Hello again, readers. Much like the other big guy that appears once a year to deliver the goods, I’m back with the 5th edition of the FAN WWE Awards, the Golden Snowcones.
As always, these awards were determined via voting by the posters on the official FAN forums, and this year had a major increase in voting numbers on last year. For that, I thank you all very much for contributing.
To quote Gorilla Monsoon, 2015 in WWE was definitely a happening. Two first-time world champions, many surprise contenders, injuries as far as the eye could see, great matches, forced pushes and a man with a trombone. And it’s up to me to try and summarise it all into 32 awards for your reading pleasure. This year sees a bit of refining of the awards, with a lot of the Technical Snowcones from last year discontinued and the remainder absorbed into the main awards. Also, I’m putting in some honourable and dishonourable mentions of those who polled highly in the relevant category and that may or may not have been the runner-up.
Let’s not wait any longer…
Best Tag Team/Best Turn: The New Day (Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods)
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW FREAKIN’ AWESOME NETWORK!!! DON’T YOU DARE BE SOUR!!! CLAP FOR YOUR BOYS, THE TWO-TIME WWE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS AND NOW, ONE-TIME GOLDEN SNOWCONE WINNERS, AND FEEL… THE POWER!!!
The fact that The New Day, consisting of Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods, absolutely ran away with this award seriously obscures the rocky start that they had to their run late last year. The happy clappy gimmick, inspired by African-American gospel culture, was originally written as a BABYFACE routine, a pet project of Vince McMahon, and it would completely die on the vine when paired against rival teams like Cesaro/Kidd and Miz/Sandow. However, it was this utter rejection by the Universe that led to the shift in demeanour shortly after WrestleMania. The happy became completely disingenuous, the clappy became even more obnoxious and seemingly overnight, The New Day became the hottest heel act in the company. With it came physical success in the form of two WWE Tag Team Championship reigns, shared in the spirit of The Fabulous Freebirds, as well as wave upon wave of golden comedy moments, such as harassing Michael Cole with a gong during the weekly WWE.com interview and their “Save The Tables” campaign against the returning Dudley Boyz. This allowed them to show personality and chemistry beyond anyone’s expectations. Kingston in particular, who was written off by many (including yours truly) as not having a heel run in him and being resigned to a role as a career midcard babyface, has been a revelation in the role. Woods has shown incredible skill as the lead promo man in the group, as well as a surprising ability to play the trombone and an amazing array of big event hairstyles ranging from a James Brown pompadour to a Ruffio-inspired afro. And Big E is showing off an incredible, almost uncomfortable charisma as the group’s big man.
So what could have been one of the great brainfarts of WWE history (and there’s been many) became one of its greatest surprise success stories. In a tag team division that seemingly rises and falls with the daily tides, let the records state that in 2015, the people raised their unicorn horns and in one voice, declared that… *Final Fantasy fanfare* …New. Day rocks.
Honourable Mention: Keep an eye out for the NXT team of Jason Jordan and Chad Gable to win one of these things in the next couple of years. They’ve only just started out but they are gaining a monstrous following.
Worst Tag Team: The Ascension (Konnor and Viktor)
What do you know? Someone knocked off the Matadores this year. This duo just never got out of the blocks in 2015. As such, this award is arguably the culmination of what was a promising stable with an intriguing gothic concept once upon a time (led by, of all people, Ricardo Rodriguez), becoming a forgotten tag team at the very bottom of the pecking order.
Konnor, a journeyman hoss of the developmental scene with a history dating back as far as Deep South Wrestling in 2005, and Viktor, a fellow anonymous midcarder of latter day FCW/early NXT, were initially paired up as yet another reboot of the Ascension team after the firing of Kenneth “Bram” Cameron. Their success in the NXT tag team division came mostly by default as they were essentially the only team in it for most of their reign as Tag Team Champions, but they had a modest cult following that persists even today. However, a gimmick tweak was in order for their main roster call-up. A dab of facepaint here, some kooky leather pads there and a script comprised of ’80s cocaine wrestling promos without the cocaine, and you’re left with modern-day Ascension. Sure, they started well enough with the usual squash routine, but their statements about legendary power-and-paint teams like The Road Warriors and Demolition stuck in the craw of fans and particularly one JBL, who’d use his commentary position to run them down constantly. In the end, The Ascension got in way over their heads, taking a beating from the combined 353 year old forces of The Outsiders, X-Pac, The New Age Outlaws AND The APA. Despite beating the Outlaws at the Royal Rumble, they’ve been struggling to regain their credibility ever since. At this moment in time they’re the heavies for another facepainted struggler in Stardust, but it remains to be seen what could turn things around for them.
Barely a year in to their main roster run, with non-descript in-ring ability, a widely unpopular look and a promo style you could find done better a million times on the Network, Konnor and Viktor find themselves in our own wasteland as 2015’s Worst Tag Team. Still, it’s not all bad… Just look at Bram.
Dishonourable Mention: Can’t not mention Los Matadores here. They abandoned El Torito mid-year before disappearing off of TV altogether for another possible repackaging.
Worst Turn: Paige
Another tie in the Snowcones, it seems. This time it’s between The Bella Twins and Paige for Worst Turn, and I’m going to go with Paige mostly because hers was the closest that resembled an actual turn, as opposed to the situation with the Bellas where it’s basically “Here’s your opponent for the week, be the opposite of them”.
So it came to be that Charlotte had finally toppled Nikki Bella for the Divas Championship, and all was well among the members of The Submission Soror… er… Team PCB. At least it was until Paige took to the mic and went to town on all involved. All well and good in theory, but it’s hard to sell a heel turn based on things that are largely perceived by the wider internet fanbase to be true. Charlotte may very well only be in her position because of her family relations. Becky Lynch did fall through the cracks somewhat and become the division’s Miss Irrelevant (and as of this article going live, it’s only true active babyface). Muddying the waters even further was the fact that, after a couple of weeks, Paige started playing nice and friendly with Charlotte and Lynch again… Only to cement the turn by attacking them both after Hell In A Cell. This put her in line for a title shot against Charlotte, and in their final confrontation before the scheduled bout at Survivor Series, in the final segment of RAW no less, she used her promo time to disrespect Charlotte’s late brother Reid (who’d tragically died of a drug overdose), causing a minor social media controversy. And then, get this… The crowds started turning on CHARLOTTE, an innocent party in all of this, and getting behind Paige because… she started being a Flair and cheated in matches? Fuck me, I need a diagram to follow all this here; I’m not sure the text here will suffice.
So there it was. Paige turned, turned back, turned again and may have turned once more. I don’t know. I do know that she’s already on track for a Kane/Big Show-esque number of turns, even though she’s barely been on the main roster two years. And there’s a fair chance that if things keep going the way they are in the Divas Division, one of the ladies will be winning this again next time.
Dishonourable Mention: In terms of a turn that actually happened, Lana’s face turn was poorly advised, seemingly taking away everything people liked about her character.
