The 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards: Part Seven – The Best Promotion of The Year

Welcome back to the Wrestling Top 5, year-end awards edition! What we are going to is take a topic, and all the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic, and the end, based on where all of these topics rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this…

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

It’s similar to how we do the WOTW voting. At the end we tally the scores and get our overall top 5! It’s highly non-official and final, like WWE’s old power rankings. From some of the best and worst, the 411 staff is ready to break down the awards! Thanks for joining us, and lets get down to work.

Mike Hammerlock
5. TNA
4. NXT
3. Chikara
2. Lucha Underground

1. NJPW – I don’t think there’s much of an argument this year. New Japan’s operating a higher level than everyone else. I don’t watch it religiously like some others. I see matches here and there via video links. Admittedly, the WWE would seem a lot more interesting if we only got to see their highlight reel. Still, New Japan cranks out *** and better matches. I actually feel a decent number of NJPW matches get overrated, but they’re still operating at a high base level. You can doubt the hype and New Japan is still heads and shoulders above everyone else. AJ Styles really kicked them over the top. It added a great American wrestler to the mix. If the promotion continues that trend, New Japan could own the rest of this decade. Lucha Underground had an impressive debut. Chikara had a notable comeback. NXT is fun, though I find some of its lower card beefs a bit tedious. TNA gets the nod over ROH for one of the more notable rebounds, in terms of quality, I’ve ever seen. One day it sucked about as bad as you can suck and the next it decided to be good.

Alex Crowder
5. Lucha Underground
4. AJPW
3. TNA
2. NXT

1. NJPW – I will admit that I didn’t see every NJPW match this year, yet I don’t need to. Every match I saw from NJPW was beyond awesome. NJPW is what pro wrestling is all about. You don’t need to understand Japanese to understand the stories. They go out there wrestle and try to be the best. Simplicity works for a reason. They had five arguable MVPs. You get Tomohiro Ishii having an incredible match one week and the next week is Kazuchika Okada’s turn. Sometimes, you’ll get two or three out of this world performances on the same show. Nothing any other promotion did compares to NJPW. Honestly, you could take the G1 Climax alone and it would be better than everything else. WWE squandered any chance of being in the running. I count NXT as a completely different promotion. Lucha Underground had a nice debut, AJPW did some nice things this year too, TNA improved from last year with Lashley having the best World title reign of the year, and NXT did great things all year. NXT felt very NWA like in a good way. Still, none of them compared to NJPW and its model of consistency. NJPW ran away with promotion of the year (even their worst shows were still decent).

Mike Chin
5. Chikara
4. Lucha Underground
3. TNA
2. NJPW

1. WWE WWE had an up and down year in 2014, with highs including the critical success (if, as of yet, unrealized financial potential) of the WWE Network, the excellent programming put on under the NXT brand, an excellent WrestleMania, and strong booking around performers like Brock Lesnar and The Shield. The company suffered from a rash of injuries and departures, particularly in the case of top-tier faces, and yet soldiered to comfortably maintain its place as the best known and, I would argue, overall strongest wrestling company in the world.

Scott Rutherford
5. TNA
4. AJPW
3. Chikara
2.

1. NJPW – They get it. Gedo and Jado understand booking. Sometimes they get ahead of themselves and allow things to get a little out of whack but as soon as the ship veers off, the right it quickly. They always think long term and are constantly building the next generation to come in and step up. Right now they have a main event that you can plug any of about 8 guys in and get a quality match with booking that makes sense. They’ve shown patience and restraint and keep true to their vision. NJPW have delivered on PPV time and again and then managed to make wrestling history with the G1 Climax giving us around 35 ****+ matches littered with an array of MOYTC. Here’s hoping for another banner year.

Kevin P
5. Lucha Underground
4. ROH
3. WWE
2. NJPW

1. NXT – I’ve heard nothing but great things about NJPW but unfortunately I haven’t seen enough of it to justify putting it first. What I have seen all of is NXT. The single best thing about the WWE Network is the ability to watch NXT weekly. It’s amazing to think that this is produced by the same company that gives us lackluster efforts on Raws and Smackdowns weekly. The wrestling down in Winter Park is always top notch but that’s not the only thing. The production value is great, commentary actually discusses the matches and most importantly, the booking makes sense. NXT creative thinks things out in advance and it pays off in tremendous ways. It’s a treat to watch NXT as it makes me proud to be a fan.

