Hello, I’m Shawn Sommerville (Excellence of Execution on the FAN forums) and welcome to the 4th Annual FAN End-Of-Year WWE Awards!
This fourth installment of our annual wrap-up will see a few different touches added to the awards, most notably a cute little nickname. The origin of the “Golden Snowcones” is simple. Vince McMahon f***ing loves snowcones (his alleged quote, not mine). And gold is valuable, so… Yeah. They’re all up for grabs here, waiting for a home to go to, and where they end up was determined by you via the official FAN forums. You ARE signed up to the FAN forums, right?
2014 was quite a year, wasn’t it? Walkouts, fan rebellion, conquered streaks, mighty triumphs, sad farewells, creepy demon children, devastating injuries, crushing betrayals, a bunny… and all that happened before July. Like I always say, for a company where nothing ever seems to happen… A lot of things happened. And hopefully we’ll get to cover most of them.
Let’s start with the “Technical Snowcones”. These are for various moments and achievements throughout the year that may or may not the credit or derision they deserve in other places. Here we go….
Best Turn: Seth Rollins betrays The Shield and re-joins The Authority
In the very same city that saw the beginning of The Shield (Indianapolis), Seth Rollins ensured the end of it with a swing of a steel chair to Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns, revealing himself as Triple H’s “Plan B” after Batista’s sudden departure. Maligned at the time for breaking up a hot act at the peak of their powers, it has since proven to be one of the better booking moves of the year, allowing Rollins to flourish solo and leading to a memorable follow-up feud with Ambrose.
Worst Turn: Big Show betrays John Cena at Survivor Series and gets him eliminated
“Big Bipolar” Paul Wight strikes again. This time, the seemingly annual turn occurred in the main event of Survivor Series, as he hit John Cena with the WMD and left him to be eliminated from the crucial Team Cena v Team Authority match. He was seemingly hoping to keep his job when Team Authority won… But they didn’t after Dolph Ziggler (with some help from Sting) overcame a 3-1 deficit, so in the end he just looked like a big idiot. You know, these turns have become so frequent over the course of his career, this wasn’t even the first time he’d turned heel on Cena.
Best Insult: Dean Ambrose – “Uh oh, they sent the Cruiserweight division out to get me.”
I’ll be honest… There was no clear winner in this category because I ended up with an eight-way tie at the end of counting. So, I used my tiebreaker vote here simply as an excuse to talk about how awesome Jamie Noble and Joey Mercury, collectively known as J&J Security, have been. The new stooges for Seth Rollins may have been the target of Dean Ambrose’s snide remark here, but I think I speak for all of us here at the Freakin’ Awesome Network when I say we are eagerly awaiting the evening gown match.
Worst Insult: Nikki Bella – “I wish you died in the womb!”
This was one that led to a lot of double-takes. I mean, nobody was expecting a great promo from Nikki Bella, and that didn’t happen here, but… “I wish you died in the womb”? Bloody hell. There’s being a heel and then there’s just being so insanely cruel that it becomes comedic. Especially now you consider that it was all basically retconned about three months later. Hmm… Maybe I should retcon this award and give it to Jerry Lawler for “Maybe next week, YOU won’t be around”…
Best Commentary Moment: Michael Cole stands up for Daniel Bryan at Elimination Chamber
It’s not often these days that a commentator lets loose on the storyline unfolding in front of them, but Michael Cole did just that at the conclusion of Elimination Chamber back in February after Daniel Bryan had just been screwed out of the WWE Championship AGAIN because of outside interference. For Cole it was once too many and the voice of WWE became the voice of the people as he echoed their sentiments of heartbreak and frustration. It was a far cry from the early days of Bryan’s WWE career when Cole was his biggest critic.
Worst Commentary Moment: Commentary in general
This is probably cheating, but it’s what got voted in. The WWE commentary style is often derided for “telling stories” and not focusing on the in-ring action, but these days they’re barely even doing THAT. All it takes is one offbeat comment from Michael Cole, Jerry Lawler or JBL and suddenly it all goes off the rails and we’re hearing about them looking up “The Great Gazoo” on Wikipedia for a whole match. Not to mention all the company-mandated shilling and app tutorials and TWERKIN’, oh always with the TWERKIN’. Even NXT commentary can struggle more often than not, particularly when Alex Riley is at the desk.
Best Attire: Tyson Kidd – “Facts and Cats”
Tyson Kidd put the cherry on top of his 2014 re-invigoration by trading in his regular wrestling threads for an awesome ensemble of red/blue/yellow shorts and kickpads, complete with airbrushed designs of his current favorite turn of phrase, and his and wife Natalya’s beloved cats. This proves that, even though I’m a dog person, there are not a lot of things in life that can’t be improved with cats… FACT.