Best Promo: Paul Heyman, RAW 3/30/15
Well, it’s about damn time Paul Heyman won one of these. And he swept the rankings too, with our top five nominations in voting for this particular award all being orated by this microphone maestro. The majority of those runners-up were in relation to selling a largely unwanted at the time Brock Lesnar v Roman Reigns match, but the winning promo was Heyman’s explosive reaction to its outcome.
Some of the only times where the usual 20 minute opening promo for RAW is something to look forward to are when Heyman is the one holding the mic. So when it was the advocate for “The most non-PG asskicker of the PG Era” who strided out first on the first RAW after WrestleMania 31, where his client had his WWE World Heavyweight Championship swiped from him by Seth Rollins despite not even being pinned or submitted for it… Ooh, you just knew he was about to unleash fire. Accompanied by a bruised and battered Lesnar, Heyman went to town on all and sundry involved, recounting how Lesnar had done nothing but “suplex, suplex, suplex, suplex, suplex” Reigns all the way to “Suplex City, bitch” and narrating the previous night’s events in the way only he can. Heyman detailed how his client could have taken legal action, if not for the fact that he hates lawyers just as much he hates everyone else. Instead, he decided to invoke his rematch clause that night. From there, Little Miss Buzzkill herself Stephanie McMahon put a halt to the fun, but Heyman’s point had been well and truly made. This would be followed up by Lesnar promptly destroying anything and everything he could get his hands on after Rollins walked out of the scheduled title match. Short and sweet… That’s how Heyman operated here.
Other times in the year, he’d extoll the virtues of Lesnar in many glorious ways, including by song in the leadup to a series of rematches with The Undertaker. This run alongside Lesnar has arguably been some of the absolute best work by any manager in promoting his talent in wrestling history, proving that the managerial role in the modern age is not a lost art. It’s a shame that there aren’t more Paul Heymans around… Although it’s impossible to keep pace with the one we already have.
Honourable Mention: The highest non-Heyman promo in the list was The New Day at SummerSlam, which included their own hilarious take on Jay-Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” that ended up being edited off of subsequent replays.
Worst Promo: Roman Reigns, RAW 1/12/15
Pop quiz, hot shots… What do succotash, tater tots and beans all have in common other than being food items? If you guessed “Subject matter for unpopular Roman Reigns promos in 2015″, then man, I feel for you because you sat through some tough promos, both to watch and arguably to deliver. But we’ll just focus on the one about the magic beans here, your winner this year for Worst Promo.
I highly doubt that when Benjamin Tabart was publishing the first-known printed version of Jack And The Beanstalk back in 1807, that he was picturing Jack as a 6’3”, 265 lbs Samoan guy. But, it was invoked during a Roman Reigns/Big Show segment on RAW earlier this year. Big Show had called out Reigns (they were feuding at the time, naturally) and took a powder when Reigns came out for a rebuttal. Keep in mind that this was barely a week after Reigns had insulted Seth Rollins using Sylvester from Looney Tunes’s signature phrase of “sufferin’ succotash”. He was on shaky ground, and it all collapsed underneath him as he regaled the world with a tale about how he planted magic beans, climbed the beanstalk, took the golden goose, killed the giant, married the girl and lived happily ever after… Or at least was going to after his scheduled match with Luke Harper. Watching this promo back to write this article, I noticed that it wasn’t just the content of the promo that hurt Reigns here. It was the delivery as well. The way he says “Can I tell you a story, Big Show?” is the same exact way a parent would do so to their infant child, or a presenter on like Play School or some other pre-school kid’s show (shoutout to Big Ted, the bear in there). Maybe that was the intent to get under Big Show’s skin, I don’t know for sure, but condescending is a hard personality trait to sell for any future top babyface, and this was the absolute last thing Reigns needed as he headed towards his highly unpopular Rumble win.
Reigns’s promo ability is now arguably the last weak point of his game as we close out 2015, and I do feel like that it will all come together for him soon enough, and we’ll have our new top babyface ready to go… Just keep the food items out of the script.
Dishonourable Mention: I don’t care who actually thought it was a good idea for Charlotte and Paige to use Charlotte’s dead brother for heat… It just wasn’t.
Best Feud: Sasha Banks v Bayley
Sometimes, the best stories seem to come about only in hindsight. The focus remains on telling the smaller stories, and trying not to overcomplicate things for the sake of unpredictability, and then it only takes a tiny bit of work for it all to become one BIG awesome story and you feel great for having been there every step of the way. That’s how I feel it came about for Bayley as she chased Sasha Banks’s NXT Women’s Championship.
Bayley wasn’t a first-time challenger by any stretch of the imagination. She’d fought Charlotte unsuccessfully at Takeover: Fatal 4-Way and was part of a separate Fatal 4-Way match at Takeover: Rival earlier this year, the match where Banks won the title. But all of a sudden, the clock was ticking for her. A minor hand injury at the hands of Emma saw Bayley on the sidelines briefly, and in that time it appeared that Banks, Charlotte and Becky Lynch, all of whom Bayley had lost to and had antagonistic relationships with at this point, stepped up their game to the point where they were mere moments from leaving NXT altogether and leaving Bayley behind. It appeared that she only had one shot at beating each of them and earning their respect, as well as the NXT Women’s Championship, before they went out the door. And it was with that in mind that a determined Bayley went on her quest. She beat Charlotte with an avalanche Bayley-To-Belly, and got her respect. She beat Lynch for the #1 Contender spot and got her respect. Only The Boss stood between Bayley and glory. And in the modern classic at Takeover: Brooklyn, Bayley won it all… But it wasn’t over yet. Banks still wanted the title back by any means, including antagonising Bayley’s famous child superfan Izzy to get in the new champion’s head. This led to a historic Takeover main event between Bayley and Banks, where for 30 minutes they brought the house down (and Izzy to tears) in an Ironwoman match, won by Bayley with a last-minute submission hold to win with a 4-3 score.
Banks, Charlotte and Lynch are on the main roster now, dealing with new troubles on the rocky road to wrestling fame, while Bayley is the “elder” stateswoman of the new-look NXT Women’s Division, and will probably join them soon enough. They say you can’t make a crowd care with just great wrestling moves alone, and that you need a compelling story. Man… What a story this one turned out to be.
Honourable Mention: Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn bringing their long-time indy feud onto the NXT stage. Here’s hoping they get the chance to take it one level higher in 2016…
Worst Feud: Dolph Ziggler (with Lana) v Rusev (with Summer Rae)
Chemistry. Some pairings have it by the bucket load; others just leave you reaching for the bucket to throw up in. So when you break up one of the former to create one of the latter (along with one that was kind of OK in its own right, but just not the same), you’re not going to win people over. This was the situation that we found Dolph Ziggler, Rusev, Lana and Summer Rae involved in this year.
