The 2008 411 Year End Wrestling Awards (Part 4)

Welcome to Part 4 of the 411Mania.com 2008 Year End Wrestling Awards. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3!

REVIEW: Before we get to it, let’s take a look at the winners we’ve already announced to this point:

Announcer of the Year: Jim Ross – WWE (57 points)

Rookie of the Year: The Osirian Portal (Ophidian & Amasis) – CHIKARA (38)

Breakout of the Year: Tyler Black – ROH/FIP (38)

Comeback Wrestler of the Year: Chris Jericho – WWE RAW (86)

Disappointment of the Year: Hardy’s again suffers Wellness issues – WWE (50)

Best Indy Show of the Year: Supercard of Honor III – ROH (21)

Free TV Match of the Year: Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga – Steel Cage Match – WWE (42)

Worst Story/Surprise of the Year: Jeff Hardy not only violates Wellness, but then suffers even further setbacks by having things like his house burn down and his dog die – WWE (61)

Story/Surprise of the Year: Ric Flair’s retirement angle culminating in his retirement ceremony on the 04.01.08 edition of RAW – WWE (55)

Worst Feud of the Year: Black Machismo vs. Sonjay Dutt – TNA (64)

Feud of the Year: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho – WWE (76)

Worst Storyline of the Year: Vince McMahon’s NO CHANCE! – WWE (39)

Storyline of the Year: Fallen: The Trials of HBK – WWE (49)

Worst Fed of the Year: TNA (49)

Worst Promo of the Year: Vince’s Million Dollar Mania – WWE (24)

Worst Pay-Per-View of the Year: TNA Sacrifice (55)

Worst Match of the Year: Black Reign vs. Kaz – RAT ON A POLE MATCH – TNA (58)

And now that we have that out of the way…

Today’s Dark Match Award:

Mark-Out Moment of the Year: PUNK WINS! PUNK WINS! PUNK WINS! (WWE) – 59 points

Honorable Mentions: Sharmell (TNA – 1 point), Vickie Guerrero (WWE SmackDown! – 10 points), C. Edward Vander Pyle (NWA – 1 point)

3rd Place: Kevin Nash (TNA) – 18 points

2nd Place: Christy Hemme (TNA) – 40 points

And your winner is…:

Bam Neely (WWE ECW/SmackDown!) – 50 points

Mathew Sforcina: I actually had to look up if Bam still existed here and what he was doing. He and Chavo have split, apparently. Bam is a fairly dull wrestler/talent. That’s not a knock on the guy… Well it is, but dull guys have some place in the business. And being a manager/bodyguard is one of them, that’s a good roll for a dull guy. The fact that Bam was a terrible guy in this role speaks volumes. Bam was both unnecessary (he barely got involved), and when he did, he often messed up! Bam still being in WWE by this time next year would be a surprise to me. Everything a manager is supposed to do, help get talent over, get himself over, make his cues, makes matches better, Bam failed. Just failed. What more can you say?

Stephen Randle: You know what, let’s set aside the fact that ever since he was introduced, Bam Neely has not won a single match that I can recall. Because really, he’s a manager/bodyguard, you could get away with that (although if he’s not going to win occasionally, maybe he just shouldn’t wrestle and instead hang around behind Chavo in a suit). Instead, how about we point out that Chavo, the man he’s supposed to be protecting, hasn’t managed to win any matches either, despite having the assistance of a giant bodyguard outside the ring every match. Really, that’s the only reason to have a manager: to help you win matches. Then we can toss in the fact that he has a completely generic appearance, no charisma and minimal skills. What are you left with? Anything? Hell, even Chavo figured it out eventually and they went their separate ways, so now Neely is even more useless: a manager with nobody to manage.

Sat: Bam Neely started off his manager career with a good start by helping La Familia beat down on Kane and then putting Kane thru a table. Following this, Bam had a few decent months as a manager where Chavo won a few matches and Bam Neely was a difference maker. But by the end of May, things went downhill for Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neely. During this time frame, Chavo Guerrero lost multiple matches. In these matches, Bam Neely was either a non-factor, made a mistake that caused Chavo Guerrero to lose, or sometimes not even being at ringside. According to the Online World of Wrestling, at one point Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neely were both winless for ten matches. During this stretch, they also had a failed attack on Evan Bourne. Eventually, the partnership between Chavo Guerrero and Bam Neely ended during a match between Primo and Carlito Colon. The main thing that a manager has to do is help the guy that he is managing win some matches and Bam Neely did not do this.

