wrestling / Columns

411’s Wrestler of the Week – Triple H Battles Matt Hardy

January 27, 2016 | Posted by Larry Csonka

Welcome to YEAR ELEVEN, WEEK 43 of 411’s Wrestler of the Week. A quick overview of the rules to kick things off for us as a reminder…

Each writer chooses FIVE wrestlers (although ties and tag teams are allowed, and more on a special occasion) from any promotion and each wrestler gets a point total attached to that ranking. It looks a little like this…

1st – 5
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 2
5th – 1

Then we tally up the votes and the official 411 Wrestler of the Week is crowned. But wait, there’s more! Each week the top SIX vote getters get a points value for their ranking which looks something like this…

1st – 15
2nd – 12
3rd – 9
4th – 6
5th – 3
6th – 1

…and they go towards the 411 Wrestler of the Year award to be announced each year around WrestleMania. This will be posted every Tuesday (the voting week runs Monday through Sunday). Let’s see who wins this week…

Larry Csonka
1) Triple H:
Triple H returned to fight for his honor, dethroning Roman Reigns (who attacked him when all he did was offer him his hand) to win the Royal Rumble and the WWE Title. Triple H was given a heroes welcome in Orlando, where he is truly the King of Kings. Actually, it’s pretty much the opposite reaction that they wanted due to all of the effort to make Reigns the top guy, but Triple H is the smartest man in wrestling, got back to the top and was treated as a hero. It makes sense his returning and even the title win due to the angle with Reigns, all of the injuries and the fact that he lost two Mania opponents; it just may have crushed Reigns chances as the next top guy.

2) AJ Styles: AJ Styles was the talk of the week, and made his official WWE debt at Sunday’s Royal Rumble event. Styles’ signing is a huge deal, and had a good debut at the Rumble. Where he will be a year from now is anyone’s guess, but right now AJ is getting a ton of attention and reportedly got a great deal and I couldn’t be happier for him.
3) Matt Hardy: Defeated EC3 to win the TNA world title on Impact. I am not sure that the “double turn” was the right call (I have more faith in Matt as a heel than Carter as a face) but they tried to make a big move and I appreciated it.
4) Kamaitachi
5) Matt Riddle, Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano

Dylan Diot
1) Triple H:
Triple H joins Hulk Hogan, Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, John Cena, and Batista as one of the few to win multiple Royal Rumble Matches and became the NEW WWE World Heavyweight Champion in the process. Triple H gets first reign as champion since 2009 and he’s poised to main event WrestleMania against Roman Reigns. Like the decision or hate the decision, Triple H winning the Royal Rumble makes him the clear #1 choice as Wrestler of the Week this week.

2) Matt Hardy: Matt Hardy defeated rival Ethan Carter III in a Last Man Standing on Impact match to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Hardy begins his second reign as champion and will finally get to have a proper run with the belt. His heel turn and alliance with Tyrus adds a new edge to his feud with ECIII and it’ll be interesting to see how his reign and first ever run as the face of the promotion plays out over the next several months.
3) Dean Ambrose: Dean Ambrose won a brutal Last Man Standing match against Kevin Owens and managed to be the last man eliminated in the Royal Rumble match, taking it to HHH and nearly eliminating him. Ambrose had one hell of a night at the Royal Rumble and his elimination of Chris Jericho should set the stage for his WrestleMania program.
4) Kalisto
5) Drew Galloway and Johnny Gargano

Ryan Byers
1) Triple H:
This was probably the most predictable finish to the Royal Rumble that WWE could have done this year, but being predictable does not automatically equate to being the wrong choice or not being entertaining. This sets up a WrestleMania title match (I refuse to call it a “main event” until we see what else is on the card) which feels worthy of the show and serves the company’s ultimate goal by getting Roman Reigns to the next level. Plus, as odd as this seems to say given that I sat through his thirteen other title runs, the concept of HHH as champion feels fresh, as the company has not done it for quite some time. All hail to the King of Kings.