This started with the breakup of Rusev and Lana in the fallout of Rusev losing his feud with John Cena. Lana’s popularity had skyrocketed during this time, and it had finally cracked the icy facade of the Russian social ambassador. Suddenly, she was doing the Fandango dance instead of summoning Rusev to crush, and a loss at Payback to Cena was the last straw. Lana was dumped the next night… Only for her to rebound before the end of it, approaching Ziggler after a match, letting her hair down and making out with him. That was kind of where it peaked for the Ziggler/Lana pairing. What didn’t help were two major issues. One, Rusev suffered a foot injury in an unrelated match, leading to several instances of Ziggler/Lana making out in front of Rusev, while he was on crutches unable to do anything. And two, Lana claimed that she didn’t like being controlled by another man, even down to what clothes she wore… Only to start wearing the same ’80s hair metal starter kit that Ziggler had started dabbling with. It sent very mixed messages in regards to the whole face/heel thing. Fortunately for Rusev, he found a sympathetic ear in Summer Rae. She would temporarily end up as a new Lana, right down to the hairstyle and business suits, and found herself the recipient of a brand new fish, one that was promptly hurled up the entrance ramp at Ziggler in one of the more humorous moments of the entire year. This went on for months, and was all set to end up in a mixed tag match between Ziggler/Lana and Rusev/Summer Rae… Only for Lana to break her wrist in training and for Rusev and Lana’s real life engagement to become TMZ headline news, leading to the whole thing being abandoned altogether.
For something so scrambled and pointless, nobody was really hurt by it. Rusev got to show some character development, Summer Rae was able to parlay it into rare TV time (and another valet role alongside Tyler Breeze), and even though it killed her overness, it allowed Lana to return to her original heel role without it being hijacked by face pops. In the end, the only real loser in the matter was Ziggler. This angle quite possibly killed off any goodwill that Ziggler had with the wider internet fanbase after flirting with the main event scene for so long. Damn shame, really, because the effort is still there… Just didn’t show through here.
Dishonourable Mention: The three-way, nine-person feud that encompassed the “Divas Revolution” for its opening months. The whole thing has yet to recover from it.
Best Title Reign: John Cena, United States Championship
Playing a role that was seemingly written in stone the moment his opponent debuted on the roster a year earlier, John Cena would defend American values and defeat the evil foreigner Rusev at WrestleMania, winning the United States Championship in the process. So, what was next for the veteran face of WWE?
As it turned out, a surprisingly fun fighting champion reign, where he would defend the US belt in an open challenge nearly every week against a wide variety of challengers from up and down the card. These ranged from fringe main eventers like Dean Ambrose and Cesaro, to lower carders like Stardust and Zack Ryder, to NXT graduates like Neville and Sami Zayn, and these matches were often considered to the best match of the night. And this was while he was in extended feuds with Rusev and, later on, Kevin Owens. This was something that many have yearned for, yet were kind of wary about given that Cena being a fighting champion would mean Cena regularly winning matches clean over “more deserving” opponents. Still, there was always that intrigue about who would be the next one to step up to the plate, and more importantly, who would be the one to dethrone him for the belt. Unfortunately, the end of the reign was somewhat of an anti-climax, with the belt being lost to WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins in a match for both titles at SummerSlam (with an assist from, bizarrely enough, comedian Jon Stewart). Cena won the belt back at Night Of Champions and briefly continued the Open Challenge, only to lose the belt again to the returning Alberto Del Rio at Hell In A Cell.
Cena has taken some time off since then to film a reality TV hosting role and generally recharge the batteries, but returned for a rematch on the last RAW of 2015, losing by DQ to Del Rio. It’ll be intriguing to see where he fits in again, but more roles like his fighting US Champion reign in 2015 would be just fine.
Honourable Mention: Sasha Banks, for taking the secondary women’s championship of WWE and carrying it like it was more important than the world title.
Worst Title Reign: Nikki Bella, Divas Championship
To be fair to Nikki Bella, she actually has improved somewhat in recent years to be a perfectly serviceable wrestler. Not necessarily someone to build a division around, but she’s earned her place. Unfortunately, it’s been overshadowed by so many other factors… Total Divas, her relationship with John Cena, the rise of NXT’s women… that she’s ended up being painted as the symbol of everything considered to be wrong with the Divas division. This title reign, started at the 2014 Survivor Series, may possibly be the biggest factor.
The reign goes on as you do, through WrestleMania and a series of worthy challengers. Soon enough, the face/heel lines for The Bella Twins start becoming very blurry, and Nikki and her sister Brie seem to start changing alignments depending on their opponents. The title defenses themselves become more infrequent as Nikki struggles with scattered injuries. Soon enough, somebody points it out… “Damn, she’s getting close to AJ Lee’s record for longest individual reign. She might actually beat the thing?”. It came down to one more defense against recent NXT call-up Charlotte on RAW. Nikki had already tied the record, and if she retained here, she breaks it… Which she did on a Dusty finish. For many, the idea that some could be led to believe that Nikki Bella was some sort of standard bearer for women’s wrestling sent chills down the spine. Any future win by any challenger was immediately declared irrelevant because Nikki got what she wanted. And, of course, scuttlebutt had it that the record was broken as some kind of political move to erase Lee from history because of her relationship with persona non grata CM Punk. Seriously, if AJ Lee and CM Punk could humanly give less of a damn than no damns at all, it would STILL be more of a damn that they actually give about this. The reign didn’t last that much longer, as Charlotte defeated her at Night Of Champions to stop the clock at 301 days.
Reality is, this record reign only means as much as you want it to. It’s little more than statistics on a webpage and a bullet point on commentary. That said, it’s hardly going to be a notable reign beyond the statistic. Nikki could have stood to try and defend the thing a bit more or vacate it if the injuries were getting to her (which they eventually did… Nikki hasn’t wrestled in two months as of this article going live, and may not wrestle for a few more yet). And another thing… PICK A DAMN SIDE ALREADY. The crowds already kind of like you for some reason, maybe try and do the face thing properly.
Dishonourable Mention: Seth Rollins, despite bringing it between the ropes, just couldn’t pick up a clean win to save his life as WWE World Heavyweight Champion.
Best WWE Network Special/Series: Table For Three
The WWE Network has provided us with some great original content in the two years the service has been available, mostly in the field of behind-the-scenes documentaries. Our winner here though, is more in the field of… just a group of friends sharing stories and shooting the shit, as they say.
Episodes of Table For 3 feature of a group of three wrestlers with a common link, be it The New Day or a selection of recent Intercontinental Champions or legendary Divas or whatever, sitting down to a nice meal and letting the cameras roll on whatever happens. It often ends up being one of two things… Talk about their experiences as a wrestler, or wacky stories about life on the road. And the latter has been where a lot of the gold has come from. Stories like Ryback taking a Cialis to impress Brock Lesnar with his medically-enhanced little guy, or William Regal just flat out admitting that he, Sheamus and Bad News Barrett were all hideously bad Kings Of The Ring… Fun stuff. But it also gives the viewer insight into the real people behind the characters, more so than you’d get just by following them on Twitter, and puts them over more that they would be even on the wrestling shows themselves.
While I haven’t heard anything on the matter at this point in time, I think that a second series of this would almost be a lock at this point. If not, a similar series titled “Ride Along”, where cameras are rolling with the talents as they travel between towns, should provide just as much good material as this did. Well worth the undisclosed monthly sum.
Honourable Mention: The NXT-focused Breaking Ground, which gave us further insight into the developmental process in the modern age, as well as the people in it.
