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Half Year Awards


tiger_rick

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We've got six months in the bag, what stands out to you as the best and worst bits of the first half of 2019?

Follow the traditional awards if you want or anything that springs to mind.

Two very obvious ones for me. Match Of The Year is Cody/Dustin from DoN. A real old-school brawl with great pacing, emotion and colour. Some nice call backs to their history and great on a re-watch.

Moment of the Year actually makes me a bit sad now. I can't quite believe it was only 6 months ago. It's Becky's "I choose you" from the night after Rumble. One of the most perfect moments in wrestling history. Sadly now meaningless.

Worst match earns a double for AEW. That Nakazawa match on the Fyter Fest pre-show is up there for worst match of the decade. Horrific.

Wrestler of the Year is something I'm really struggling with. Can't think of anyone apart from some joke guys.

Anti-climax is easier. Could give about 40 awards for this but it's easily Sami Zayn's brilliant heel character going nowhere and him becoming a jobber.

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Match Of The Year - Cody/Dustin. Not much more to add. Just classic, timeless stuff. 

Moment of the Year -  Moxley run-in at Double or Nothing. Everything about this was spot on. Jericho's promo to set it up, the thunderous crowd reaction, Moxley jumping the barricade like an animal unleashed, the dirty deeds on the ref, the brawl with Omega, the closing shot of him on top of the poker chips. Electric. Breathed new life into my wrestling fandom.

Anti-Climax - Ronda vs Becky (vs Charlotte). You knew it was fucked the moment Stephanie and HHH inevitably stuck their noses in. Did their usual of propping themselves up while portraying everyone else as cogs in the machine. Then it went completely off the rails as the feud rapidly lost it's heat, neutered Lynch, and basically torpedoed the women's division. The match finish was the cherry on top of a stinky shit sundae. For me their biggest booking disaster since they fucked Roman at Rumble '15. What a waste.

Wrestler Of The Year - Jon Moxley. Loved Jon since the moment I saw him in the build to the Regal match. He was wild, out of the box, and looked and sounded completely different to the cookie cutters around him. I was over the moon when The Shield turned up and were booked out of the gate like utter stars. Some of my favourite memories following the WWE are from that original Shield run. I remember clear as day leaping from my seat, punching the air and spilling Kronenbourg all over myself when they won clean as a sheet at TLC '12. He was my guy. Then the TV exploded in his face and I was never invested in him in the same way again. He had his moments here and there but that was the night I knew he had a definite ceiling in WWE. So seeing him being himself, going on a tear and getting more buzz than he's ever had has me stoked and enthusiastic about wrestling again. Happy the nonsense with him and Austin has been cleared up as well.

Best Podcast - Grilling JR. I dig the more relaxed vibe to Conrad's other podcasts. JR seems like a straight shooter, a relief to Prichard's brown nosing. He gets a bit too into his personal life at times, and often sounds like he's on the verge of putting his foot in his mouth and saying something old-person dodgy. Enjoyed it so far though. Love Bischoff's pod too, but it's increasingly obvious when he's in gimmick/bullshit mode (whenever Hogan and backstage politics are brought up).

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Match of the year.

Cody Vs. Dustin Rhodes.

Nuff said.

Most overrated wrestler of the year.

Arisa Hoshiki.

Yeah I know Stardom isn't that popular on here but fuck that, I'm having this.

To be on the worst match on a card featuring Session Moth Martina (and a guy dressed like a baby) is quite the accomplishment. Completely out of her depth.

Who booked this crap? Moment of the year.

Bea Priestley wins the World of Stardom championship.

giphy.gif

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4 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

Match of the year.

Cody Vs. Dustin Rhodes.

Nuff said.

Most overrated wrestler of the year.

Arisa Hoshiki.

Yeah I know Stardom isn't that popular on here but fuck that, I'm having this.

To be on the worst match on a card featuring Session Moth Martina (and a guy dressed like a baby) is quite the accomplishment. Completely out of her depth.