2) Kamaitachi: There was a lot of good wrestling at the Royal Rumble, but the best match of the week and the only true match of the year candidate came in New Japan, where young NJPW wrestler Kamaitachi and CMLL star Dragon Lee renewed their rivalry, which had been a huge part of the former’s recent learning excursion to Mexico. Not only did he have a blowaway match, he was also victorious and won Lee’s CMLL World Lightweight Championship.
3) Dean Ambrose: Dean retained his IC Title in the opener of the Rumble PPV and was one of the final two competitors in the Rumble match itself. This leads me to wonder whether we might see an Ambrose/HHH title match at Fast Lane to help set up HHH/Reigns for Mania.
4) Kalisto
5) Mascara Dorada

Chad Perry
1) Johnny Gargano:
Not only did Gargano (alongside partner Drew Galloway) become one half of the first EVOLVE Tag Team champions, but he also became the first man to compete on a WWE sanctioned event and big time independent show in the same evening.

2) Dean Ambrose: Defended his Intercontinental title in the Royal Rumble match of the night. Ambrose & Owens displayed great, controlled brutality against each other in a match that could be talked about in 11 months as the WWE MOTY.
3) Chris Hero & Tommy End: The most consistent team in the EVOLVE Tag Team Title Tournament this weekend. Their match Friday night against Sami Callihan & Zack Sabre Jr. was not only the best match in Florida this weekend, but one of the best tag team matches that I have seen in some time.
4) Matt Riddle
5) Triple H

Wyatt Beougher
1) New Day:
In what proved to be a fairly easy title defense for the WWE World Tag Team Champions, albeit one that featured a fun ending that we hadn’t seen in any of the other matchups between the two teams, New Day remained the most consistently entertaining act in WWE. More interesting than the match itself was the introduction of Francesca II, and also New Day’s pre-match promo about “All Gold Everything”, including golden unicorns. With the fantastic night that Dean Ambrose had, that still might not have been enough, but then Xavier Woods told Kofi Kingston to “Stay golden, Ponyboy”, and that cemented their top spot this week. (And, in all honesty, I have to give the Usos some credit – that was one of the best title matches they’ve been involved in, and it was actually a damned fine match.)

2) Dean Ambrose: Sure, the King of Kings Terminator Degenerate Iron Fist of the Attitude Era won the Royal Rumble last night, but can we talk about the night Dean Ambrose had? Dude came out and he and Kevin Owens killed each other for twenty minutes in a very good Last Man Standing match, a match that Ambrose won to retain the Intercontinental Title, and then on top of that, he entered the Royal Rumble itself at 19, had the third-longest time of anyone in the match with just under thirty minutes, eliminated Chris Jericho, who had been in for fifty consecutive minutes at that point, AND outlasted his buddy Roman Reigns to make it to the final two for what was probably the pop of the night. Sure, HHH ended up tossing him without Ambrose getting much at all in the way of offense, but it looks like WWE may finally be proving me wrong by treating Ambrose as something more than an interchangeable midcarder.
3) Matt Hardy: Yes, HHH won the more prestigious title; however, his win actually makes less sense, so you won’t find him on my list this week. Instead, let’s look at what Matt Hardy did – not only did he win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship, but he also convinced Tyrus to turn on ECIII and may have turned ECIII face in the process. That’s no small accomplishment, and it looks like Hardy will actually be given a chance to be the top champion in TNA this time around, so that’s worthy of inclusion on the list.
4) Kalisto
5) Kamaitachi

JUSTIN WATRY
1) Triple H:
Won the 30 man Royal Rumble match to cap off a very entertaining pay-per-view. HHH is now a 14-time WWE World Champion and looks to be headlining WrestleMania 32. Big victory for his career showing he still has it. More and more big names are about to return to WWE (including tonight on RAW), so it will be interesting to see where everybody ends up on the card