Joseph Martinez: It’s quite possible that Bam Neely is one of the worst managers of all-time. Chavo Guerrero was on the rise before Wrestlemania. He just finished a feud with future World Champion CM Punk and came out of the series with the ECW title. Enter Bam Neely. Bam Neely started with a bang by destroying Kane at a contract signing but his career has been less than stellar since then. Chavo and Bam went on a time of failure. Any credibility that Chavo gained during his feud with Punk was lost as he went through a losing streak and Bam Neely did little to help. Neely and Chavo broke up and it’s only a matter of time until Neely (who is already 33 and has done nothing) is released from the WWE.

Ryan Byers: I have to say that I don’t fault the professional wrestler who got cast as Bam Neely for Bam Neely being voted Worst Manager of the Year. Granted, the guy wasn’t going to set the ring on fire with his performances and didn’t exactly ooze charisma, but he wasn’t any worse than numerous other guys who have come out of WWE’s subpar developmental system over the last several years. It wasn’t his talent or lack thereof that made him in to the worst manager of the year, though. It was how he was booked. First of all, from taking a look at the guy’s attire and the role in which he was introduced, it was pretty clear that he was inspired by Big Bubba Rogers. (Which makes even more sense when you consider the fact that Dusty Rhodes at one point had creative control of the ECW show on which Bam was introduced.) However, there are some problems with doing the Big Bubba gimmick in 2008. First of all, wrestlers are significantly larger than they were in the promotion and at the time that Bubba first got over. While Ray Traylor was physically impressive compared to his peers, Neely was the exact same size as twenty other guys on the WWE roster. Second of all, in 2008 in WWE, nobody in the midcard is actually allowed to be booked as a monster or a tough guy. Thanks to a concept that has become known as “parity booking,” everybody has to be put over everybody else. Thus, Neely did far more jobs than his gimmick should have allowed for, which both decreased his value as a wrestler and also decreased the intimidation factor that was necessary for his managerial role. In Neely, WWE had a guy who was semi-competent but not particularly exciting in the ring or on the mic. They could have hidden all of this by placing him in to a silent bodyguard role in which he was allowed to beat upon on people weekly, being portrayed as one of the toughest guys on the roster. Instead, they completely botched the execution of the concept and wound up with one of the most bland cornermen in history.

Honorable Mentions: Highlanders (WWE – 16 points), Team 3D (TNA – 1 point), Jesse & Festus (WWE – 4 points)

3rd Place: The Greasers (Deuce & Domino) (WWE SmackDown!) – 26 points

2nd Place: The Edge Guys (Curt Hawkins and Zack Ryder (WWE SmackDown!) – 35 points

And your winner is…:

Black Reign & Rellik (TNA) – 44 points

Sat: Black Reign and Rellik were chosen as the worst tag team in 2008 and deservedly so. These two wrestlers were considered monsters, but they rarely won any matches as a tag team. They had one win as a team against the Motor City Machine Guns and they had multiple losses to other X-Division teams such as Eric Young & Kaz and they even suffered a loss to Curry Man & Shark Boy. Also, let us not forgot that this led to the arrival of Super Eric beating both of them multiple times. Eventually, this team was broken up by May and both Rellik and Black Reign are no longer with TNA. These two things show just how bad they were because they managed to win this award by only being a team for five months.

Daniel Wilcox: It takes something special to beat out the likes of Deuce and Domino, Hawkins and Ryder and The Highlanders to scoop this award, and something special doesn’t even begin to describe how painful it was watching these two in the ring on a weekly basis. Both guys had ridiculous gimmicks, neither were as “frightening” as they were pathetically amusing and neither were ever going to be seen as serious threats. Indeed, only Eric Young took these guys seriously, and even then all he had to do was throw on a cape and a mask and the problem was solved. We can just be thankful that their run as a team and indeed in TNA was short-lived, because being exposed to this tag team on a regular basis could’ve done severe damage to your brain cells.