Best Entrance: Rusev, WrestleMania XXXI
WrestleMania in 2015 was more like New Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom when it came to the special entrances for the wrestlers. Sting would make his WWE in-ring debut with the backing of a Japanese drum band. Triple H entered as a Terminator amongst a post-apocalyptic battle scene. Bray Wyatt walked to the ring with his smoky lantern drawing a scarecrow army. And Roman Reigns made his way down through the crowd accompanied by a full-on security team escort (although that may have been for his own safety given the heat he had at the time). But there was no topping our winner.
It turned out that re-locating to Russia for the first year or so of his WWE run at the behest of his future wife Lana meant there were a lot of perks for Rusev in the grand entrance stakes. It granted them access to a selection of Putin’s finest soldiers, some of whom accompanied Lana to the ring carrying a giant Russian flag, others whom stood in military formation on the entrance stage holding Russian flags. It granted them the finest fashions… Lana, who was looking resplendent in her fur-trimmed coat and Rusev, prepared for competition in a fancy new tracksuit jacket. And finally, it granted them access to a TANK. And this wasn’t your poxy little “Let’s invade WCW and change the course of wrestling history” Jeep with a pipe on it, either. This was the real deal. Could have rolled right out of there and started throwing shells at Levis Stadium with only a five minute turnaround. And that’s how he chose to enter for battle against John Cena, standing barefoot on top of a damn tank waving the Russian trikolor. Combine that with his epic entrance music and ritualistic posing and flexing, and you have an out and out superstar standing in the ring right in front of you. Didn’t help him win the match, or the ensuing feud, but nobody’s worried about little details like that.
It was an entrance that truly personified the spectacle and grandeur that separates WrestleMania from the rest of the pack. One can only hope that the boys and girls who make it on to WrestleMania XXXII will try and make a similar statement in front of what could possibly be WWE’s biggest ever crowd at AT&T Stadium.
Honourable Mention: Finn Balor’s demon entrance is a sight to behold whenever he brings it out, but the reaction of the Japanese crowd at Beast In The East to throw streamers at him was one of the year’s great images.
Most Improved Superstar: Roman Reigns
I’ve been following wrestling on-and-off for close to 17 years now, and in that time I’ve rarely seen a guy get piled on by the wider fanbase so much based on impossible circumstances outside of his control like I have with Roman Reigns. Honestly, if I was in his boots, I would have crumbled into a crying heap and left the business. To his credit, he took all the negativity in stride and just got on with the job… One that he is doing increasingly better at every single day.
The turning point for him was almost certainly the WrestleMania match with Brock Lesnar. Despite having had a great outing against Daniel Bryan a month earlier at Fastlane, many in the fanbase were still calling for Lesnar to rip Reigns’s head from his body Mortal Kombat-style and put an end to the nonsense once and for all. The only things that were ripped were their expectations, as Reigns went blow for blow with Lesnar in one BRUTAL AS FUCK fight, only losing after Seth Rollins cashed in Money In The Bank. From here, the image rehab went on. The writing put more emphasis on his friendship with former Shield partner Dean Ambrose, giving him more of a relatable personality. He continued to put on great match after great match on PPV with a wide range of opponents. And his promos were more like his Shield ones, no nonsense and to the point, with a lot less Cena-esque BS like the infamous “sufferin’ succotash” and “beanstalk” promos earlier in the year. A brief lapse back to that with the “tater tots” promo to Sheamus had it appearing like it was going to be all for nothing, but within the space of 24 hours, Reigns won over two hostile crowds in Boston and Philadelphia, the same town that booed him out of the state after winning the Rumble, with some legit badassery… First, in beating down Triple H on Sunday and then, winning the World Heavyweight Championship on Monday. I mean, yeah, he was playing off of The Authority and Vince McMahon himself made a rare appearance to kick him in the balls and take a Superman Punch… but you can’t say it wasn’t effective.
As of today, even as the world champion, Reigns is still not quite at that top level. But major progress had been made to the point where it can only be a matter of months before he gets there. WrestleMania 31 was meant to be his coronation as the man… By WrestleMania 32, it may not even be necessary.
Honourable Mention: Xavier Woods was in real danger of falling through the cracks after being called up last year. Now, he’s the guiding force behind The New Day.
Most Misused Superstar: Cesaro
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before… Cesaro works his way up from near the bottom of the card in a popular tag team, team breaks up, he becomes a singles guy, has some modest success, only to flounder again on the back of Vince McMahon apparently hating him for some reason. Should I just copy and paste last year’s entry, only taking out “The Real Americans” for “BTE: Best Team Ever”?
It’s a real testament to the man’s talent that he was able to work his way back up after his 2014 singles run went to hell after WrestleMania, and this came off the back of an all too short-lived tag team run with Tyson Kidd. The self-proclaimed BTE (Best Team Ever) were the hot team of early 2015… FACT… winning the Tag Team Championships from The Usos at Fastlane and carrying them through WrestleMania before ending up being part of a double turn with The New Day. It was here in this face run that The Cesaro Section came back to life off the back of Cesaro’s insane babyface fire, and a killer hot tag. Seriously, watch him do 10 straight running European Uppercuts, or do a lap around the ring before hitting someone into the front row with one, you’ll never get bored (unless you’re Vince McMahon, allegedly). Kidd would sadly be put out indefinitely with a horrifying neck injury that nearly killed him by some reports, leaving Cesaro back in singles over the summer, but his tag team work had him back as a regular fixture on the RAW card, tearing it up with the likes of John Cena (going 30 minutes with him one week), Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Rusev and Roman Reigns as the show’s Swiss workhorse… Unfortunately, little came in the way of notable success, and this was tied to news reports allegedly saying that Vince McMahon found Cesaro “boring”. And once something like that gets out, it starts to spread like wildfire and everything gets put under the microscope. “Oh, he lost to Big Show? Might as well pack up and go somewhere else”, they say, as if him leaving is going to change anything. If anything, I’ve seen stories saying that Vince was starting to turn the corner on the guy with this run… So naturally, Cesaro ends up wrecking his shoulder and joining WWE’s unfathomably long injury list for 2015. At this point, Cesaro is only a tiny, outside chance at making it back in time for WrestleMania.
Personally, while I do feel he deserves better, there are so many others below him who would kill to be in his spot. I’d consider someone like Damien Sandow, who was highly voted in this, to be more misused by the virtue of not being used AT ALL despite being one of the hottest midcard talents on the roster only nine months ago. Still, based on your votes, Cesaro’s taking this one home again.
Dishonourable Mention: I have to elaborate on Sandow here. He was insanely hot during the stunt double angle, and he doesn’t even get a PPV blowoff match for it. Now, he doesn’t appear on TV anymore. For shame.
Most Exciting Moment: Seth Rollins cashes in Money In The Bank and wins WWE World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of WrestleMania
There’s not a lot left to be done with the Money In The Bank concept. Since its introduction in 2005, it’s been cashed in by surprise, cashed in with notice, cashed in months later, cashed in same night, won, lost… But in the hands of 2014 winner Seth Rollins, the final frontier may have been breached.