2) AJ Styles: What more can you say? Oh yeah, a lot! Awesome crowd reaction, amazing entrance, cool music, etc. Tip your hat to WWE for making this seem like a major deal. I will be writing a column on AJ Styles’ Royal Rumble debut, so stay tuned for that “phenomenal” read.
3) Roman Reigns: The star from the beginning all the way to the (near) end of the Rumble was Roman Reigns. The entire hype and build of the event was about him getting screwed, and that is exactly what happened. Resy easy though, he will come back better than ever and regain the championship AGAIN! Believe that…
4) Sasha Banks
5) Kalisto

Mike Hammerlock
1) Dean Ambrose:
My initial reaction was to vote for Triple H because he was the Rumble match to become 14-time champion. That’s impressive and, in terms of his ring work, he’s still got it. Yet Ambrose won the match of the night, beating Kevin Owens in a Last Man Standing affair to retain the Intercontinental Championship, before making it to the final two of the Rumble. That is a huge night. More than that, the crowd reaction to Ambrose in the finishing sequence of the Rumble match made it pretty clear who the people’s champ is.

2) Triple H: I maintain he’s vastly under appreciated. He is in what looks like the best shape of his life and he’s become the big boss in the real life WWE video game. I don’t know that he’s going to be able to put over Reigns like he put over Daniel Bryan in 2014 (because fans aren’t behind Reigns like they were with Bryan), but gifting himself the #30 slot and winning title #14 is a stellar heel move (two shy of Flair, just sayin’). On the other hand, he has legitimate beef with Reigns for that post-TLC beat down, making him a heel with a cause.
3) New Day: Can’t get enough of these guys. First, quality match in retaining against the Usos. Second, no one at this moment in time is more fun than New Day. They put over a new trombone. Later they milked Kofi getting a ride on Big E’s shoulders for all it was worth. They win all the unicorn gold. Apologies to AJ Styles for not making the list. Great WWE debut from a reaction standpoint, but he didn’t get a chance to be phenomenal. Tough not to include Kalisto too. Seems like I enjoyed that match more than most. Had to include all four guys from the Evolve tag title final because Hero and End did superior work all weekend. Matt Hardy should start calling himself 3.0.
4) Drew Galloway, Johnny Gargano, Chris Hero and Tommy End
5) Matt Hardy

Kevin Pantoja
1) AJ Styles:
No, he didn’t win and no, he didn’t even make it to the end. However, the biggest news coming out of the Royal Rumble was the debut of AJ Styles. His arrival at #3 was met with a great reaction, even though some were worried the fans wouldn’t know who he was. He went toe to toe with Roman Reigns, while also getting to interact with a lot of guys that I’d love to see him face one on one. Styles lasted 28 minutes before getting eliminated by Kevin Owens. Before midnight, his new WWE t-shirt was already sold out. He got to keep his name, his nickname and his logo, which is great. His arrival was a truly special moment in wrestling.

2) Triple H: If you would have told me a few years ago, that Triple H winning the WWE Title in 2016 would be okay, I’d have laughed. But that’s just what happened at the Royal Rumble. Triple H was a “surprise” entrant at #30 and squared off with Roman Reigns. He got to have a pretty cool faceoff with Bray Wyatt before throwing Reigns out, guaranteeing a new champion. Reigns and Dean Ambrose were the final two competitors and HHH gave Ambrose a fair amount of offense before dumping him out to win his 14th WWE Title. Considering the amount of injuries in the company right now, HHH/Reigns makes sense as the Mania main event.
3) Kamaitachi: So far, January has produced some really great matches (Ishii/Shibata, Styles/Nakamura, Scurll/Ospreay and Ambrose/Owens), but the one at FantasticaMania for the CMLL World Lightweight Title is easily top three so far. Kamaitachi and champion Dragon Lee had one of the better rivalries in 2015 from what I heard. I was only able to see one of those matches though. When I heard they would be meeting in Korakuen Hall at FantasticaMania, I knew I had to see it. It was incredible. Two men just went balls to the walls and had a fantastic sprint. You’ll be hard pressed to find something else this year that works so well despite being so fast paced. Kamaitachi was able to pick up the win and become the new champion. Go see this match as soon as possible.
4) Dean Ambrose
5) Matt Hardy

Sean Garmer
1) Dean Ambrose:
He had a great match with Kevin Owens to start the show and he lasted until the final two in the Royal Rumble as well? There’s no way you can’t have this man at # 1.

