Board 8 > All Purpose Wrestling Awards Show - PRESENTING THE BEST AND WORST

(+) Yeah! (+)

jesus christ, shayna isn't even an HM? i thought she was pretty close to a slam dunk pick

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Again to give you an idea of how spread out things were:

Over 10 votes, we saw 21 different women receive votes.


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Let's sneak another one in here

Best Weekly Television Show

While not every promotion needs or uses weekly television they do still produce the lions share of wrestling we see on a yearly basis.

Who did it best?

Past Winners

2018: Impact Wrestling
2017: Tiger Mask W
2016: Smackdown
2015: Lucha Underground
2014: NXT
2013: NXT
2012: Raw

HM NWA Powerrr
An extremely old school presentation that has allowed Billy Corgan to realize his nostalgia for good ole fashioned wrasslin. It's been solid and entertaining as a promo heavy promotion in spite of Cornette.

HM MLW Fusion
I haven't watched this but it's apparently been pretty great and featured Sami Callihan clowning on Cornette so I approve.

HM AEW Dark
Very funny you guys who voted this direction. Only calling it out to note this got more votes than Raw or Smackdown.

3RD Impact Wrestling IMPACT
Last years winner had a bit of a down year - they basically spent the entire year hemmorhaging talent and being forced to turn to the likes of Johnny Swinger and RVD losing many of their excellent tag teams and much of their singles talent to AEW and WWE as their pay has apparently badly fallen behind industry standards. Still the week to week booking has remained solid and they've made entertaining use of their talent

2ND WWE NXT
NXT - the great WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAR combatant. The war has resulted in WWE pulling out all stops on giving their weekly cards a high amount of quality wrestling. As a promotional tactic this is a bit questionable but for now it's a positive for the fans

1ST AEW Dynamite
An impressive win for a show that only aired 4 months this year. The week in week out wrestling has been solid and the hunger for a mainstream wrestling alternative has led to some already loyal fans existing. Not a perfect show by any means but enough to win this year.

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welcome to the only page on the internet that ranked impact higher than powerrr

... maybe discuss pw

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Promotion of the Year

Past Winners
2018: New Japan
2017: New Japan
2016: WWE/NXT
2015: Lucha Underground
2014: NJPW
2013: WWE/NXT
2012: TNA

HM MLW
Again I have almost no exposure to them but my understanding is they're kind of the big indie du jour and that's cool.

HM AAA
AAA is on an incredible upswing since the Psycho Clown/Dr Wagner match redirected their fortunes. This years Triplemania Main Event between Blue Demon Jr was an incredibly violent affair that owned and their run with 'black belt luchadore' Cain Velasquez was very fun. Toss in a casual MOTY contender or two involving the Elite and talents like Fenix and Pentagon and they had a fun year.

HM Dragon Gate
I don't follow Dragon Gate but I know their mania weekend show got a lot of new eyes on the product and the product is good.

3rd Impact Wrestling
What else is there to say, they were good this year I promise.

2nd New Japan Pro Wrestling
New Japan has been on an unparalleled run that if it has not always been fully appreciated or taken for granted is still on a level all its own. Still in the eyes of many this was sort of an underwhelming G1 year as the main event angle stagnated somewhat. Still with Best of Super Jrs , Moxleys debut and the debut of KENTA the product was still very good.

1st All Elite Wrestling
The fresh new thing wins again. There were good matches and angles as Cody became a true star and not really sure what else to say.

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Christ, these AEW votes are annoying. It's like no one is actually watching the product.

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my ott/gcw/dragon gate vote for best promotion was wasted

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I think best promotion is fine

Dynamite best TV show though what in the world

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Dynamite is great but I figure NJPW was robbed for promotion of the year.

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That being said me voting probably doesn't solve anything as I'm probably just giving first place to NJPW, 2nd place to AEW, 3rd place Impact, which probably doesn't move anything around. No problem with the show of the year results though.

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Lopen posted...