Who booked this crap? Moment of the year.

Bea Priestley wins the World of Stardom championship.

giphy.gif

Wrestle Queendom 2?

I was there and her and Roxxy seemed to have no communication what so ever.

Martina/Su Yung was bonkers.

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Match of the year - Cody/Dustin. A match that had me feeling really optimistic about AEW’s prospects

Conversely...

Worst match - Michael Nakazawa vs Alex JeBailey. Horrific in every way. If you MUST do something like this make it a dark match, don’t put it on your bloody pre-show.

Worst Wrestler - Nazakawa. I’ve only seen him have two matches, but they’re so bad that they’ve slightly soured me on a whole promotion. The JeBailey match was a whole new level of bad that I didn’t know existed. Kind of groundbreaking, in a weird way.

Best Wrestler - This is a hard one. I’ve really enjoyed Daniel Bryan this year, and I enjoyed Kofi Kingston up until Ziggler happened. Johnny Gargano has been good, and Cody also deserves a mention. If I’m going to listen to my heart though, the wrestler I’ve enjoyed the most in 2019 has been R-Truth. I don’t look forward to seeing any wrestler at the moment...except R-Truth. He’s consistently fun and entertaining. Best 24/7 champ ever. 

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There have been so many incredible matches this year. My favourite being Dustin v Cody. But what a six months! Tanahashi v Omega, Scurll v Aldis, Ospreay v Shingo, Young Bucks v Lucha Bros, Ibushi v Naito (twice), Ospreay v Dragon Lee, Gargano v Cole all stand out.

I'd say moment of the year to date for me is Will Ospreay winning BOSJ.

Biggest let down is the whole PAC shambles and the cancelling of the Adam Page match

Wrestler of the year to date is Will Ospreay, who is just on a different level

 

 

Edited by MPDTT
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4 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

Wrestle Queendom 2?

I was there and her and Roxxy seemed to have no communication what so ever.

Martina/Su Yung was bonkers.

Yeah. I watched the live stream.

Arisa's match on the previous EVE show fell apart as well. Compare it to Utami's performances and it's night and day.

Utami will carry Stardom one day. Less than a year in I think and she's already ahead of most.

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I don't think the positioning of the Arisa match helped. Her and Laura Di Matteo spent a long time trying to work out a roll up finish too. She wins best shoulder barges/tackles of the year though. Such a simple overlooked thing but she gives them a real impact.

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2 hours ago, The King Of Swing said:

Match of the year.

Cody Vs. Dustin Rhodes.

Nuff said.

Most overrated wrestler of the year.

Arisa Hoshiki.

Yeah I know Stardom isn't that popular on here but fuck that, I'm having this.

To be on the worst match on a card featuring Session Moth Martina (and a guy dressed like a baby) is quite the accomplishment. Completely out of her depth.

Who booked this crap? Moment of the year.

Bea Priestley wins the World of Stardom championship.

giphy.gif

Just going back on Bea winning the red belt, I’m sure Momo will be the one to take it off her in the next title defence after she dropped the White Belt to Arisa.

Im surprised that Tam Nakano hasn’t been given a chance at the White belt and they gave the Cinderella win and White Belt to Arisa instead.

I read she’s the most popular female wrestler over in Japan and number 3 overall in a top 100 Japanese wrestlers  poll ranked by fans in Japan.

Edited by TildeGuy~!
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Match of the year is the Rhodes boys obviously. 

Wrestler of the year is probably Osprey, as much of a shitbag as he is. 

Worst match I’d say was the DON battle royal. It made no sense. Was full of the absolute worst Indy wrestling has to offer and made the world title look like shit.

Biggest anti climax is probably that Ronda has gone and Becky is shit now. Ronda really was the best thing in years. 

