Topic: Wrestling?

Yeah well, I think nearly everyone except Vince McMahon thought that Wade Barrett should have been World Heavyweight Champion at least once.

I am always glad when Ceasro wins something. New Day is very funny and sometimes even intense like in the feud with the Wyatt Family and their reign is well deserved, but enough is enough.

So Neville is now a heel jobber instead of a face jobber. Maybe there was not enough room for another face jobber with Apollo Crews taking that job?^^

It's the cage of Jericho.....LOCK IT IN, MANNNN!!!

OK!

It's the end of the year!

SO!

What I want to know, wrestling fans, is...what are/were your favorite PPV shows, and matches of the year!

I'll start to kick things off, and while I'll be using WWE for mine (since I don't like TNA and have limited to no access to other promotions), feel free to use ANY promotion and any match you've seen, long as it happened in 2016.


Tai's Top 5 Favorite PPV's of the Year (meaning all over show, top to bottom, filler and all, was one you enjoyed)

5. Battleground: For a show that was mostly ignored and considered "meaningless filler", because of the draft just about to take effect, and a so-so Summerslam just around the corner, this was a damn good show.

Sure, it had a couple flaws (the IC title match had a terrible ending, Natalya/Becky was a dud, the DB/Shane/Ambrose promo was god awful.), but everything else was great.

Fun womens tag match between NXT women, fun us/ic title matches (despite the endings), New Day/Wyatts told a great story in match, showed continuity, and wrapped up their storyline just fine, a fun 6 man tag, preceded by the single most entertaining rant Enzo and Cass have ever given in their careers, and two FANTASTIC matches with long term storylines, Zayn/Owens and the Shield Triple Threat.

4. Backlash: I LOVE THIS SHOW. This show is pretty much everything I love about wrestling. Simple, yet EFFECTIVE storytelling, GREAT matches, an fantastic main event and entertaining main event, a hot crowd...just the perfect wrestling show for me. None of the constant bloat and overbooking you see from RAW PPV's, and their stories, the pacing was great, the results were surprising, and somehow in 2016 in WWE, we saw Rhyno and Heath Slater as the most over faces on the show, and saw AJ Styles win the WWE Title.

3. NXT Takeover: Dallas: Debut of Aries, American Alpha vs The Revival, The best Joe/Balor match, Bayley/Asuka, and Nakamura/Zayn...what more needs to be said?

2. NXT Toronto: My favorite of the Takeover's this year, which is high praise, because all 3 Takeover events were great, and all three could have been on this top 3 list. But personally, I felt this had the best card of the three, from top to bottom. Roode and Dillinger had a good opening match, Mickie/Asuka was a true comeback match for Mickie, Nakamura vs Joe was painful as hell and better than their first match, IMO, and even the worst match on the card, TM-61 vs Authors of Pain, was above average, and could have been the main event of ANY episode of NXT on the Network.

The selling point, of course, was the big tag title match, and it delivered in every way...more on that later. (Hint Hint, wink wink)


1. WRESTLEMANIA 32...KIDDING.

1. TLC: See what I wrote for Backlash's entry. While Backlash started all these stories and feuds that I enjoyed the last few months, TLC brought all of them to a close, and, much like Backlash, gave me everything I wanted in the matches and in the finale's to these storylines.


Tai's top 5 favorite matches of the year:

5. 2016 Royal Rumble Match: While there was too much focus on Reigns, and some DUMB booking involving Reigns, I loved everything else about this Royal Rumble, and, the Reigns stuff aside, I honestly thought it was one of the best booked Royal Rumble matches in years.

4. Raw vs Smackdown Survivor Series Elimination Tag Match: Sure, it was an hour long, but this was, for me, the best SS Elimination Match since 2003, by far. It felt important (something these SS matches haven't felt in forever), had continuity between teammates, current rivals and stories, former rivals and stories, and just...it was excellent. The only criticism I have, honestly, is Shane McMahon being in it. Everything else about it, even its severe length, I loved.

3. Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens: Battleground


2. #DIY vs The Revival 2/3 falls tag match: NXT Toronto


1. AJ Styles vs Dean Ambrose: TLC Match


going to bed, so no explanation for the last 3. XD


TELL ME YOURS!