Justin Watry
5. Abstain
4. Lucha Underground
3. ROH
2. NXT

1. WWE – Am I allowed to write “No explanation needed” here? Okay, fine. I will ramble on for awhile. Let me explain my choices for the top five because come on, number one is as obvious as it gets. NXT, which I guess is separate, really delivered with their last NXT special. Could just gush over how great that special was for another 500 words if I wanted. I saw a few Ring of Honor shows on Saturday night, and it was not too shabby. Nothing to hook me into watching weekly or anything. However, it was good stuff. I also saw a few Lucha Underground episodes. The chair shot to the head pretty much sent me running in the opposite direction. Yet, the bell to bell wrestling action was entertaining enough. Finally, GLCW rounds out my top five because it wraps another calendar of successful shows in Wisconsin without incident and provides others with a basic blueprint on how to actually run legitimate indy shows and keep a good reputation year after year.

LEN ARCHIBALD
5. TNA
4. Ring of Honor
3. WWE
2. NXT

1. New Japan Pro Wrestling – NXT offers the best weekly wrestling show on television, and has brought back old school wrestling storytelling. So if only NJPW was not so f’n AWESOME this year, this would belong to NXT by a country mile. New Japan’s in-ring talent and matches gave away snowflakes like a blizzard in Canada, gave new life to AJ Styles after TNA and effectively turned Hiroshi Tanahashi into a GOD in Japan. G1 Climax was a true celebration of the art and sport of professional wrestling. NJPW’s 2014 is going to go down in history as one of the single best calendar years of any promotion ever. If WrestleKingdom fires on all cylinders as they officially present themselves to North American audiences, 2015 is not only going to be another banner year for the promotion, but their partnership with Global Force Wrestling will end up being a game changer. Yes, I will say it: WWE, look out – NJPW is coming for you…! (enter Booker T slip up here.)

Paul Leazar
5. CHIKARA
4. Ring of Honor
3. Total Nonstop Action
2. World Wrestling Entertainment

1. New Japan Pro Wrestling – Nobody ever came close to touching the amount of awesome that New Japan gave us this year. A stellar Wrestle Kingdom show, an unforgettable 12 days of G-1 Tournament action, and some other stupendous shows (I’m looking at you King of Pro Wrestling and Dominion). Even though the Junior Heavyweight Division has been shaky at times, the tag side of the division has more than made up for it. The booking for everything else has been terrific. From top of the card talent like Okada, Tanahashi, and Nakamura, to the new addition of AJ Styles, to breakout performances from Ishii, Naito, Ibushi, and Honma, to the formation and rise Goto & Shibata as a tag team, and the deal with Ring of Honor adding even more talent (reDRagon in particular). New Japan was the place to watch this year.

Arnold Furious
5. Dragon Gate
4. DDT
3. NOAH
2. NXT

1. NJPW – This is hardly a contest at all. New Japan have been outstanding all year long. In Japan they’re completely untouchable and they’ve been so dominant they’ve decided to take on WWE on a global level. In the ring the storylines and action have been superb. Even when something has been disappointing, like some of the Bullet Club’s belt-collecting, it gets righted weeks later. G1 was amazing and the standard of New Japan’s in-ring has been unmatched. It almost seems unfair to have them compete with the other promotions that are out there as everything has gone so well for them it’s impossible to compete. The depth and strength of their roster is unparalleled and even when they push the wrong guy, Bad Luck Fale springs to mind, it comes off. Their top guys have been on fire with Okada, Nakamura, Ishii, Shibata, Goto, Naito, AJ and Ibushi all doing great work. Even Tanahashi, NJPW’s ace who seems on the verge of serious injury, pulled out great performances in spite of his condition. When they can afford to misuse the likes of Minoru Suzuki (stuck in a feud with Yano for most of the year) and Nagata (a champion in NOAH but can barely make an impact for NJPW) it shows their strength.

Ryan Byers
5. AAA
4. DDT
3. WWE
2. Dragon Gate

1. New Japan Pro Wrestling – It’s not even close. In terms of an in-ring product, New Japan’s quality is consistently better than any other promotion on the planet. In terms of the booking, it is simplistic, but it’s logical and well put-together, one of the last major league bastions of professional wrestling being booked like it’s actually a sport. Also, it’s one of the only pro wrestling companies in the world right now that can legitimately say their business grew in 2014. While WWE treaded water in terms of television popularity and may have shot itself in the foot by sacrificing so much of its pay per view business, TNA automatically lost half of its audience when it couldn’t sign with a decent cable network, and AAA’s role in the Lucha Underground promotion turned out to be negligible, NJPW managed to run more shows without watering down its attendance, took modest, reasonable steps towards international expansion, and launched its own video on demand service that is far more conservative than WWE’s effort and therefore more likely to be successful over the long haul. (Just take a look at UFC Fight Pass for a comparison.) Though I’m not going to sit here and pretend that New Japan will be the second most popular wrestling promotion in the United States anytime soon, the fact of the matter is that they’ve set themselves up to have a highly successful 2015 in their home market while also finding economical ways to make money off of a small but passionate international fanbase that has long existed but was essentially forced to feed its appetite for the product through means that didn’t put any money in NJPW’s pocket. That makes for a very good 2014, particularly when you consider the fact that there were legitimate concerns from many about this promotion’s long-term viability less than a decade ago.

