2016 Year-End

[Parties]

This was the best year for wrestling since 2013 or earlier, and really one of the best since I started reading message boards in 2005.

 

Lots of great matches at a time in which we’re understandably worried about WWE cannibalizing/homogenizing the indies. Lots of new indies springing up on YouTube, asserting that the weird shall remain weird.

 

Styles has a year that seems to verify him as a HOF/All-Time Top 100 worker. Hero is right there with him. Riddle looks like the future of the business and perhaps even a blueprint of a new kind of worker.

 

Tag wrestling was particularly strong this year, as you had the Traumas/Panteras feud, Revival/DIY, the EVOLVE tag tournament, Usos/The Club, and even some of the Smackdown scene (I personally think Orton joining the Wyatts was weird, inspired booking).

 

EVOLVE – despite some cheesy storylines and bad mic work - thrives as a strange, great amalgam of 90s Japan, 2000s ROH, and even some traces of ECW. IWRG returns from the abyss. CMLL has a quiet but solid run with some standout matches, kind of like an NBA team in a rebuilding year establishing their new stars for the future. Japan remains what it’s been since 2010 or so. American indies feel way more vibrant after years of mediocre workers coming up through ROH and the like. (A half-baked theory on this could be that we're seeing the first crop of YouTube generation wrestlers: people who were young enough to see the surge in footage online and get inspired to become workers in part because of it. Whereas the uninspired new indie workers who broke out in 2007-2014 or so may have come of age during the post-WCW/Baba hangover of bad WWE, less access to indies, and a disjointed Japanese scene.)

 

I was surprised at how positive this year was, to be honest. The accessibility of footage has been a big deal for years now, but it was never more apparent this year that there is great stuff out there.

[Parties]

With apologies for the double-post, one separate question I would ask in the spirit of my favorite year-end superlative: who’s 2016 Wrestling’s Comeback Player of the Year? Matt Hardy (or both Hardys) could be the top candidates. I could see some people saying Kendrick given his story. An argument could be made for Sapolsky, but that’s been going on since maybe 2014. Some people would say Goldberg, but that’s misunderstanding a “comeback”. There’s probably someone obvious who I’m forgetting, but maybe I’m also asking: what in 2016 wrestling constitutes a comeback?

[Matt D]

With apologies for the double-post, one separate question I would ask in the spirit of my favorite year-end superlative: who’s 2016 Wrestling’s Comeback Player of the Year? Matt Hardy (or both Hardys) could be the top candidates. I could see some people saying Kendrick given his story. An argument could be made for Sapolsky, but that’s been going on since maybe 2014. Some people would say Goldberg, but that’s misunderstanding a “comeback”. There’s probably someone obvious who I’m forgetting, but maybe I’m also asking: what in 2016 wrestling constitutes a comeback?

 

Rhyno getting a tag title run was pretty unexpected.

[Loss]

I haven't seen a single match from him this year and was never a particularly huge fan, but I have seen the name "Marufuji" next to typed asterisks quite a few times this year after not seeing such a thing for many years. So is he in the conversation?

[WingedEagle]

I haven't seen a single match from him this year and was never a particularly huge fan, but I have seen the name "Marufuji" next to typed asterisks quite a few times this year after not seeing such a thing for many years. So is he in the conversation?

 

Can't say I've sought him out in recent years, but he absolutely delivered in New Japan. Thought he had excellent G1 matches with Okada & Tanahashi in particular, as well as very good bouts with Ishii & Goto as well as played a hand in a solid tag setting up the October title match with Okada, which was the best of his run. Actually plan on watching the Sugiura match from the recent NOAH big show as I've heard good things about the most recent one following the NJPW split.

[Mattsdmf]

2016 was a very important year for me as a wrestling fan as I have watched more wrestling now than ever. While I've seen very little new wrestling, I have seen a lot of older wrestling. Here are my Top 30 first time watches:

1. El Dandy vs. Pirata Morgan [EMLL 9/23/88]
2. Aja Kong/Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto/Shinobu Kandori [AJW 3/27/94]
3. Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshinari Ogawa [NOAH 11/1/03]
4. El Hijo del Santo vs. Espanto Jr. [WWA 8/31/86]
5. Tommy Rich vs. Buzz Sawyer [GCW 10/23/83]
6. Ted DiBiase vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan [Mid-South 3/8/85]
7. Ted DiBiase vs. Dick Murdoch [Mid-South 12/31/85]
8. Barry Windham vs. Arn Anderson [WCW 6/6/92]
9. 2 Cold Scorpio vs. Shane Douglas [ECW 5/11/96]
10. Negro Navarro vs. El Dandy [iWRG 11/18/01]
11. Atlantis vs. Ultimo Guerrero [CMLL 9/19/14]
12. Eddy Guerrero vs. 2 Cold Scorpio [ECW 4/8/95]
13. Bret Hart vs. The 1-2-3 Kid [WWF 7/11/94]
14. Mitsuharu Misawa/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. KENTA/Naomichi Marufuji [NOAH 4/25/04]
15. Trevor Lee vs. John Skyler [CWF Mid-Atlantic 9/8/16]
16. Negro Casas vs. Mocha Cota [CML 9/23/94]
17. Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama [NOAH 9/7/02]
18. Invader III vs. Eric Embry [WWC 1/6/86]
19. Stan Hansen vs. Carlos Colon [WWC 10/12/86]
20. Taka Michinoku/MEN's Teoih/Dick Togo vs. Great Sasuke/Gran Hamada/Gran Naniwa [ECW 2/15/97]
21. The Invaders vs. Los Pastores [WWC 9/21/85]
22. Ted DiBiase/Dr. Death vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan/Terry Gordy (Texas Tornado Match) [Mid-South 1/21/85]
23. Terry Funk vs. Barry Windham [WWC 9/19/86]
24. Chicky Starr vs. Invader III [WWC 5/86]
25. Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Koji Kanemoto [NJPW 6/3/98]
26. The Fantastics vs. Midnight Express [Mid-South 9/28/84]
27. Dick Murdoch vs. Butch Reed [Mid-South 10/14/85]
28. The Fantastics vs. Dutch Mantel/Bill Dundee [Mid-South 9/20/85]
29. Terry Gordy vs. Dr. Death [uWF 12/28/86]
30. The Fantastics/Terry Taylor vs. The Sheepherders/Jack Victory [uWF 5/25/86]