I...didn't watch much PPVs this year , I mostly watch just NXT, and even with that, I feel like I skipped too many episodes and too many good matches this year (especially Zayn/Joe and Nakamura/Balor), so it is much easier for me to just say my top matches this year:

5) Cody Rhodes vs El Ligero (Thought WCPW was an awesome idea, but I fell out of watching it, though I want to catch up, randomly bought the Delete WCPW PPV for my phone, and I was REALLY surprised by the first match on the card (Ironically, I didn't need to give money for it, it was for WCPW Internet Title), it was really good. Just the speed of it was astounding, it went for about 7 minutes, but with how fast the action was going, I felt like it was 30, in a good way)

4) DIY vs The Revival (Won't go into which one was specifically better, so I'll just say both of the matches are great. Was really surprised by Revival this year, they ARE the future of the tag team wrestling. Also, to my surprise, the only 2 tag matches to end with submissions that I know of, but to also make every bit of sense in storyline)

3) Kevin Owens vs Sami Zayn (I am a massive Sami Zayn mark, and...yeah. No need to say anything else about this, since the 2 of them wrestled for 10+ years together, the 2 just make magic when they are allowed to run wild. This was a match that should've really happened last year, but oh well, it's still awesome)

2) Samoa Joe vs Shinsuke Nakamura (Specifically their Torronto encounter. Really wasn't a fan of Joe's before this, though I knew he is a decent wrestler. This is where he really showed himself as a solid storyteller for this feud. Their 2 guys' feud before Torontto Takeover REALLY brought me back into watching NXT more actively this year)

1) Zayn vs Nakamura (...it's Sami Zayn (best match storyteller in WWE today) vs Shinsuke Nakamura (objectively the best wrestler in the world today). My question going in was "how good this was going to be?". 6/5. That's how good.

Honorable Mentions: Final Deletion. Really cannot put it in as a "wrestling match" but I find Matt Hardy's insanity extremely fun

Bobby Roode vs Tye Dillinger. My No 2 wrestler who surprised me the most this year was Tye Dillinger. God damnit, he used to be the cameraman who got superkicked by Shawn Michaels, how is he this good now?

Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar. Really glad the writers saw Suplex City was getting stale. This was a much needed dose of adrenaline for the gimmick. Other than that, I just found how SUDDEN this was hilarious.

Oooff... can't really do shows beyond Battleground, TLC and Backlash, but here are my matches of the year

5. THE FINAL DELETION. Also known as "The Hardys make a B movie." Sometime's wrestling's great, sometimes it's fucking stupid, here it's both. Broken Matt the hammy super-villain is something I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did.

4. Smackdown vs RAW men's division Survivor series match. Another match that was just pure fun. The best use of Braun since his debut, a lot of good character work from everyone, a shame Shane got killed but overall it was pretty great.

3. Shield Triple Threat, Battleground: The match everyone had been waiting for on a C PPV because everyone's heat had been killed through poor booking, the brand split coming back etc. and it still gets knocked out of the park.

2. The Revival vs DIY, NXT Toronto, 2/3 falls: while the above (and below) had the advantage of me being familiar with the participents, the only one I could say I knew out of this match outside of NXT was Gargano from his Chikara and PWG work, with a lesser mention to Ciampa's ROH work. Didn't matter, you got everything you needed to know about both teams explained through their actions. The Revival are the best dedicated heel tag team since the Brain Busters/Horsemen and DIY are their equal and opposites as a face team with Gargano putting himself in contention for the "Best comeback in wrestling" award.

1. Zayn vs Owens, Battleground. There is a reason people chant "Fight forever" whenever these two go at it, there is a reason why this was THE indy feud of the 21st century. Fucking incredible from start to finish.

Honorable mentions: Ultimate Lucha the debut of Matzana. Dean vs AJ (all of them). AJ vs Cena. Delete or Decay.

So I was just browsing youtube this morning and discovered someone uploaded the full 1996 bash at the beach. And I had that wonderful moment where I completely forgot what happened at that ppv. So that was a fun watch.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOvRCxlgz-B/?taken-by=thelanawwe


Lana wishing everyone a happy 2017...ENJOY!

Just finished watching Omega/Okada from Wrestle Kingdom 11

Ho..

ly...

SHIT THAT WAS GOOD!

Edit: Dave Meltzer just rated the match a 6/5.

Jimmy Snuka passed away from stomach cancer

He was 73


RIP Superfly