The championship match between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns was anticipated to be an abomination, even desired to be a ritual sacrifice, based on Reigns’s polarising push into the main event. However, it somehow became one hell of a memorable and bloody brawl. After three Superman Punches and two Spears still couldn’t keep The Beast Incarnate down, Reigns (who had taken two F5s already) had Lesnar in his sights for one last Spear… Only to get laid out with a third F5. Both men were down for the count. It was at that moment that Rollins would swoop in and try to pick the bones, calling his shot and becoming the first man to cash in on a championship match still in progress, and in the WrestleMania main event, no less. A Curb Stomp to Lesnar almost had it then, but a moment’s hesitation led to Rollins being caught in a fireman’s carry after a second attempt at it. Lesnar didn’t hit the F5 thanks to another Spear from Reigns, but having been hurled to safety, Rollins would lay out Reigns with a Curb Stomp and get the winning pin. Before anyone could comprehend what had happened, Rollins was at the top of the ramp, swinging wrestling’s ultimate prize around above his head in celebration.
The fireworks would eventually settle down and Rollins would hold the world title belt in a somewhat underwhelming fashion until a serious knee injury in November, but the cash-in that night will live long in the memory… Especially in contrast to 2015 Money In The Bank winner Sheamus’s cash-in at Survivor Series, which was arguably as frustrating as this one was exciting.
Honourable Mention: The brawl on RAW between Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker was as if they were Godzilla and King Kong, and the rest of the roster trying to break them up were the skyscrapers of Tokyo.
Most Shocking Moment: Kevin Owens beats John Cena clean in his main roster debut at Elimination Chamber
There’s often a lot of worry about how NXT call-ups will turn out once they are out of the nurturing, proactive developmental environment and thrown into the fire of the main roster grind. The likes of Adam Rose, The Ascension and Emma will tell you first-hand how much that transition can be a doozy. But for Kevin Owens, he couldn’t have gotten off to a better possible start, with the Most Shocking Moment of 2015.
Owens would first appear on RAW, seemingly answering John Cena’s US Open Challenge, only to forgo the formalities and lay him out with his signature Pop-Up Powerbomb. That was shocking enough, but the worry was that in the match that resulted from it, Owens v Cena at Elimination Chamber, it would all just lead to “CENA WINS LOL” business as usual. Anyway, the match begins, and quickly turns into in all-out movefest, with both men digging deep into their arsenal to try and keep the other one down. Cena’s Attitude Adjustment can’t finish it. Owens’s Pop-Up Powerbomb can’t finish it. Owens steal Cena’s move and does the AA, but that doesn’t finish it either. Which one will go down? Owens finds a window of opportunity and hits the Pop-Up Powerbomb again, surely Cena kicks out of this one too… Wait, what? He didn’t? And just like that, Owens had picked up one of the few clean singles wins there has ever been over Cena in the decade-plus he’s been the figurehead #1 man of WWE. It was a monster rub for Owens, and for NXT as a whole. After all, their champion just toppled a top WWE star. Things looked like they were actually going to change for once… Only for a rematch to be announced for Money In The Bank… which Cena won… and a second rematch at Battleground… which Cena won. Bit of a two steps forward, one step back situation in the end, unfortunately.
Still, Owens finds himself in some very rare company, alongside the likes of Batista, The Rock and Daniel Bryan (among others) as the only men who defeated John Cena clean, straight-up one-on-one, in his time as the face of WWE. That will never be taken away from him. And it’s the kind of credibility boost you can only get once every so often too… just ask Alberto Del Rio how much beating Cena clean at Hell In A Cell has helped him.
Honourable Mention: Samoa Joe, one of the last holdouts from the golden era of early Ring Of Honor and a long-time TNA mainstay, finally arrived in WWE (via NXT) and rediscovered his terrifying early career form.
Most Hilarious Moment: The New Day meets Edge and Christian and challenges them to a musical battle
Briefly one of the most-maligned parts of the show, once The New Day turned heel, it seemed that everything they touched turned to gold. So many of this year’s funniest moments have come from this trio, that the only other thing in with a shout of winning this was Rusev throwing a fish. But our winner saw Kofi, Big E and Xavier meet arguably their kindred spirits from another era… Edge and Christian.
This segment started with Seth Rollins, who would excel as an exasperated straight man for The New Day in segments like these, looking backstage to try and find Sting, who had taken off with a bronze statue made in his likeness (talk about something that makes no sense without context). He runs into The New Day, who try and rally him up in the way only they can, only for Rollins to explode in anger at them. However, they are quickly distracted the arriving Edge and Christian, who were in the arena for a recording of a Steve Austin Show podcast. Rollins dashes off to keep looking for his chocolate statue, leaving The New Day and Edge and Christian behind… Xavier Woods then breaks the ice by challenging the Canadians to a musical battle, and starts playing a nifty tune on his trombone. They think it’s all over… Only for Christian to bring out a kazoo and play the “New… Day Sucks” chant on it. At this point, Big E reaches out and tries to EAT THE KAZOO. Look, I know you have to get your essential daily coloured plastics somehow, but pace yourself with it, big man. Chew small bites with your kazoos. From here, The Dudley Boyz arrive (indirectly re-uniting four of the famed TLC six from 2000-2001, with only The Hardy Boyz absent, contracted to the wet cardboard box that was TNA in 2015) to inform The New Day of a #1 Contender’s Match and run them off with a “Get… The Tables” chant.
This segment totally reeked of awesomeness. From The New Day’s chemistry with Rollins, to Edge and Christian being the goofy dudes from The Attitude Era, to even a small nostalgia kick at the end… Perfect use of all involved.
Honourable Mention: Rusev giving Summer Rae a fish named Lana as a gift, if only for the incredible footage of Rusev throwing said fish up the ramp.
Best Spot: Randy Orton counters Seth Rollins’s Curb Stomp attempt with the RKO
At the time this goes to print, both men involved in this Golden Snowcones winner are currently on extended stints on the injured list. Seth Rollins is gone for months after wrecking his knee at a house show in Ireland, while Randy Orton blew out his infamously troublesome shoulder innocently taking out a bag of rubbish, and is also looking at needing an unrelated neck surgery after he’s recovered from shoulder surgery. That said, they left their mark on 2015 with this incredible moment at WrestleMania 31.
Second up on the main card that night was a bout between The Authority’s golden boy Rollins, and the man he threw out of that position, Orton. The match goes on as it does, with the usual competent ringwork from both men. Soon, it’s time to take it home. Rollins preps himself in the corner, waiting for the right moment to strike and hit his signature Curb Stomp, the very move that put Orton out for months late in the previous year after hitting it on steel steps. He steps onto Orton’s back, but instead of a downward force pushing Orton into the canvas, he got an upward one sending him into the Santa Clara sky… and fell right back DOWN right into an RKO for the fucking ages. The crowd exploded, having seen one of the great finisher counters of all-time, and the winning pinfall for Orton, as they say, was academic. This was a counter so glorious, the Curb Stomp was banned mere days later as there was no way that move could ever be countered better (OK, it was banned for other reasons, but still).