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I wouldn't expect anybody to mirror my MOTY. it's Markus Crane v Eric Ryan v Jimmy Lloyd from GCW's 'They Said It Couldnt Be Done'. Even fellow deathmatch fiends are like "really?" when I say this. YES, REALLY! Three absolute mentalists keeping up the most relentless pace, like imagine if that Necro Butcher v Samoa Joe match from 2005 IWA-MS was a 3-way, and they bumped on forks, and all 3 were probably drunk - it's just completely my kind of shit. in terms of stuff more people will know, it's Bryan v Kofi and Cody v Dustin leagues above everything else.

As for worst match, it's probably recency bias but Allie v Leva Bates. that librarian gimmick is absolute poison, and Leva is such a pants (hah) worker. I wonder how many people have decided not to order the AEW ppvs purely because of that. At least with Nakazawa v the gamer geek, you can dismiss it as comedy fluff that might bring a chuckle. Who is THIS for? Nobody, I'm convinced. ACTUALLY, editing this with something more offensive than this match that probably went about 5 minutes. Marty Scurll v Matt Taven v Jay Lethal, ladder match for ROH title at MSG. Holy fucking shit, how do you make a 3-way ladder match so DULL? I am not a fan of any of these guys but it's really hard to fuck up a car crash style ladder match. This went 30 minutes (could've sworn it was 40, but still double the length it should be) and it felt like all the big spots were ten minutes apart, with crap brawling n stalling in between. It's bad when the only "spot" I can remember is the ladder falling over and twatting a fan in the skull. Worst ladder match I've ever seen.

Moment of the year, hmmm most of the stuff I've been watching doesn't have that many "moments". I didn't watch any full WWE TV but I caught some of the Kofi build. Seemed like it went on a bit too long, but I really liked the tag gauntlet with Big E & Xavier winning the spot for their mate, and in particular The Usos forfeiting out of respect. Felt organic and put a lump in my throat.

Worst moment: realising Big Dave was gonna retire putting over Triple H of all people. more offensive than Angle v Corbin to me, at least that got heat. bonus entry is Triple H's Mania entrance - how many long ting entrances would we have been spared if Triple H had even a two inch penis?

Wrestler of the year: Jimmy Lloyd and Masashi Takeda in terms of wrestlers who wrestle in broken glass. Yuji Okabayashi for so-called "normal wrestling", he's been absolutely terrific across BJW and AJPW, just an explosive hoss.

Overrated: pretty much the entirety of NJPW. every fortnight there's two new all-time five snowflake classic that I can't remember five minutes afterwards. Give me a break. Meltzer has ruined this stuff because they realised they can basically never deviate from that main event formula and still get all the plaudits, Okada's match pacing is so transparent, especially at that MSG show on Mania weekend - kicking into gear as soon as the announcer says 25mins have gone. People need to stop applauding wrestlers for wasting our bloody time. Okada and Sanada have been especially awful and Jay White's tiny title reign was a total flop. Found the BOSJ stuff I watched pretty dry without Kushida there. Won't be checking much if any of the G1 this year. There has been stuff like the last Ibushi/Naito, Takashi Iizuka's retirement match and probably Jushin Liger's final Junior-Heavyweight title shot that I have found captivating, but not nearly enough for the critical hype it still receives.

Worst promotion: Ring Of Honor has been a joke, turning itself into 2015 TNA, full of Bully Ray nepotism and one of the worst women's divisions I've ever seen. They have the odd saving grace with great talents like Gresham, Cobb, the Briscoes and the fucking mental PCO but it's still such a sad state they're in. Aforementioned MSG show was awful. Though NJPW's matches on it did not thrill me, they at least did not embarrass both brands like much of ROH's output did. Enzo & Cass (my bad; nZo & CazXL) doing an off screen worked shoot run-in that NJPW or NJPW wrestlers weren't informed of has to go down at best comedy moment though. That or just "The Allüre" in general. Yes, that's an umlaut in that faction's name. No, I can't tell you why.

Edited by sj5522
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7 hours ago, TildeGuy~! said:

To be on the worst match on a card featuring Session Moth Martina (and a guy dressed like a baby) is quite the accomplishment.

Who is the man dressed like a baby you speak of? And what show is this?

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