Stephen Randle: Good lord, this was a team that was just full of bad ideas all mashed up into one horrible amalgam of suck. From the top, we have Black Reign, who was of course Dustin Rhodes playing a psychotic, black-and-silver version of the only gimmick he ever gained popularity in, only now he was about fifty pounds heavier. Then we have Rellik, which as Don West will remind you, is “killer” spelled backwards. I believe it should have been a sign that Rellik was doomed to failure when he didn’t even win his debut match. Let’s not forget, this tag team was brought together initially to torment Abyss when another bad idea, Judas Mesias, went down with a serious injury. Once Abyss easily destroyed this pair and their leader, Reign and Rellik were left hanging around and occasionally scaring Eric Young, bringing about the reign of yet another bad idea, Super Eric, and through him another bad idea in the Prince Justice Brotherhood. We can also toss in another fact about this supposed “monster” tag team: they never won a match, or at least no match that anyone can really remember. And just for good measure, they were part of contenders for two other “Worst” awards this year, as Black Reign took part in that atrocious Rat on a Pole match with Kaz, and both members were involved in the infamously stupid “Monsters of Rock” promo with the Rock and Rave Infection. It takes a special kind of bad to survive all that, and it should be no surprise that the team is long gone, with Rellik sent back to the indies, and Dustin Rhodes once more plying his trade with WWE, back in his relatively more normal black-and-gold persona.

W.S. Thomason: As far as I could find, Reign and Rellik won one match as a team in 2008 – on the March 13 Impact, over the Motor City Machine Guns. But their Mulkey-esque achievement is not what earned them the worst tag team of the year honors. They attempted to get over as monsters in a cartoon sense, with an image designed to scare opponents before an audience willing to liberally suspend disbelief. The storyline with a terrified Eric Young transforming into a heroic Super Eric would have fit into a 1988 angle, but not 2008, where post-Attitude Era fans demand more than a simplistic good-guys-wear-white / bad-guys-wear-black approach to writing. The fact that Black Reign and Rellik never defeated anyone weakened their image even further. Monsters are frightening because of the damage that they can potentially inflict; however, if no one believes that they can do harm, the gimmick falls apart. As such, Reign and Rellik were just veterans past their prime wearing ridiculous outfits and executing silly booking. Maybe Black Reign and Rellik could have picked up another win if TNA had brought in The Gladiators, but that still would have helped them achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the fans.

Honorable Mentions: Talia Madison (TNA – 5 points), Ashley (WWE – 15 points), ODB (TNA – 1 point)

3rd Place: Maryse Ouellet (WWE SmackDown!) – 15 points

2nd Place: Layla El (WWE) – 20 points

And your winner is…:

Maria Kanellis (WWE) – 28 points

Mathew Sforcina: Once again, a major flaw in WWE’s business plan arises here. Long time readers know where I’m going with this, but it bares repeating. The WWE like having hot women around, especially because they can throw one into Playboy in the lead up to Wrestlemania and help everyone out. The fans generally like hot women, and there is a small but easily satisfied minority out there who’d be happy with just one OK to decent women’s match every once in a while, and for the female athletes to be treated with some degree of respect. Strong female characters can draw young girls to the product, and give you many more story options than not having them. All of this leads to the idea that you want some hot women wrestlers who’d be willing to get naked in your company, right? Here’s the problem though, instead of hiring hot women who know how to wrestle and THEN trying to convince them to pose nude/helping their looks along (both of which, sadly, are not that difficult), WWE insists on hiring hot women willing to be in Playboy and then trying to teach them to wrestle. Such is the case with Maria. She clearly is trying, but for her level of ability and talent, and the level she’s been given… No. At least McCool’s passable, and Christy spent less time wrestling more time managing. But still, this isn’t a vote against Maria, it’s a vote against WWE’s methodology and business practice.

I hope.