This was the genuine article. The alpha and the omega of the famed “RKO OUTTA NOWHERE”. Orton has struggled for the most part in creating WrestleMania moments over the course of his WWE career, but this goes right alongside his RKO counter to The Undertaker’s chokeslam a decade earlier in the highlight reels of the Showcase Of The Immortals. If only it were effective enough to prevent Rollins from cashing in Money In The Bank later that night…
Honourable Mention: Kalisto, who sacrificed his coccyx and spinal column for the cause by hitting a Salida Del Sol from the top of a ladder through another ladder at TLC.
Best New Superstar/Best Superstar on Social Media: Kevin Owens
It may be cliché as hell to say, but Kevin Owens does not look like your average WWE Superstar. To paraphrase the late, great Dusty Rhodes… His belly’s just a little big. His hiney’s just a little big. But brother, he’s bad and we know he’s bad. Throw your misconceptions out the window, boys and girls… Owens is the baddest guy to come on down in a long time, and it’s so refreshing to see.
The Prize Fighter spent the first few months of this year in NXT, re-kindling the indy blood feud he had with Sami Zayn. Owens would partake in two brutal fights against his former friend, winning by a rare referee stoppage in the first one at Takeover: Rival to claim the NXT Championship and putting him out of commission for months during the second. From there, a rivalry with Samoa Joe was in the offing… But one night in June, Owens took a step away from NXT and into the spotlight of Monday Night RAW, laying out none other than John Cena. Even more incredibly, Owens would beat Cena straight-up at Elimination Chamber, one of the cleanest wins anyone has had over Cena in years. While Owens would go on to lose the feud, as well as the NXT Championship to Finn Balor at Beast In The East, Owens was now firmly entrenched as one of WWE’s top villains. He would further cement this position by claiming the Intercontinental Championship at Night Of Champions, becoming one of its most credible titleholders in recent years before losing it to Dean Ambrose late in the year. And through of all this, one thing has remained consistent about Owens. All of the brutality, all of the violence… It’s simply a father trying to make a great life for his kids. This is something clearly shown through his social media outlets, showing photos and videos of his children’s reactions to the happenings of WWE… in between brutally cutting down those who dare send an ill-advised tweet to the man (as well as a few co-workers and celebrities along the way… sorry, Alex Riley and Melissa Joan Hart).
Owens has only been on WWE TV from his start in NXT to his current position for just over a single year, and very few people have made that kind of progress from the start of the developmental process to main roster staple that quickly EVER. Even the likes of Brock Lesnar and Cena himself were in Ohio Valley for at least 12 months. This clearly shows what kind of a special talent Owens is, and will become over the next several years.
Honourable Mention: Not many others really got a chance to shine in 2015, but if Tyler Breeze can finally get something nice happening, that would be great.
Worst Match/Most Disappointing Moment/Most Embarrassing Moment/Most “WTF?” Moment: The 2015 Royal Rumble
If you could pick one match in the history of WWE to symbolise how stubborn Vince McMahon can get when it comes to trying to get a talent over, I think that many of you would pick the 2015 Royal Rumble. In fact, many of you HAVE picked it, a match where Roman Reigns was handed the metaphorical brass ring on a silver platter in what was meant to lead to a grand coronation as the new face of WWE at WrestleMania… Bit of a shame that the Philadelphia crowd wanted someone else then, isn’t it?
That someone else was the returning Daniel Bryan, who had his championship reign in 2014 cruelly cut short by injury and was the main figurehead behind the crowd rebellion at the previous year’s Rumble because he wasn’t in it. He entered at #10, a bit early, but it wasn’t not like he hasn’t wrestled long matches before… And then he was eliminated by Bray Wyatt, having lasted just 10 minutes. The idea behind this was to get him out of the way and not lead to a direct confrontation with Reigns, where the crowd would have certainly picked Bryan. The reality was that the booing, which the previous year was only restricted to the post-#30 sequence, lasted the entire second half of the match. Still, the match went on and there was hope that other top babyfaces like Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler and Ryback could take the win… Only for it to be crushed by Big Show and Kane, truly living up to their nickname of “The Local Men” by ruining everything and beating down and eliminating the three of them, as well as the iron man of the match in Wyatt. Again, this was a misjudgment by WWE booking, thinking that by eliminating other beloved faces, the crowd would rally behind Reigns to eliminate Big Show and Kane, which he did, seemingly winning the match. Instead, the crowd rallied behind Rusev, who was right in the middle of being the most anti-American Russian since the Cold War was still a thing, but was STILL more popular than Reigns. He was still technically in the match despite being on the outside, but who should appear next to try and sway fan opinion but Reigns’s famous cousin, The Rock! He helped him fend off an assault from Big Show and Kane and watched as Reigns eliminated Rusev to win the match. Then, we have the famous image of Rock raising up Reigns’s arm in victory, Reigns with a bloody, yet shit-eating grin on his face and Rock having an expression of genuine bewilderment, to a chorus of boos that “Rowdy” Roddy Piper in his prime would have begged for. Rock hadn’t been booed this bad since he told Sacramento he’d be back to watch the Lakers beat the Kings in May.
There may have arguably been worse matches wrestled this year, but none of them were as much of a right royal mess as this Rumble was. It led WWE into major damage control going into WrestleMania trying to win back the crowds for Reigns in time for his title match against Brock Lesnar (it didn’t work), and it left the Rumble concept in a very precarious position credibility-wise in the eyes of the fans after two years of unsatisfactory results. The 2016 Rumble needs to end with a popular winner no matter what, or else it is in real danger of becoming a complete irrelevance.
Dishonourable Mention: The Intercontinental Championship Elimination Chamber match between Ryback, Sheamus, Mark Henry, Dolph Ziggler, King Barrett and R-Truth. This WAS the worst-wrestled match of the year, a disorganised rabble at times.
Best Match: Sasha Banks v Bayley, NXT Women’s Championship Match, NXT Takeover VI: Brooklyn
There’s almost been something of a burnout in the fanbase this year in regards to WWE’s matches. They’ve been the promotion’s strongest suit for years now, carrying the shows where poorly-executed storylines have let people down, but many are tired waiting for the other side to pick up the slack. Fortunately, NXT has never really had that problem, and our winner here not only had the great wrestling and great story, but may become one of wrestling’s truly historically significant matches of the modern era.
Your NXT Women’s Champion, in the red and blue singlet and trunks, Sasha Banks. Your #1 Contender, in the gold and white singlet and tights, Bayley. The setting is the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and the first NXT Takeover held outside of NXT’s home base at Full Sail University in Florida. And the gold is on the line in the most highly-anticipated match on that night’s card, and of possibly any card that summer. It wasn’t the main event that night, Finn Balor and Kevin Owens had that distinction, but it barely mattered because for 18 minutes and 22 seconds, these two warriors of the canvas wars tore it up. Bayley, a hungry challenger looking to claim the final prize in her journey to the top of NXT. Banks, the wily and scheming champion, always planning the strategy. Banks would target a pre-existing hand injury of Bayley to gain the upper hand, but it wasn’t enough to faze her as the match went into its final stages. Banks would kick out of a Bayley-To-Belly and Bayley would counter the Banks Statement into a hold of her own (despite having the holy hell stomped out of her hand in the previous hold) before Bayley hit a top-rope poisonrana that drilled Banks head-first into the mat, quickly followed by another Bayley-To-Belly to win the thrilling match. The emotional post-match scenes of Bayley celebrating her win, followed by her and Banks being joined by Charlotte and Becky Lynch, collectively considered as NXT’s “Four Horsewomen”, and together flashing the four fingered symbol of excellence was icing on the cake.
