Fair to Middling: Looking at 2015

(Writer’s note: apologies for missing last week. I was lucky enough to receive a bit of an illness coming out of the holidays, along with some other stuff that you the reader probably don’t care much about. So, suffice to say, I’m sorry for my absence, hope everyone had a great Holiday and a safe New Year)

As the new year gets started, I thought I would use this week to look back at the year 2015. A year where many fans grew increasingly tired of WWE programming, and where TNA looked to again be on its last legs was also the year that Lucha Underground really cemented its status as a fan favorite, Ring of Honor got a taste of nationwide exposure, and New Japan continued to deliver great shows that were sure to be given five asterisks by reviewers just because of the company name.

There were definitely plenty of reasons to get a wrestling fan agitated, but I (as usual) tried to look back to the good the year brought. And, quite surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard to come up with some really great moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5rdd6kMWVo

The easy one, of course, is to call out WrestleMania. It’s the wrestling fan’s Christmas, but this year we got a fun side treat where the main event that many expected to be dogshit ugly ended up being a pretty fun power match. And let’s not forget just how meh many of us were with the prospect of Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns as we headed to the show. I remember taking a pretty decent beating in the comments section when I wrote a column attempting to say “Hey guys, maybe Reigns isn’t so bad!”

Instead, Lesnar and Reigns went out there and delivered the exact match that needed to happen. The story had been built up as the challenger who was receiving too much, too soon, and was in no way ready for the dominant champion.

And the match continued that story, as Lesnar owned a large percentage of the map, throwing his fast-rising challenger around the ring without any care for his well-being. Reigns, to his credit, would hang tough, kicking out of situations that appeared to be match-ending.

For every suplex, Reigns kept fighting. For every hard punch, Reigns just smiled and returned for more. Then, when it seemed the match was going to reach its epic conclusion, we got the finish that many had called for, with Seth Rollins cashing in his Money in the Bank contract, and stealing the victory- and WWE World Heavyweight Championship- from both combatants. It was a fantastic finish to a surprisingly good main event that many of us had given no chance to be even a little bit entertaining.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KARXYjtnyE

Plus, let’s not forget that freaking awesome Curb Stomp-countered-into-an-RKO that we got earlier in the night.

Sure, I might be a bit biased, as I was able to attend WrestleMania this year, and that always seems to add to the fuzzy memories, but this year’s card really wasn’t that hot on paper, and it still gave us a pretty fun night of events. The matches already mentioned, plus Sting’s WrestleMania debut (regardless of the finish), a wickedly brutal ladder match, and a fun Rusev/Cena match all added to the “Biggest Night of the Year” for me. Was it the best Mania ever? Definitely not, but only simple people use the “Well it wasn’t the best/worst, so it couldn’t have been that good/bad” argument. WrestleMania was absolutely a bright spot on the year, as far as I’m concerned.

This one is a little bit tricky, as I still consider the whole thing to be bunk (as I said over the summer), but one should still consider the positives the Divas Revolution has brought to the table, even if it has been horribly executed from day one, and only a stubborn blind man would want to wait to the very end of it all to see that.

So, while an entire division being basically wrapped up into three groups may not be the best way to go about things, and while portraying all the ladies as either catty bitches or naive idiots probably isn’t the best way to go about things… at the very least, we’ve seen WWE give more time to the Divas. And, at its very core, wasn’t that what we wanted?

I personally think this “Revolution” has been handled in the most petulant way possible, with WWE clearly dragging their feet the whole time, and giving us extremely literal responses to what were very valid gripes. “Oh, you want more time for the Divas?!” they asked. “Fine. Instead of 4 minute matches, they’ll get SEVEN minutes! And they’ll be featured in TWO backstage segments instead of ONE, and they’ll even get interview time on hot segements like Miz TV!” I mean, who cares if the booking sucks and the characters are nothing worth investing in… we got more time for the Divas! That’s what we asked for, and they delivered! Go WWE! $9.99!