Jeremy Thomas: You know, I feel pretty bad for ragging on Maria. She tries so hard to be the best employee she can for the WWE, and when she’s strictly doing non-wrestling stuff, she’s pretty good. Look at 2007, a year she didn’t even make our worst list in any way…mostly because the few times she did wrestle she was quickly squashed by her opponents. Unfortunately, then came her Playboy moment and the push that invariably goes along with it. As a result, we lost ditzy Maria in favor of intelligent Maria who wrestled, and whenever the bell rung, the match quality of whatever show she was on dropped like a rock. Whether she was wrestling in that horrendous Playboy BunnyMania match or trying to work her way through her feud with Michelle McCool, there was just nothing good about Maria’s performances in the ring. The one bright point is that she’s slowly, SLOWLY starting to get a bit better. One hopes that in ’09, she’ll continue to do so and we’ll be able to reserve this spot for someone else.

Michael O: Ah, yes. Maria. The woman that makes Maryse the terrible look like Ric Flair. Proof positive that ingestion of CM Punk’s seminal fluid might be fun but won’t give you an iota of his in-ring talent. I’m sure there are worse female wrestlers out there, but thankfully I didn’t happen to catch them on my screen this year. The thing about Maria is, I actually like her. I think she displays a lot more personality and verve than the bulk of the ladies we’ve seen spring up in “The E” over the last few years. She has good comic timing, as shown during her tenure as a backstage interviewer on RAW, and she’s clearly enthusiastic about what she does.

But honestly, she just flat out sucks ass as a wrestler. And I’m talking a lot of ass. Rikishi ass. That doesn’t mean she won’t get better, but she really shouldn’t be on TV in a wrestling capacity at this juncture. Perhaps she should spend her free time in OVW, Matt Hardy’s backyard, or maybe even break into the Hart house while it’s still standing and go crazy. But until such time that she’s able to execute basic wrestling maneuvers as good as say, Screech from Saved By The Bell, she needs to stay the fuck out of a WWE ring while the cameras are on.

Stephen Randle: Okay, so a few years back, Maria stumbled upon a winning character where she was a complete dumbass who somehow managed to be a backstage interviewer. That’s great, and completely harmless. Then she got into a relationship with Santino Marella for…you know, they never really said what she saw in him in the first place, but whatever, it was still completely harmless and gave Santino an extra dimension. But then, she did the whole Playboy spread, which of course seems to mean you get a guaranteed push and WrestleMania match. Unfortunately, WWE continues to try and catch the lightning in a bottle they got with Trish Stratus (and to a much lesser effect, Candice Michelle), trying to turn hot chicks into competent wrestlers and thus grabbing both the sex-crazed and workrate-crazed male demographics at the same time. The only problem is that Maria, the wrestler, immediately lost all the character she’d built up and became just another perky Diva who has no motivation outside of being hot and wrestling. And while she’s developed minor skills, she’s definitely one of the least-sound Divas in the company in terms of wrestling ability. And yet here she is, poised to eat up more TV time in a feud with Michelle McCool, despite there being infinitely more talented women on the Smackdown roster alone. At the end of the year, Maryse and Kelly Kelly have both obviously outstripped Maria in their development, and that makes her the definitive choice for Worst Women’s Wrestler of the Year.

Honorable Mentions: Rellik (TNA – 1 point), Armando Alejandro Estrada (WWE ECW – 7 points), John Bradshaw Layfield (WWE RAW – 4 points)

3rd Place: Gene Snitsky (WWE) – 13 points

2nd Place: Black Reign/Goldust (TNA/Goldust) – 39 points

And your winner is…:

Braden Walker (WWE) – 59 points

Ari Berenstein: “Knock Knock?” “Who’s there?” “I’m Braden Walker…and I’m gonna knock your brains out.”

EPIC FAIL! RIGHT THERE! GO NO FURTHER!

I actually liked Harris as a part of America’s Most Wanted better than James Storm. The guy was supposed to be the breakout star of the team. Instead, he left TNA in a contract dispute and headed to WWE’s minor league system where he was stripped of everything that made him look or be cool in that tag team, wore a generic wrestling singlet, told knock knock jokes, made inside reference to his former identity with Matt Hardy and participated in two of the worst matches of the year. Wow. Just…wow.