This isn’t a case of “Oh, this was a great women’s match”… No no no. This was a great match. Period. This was the perfect storm of compelling story, beloved characters and excellent ring work, a true watershed moment for wrestling history. I can only hope there’s a time in the future, probably not this year or even in the next few years to be realistic, but eventually, where we can look back on this match and say “What we have now… THIS is where it all started”.
Honourable Mention: The earlier Banks title defense against Lynch at Takeover: Unstoppable. It’s looking more and more underrated by the day, and it put Lynch on the map after struggling to find an identity in NXT.
Worst PPV: Royal Rumble
WWE’s PPV cards for the most part have been solid this year, without many of them being truly spectacular. However, the winner of this award has likely gotten it on the quality of its signature main event, which became one of the biggest disasters in recent WWE history. But let’s start from the top.
The YouTube preshow match saw the team of Cesaro and Tyson Kidd defeat The New Day’s Kofi Kingston and Big E in a modest showing overall, which had some of the first signs of crowd rebellion against the positively-powered latter group. Then we had the baffling opening match of The Ascension over The New Age Outlaws… Again, competently wrestled, but nobody cared about Konnor or Viktor beating the Attitude Era relics. The Usos retained the tag belts over The Miz and Damien Sandow as the stunt double angle was starting to reach its disappointing final stages. The Bella Twins defeated Paige and Natalya in an anonymous tag team match. Then, in one of the highlights of the entire year, a classic of a triple threat match between Brock Lesnar, John Cena and Seth Rollins for Lesnar’s WWE World Heavyweight Championship. For over 20 minutes, those three brought out the absolute best in each other before Lesnar overcame a Rollins flying elbow drop through the commentary table to retain his gold. But then we have the Rumble match itself to determine Lesnar’s next challenger, and as elaborated elsewhere in the article… It didn’t go down that well whatsoever.
And that was that. Another Rumble in the books, and a Golden Snowcone going its way. The City of Brotherly Love had no love for this show beyond the WWE Championship match, and it seems that many of you didn’t either… But seriously, watch that championship match. You won’t regret it.
Dishonourable Mention: Battleground again polled highly in this award, mostly off the back of a copout Rollins v Lesnar match that ended with The Undertaker kicking Lesnar in the balls like a big ol’ jerk.
Best PPV: NXT Takeover VI: Brooklyn
The NXT Takeover specials have become some of the most highly-anticipated shows of the year since their introduction in early 2014, as evidenced by the back-to-back win in this category. In fact, they had become in such high demand that at times, the NXT home base at Full Sail University was just not big enough. They needed to take over a larger venue.
It was with that in mind that NXT Takeover: Brooklyn came about, as the first of a triple-header Saturday-to-Monday block of shows at the Barclays Center containing a combined NXT TV taping/live Takeover special, SummerSlam and RAW. Expectations were high, but they delivered beyond even that. In front of a packed house of rabid NXT fans, the card opened with the first ever WWE appearance of the evergreen Jushin “Thunder” Liger, as he defeated Tyler Breeze in a hot opener. The Vaudevillains, with the help of the unlikeliest cult heroine “Blue Pants”, took the NXT Tag Team Championship from Blake and Murphy. This was followed by rising prospect Apollo Crews making a strong first impression over “Perfect Ten” Tye Dillinger and Samoa Joe defeating Baron Corbin in what could be described a sleeper hit. And then our two main events. First, the undeniable classic that was Sasha Banks versus Bayley, a match that had everything, including the happy ending that was Bayley finally claiming the NXT Women’s Championship. And second, a hard-hitting ladder match between Finn Balor and Kevin Owens, which led to the Irishman retaining his NXT Championship after a Coup De Grace from the ladder.
All killer, no filler. That’s what these Takeover cards have come to be known for and that is what this card exemplified to the letter, setting in mind the possibility of further Takeover arena shows, including one in London mere weeks ago. Strong in-ring action, strong storylines, strong character work… Isn’t that just what we all really want from this?
Honourable Mention: The odds were well and truly stacked against WrestleMania 31 thanks to a subpar build, but it came through in the end with a consistently good card.
Worst Diva/Biggest Botch: Eva Marie
Holy crap, she’s done it again. Three years in a row, All Red Everything has led to All Gold Snowcone infamy as WWE’s worst Diva. And this year was meant to be the year where she put in an honest effort to improve her skills. Hell, if anything, she probably has… at least to the extent that she’s actually in the barrel now to be the bottom of it as opposed to being somewhere way under it completely.
After recovering from a ruptured breast implant, Eva sought out some outside training to improve her in-ring ability. Enter one The Brian Kendrick, who was back in the WWE picture after a guest appearance at NXT and took the young lady under his wing. Short videos would soon come out of Eva performing wrestling moves with a notable degree of competence, and hopes were raised that she’d finally turned the corner. She soon made her in-ring return in NXT, resplendent in a red and black robe straight out of the Ric Flair collection. Previous readers of the Snowcones will remember the previous one-off appearance she made against Bayley where she was booed out of the building. If anything, the reactions to her return there might have been worse, especially given that NXT fans had become well accustomed to the standards set by the recently-departed trio of Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch, as well as Bayley. It would soon come to pass that Eva’s improvement was marginal at best. She still had difficulty chaining together her moves, hitting her finishers (first Kendrick’s old Sliced Bread #2, then a sliding Complete Shot that was just a snapped ankle waiting to happen), even remembering to kick out of pin attempts, as evidenced in one match against Billie Kay where the referee had to call a false two count to cover up Eva not kicking out. And then… She became #1 Contender for Bayley’s NXT Women’s Championship. Logically, within the bounds of televised storylines where how good or bad you really are is irrelevant, it made sense. She was undefeated in this run, after all. But this was less a match than it was a referendum on the future of the entire concept of women’s wrestling. Thankfully, the All Red Nuclear Winter was averted (in a surprisingly compelling match with a molten hot crowd) and Bayley retained the gold, but Eva remains at Full Sail as an ally of rising monster Nia Jax. And in all that time, her promo work is about the same as it ever was. That’s why it wasn’t mentioned until now.
And here we are. I said last year that if she wins four of these in a row, the award would be named after her in perpetuity. That stipulation remains active. Can Eva Marie make history in 2016 as the first fourpeat winner of the possible Eva Marie Award for Worst Diva? Only one way to find out.
Dishonourable Mention: Brie Bella has severely fallen behind her sister in terms of overall development… Take that to mean in a wrestling ability sense or a physical appearance sense, your choice.
