WWE's Best Year Since 2002?

[Undefeated Steak]

I asked this in the q's thread and it got a few replies. What's WWE's best year (creatively) since they changed from WWF to WWE?

 

I said 2006 initially mainly for the Edge/Cena stuff but as Tommy said, there was some awful shit in 2006 too.

 

 

 

On 2006 wasn't that the year of the awful dx rerun and that shambles of a flair vs Foley feud? Fuck me, that I quit match was the shits on the dumb fucking finish alone.

 

 

 

 

I really liked 2008. Great Royal Rumble, great Wrestlemania, great Edge vs Undertaker feud, great Jericho vs HBK feud. They seemed to try and shake things up a little with things like CM Punk's first World Title reign. It was almost unpredictable.

 

 

 

 

2011 had a brilliant Rumble, The Rock's return, and the Summer of Punk. With the rise of Daniel Bryan on SmackDown and Mark Henry being a boss. I'd go for that.

 

 

[ColinBollocks]

I stopped watching in about 2003 and picked it up again leading into the 2008 Rumble. I don't know if it was due to me pretty much watching nothing and reading nothing from 03-08, so it all felt fresh again, but 2008 seemed like a brilliant year at the time.

 

What hooked me first was the excellent Orton v Hardy build for the Rumble and the subsequent Rumble match that featured that hilarious Cena return where everybody cheered before realising they were supposed to boo Cena.

2008 you also had Edge and Undertaker doing a grand job on Smackdown for almost the entire year. While in the (sort of) middle Jericho and Michaels were doing some of their best work. IIRC, Triple H also had a run with the title during this time and to my utter surprise he wasn't the total overexposed killjoy he had become in 2003. The year ended with Jeff Hardy finally winning the belt, rounding it off all rather nicely.

 

Aye, 2008 is cracking, looking back.

[Ambulance Chaser]

2011 gets a shout from me, I was mega invested in Punk, and Henry had my favourite heel run since Trips in 2000, His in ring promo after winning the belt, and the one with JR on Raw, the match with Big Show, god I loved that run.

[Krytie 2X4B 523P]

Really like 2005. The Batista HHH feud dominates the first 5 or so months and its one of my favourite ever WWE feuds, perfectly executed.

 

There's the Angle HBK stuff scattered throughout the year too. Angle and Cena joining Raw really freshen the brand up.

 

Hogan HBK was fun (Larry King interview), talking of HBK there's his memorable bout with Shelton Benjamin and him screwing the Montreal crowd by having Brets music hit, to an insane pop.

 

05 was the year Edge really came on as a top singles heel, having Lita helped especially during the fallout of the Matt Hardy split. We got some wild TV brawls.

 

Masters debuted, Carlito jumped brands and both got a lot of TV time feuding with HBK, Flair in fun TV angles.

 

Probably forgetting a ton of good (and bad) stuff but I felt Raw really kicked into gear in 2005, after a decent 2004, at the expense of Smackdown.

 

Edit: Misunderstood and rambled on about best year of Raw, Smackdown was awful.

[The Clint]

I've always thought 2003 was a pretty strong year especially for PPVs. The big four that year were fantastic. Smackdown was on fire during this year too.

[LaGoosh]

I'd go with 2011. It wasn't a complete success but overall it was a fun year. The build to Wrestlemania that year was probably the last time a WM had a top to bottom good build up. Match quality was generally high and there were some cracking PPV matches. While the Summer of Punk was filled with all kinds of weird inconsistent booking it was never boring. Mark Henry's Hall Of Pain was just awesome almost beyond words and probably best heel run in the past decade. On the mid/undercard you had fun stuff like Air Boom, Awesome Truth, Daniel Bryan starting to get a push and Ugly Cody Rhodes. It was the year that actually got me properly back into wrestling for the first time in years actually.

[The Gaffer]

Great thread idea. This is another type of thing I could listen to SSG discuss - the inverse question too - because even though loads of this stuff is ancient history now there's a bizarre prevailing tendance with a lot of fans to think everythings been shit since 2002 and it's all felt like yesterday.

 

It took me ages on the Network even to come out of my 90s rabbit hole and start revisiting some of this stuff but there's some really brilliant years there that each feel different.

 

I love 2003 but a lot of it for the wrong reasons. 2011 was stellar for a lot of the reasons already mentioned. Generally WWE were doing some incredible business from 2005-2012 it felt like. I remember everyone in uni being into the idea of watching WrestleMania 28 and we had a big viewing party for it.

