls12. Antonio Cesaro vs. Kofi Kingston, Main Event 04/3013. William Regal vs. Antonio Cesaro, NXT 11/2114. Antonio Cesaro vs. Sheamus, Main Event 06/0515. Goldust & Cody Rhodes vs. Antonio Cesaro & Jack Swagger vs. Big Show & Rey Mysterio vs. Ryback & Curtis Axel, TLC16. Dolph Ziggler vs. Alberto del Rio, Payback17. Goldust, Cody Rhodes & John Cena vs. Damien Sandow, Jack Swagger & Antonio Cesaro, Smackdown 01/2918. Alberto del Rio vs. Christian, Summerslam19. Big Show vs. Alberto del Rio, Smackdown LMS20. Goldust, Cody Rhodes & Big Show vs. The Shield, RAW 12/0221. Randy Orton vs. Daniel Bryan, RAW 12/1622. Goldust vs. Randy Orton, RAW 09/0923. Bo Dallas vs. Sami Zayn, NXT 09/1224. Joh Cena vs. Mark Henry, Money in the Bank25. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins, Smackdown 12/27 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 3, 2014 Report Share Posted March 3, 2014 Cool list. Enthusiasm for wrestling is contagious. I want to eventually see all of these! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted March 4, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 Disagreed with a ton of it, but a fun read and a great resource for the future. I was pleasantly surprised to see that awesome Sheamus v. Barrett main event match pop up so high. I've watched Sheamus/Barrett and Sheamus/Cesaro from ME back-to-back like three times now, trying to figure out which one I liked more. I'm still not convinced. The Barrett match was amazing. Interested to hear which ones you disagreed with though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 4, 2014 Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 Well everything on there I thought was at least pretty good. I thought you had stuff like Cesaro v. Regal way too low, but I admit that's a match that is not necessarily going to jump off the page for everyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted March 4, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2014 The placements of Cesaro/Regal and Punk/Taker I figured would be the main ones. I'm going to talk about the things I wasn't wild about in Cesaro/Regal that will make it sound like I didn't like the match, but believe me, I really did. It was so great. Putting it as "low" as I did isn't really damning since I loved everything on the list. There were just a couple things that stood out to me that kind of bothered me that meant I didn't put it as high as the dozens of other matches that I just liked more. Overall the match just wasn't as complete as I wanted it to be. It felt more like a bunch of cool ideas all thrown at the wall, rather than a coherent whole. There were sections I loved (the first part) and definitely spots I loved (the snapmare thing, the stretch muffler, the stomp to the head, Jesus, too many to name) but there were also other sections and spots I felt didn't fit and it just felt a little bit less than the sum of its parts. Like they just tried to stuff too much cool stuff into one match rather than relax and tell one complete story. The leg and arm selling bothered me. You know how people criticise juniors matches or whatever and say "You could have held up a sign saying 'we will now run through highspots'"? Like they flip a switch from selling whatever to no-selling. For me, Regal getting chop blocked and immediately screaming in terror was the opposite of that, they could have held up a sign saying 'we will now proceed to the leg work portion of the evening'. Just a bit too on the nose for me. And the bicep attack I found just as hacky. He gets kicked once in each arm and suddenly he's in agony and trying to pop his shoulders back into place. I didn't buy it. The other main thing that bothered me was the overdramatics at the finish. I'm not opposed to re-creating the Shawn/Flair vibe on a smaller scale in theory, but it felt like it came out of nowhere and didn't make sense after Cesaro was such a heel going in. There was no real significant 'mentor/student' relationship established to make sense out of Cesaro completely abandoning his character and motivation going in to take pity on Regal. Regal was just the resident NXT Legend that Cesaro wanted to destroy to assert his dominance. Felt like a misguided attempt to make it more "epic". Once again, I liked the match a lot. I guess just not quite as much as I wanted to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 I wanted to know all the Shield matches I needed to watch because I literally only watch RAW (not even PPVs). Excellent resource for that. Thanks you so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slackermillionaire Posted March 5, 2014 Report Share Posted March 5, 2014 Nice list and now with the network it is a real handy reference tool. Just going through it now, their is stuff I really liked but already have forgot about like Del Rio vs Swagger from Smackdown 19th of April. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 10, 2014 Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 Just bumping this to say I created a thread for everything listed in your top 100. All are searchable under the 2013 WWE 100 tag. Here's a direct link to all of them: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/tags/forums/2013%2BWWE%2B100/ Note: The reason there are 102 is that I broke up The Shield gauntlet from 11/29 into three threads. Everyone, feel free to chime in with your thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimmy Redman Posted March 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2014 This is excellent, great work mate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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