Michael Bauer: There was a YouTube video right after the WWE released him which sums up why he should remember this award perfectly. The wording is fantastic of the video as the man who captured the imagination and rebellious spirit of a couple of weeks in late July. He was synonymous with having matches with Armando Estrada and that other guy he had a match with and talking with Matt Hardy backstage. Yeah, pretty much he didn’t do anything is his matches that impressed anyone and his attitude sent him up shits creek in a heartbeat. I guess being in TNA and being one half of one of their greatest tag teams ever doesn’t mean too much to the WWE. Even if it should, there is no reason to think you don’t have to pay your dues in this new, better, corporation. But he has now severed his realtionship with both companies and Braden Walker is your Worst Wrestler of the Year.

Jarrod Westerfeld: More like a fall from grace than anything else, Chris “Braden Walker” Harris has gone from the heights of tag team infamy of the new millennium with former partner James Storm, to seeing himself boosted to the main event scene in the absence of Jeff Jarrett. It seemed like there wasn’t a thing this man wouldn’t accomplish a year back and now he’s been nominated as the Worst Wrestler of the Year thanks in large part to his stint in ECW that saw him put on stinker after stinker with the likes of Armando Estrada and Idol Stevens. This sort of momentum carried over when he would appear at a NWF show in which he proceeded to cry like a baby about not catching his breaks and becoming a big star that he feels he truly is. If anything the signs of this were there long before his departure to the WWE as his physique began to slide into the current chunky that he is. His ability to work an athletic match seems to be in question and all because of a sour attitude he’s been carrying around with him for some time. Are there worse athletes in this business than Chris? Of course, but none got the votes like Mr. Walker here and none are the recipient of this award so they’re all moot points. Walker proved once and for all that he was truly the worst of the year in large part because of his attitude and his lack of care for his craft all while believing he was owed something. For that, Chris, we salute you with this award – you’ll know where to place it, I hope

Stephen Randle: If we had a category for “worst generic wrestling name that isn’t even his real one”, Braden Walker might win that too. As it is, the former Chris Harris will have to be satisfied with this award, as well as being one of an elite few wrestlers to be released by both TNA and WWE, joining luminaries like Rikishi and Test. Ever since TNA came into existence, America’s Most Wanted was seen as a crown jewel of the organization. Many speculated that it would only be a matter of time before Vince tried to get his hands on both members of the team. Well, fast forward to the long-awaited break-up of AMW, and after attempted singles pushes for both men, TNA decided to give up Chris Harris, who was immediately scooped up by WWE and prepped for debut as part of ECW’s New Talent Initiative. Only one problem: Harris’ weight had ballooned since leaving AMW, and his motivation to wrestle seemed to have disappeared as well. Once he debuted as Braden Walker, he proceeded to put on two incredibly dull matches in the next two weeks, possibly the dullest in the history of professional wrestling as we know it. Walker was summarily fired, and has not really been heard from since. While many other wrestlers are simply bad wrestlers, it can be argued that at least they’re attempting to do the best they can with their limited abilitied. Meanwhile, Braden Walker had it all; he was part of the hottest tag team in North America, and he was set for big things as a singles wrestler in both TNA and WWE. However, for some reason, he just seemed to stop caring, and it shone through in his ring work. And when both TNA, a company that employs Kevin Nash, and WWE, an organization that has a hard-on for big, slow-moving wrestlers, say you’re too lazy and slow to be a wrestler, then you deserve this award more than anyone.

Honorable Mentions: AAA (3 points), NJPW (1 point), CHIKARA (2 points)

3rd Place: Total Nonstop Action Wrestling – 10 points

2nd Place: Ring of Honor – 41 points

And your winner is…:

World Wrestling Entertainment – 73 points

Stephen Randle: Honestly, would you expect anything different? WWE has all the advantages going in, if they didn’t finish the year as the top wrestling organization, then things would be seriously wrong. However, this isn’t to say that WWE was all sunshine and roses this year; they made their share of bad mistakes. The difference is, unlike TNA, which is desperately seeking credibility, or ROH, which works with a very small fanbase, WWE can afford to make some mistakes just because of their massive size and ability to survive low periods of business. Also, in addition to the mistakes, there were a great many bright spots. In the end, 2008 for WWE was more about Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho tearing it down for half the year, the rise of the Hardys and CM Punk, the fortunate discovery of the greatest heel GM in the history of pro wrestling in Vicki Guerrero, and a dozen other examples, than easily forgettable crap like McMahon’s Million Dollar Giveaway. Whereas TNA, for example, is more remembered for the massive failures of 2008, to the point that the very bright spots seemed few and far between. In the end, it wasn’t the best year in WWE’s history, but they definitely had a better year than anyone else, and in the end, that’s what it takes to stay #1.