That being said me voting probably doesn't solve anything as I'm probably just giving first place to NJPW, 2nd place to AEW, 3rd place Impact, which probably doesn't move anything around. No problem with the show of the year results though.

Actually that would ve created a tie and NJPW would have won on the most first place votes tiebreaker.


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Ohhh nooo my missed vote flipped the most important category

Well whatever I like AEW even if last week felt very Raw with all the interference finishes

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I'm glad to see I'm not alone in being annoyed with the Britt Baker overpushing. She keeps getting #1 contender matches and title matches and I'm just sitting there like why?

Also glad to see my forgetting to vote didn't hurt AEW's chances of winning a bunch of these categories!

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Event of the Year

This is what it's all about. What was our favorite card?

2018: All In
2017: NJPW Wrestle Kingdom
2016: NJPW G1 Climax
2015: LUCHA UNDERGROUNDs Ultima Lucha I
2014: WWE Summerslam
2013: CHIKARA King of Trios
2012: NJPW G1 Climax

This was by far the most competitive category as each of these were separated by 1 or 2 pts.

HM NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13
I think Wrestle Kingdoms spot on the calendar always works against it. Most of the angles and such are 'last years' and it can be easy to forget about it. Still this was an excellent card.

HM AEW All Out
All Out featured the surprisingly solid matches in Jericho/Hangman and Cody/Spears. But the real highlight was the Escalera de la Muerte ladder match between the Bucks and the Lucha Bros.

3RD NJPW G1 Climax
Always a good time but not even the best tournament they ran this year. Still Moxley/Juice/Ishii throughlines were fun and the angle made the set up for WK obvious and hypeworthy

2ND NJPW Best of Super Juniors
Shingo Takagi. Will Ospreay. They fucking bang. There were so many good matches in this tournament it was unreal.

1ST AEW Double or Nothing
The legendary debut of Jon Moxley, the great bloody Cody/Dustin affair, Bucks/Lucha Bros II and Omega/Jericho were highlighted on a very fun card.

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I really feel like tournaments should be separate from individual shows. There's enough of them these days.

Problem is most of them aren't watched by very many people.

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Yeah combining the tournaments was designed to avoid what happened the Year Summerslam won where various "Days" of the G1 collected enough votes to murder Summerslam but no individual card did.

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Looking back I probably should have still given njpw at least 1 point but in December I was feeling extra down on them and I did feel like they had a worse year than they'd had in a while, with a lack of fresh matches and what was, in my opinion, a very messy end to the season in terms of getting to the big matches at wrestle Kingdom. I thought that OTT and GCW in particular were companies that deserved some recognition in the category as they consistently put on fresh and hot shows that delivered huge to their fanbase and generated worldwide buzz.
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Match of the Year

Which bout was the best?

Past Winners:

2018: Kenny Omega vs Kazuchika Okada at Dominion
2017: Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega at Wrestle Kingdom
2016: The Miz vs Dolph Ziggler at TLC
2015: Grave Consequences (Mil Muertes vs Fenix)
2014: Brock Lesnar vs John Cena (Summerslam)
2013: Daniel Bryan vs John Cena (Summerslam)
2012: Brock Lesnar vs John Cena (Extreme Rules)

HM Starr vs Devlin OTT 5th Anniversary
The culmination of our Feud of the Year!

HM Kofi vs Bryan at Wrestlemania
The only thing WWE did well this year!

HM Omega/Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom
It was excellent!

HM Ospreay vs Okada G1 Climax
Two of the absolute best going at it !

3rd Lucha Bros vs Young Bucks Eacalera de la Muerte at All Out
An incredible match wherein Matt Jackson nearly died putting over the Lucha Bros.

2nd (lost on tiebreaker) Cody vs Dustin at Double or Nothing
Bloody. Emotional. Personal. The inverse of the other best match here more brawly and not nearly as work rate heavy but still excellent.

