2017

[Grimmas]

Who is the greatest wrestler of the year?

[El-P]

Tetsuya Naito.

Of course not, that was the year of Okada's legendary title reign. Okada, doh !

[kas]

Okada this year is one of the three best in-ring years I've ever seen so gotta be him.

[Tetsujin]

Even with the legendary Okada's reign, I'm still going with Naito. The Tanahashi trilogy is better than the Okada-Omega one, crazy good G1, amazing matches with Elgin, Ibushi, Juice, Omega, ZSJ, and he was at the peak of his popularity. He looked as good as anyone else in history.

[Boss Rock]

Okada or Omega. Even outside of their trilogy, both had great G1 runs and MOTYC's against other opponents (Shibata and Naito). Kenny also has the Ishii trilogy and U.S. title run while Okada gave Cody his best match up to that point.

[Nova]

Thatcher had one of the most cathartic years from an emotional standpoint, leaving the shackles of EVOLVE and proving to everyone that he HAS been one of the best in the world for a few years now.

Though, he wasn’t THE best. That honor goes to his tag team partner and Ace of the promotion of the year (wXw), WALTER. He felt like a mountain that everyone was forced to climb, both as a heel and face. There’s some genuinely great stuff from him (see the feud with Bobby Gunns and 16 Carat as a whole). There’s two things that push him over the top though, and that’s the MOTYC vs Ilja Dragunov in 16 Carat and what is unfortunately the best feud of the late 2010s against David Starr.

Not a “Slam Dunk” year for WALTER’s case, but one I basically had penciled in since the beginning.