 

2006 was when WWE added a third brand and TNA got traction. The hunger for the business seemed to come back a lot that year.

 

I'll go with 2005 though. Soley based on Raw for all the reasons Kryten mentioned and more. I just remember watching every PPV and Raw live that year. Exciting shit was happening. Matt Hardy shouting ROH was mental to 14 year old me. Striker showing up to Angles open challenge. One Night Stand. SummerSlam. The battle for brand supremacy. Cena and Batista cementing their eras. Christian and Carlito being over as fuck that summer at Vengenace. Raw Homecoming. The dross of the Attitude Era being more refined and some 80s colour coming back in.

 

A wonderful year and one of my favourites ever.

[Supremo]

This is a great thread. It's easy to think of everything since 2001 being mostly shit, so it's great to hear people's highlights of each year.

 

I think criticising 2006 for having the, "awful DX rerun," is incredibly unfair. Sure, the Vince loves Cox~! stuff was dreadful, but for those first few months, from when they start crotch chopping at Wrestlemania to their eventual reunion, that was some awesome TV. Pro wresting is at its best when you figure out where they're going before they get there, so you want to tune in every week to see how they bridge the gaps.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=UoU-Iwmz0Tc

 

I loved this segment way more than a grown man should have.

[CleetusVanDamme]

My favourite spell of Raw ever was 2005 (and the first half of 2006), but Smackdown was so bad it cancels that out. So as a whole package I'd have to go for 2008. Some great telly on both sides, Raw's unpredictability during the summer, Smackdown having Triple H as the lead. And one of the best PPV years ever. The Rumble, No Way Out, Mania, One Night Stand, Summerslam, Unforgiven and No Mercy were all excellent shows.

[Guest]

Matt Hardy shouting ROH was mental to 14 year old me.

when was this?

[Ladiesman345]

 

 

Matt Hardy shouting ROH was mental to 14 year old me.

when was this?

During the Edge feud, wasnt it?

[Tommy!]

I think criticising 2006 for having the, "awful DX rerun," is incredibly unfair. Sure, the Vince loves Cox~! stuff was dreadful, but for those first few months, from when they start crotch chopping at Wrestlemania to their eventual reunion, that was some awesome TV. Pro wresting is at its best when you figure out where they're going before they get there, so you want to tune in every week to see how they bridge the gaps.

 

I think I found the bad so bad it tarnished the good a little, a sort of "brown tinted specs".

 

Nothing has made me feel like giving up on wrestling altogether more than that oral sex at a bbq bit, and there was so much of that ilk in this run. The matches weren't bad, but they always felt bereft of drama and purpose. The build there was great, the run once they got there was dire and I stand by that.

 

 

Edit: On an unrelated note I hated how after HHH got injured Shawn still used the DX music. A small point but it got on my nips that did.

[darkship]

I thought 2006 was a good year. Perhaps the excitement of Edge/Cena, ECW One Night Stand II and the Mickie/Trish storyline means I give a pass to dire things like Mysterio's title run, DX reforming and the excruciating Flair/Foley nonsense. 

 

Most of the years between 2002-05 had some gold in amongst all the dross; not everything worked but there was usually something exciting. I kind of lose track after 2007; perhaps because I stopped buying shows on DVD in about 2004, perhaps because it's still the same cast more or less, but more likely, I suspect, because these things matter less when you're 34 than when you're 24.

[Tommy!]

I loved the Batista vs Undertaker year long run, was that 05?

 

What made that great was they evolved spots.

1. Taker hits old school

2. Batista counters old school to a spinbuster

 

It felt built on, things grew. From no expectations it was a blinding series they dipped in and out of.

[NEWM]

I loved 2010. People will probably say it was a year of missed opportunities but I loved it. The Rumble had one of Shawn Michaels' all time career performances, as did Mania, then lots of the Nexus was great for quite a while to get us through the dragging months.

 

The latter half of the year gave us a time where The Miz genuinely seemed like a contender to be top guy, and they actually delivered it with a very satisfying cash-in and early days of his title run.

 

Ignoring the abysmal Vince match, the schizophrenic nature of Bret Hart appearances were loads of fun; from making up with Shawn, to using Cena's mates in the film industry, to being GM and winning the U.S. title and having that wonderful little moment in the Summerslam match. Having wanted him to make amends and come back, there was something both cathartic and quaint to his one-last-run sort of thing.

 

Cena and Batista had their ace feud too. 2010 was quite a nice time.