1st (won on tiebreak) Will Ospreay vs Shingo Takagi Best of Super Juniors
Shingo and Ospreay were out of their minds amazing during this tournament so naturally when they met it was an unforgettable clash.


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Eddv posted...

3rd Lucha Bros vs Young Bucks Eacalera de la Muerte at All Out

lol
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Yeah, that one's actually egregious.

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Wrestler of the Year

The big self explanatory one.

Past Winners
2018: Kenny Omega
2017: Kazuchika Okada
2016: The Miz
2015: Seth Rollins
2014: Randy Orton
2013: Kazuchika Okada
2012: Bobby Roode

HM Chris Jericho
He started the Year with some surprisingly good New Japan bouts, held his own with Hangman Page and Kenny Omega and then had a memorable affair with Cody. Well done.

HM Cody Rhodes
Turned in our 2nd place match for MotY, had that amazing emotional bout with Jericho, had that memorable pair of matches with Darby and Spears. Here more for his ability to work a crowd mid match than his workrate but who cares.

3rd Jon Moxley
His incredible run in New Japan was the source of most of his big memorable matches. Had his controversial death match with Omega been a more traditional match he may have gotten 2nd at least.

2nd Kento Miyahara
He had an incredible champions carnival with his matches vs Okabayashi and Jake Lee being quiet MotY candidates.

1st Will Ospreay
Ospreay had this award locked up by June after how transcendent his BOSJ was. Between his tournament performances his matches as the Swords of Essex and Birds of Prey in tag action and even his appearance in the G1 gave him an embarassment of riches in terms of top level match performances and the end of his britwres character arc gave him the opportunity to do great character work too. Well deserved win for the Bird man.

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so with that all wrapped up, over this weekend I will open up nominations for our Best of the Decade awards

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Oh sweet, I can vote CHIKARA stuff for a bunch of that since I've been watching for so long.

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Guess I'll post my ballot since I do every year...

Wrestler
5 Will Ospreay
3 Kento Miyahara
1 Shingo Takagi

Nothing can be said about Ospreay that hasn't already. Shingo had a very similar year but wasn't quite as consistently great. Miyahara was right behind them as a worker and carried AJPW on his back for another year, so he was an easy pick too.

Match
5 Kazuchika Okada vs Will Ospreay @ G1 Climax Night 7
3 Kenny Omega vs Hiroshi Tanahashi @ Wrestle Kingdom 13
1 Shingo Takagi vs Will Ospreay @ Best of the Super Juniors Finals

Picking three was easy. Ordering them was tough, especially 1 vs 2. Ultimately, I think the WK match may have been "better," but when I really think about it, I remember Okada/Ospreay better and will remember it for longer. That was quite simply the two best wrestlers in the world putting on a masterpiece of a match.

Event
5 NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 13
3 AEW Double or Nothing
1 Dragon Gate Kobe World

Never bet against WK. I had a tough time ranking DoN because of my displeasure with how AEW's proceeded since, but ultimately, looking at them side by side, WK was just a better show anyway. Kobe World didn't quite hit the highs of either, but it did see the crowning of Dragon Gate's heir apparent and there were very few weak points on the whole card. As I sort of mentioned, I have a hard time voting for tournaments and such in this category because they just feel so different.

Promotion
5 New Japan Pro Wrestling
3 Dragon Gate
1 All Elite Wrestling

In retrospect, STARDOM should've been my third place.

Show
5 ABSTAIN

I don't like any of the weekly shows in the wrestling world.

Woman
5 Maya Yukihi
3 Arisa Hoshiki
1 Jungle Kyona

I agonized over this for way too long considering I knew very well none of them were getting support from elsewhere. Kyona is probably the one who had the actual "best" year - she's the Ishii of the joshi world in that she's consistently great and ultra-reliable but never pushed. Hoshiki's Wonder of Stardom title reign, meanwhile, may have arguably been the best individual title reign in the world in 2019. Plus, she has my favorite move in wrestling right now: https://i.imgur.com/ZYE3lMO.mp4

Ultimately gave the edge to Yukihi for her role as the newly anointed ace of Ice Ribbon (held all three titles in the promotion for a little while) while still delivering in-ring. She also did this: https://gfycat.com/loneglisteningborzoi-maya-yukihi-ice-ribbon-giulia which was enough to make Giulia say "the hell with this" and jump to STARDOM later in the year.