2) Triple H: I know there’s a lot of hate for Triple H being champion and there’s also a lot of people understanding this is the way they have to go due to not having star power. But it is being done for a reason to help keep Roman strong. It has been a long time since he’s been WWE Champion and he did fine in the Rumble match. Let’s hope this is only the two-month program we all think it is.
3) Kamaitachi: He killed it in CMLL against Dragon Lee and others in 2015, even losing his hair and his mask in the process. Making many forget he was a NJPW Young Lion on excursion. Kamaitachi makes his return to Japan at Korakuen Hall and has a fantastic match with Dragon Lee that was setup on Night 5 and took place on Night 6. Everyone needs to go check this match out, it was all kinds of wonderful and certainly one of the early MOTYC.
4) AJ Styles
5) Matt Hardy

Aaron Scott
1) Matt Hardy:
The reign of Big Money Matt Has Begun! Often not one of anyone’s favorite wrestlers, Matt regained the World Title for the second time. He also turned himself heel and Ethan Carter III face in convincing manner. Not easy to do, but he’s proving the skeptics wrong and hopefully many will start to give him his due.

2) Triple H: Came in at 30 and defeated Dean Ambrose to become the new World Champion himself. In a match booked for him to win, once again Triple H is handed a World Championship. And now he’s face because everyone hates Roman Reigns. Can he make them cheer Roman? Can anyone? Or will this be the most hilarious WrestleMania in history? If anyone can work the fans, it’s HHH… But this is no easy task.
3) Kalisto: Kalisto. Now I will give you props and kudos for winning the US title. This reign should mean a lot more unless you lose it tonight, in that case I take it back. Good to see the company getting behind their new Rey Mysterio, if Kalisto can do it, a monumental task but finally, a step in the right direction.
4) AJ Styles
5) Ethan Carter III

THE WINNERS~!
* Special Mention…Kalisto – 12 Votes

* Fifth Place…Kamaitachi – 13 Votes

* Fourth Place…AJ Styles – 17 Votes

* Third Place…Matt Hardy – 22 Votes

You’re NEW TNA World Champion!

* Second Place…Dean Ambrose – 29 Votes

Still your WWE IC Champion, defeating Kevin Owens in a great last an standing match and making it to the final two in the Royal Rumble.

* And 411’s Wrestler of the Week is…
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Triple H – 42 Votes

Your NEW WWE Heavyweight Champion of the World!

The Standings
Here are the standings after week forty-thee…

T-1. Kofi Kingston – 98 pts.
T-1. Big E – 98 pts.

3. Roman Reigns – 94 pts.

4. John Cena – 92 pts.

5. Xavier Woods – 85 pts.

6. Dean Ambrose – 78 pts.

7. Seth Rollins – 62 pts.

8. Shinsuke Nakamura – 60 pts.

9. Kevin Owens – 58 pts.

T-10. Jay Lethal – 55 pts.
T-10. Kazuchika Okada – 55 pts.

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Matt Hardy – 45 pts.
Bayley – 45 pts.

Prince Puma/Ricochet – 43 pts.

Sasha Banks – 42 pts.

AJ Styles – 41 pts.

Finn Balor – 40 pts.

Brock Lesnar – 39 pts.

Mil Muertes – 31 pts.
Alberto Del Rio – 31 pts.
Zack Sabre Jr – 31 pts.

Cesaro – 30 pts.
Hiroshi Tanahashi – 30 pts.

Ethan Carter III – 28 pts.
KUSHIDA – 28 pts.

Kyle O’Reilly – 27 pts.
Naomichi Marufuji – 27 pts.

Kalisto – 26 pts.

Timothy Thatcher – 25 pts.
Roderick Strong – 25 pts.
Sheamus – 25 pts.

