Haha, I love Carmella too. Although I felt they went in a bit of an uncharacteristic direction with her during her championship run by making her super-confident and credible: I felt she would have been better as the ultimate coward heel - running away from Asuka at every opportunity: similar to her character before. I also love her team-up with R Truth (Who I will never stop thinking of as K Kwik)
Anyway, my top wrestlers of the year (assuming nothing changes in the next 3 weeks). These are the ones I watched the show for this year in rough order:
Special Mention: Meiko Satomura - not WWE, but she blew the roof off of the Mae Young Classic and put on some of the best matches in the ~ 10-minute range this year in any division. Triple H coming out for sendoff says it all (on a side note, it also shows how much of a fan of the talent he is).
Top Tier (these are the ones I want to stand up from my seat whenever they're on):
* Becky Lynch (I think the clear #1 of the second half of the year)
* Tomaso Ciampa (Best Champion of the year and a very clear #1 overall for the first half of the year)
* Ronda Rousey (Probably made the biggest splash of the year)
* Pete Dunne
* Ricochet
* Trent Seven (Give him his Seven Nation Army theme already!)
* Tyler Bate
* Ember Moon
* Finn Balor
* Daniel Bryan (Mostly based on what he's done since heel turn)
Tier 2
* Velveteen Dream
* Aleister Black
* Kevin Owens
* Asuka
* Charlotte Flair
* Andrade Almas
* Zelina Vega
* Kairi Sane
* Nikki Cross
* Shayna (She impresses me a lot, what other era could you be a female wrestler debuting at age 35? Not only that, but she seems better in all aspects of pro-wrestling almost on a month to month basis)
* Johnny Gargano
* Kofi Kingston
* Carmella (Would easily be Tier 1 if it weren't for her uncharacteristic championship run)
* R Truth
* Roman Reigns (despite everyone hating him)
* Seth Rollins
* Sami Zayn
* Alexa Bliss
* Jeff Hardy
* Sasha Banks (would be A if it weren't for her odd storylines through the summer which feel out of character for her)
* The Miz
* Mandy Rose (she'd have been the top "diva" during the Attitude era)
* Sonya Deville
* Billie Kay (Hands down the best on the mic in the women's division)
* Peyton Royce
* Devlin
Tier 3
* Deonna
* Rhea Ripley
* Ruby Riott
* Liv Morgan
* Sarah Logan
* Alicia Fox
* Bayley
* Curtis Axel
* Bo Dallas
* Matt Hardy
* Big E
* Xavier Woods
* Cesaro
* Naomi
* Jimmy Uso
* Jay Uso
* Nakamura
* Rowan
* Harper
* Strowman
* Rusev
* Lana
* Tayanara Conti
* Dakota Kai
* Isla Dawn
* Ligero
* Wolfgang
* The Modfather Flash Morgan (They better stick with that gimmick, it's too bad the guy looks about 14)
* Danny Burch
* Keith Lee
Others I think have been super interesting - and want to see more of:
* Toni Storm
* Io Shirai
* Marcel Barthel
* Matt Riddle
* Charlie Morgan
* Xia Brookside
* Millie
* Jessamyn Duke
* Marina Shafir
I think that's everyone as far as my opinions go, I may have missed some, may have put some people twice (I caught that I mentioned B Team as well as Bo Dallis and Curtis Axel, and I also had Ronda and Rousey).
Favourite PPVs of the year: Royal Rumble and Evolution.
Favourite programs:
1. NXT
2. NXT UK
3. Mae Young Classic (They want to do a Queen of the Ring next year. Screw off! Mae Young Classic is one of the only times, ever, WWE has done a tournament right! Keep with that format)
4. Smackdown
5. Mixed Match Challenge (series 1)
There's also a bunch of non-wrestling stuff on the WWE network that I enjoyed, but it's too much to sort through. Most of it is incredibly silly and I usually watch it after a bowl, so I can't really comment =D
Last edited by Jumpin - on 07 December 2018I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