Still, it would be unfair to ignore the one incredibly large benefit of this Revolution – people are actually talking about the Divas. People get into arguments over the Divas. What used to be a simple “She’s ugly, she sucks” conversation has actually turned into people discussing the merits of each individual female wrestler.

That is a fucking great thing, make no mistake about it. Maybe, simply via the fans changing how they look at women wrestlers, we can get the wrestling companies to follow suit. Hell, TNA already does this to a point. There’s still clearly an emphasis of the “Hot or Not” discussion, but at least we talk about what great athletes and wrestlers the Knockouts are. WWE is still stuck on whether their Divas are nice or meanies.

But, you know… progress. Progress isn’t simply arriving at the final destination with everything you want and need; it’s about the journey to that point. And we’re making progress with women’s wrestlers. We’re not perfect; they (the companies) aren’t perfect. But we’ll figure it out, hopefully, and find a happy medium. And there’s just no way this momentum doesn’t pick up without WWE’s lethargic attempt at “listening to its fans.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNypNpfpNA

Plus, the NXT Divas will hopefully continue to outshine their main roster counterparts until it eats them alive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdB8oLhF-xY

Meanwhile, over in TNA… my favorite moment of their 2015 was Jeff Jarrett’s return to Impact, and subsequent entering into the King of the Mountain match. Jarrett’s falling out with TNA was pretty well known, losing power to the Carters, and basically being forced out (with rumors being that TNA chose Kurt Angle over Jarrett when Jarrett and Karen Angle were hooking up. Your mileage may vary on that story).

Wrestling in Mexico and Japan in recent years, Jarrett’s tale as an American wrestler had ended in a super unsatisfying manner. Then in 2014, we started hearing that Jarrett was looking to get back into promoting, and it looked like he was trying to go with a global version of the indies, looking to have a promotion set up in Mexico, Japan, America, Europe, and elsewhere. This was eventually given a name: Global Force Wrestling. When it would start, who would be on the roster, and where could we see it would all be unanswered, but at least we knew that somewhere, Jeff Jarrett was working on his next big move.

So, that summer night where Jarrett appeared on TNA Impact? Absolutely insane television. And I’ll say it right now, TNA rarely ever gives me that “Holy shit!” feeling, outside of crazy in-ring action. I can’t remember the last time a new arrival to TNA shocked me to the core, but the second “My World” started up, I knew we were going to watch something big.

Sure, it was a standard Jarrett promo (that is to say average, with a little bit of rambling in there), but it just felt so right. I personally always felt that TNA did wrong by Jarrett, and seeing them humble themselves a bit just to get the moment right made it all worthwhile. Then, what seemed to be a setup for a working agreement between the two companies turned into Jarrett making a one time in-ring return for the company.

Those final words: “You may not be as good as you once were, but once? You’re as good as you ever were!” honestly gave me chills. That might be my favorite Jarrett promo of all time, quite honestly. It just felt like, for one night, TNA was firmly committed to getting it right, and I felt that they succeeded.

Yeah, yeah, hindsight shows that this all led to a pretty silly (and overall meaningless) invasion by Global Force Wrestling that saw them briefly hold some power and belts, only to lose it all in roughly two weeks time, and to be banished from TNA. But, that’s why I’m listing Jarrett’s return here, and not the failed Global Force invasion.

Oh, and don’t forget about the single most entertaining act on WWE’s roster: The New Day. How Kofi Kingston, Big E, and Xavier Woods became the best thing going, I’ll never understand. But they overcame an originally atrocious idea and have turned into such an over act, WWE shoehorns them into every other segment in an attempt to trick us into thinking we had a fun show again.

But seriously… New… Day Rocks!

These, along with other fun stuff like John Cena’s US Open Challenge, the Kevin Owens/Cesaro feud, the World Title Series, Dalton Castle, Moose, War Machine, and so much more remind me that, even in a year where it feels like the wheels fell off, we still had plenty of really fun stuff, and really good times.

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