Drago – 24 pts.
Fenix – 24 pts.
Kota Ibushi – 24 pts.
Rocky Romero – 24 pts.
Trent Baretta – 24 pts.
Michael Elgin – 24 pts.
Kimber Lee – 24 pts.

Togi Makabe – 22 pts.

Samoa Joe – 21 pts.
Nick Jackson – 21 pts.
Matt Jackson – 21 pts.
Hirooki Goto – 21 pts.

Eddie Edwards – 19 pts.
Davey Richards – 19 pts.

Matt Sydal – 18 pts.
Aerostar – 18 pts.
Bubba Ray Dudley – 18 pts.
D-Von Dudley – 18 pts.
Katsuyori Shibata – 18 pts.

Undertaker – 17 pts.

Hideo Itami – 15 pts.
Triple H – 15 pts.
Randy Orton – 15 pts.
Jeff Hardy – 15 pts.
Angelico – 15 pts.
Son of Havoc – 15 pts.
Kurt Angle – 15 pts.
Bobby Fish – 15 pts.
Tomohiro Ishii – 15 pts.
Suwama -15 pts

Kazarian – 13 pts.
Christopher Daniels – 13 pts.
Sting – 13 pts.
Bobby Roode – 13 pts.

Rey Mysterio Jr. – 12 pts.
Atsushi Kotoge – 12 pts.
Daisuke Harada – 12 pts.
Mike Bennett – 12 pts.
Matt Taven – 12 pts.
“Speedball” Mike Bailey – 12 pts.
Rich Swann – 12 pts.
Ivelisse – 12 pts.
Drew Galloway – 12 pts.
Apollo Crews – 12 pts.
Scott Dawson – 12 pts.
Dash Wilder – 12 pts.
Lashley – 12 pts.
Sami Zayn – 12 pts.

Becky Lynch – 10 pts.

Eric Young – 9 pts.
Santana Garrett – 9 pts.
Ryback – 9 pts.
Jeff Jarrett – 9 pts.
Karl Anderson – 9 pts.
Cherry Bomb – 9 pts.
Takashi Sugiura – 9 pts.

Tetsuya Naito – 7 pts.
Tomoaki Honma – 7 pts.
Johnny Gargano – 7 pts.

Shingo Takagi – 6 pts.
Taiji Ishimori – 6 pts
Minoru Suzuki – 6 pts
Tigre Uno – 6 pts.
KAI – 6 pts.
Masato Tanaka – 6 pts.
Charlotte – 6 pts.
King Bad News Barrett – 6 pts.
Nicole Matthews – 6 pts.
Gail Kim – 6 pts.
EVIL – 6 pts.

Neville – 5 pts.

Kamaitachi – 3 pts.
Carmella – 3 pts.
Johnny Mundo – 3 pts.
Jack Evans – 3 pts.
Cage – 3 pts.
Madison Eagles – 3 pts.
Jay Briscoe – 3 pts.
Hanson – 3 pts.
Raymond Rowe – 3 pts.
Kento Miyahara -3 pts.

Chris Hero – 1 pt.
PJ Black – 1 pt.
Pentagon Jr – 1 pt.
El Siniestro de la Muerte – 1 pt.
Barrio Negro – 1 pt.
Terce – 1 pt.
King Cuerno – 1 pt.
Mark Andrews – 1 pt.
Kenny King – 1 pt.
The Rock – 1 pt.
Kane – 1 pt.
Jey Uso – 1 pt.
Jimmy Uso – 1 pt.
Nikki Bella – 1 pt.
Jason Jordan – 1 pt.
Chad Gable – 1 pt.
Titus O’Neil – 1 pt.
Baron Corbin – 1 pt.
Aiden English – 1 pt.
Simon Gotch – 1 pt.
Darren Young – 1 pt.
Kenny Omega – 1 pt.
Minoru Tanaka – 1 pt.
Tajiri – 1 pt.
Masato Yoshino – 1 pt.
Jun Kasai – 1 pt.
Manabu Soya – 1 pt.