Wyatt Beougher
5. TNA
4. WWE
3. Lucha Underground
2. NXT

1. NJPW – For as much as I love NXT, they really are a distant second to NJPW this year. Aside from a couple of negative headlines surrounding AJ Styles breaking people’s necks with the Styles Clash, NJPW has done nothing wrong in 2014, from consistently putting on the best wrestled shows in the world, to keeping Bullet Club the hottest stable in the world in spite of losing its leader to the WWE, to making their stories easy enough to follow that even non-Japanese speakers can remain emotionally invested in the spectacular action. NJPW really has done it all, and done it better than anyone else in the world.

Daniel Wilcox
5. Lucha Underground
4. NJPW
3. TNA
2. NXT

1. WWE – I can’t place New Japan any higher based on the fact that I’ve seen such little of it, but I can acknowledge it for its smart business decisions and the love that it gets from your average online wrestling fan. TNA had a really strong second half of the year before the disappointment of the TV deal negotiations, and NXT has been stellar all year. But what continues to set WWE apart from the rest of the pack is that notion that when they get something right, the company is untouchable. As fans, we’ve had to sit through a lot of head-scratching moments while trying to enjoy WWE this, but there was a hell of a lot to enjoy about the WWE product in 2014, regardless of the current state of affairs. The Wyatts and the Shield had an epic rivalry at the start of the year, we had Daniel Bryan’s journey to superstardom, the entirety of WrestleMania XXX, Evolution and the Shield destroying each other on a weekly basis, Brock Lesnar’s domination of John Cena at Summerslam and the debut of Sting at Survivor Series. And perhaps most importantly of all, WWE took steps to do something that we’ve all been clamoring for the better part of a decade – creating new stars! Daniel Bryan, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt, Dolph Ziggler and arguably be more were either cemented as main event guys this year, or have been put into a position whereby you could see any one of them being the top guy in 2015. What’s even more refreshing is the depth of the talent pool, and the hunger that many of these guys have shown this year. Inevitably, it won’t work out for all of them whether that’s down to their own failures or those of the creative team, but the potential has never been so big. And while WWE has produced some pretty bad television in 2014, the highs have been unmatched, and the future has never looked brighter.

Larry Csonka
5. TNA
4. Lucha Underground
3. WWE
2. Dragon Gate

1. NJPW – I have written and reviewed NJPW almost as much as anything else in 2014, way more than in past years, and it led to one of the most enjoyable years I have had as a pro wrestling fan. TNA had its obvious ups and downs, Lucha Underground is trying to give us something new, WWE had a strong beginning but a lackluster, if not bad second half of the year. Dragon Gate delivered a lot of great matches and on their big shows, while allowing the next generation of performers (the Millenials) to shine. NJPW was the leader early in the year, and kept that momentum going throughout 2014. They provided the best shows, kept things transparent so that non-Japanese speaking fans could follow and stay invested, allowed AJ Styles to prove how good he really was, cemented a legit secondary title, delivered the greatest tournament in the history of wrestling and launched New Japan World, making the product even easier to access. It’s New Japan’s world and I am glad to be living in it.

AND 411’s TOP 5 Best Promotions of 2014 ARE…

5. TNA – 17 points

4. Lucha Underground – 20 points

3. NXT – 31 points

2. WWE – 33 points

1. New Japan Pro Wrestling – 54 points

THE 2014 411 WRESTLING AWARDS:
* The Biggest Disappointments of The Year: Daniel Bryan Achieves His Dream – Then Has to Miss The Rest of The Year – 40 points
* The Best Promo Person of The Year: Paul Heyman – 58 points
* The Best Tag Team of The Year: The Usos – 52 points
* The Worst PPV/Major Show of The Year: WWE TLC – 37 points
* The Best Female of The Year: Charlotte – 32 points

* The Best PPV/Major Show of The Year: WrestleMania 30 – 45 points
* The Best Promotion of The Year: New Japan Pro Wrestling – 54 points
* The Best Match of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 14th)
* The Best Wrestler of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 15th)