Best Diva: Sasha Banks
The Divas division, despite some hideously underwhelming booking in the face of what was meant to be its grand rebirth, has never been more loaded with pure wrestling talent than it is right now, whether it’s simply in the family blood like with Paige, Charlotte and Natalya, the result of a life’s journey like with Becky Lynch, or the improvement beyond one’s expectations like with Nikki Bella and Alicia Fox. But only one lady is doing it like a Boss.
Sasha Banks could quite arguably be the best pound-for-pound performer in all of WWE today, male or female, and 2015 is the year where she truly cemented herself as an elite talent, even if her current place on the main roster doesn’t quite match that talent. She took the standard “bitch” gimmick and owned it like a badge of honour with an infectious charisma. Only she could take signing contracts with a rubber stamp and insulting little children in the audience and make it work. And her matches… Oh my stars, the matches. Banks has been part of several of WWE’s greatest ever female matches in this year alone. The Fatal 4-Way against Lynch, Charlotte and Bayley at Takeover: Rival where she claimed the NXT Women’s Championship. High quality defenses against Charlotte and Lynch, the latter stealing the show at Takeover: Unstoppable. And then, the magnum opus, the Takeover: Brooklyn epic against Bayley. This was followed up by the 30-minute Ironwoman match at Takeover: Respect against Bayley, which had the honour of being the first women’s match in WWE history to main event a PPV. In all of these matches, Banks has shown that ring psychology is not a lost art in the modern era, and it seemed a matter of time before she’d get her chance to show these skills on the main roster. But when it was call-up time, it was right into a faction alongside Naomi and Tamina. Team B.A.D. isn’t quite the best use of her abilities (particularly the times where they’ve delved into a comedy role as a sort of proto-New Day genderswap), but as part of the forgotten trio of the Divas Revolution, it’s allowed her to stay out of the spotlight when things have really gotten rough, and actually created a level of fan demand as evidenced by the many “WE WANT SASHA” chants.
Don’t feel uneasy about Sasha Banks’s current place in the WWE roster, because her time will almost certainly come sooner rather than later. Whether she’s ratchet or not is perpetually up for debate, but what is set in stone now is that she’s a Golden Snowcones winner.
Honourable Mention: The current NXT Women’s Champion, Bayley. The truest, most beloved babyface in the whole company, AND SO HELP ME GOD IF YOU PEOPLE EVER TURN ON HER…
Worst Superstars: Big Show and Kane
In the past, I’ve been left with the odd tie in voting for these and as such, it gets delegated to me to decide the winner from there. But this year I feel a little different, as if I want to… “ruin” a routine operation. That’s why I’m leaving this award as a draw, to showcase the once in a lifetime pairing of Big Show and Kane, whom the official FAN forum has lovingly not lovingly dubbed “The Local Men”.
Need a couple of middle-aged goons who have teamed on and off in the past, are willing to shed their charisma and identity to enforce Authority order, beat all of your favourite wrestlers in slow, plodding matches and get the matches, title shots and pushes that younger talents deserve? Man, have we got the pairing for you. We start with Big Show… In any other time, he’d be as revered as Andre The Giant, if not more so due to being able cut promos in coherent English. However today, he’s just a 7′ tall, 500 lbs road block standing in the way of progress and getting “PLEASE RETIRE” chants in the process. When Damien Sandow was one man away from taking home a popular Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal win, guess who the one man was that stopped him? Or what about when Brock Lesnar was making his first appearance in Madison Square Garden in over a decade and needed an opponent, guess who was given that job instead of a fresh new challenger? Yep. Big Local Paul Wight. And then there’s our returning champion for this award, Kane. In both his corporate slacks and demon tights, he was part of the longest-built slow burn feud of the whole year, that with WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins, but had about as much credibility as a challenger as the person writing this article and nearly all of the people reading it. And then there was the time he managed to anger millions as he dared lay hands on Brock Lesnar as part of a group assault with Rollins and J&J Security. In his last appearance before taking a well-earned and much-desired-for break, he had reunited with his brother The Undertaker and laid waste to The Wyatt Family… Although he has since returned to keep on swinging at them. Together, their grand coup de grace was their work together in eliminating a bunch of fan favourites from the Royal Rumble match, in a sequence that was arguably more painful than a double stomp to the chest.
At this point in time, Big Show has been off TV nursing a knee injury, only returning mere days ago to enter the 2016 Rumble via one of WWE’s favourite buildup segments, the “Giant Knocks Out The Lower Card” jamboree. As for Kane, he’s just showing up as you do, still picking fights with The Wyatt Family. Much like a drunken oaf riding a donkey into a birthday cake, these two otherwise respected veterans just couldn’t help but ruin everything in 2015.
Dishonourable Mention: Erick Rowan polled surprisingly high in this award… Poor guy. At least he has that homemade wine collection to go back to if he ever gets out of The Wyatt Family again.
Best Superstar: Seth Rollins
It’s back-to-back wins in this award for Seth Rollins in what was arguably his biggest ever year as a pro wrestler, with a seven month reign as the WWE World Heavyweight Champion putting him front and centre of weekly WWE television, The Architect proved more than capable in the role, even if at times factors around him were doing him no favours.
Sure, the guy struggled with many things out of his control. He had difficulty establishing himself as his own man during his reign as champion by being stuck under the twin thumbs of Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, often ending up in situations akin to a child being disciplined by his parents. He became increasingly reliant on interference from J&J Security and Kane, until he dumped all three to the curb in the summer. He even lost his signature Curb Stomp finisher under a cloud of controversy, allegedly in relation to WWE’s ongoing concussion lawsuits. But from bell-to-bell, there was hardly anyone better in 2015 than The Architect. From the thrilling bout that was the Royal Rumble triple threat against Brock Lesnar and John Cena, to the hard-hitting ladder match with Dean Ambrose at Money In The Bank, to even an exciting match against Sting of all people at Night Of Champions… Rollins tore it up with a wide variety of opponents on both weekly TV and PPV. But no match was more important than this two-minute cameo appearance in the main event of WrestleMania, partaking in the “heist of the century” and cashing in Money In The Bank successfully and claiming the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Even his promo work, long considered a weak point and exposed somewhat by the WWE TV format of long promos book-ending the shows, improved considerably this year… Even if most of it was just having a moan about his next challenger.
Unfortunately for Rollins, as he was heading into Survivor Series and a title defense against Roman Reigns, his reign was cut off slightly earlier by tearing multiple knee ligaments during a match at a house show in Ireland, forcing him to vacate the world title and, in all likelihood, miss WrestleMania. That’ll hamper his chances at winning a third straight award here, but here’s hoping to the continued recovery of FAN’s 2015 Best Superstar.
Honourable Mention: For all the shit he gets from the fanbase for his booking and his writing, John Cena deserves to be a top guy on his ability alone. If he was this good 10 years ago, there would barely be a Cena problem now.
And that’s where we end things with the 2015 Golden Snowcones. Once again, thanks to everyone who voted at the official FAN forums, and also thanks to all the men and women over at WWE for providing us with all the material, good and bad. We begin this all over again in 2016 on the 4th of January, with Monday Night RAW in San Antonio.
Enjoy your wrestling, and I’ll see you here again next year.
(Image Credit: WWE.com and WWE Network)