Worst Attire: Batista – “Bluetista”
You really have to wonder what goes on inside the brain of our beloved Batista. You know, just as he’s about to start preparing for his epic battle with The Shield alongside his Evolution comrades and all that, what would make him look in his bag and get him to think… “You know what? This feels like a powder blue kind of night”? And so it was with that choice in wardrobe that “Bluetista” was born and became an instant trending topic around the world. Don’t you EVER change, Big Dave.
Best Hair: Roman Reigns
For all that some corners of the wrestling fandom are dreading the possible Roman Reigns main event run in 2015 and beyond, one thing is for certain… The man’s got some damn fine hair. Looking less like a professional wrestler and more like that guy on the front cover of your mother’s romance novels, Reigns’s mane tops them all… And even his critics have to believe that.
Worst Hair: Dolph Ziggler
Dolph Ziggler is in quite the difficult situation in regards to his hair. Change it to something more manageable, and somehow he ends up looking like he needs a charisma transplant. Keep it as the wild, out-of control stringy then frizzy bleached blonde mess he’s had for years, and in all likelihood he’s not going to have it for many more years (just ask Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan how it went for them). On the plus side, at least he doesn’t have a big bald spot like Luke Harper does… Not yet anyway.
Best Entrance Music: Sami Zayn – “Worlds Apart”
Sami Zayn is one of NXT’s most beloved stars, if not THE most beloved. The current NXT champion is a straight-up babyface cut from the same cloth as Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, with wrestling skills to match, if not exceed him. Part of that overall package is his upbeat ska entrance theme, titled “Worlds Apart”, that always gets the Full Sail crowd psyched up for a great match and chanting “OLE!” over the top of it. This infectious energetic tune is one of the better works by the CFO$ team that is tasked with creating entrance themes these days.
Worst Entrance Music: Cesaro – “Swiss Made”
On the flip side, this is probably one of their worst. With Jack Swagger keeping the awesome “Patriot” theme in the divorce of The Real Americans, Cesaro was in need of a new theme. He may still be in need of a new theme right now because “Swiss Made”, a hard industrial metal theme seemingly inspired by Kraftwerk B-sides, is just a noisy mess and incredibly ill-fitting for The Swiss Superman. And that’s without mentioning the sirens…
Best Promo Video: Daniel Bryan vs Triple H – WrestleMania XXX
Like the wrestlers they digitally manipulate in their line of work, the video production team often saves their best work for WrestleMania. This year was punctuated by a stunning video package highlighting Daniel Bryan’s rise through WWE from being the “nerd that didn’t own a TV” on NXT all the way through to being the bearded dynamo that was about to open and close a WrestleMania, as well as his rebellion against Triple H and The Authority, all set to “Monster” by Imagine Dragons.
Best Entrance: Finn Bálor at NXT Takeover III: R-Evolution
The week before partnering up with Hideo Itami against The Ascension, Finn Bálor promised something that his opponents had never seen before. And man alive, did he deliver on that. Taking an element from his pre-WWE days traveling the world of wrestling, Bálor paid homage to Predator and Carnage with awe-inspiring body paint and tendril-like accessories, slithering to the ring with the backing of a thumping orchestral rock theme. It was possibly the first time that an ENTRANCE has ever gotten a “HOLY SHIT” chant. And the real scary thing is… This is just at NXT level. Imagine how far he could go with it at a WrestleMania someday.
Best Crowd: RAW 4/7/14 – New Orleans, LA
The RAW held 24 hours after WrestleMania has become almost as highly-anticipated as WrestleMania itself in recent years, and this year it was basically one big party… Rather appropriate given it was held in one of the world’s great party towns. The crowd sang and swayed for The Wyatt Family, showered the returning Bad News Barrett with chants more at home in the English Premier League and were loud and rowdy for nearly everyone ranging from conquering champions (Daniel Bryan) to shock debutantes (Paige) to cult heroes new (Cesaro) and old (Fandango)… But they were also respectful for what turned out to be The Ultimate Warrior’s last ever public appearance. They were the kind of crowd that made you feel like the rest of the year was just one giant hangover.
Best WWE Network Special/Series: The Shield – Journey To SummerSlam
The WWE Network launch has been plagued with problems, mostly to do with overhype and the fact that one of WWE’s biggest markets still doesn’t have it yet nearly a year later. But, for that $9.99 you hear so much about, it is actually quite the service if you have the means for it. For a start, it gave it us this awesome special about the former members of The Shield as they prepared for the respective SummerSlam matches, with a little bit of retrospective about their pre-WWE runs along the way. WWE documentaries are almost always excellent, and this was no exception.