Tag Team
5 Aussie Open
3 Birds of Prey
1 The Rascalz

Not a lot of top-end tag team stuff this year. Ended up just going with the teams I thought were most consistent, but I don't feel great about any of it.

Non Wrestler
5 Excalibur
3 Shinji Yoshino
1 Red Shoes

Always a tough category for me because my favorite promotions don't use traditional non-wrestler roles much. Think these three are plenty deserving when I think about how they enhance my viewing, though.

Personality
5 David Starr
3 Jay White
1 El Phantasmo

I find Starr very annoying on social media but it's a great gimmick. Jay White plays his role, however frustrating it is sometimes, to perfection. ELP is a natural in his new gimmick and it's made him a legitimate star in NJPW.

New Character
5 Jon Moxley
3 Bullet Club El Phantasmo
1 Shooter Umino

Mox is obvious. Ditto ELP for how it catapulted him from a boring midcarder in RevPro to a deservedly pushed commodity in New Japan. Didn't care at all about any other new characters last year so I went with one that just amused me somewhat for third place.

Most Improved
5 Ben-K
3 Lance Archer
1 El Phantasmo

ELP for reasons I stated previously. Archer probably deserves the #1 but I always felt he was underrated to begin with, so my winner was the guy who finally managed to channel his overwhelming charisma into great work and claim his rightful place as the next big Dragon Gate star.

Best Theme Song
5 Will Ospreay - Elevated
3 SHO - 100% Voltage
1 Chris Jericho - Judas

I never know where to go with this category. If it was just the wrestling theme I heard the most, Gimme Back My Bullets would win my vote every year despite not even being in use for many years. Ultimately I just picked the one that got me most hyped for matches, my favorite new theme, and one that I felt best "defined" the year in whatever abstract way I could figure and ordered them by how much I like them.

Worst Match
5 ABSTAIN

Worst Angle
5 ABSTAIN

I have a pretty strict rule where I don't intentionally consume bad media. I don't even have enough time for all the good media I want to consume. That said, I obviously saw plenty of bad stuff this year, but I knew all the WORST stuff came from promotions I don't watch and thus I decided to let everyone else take care of that.

Worst Wrestler
5 Brandi Rhodes
3 Bad Luck Fale
1 Leva Bates

These three deserved recognition, though.

Least Improved
5 Seth Rollins
3 SANADA
1 Baron Corbin

Despite not watching WWE, the fact that we have actual objective attendance/ratings/etc. data (not to mention social media) allows me to vote for the WWE guys with confidence. SANADA is a mainstay on my ballot for this category and will remain so for as long as he's treated as a star.

Most Embarassing Fiasco
5 WWE plane stuck in Saudi Arabia under strange circumstances
3 Jim Cornette and the NWA commentary disaster
1 Blackcraft Wrestling: No Apologies

I imagine the first two don't need explanation, but for those unfamiliar with Blackcraft, I highly recommend reading this blow-by-blow account of what should go down in history as a legendarily bad show, featuring crucifixions, murders, and the promotion being kicked out of the building before the show even ends: https://www.bodyslam.net/2019/04/07/blackcraft-wrestling-no-apologies/

Feud
5 David Starr vs Jordan Devlin
3 Ben-K vs R.E.D.
1 Young Bucks vs

oh god i remember the blackcraft story

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NBIceman posted...

for those unfamiliar with Blackcraft, I highly recommend reading this blow-by-blow account

o_O

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NBIceman posted...

Plus, she has my favorite move in wrestling right now: https://i.imgur.com/ZYE3lMO.mp4

Hot damn

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