Best Superstar On Social Media: Ryback
Before there was “Eat, Sleep, Conquer, Repeat”, we had “Eat, Tweet, Delete, Repeat”. Ryback’s Twitter page become a literal blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sensation in 2014 as he’d make witty, comedic and sometimes outright slanderous comments towards his fellow wrestlers and life itself, along with posting videos of himself winning wing-eating contests and ordering drive-thru with his theme music blaring from the car stereo. These went a long way towards fleshing out The Big Guy’s goofy personality just in time for a surprise face turn late in the year.
Best Pic/Gif: Ellis Mbeh, the “Shocked Undertaker Guy”
The Undertaker being defeated at WrestleMania by Brock Lesnar was truly an astonishing moment for all wrestling fans, and nobody exemplified that better than Ellis Mbeh, a fan in the front row who, despite actually being in support of Lesnar, was captured on WWE TV in the direct aftermath of the match with an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. Becoming one of the most legendary fan reactions in wrestling history, the image spread like wildfire through the fan community and became used as a catch-all reaction for other shocking events, even those completely unrelated to wrestling like Brazil’s humiliating defeat by Germany in the 2014 World Cup.
(Special honorable mention to FAN forum members gizzarkhenry and delaney for fulfilling a long-running FAN prophecy and getting former WWE talent Chris Masters to don a sombrero, and getting photographic evidence of the event (which became the single most-liked post in FAN forum history). You may not have won this award, but your historic feat will live on long after these awards have ended)
Best FAN Photoshop: Screwball for “Dean Ambrose and Big Show watching Bambi”
The good people here at the Freakin’ Awesome Network take enormous pride in our Photoshops, with only the best subjects becoming worthy of editing. By way of the “What is Dean Ambrose watching?” thread comes this wonderful work of art from FAN forum member Screwball, showing Ambrose and Big Show’s reactions to the death scene from Bambi. While Ambrose looks completely engrossed, Big Show… Well, it’s business as usual for him. This currently holds the FAN forum record for most liked Photoshop piece ever.
Best MS Paint Creation: sonofblaine for “Brie Bella and Shocked Bitch Guy”
There’s selling an angle… And then there was THIS. Brie Bella uses her favorite insult on Stephanie McMahon once more and that guy right there just can’t contain himself. This got lovingly captured by FAN forum member sonofblaine in the recent “Moments of 2014 MS Paint” thread, and quickly became one of the most-liked posts in forum history. I hope that guy made the same face when he learned he was also getting squashed by The Ascension on NXT later that week.
Best FAN Live Thread: WrestleMania XXX
Let’s be honest… We FAN’s are hard taskmasters at times. We know what we want from our wrestling, and we’re never short on words when we don’t get it. That said, nothing brings everybody together like a WrestleMania, and when you get a WrestleMania like the one we had this year with such awesome moments and matches… Well, dammit, it just makes it that much better.
Most Shocking Release: JTG
It had been a while since WWE had an old-fashioned spring cleaning, with talents like Drew McIntyre, Jinder Mahal, Evan Bourne and Yoshi Tatsu all seeing their future endeavour papers, among several others. The biggest casualty however was the man, the myth, the legend known as JTG. We all thought he’d be there forever, still bringin’ da hood to you well into the WrestleMania forty-somethings. Life sucks like that sometimes, but hey… At least he finally won something again.
Least Shocking Release: Alberto Del Rio
It seems almost ironic that our outgoing Worst Superstar of 2013 won this particular award, because the alleged circumstances behind it (Del Rio lashing out at a social media department employee in response to racial taunts) are probably more shocking than those of any departure this year other than CM Punk. However, it may have only been a matter of time anyway since Del Rio was doing nothing of note all year (other than getting massive face reactions during a PPV match with Batista) and he’d apparently been planning to leave soon anyway. With his departure, The Wheel Of Aggression spins no more.
Biggest Botch: Batista -2014 Royal Rumble Winner
Any normal year, this would have gone to a more traditional botch (Hulk Hogan calling the Mercedes-Benz Superdome the “Silverdome” at WrestleMania, for example). But 2014 was no normal year, as it started with arguably the most stubborn booking decision in recent history that led to arguably the biggest crowd backlash in recent history. Everyone knew that Batista (as a babyface no less) was not the best choice to win the Royal Rumble with Daniel Bryan being so white-hot… Everyone except those in charge, who didn’t even put Bryan in the damn match. Thankfully, things were set right in the end and Bryan got his moment. Let’s just hope for Roman Reigns’ sake that they’ll learn from their mistakes in 2015.
And that wraps up the appetizer portion of the Golden Snowcones. To go on to the main course, go back on your browser to the main page and it should be the article above this one. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you again in a moment.
Shawn Sommerville