Mathew Sforcina: Here’s the thing. WWE didn’t really have to ‘earn’ this award. For some other company to win this, they’d have to have the single best year of their company’s history, they’d have to hit on all cylinders for all year in order to impress enough of the staff to judge them better than WWE. TNA will never get this short of a major overhaul, and ROH still had 3/4 of a year under Gabe and thus couldn’t really achieve a level of greatness high enough for enough of the staff, much to the chagrin of those on staff who love baiting the Anti-ROHbots. WWE has such a high level of talent, such a high level of exposure and such a head start that it’ll need one HELL of a run to beat it. Or for 2 out of the 4 McMahons to go stark raving mad. And neither of those seem likely. So, congrats to the WWE for, well, managing to keep a decent average level of output, with the occasionally great high point.

Randy Harrison: When you’re the biggest company in your field, it’s generally taken for granted that you’re going to be the best. The wrestling industry is one of the fields where that’s not always the case as smaller promotions can sometimes put on much better shows and have much better years while not under the scrutiny of a national fanbase and a media spotlight. This year however, the WWE managed to fend off all challengers to claim the crown of Fed of the Year. With the Ric Flair retirement story, the ascension of Jeff Hardy and CM Punk to main event status, Shawn Michaels’ year-long hot streak, Chris Jericho’s great heel run to the World Heavyweight Championship, The Honk-a-Meter and a ton of other compelling stories the WWE outclassed TNA by a country mile and with wrestlers like Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, CM Punk, Randy Orton, Triple H, Edge and others they managed to put on matches that were entertaining inside of the ring as well.

While the economy has taken a downturn and the WWE has been feeling the pinch, they’re still making money hand over fist with their WWE 24/7 television service and WWE.com Legacy online service, as well as with their always strong DVD sales. If you check the Billboard Top 10 of sales for Sports DVDs, the WWE is always prominently featured with at least three to five places in every list. They continued to run European tours to sold-out crowds and looked to use those to make up for the shortcomings domestically, so while there were signs of stress within the company and from outside of the company, there were still plenty of reasons to be happy if you were affiliated with the Leader in Sports Entertainment. I’m not sure what it’s going to take to knock the WWE off of this perch for 2009, but TNA, ROH and any other promotion have their work cut out for them.

Ryan Byers: Sometimes I wonder why we even hand this award out anymore, simply because WWE is easily the largest promotion in the world and there is no other company which can even make an argument for being a close second. Thus, if you’re going to define “Fed of the Year” as the company’s most successful promotion, Vince and company are going to win hands down and will continue to win hands down for the foreseeable future. However, despite the fact that they could win this award based on business alone, Raw, Smackdown, and ECW have also managed to put out a damn good professional wrestling product for the majority of this year. With ROH being creatively stagnant, most Japanese promotions being on life support, lucha libre remaining inaccessible to many English-speaking fans, and TNA seemingly going out of their way to do the opposite of what has made other pro wrestling companies successful in the past, WWE surpassed them all in terms of being the most overall entertaining pro wrestling on the planet. Obviously headlining angles like Shawn Michaels versus Ric Flair, Edge versus the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels versus Dave Batista, Floyd Mayweather versus the Big Show, Shawn Michaels, and Randy Orton versus the world have brought the goods. However, WWE has been solid up and down the card for the majority of 2008. In addition to all of the aforementioned programs, Santino Marella has been wrestling’s best comedy act since Edge and Christian, Johnny Nitro and Mike Mizanin have worked solid to great tag team matches multiple times a week, and even brand new faces like Jack Swagger have been given an opportunity to flourish. Sometimes the most mainstream version of a particular form of entertainment gets bashed heavily just because it’s mainstream, and that is exactly what happened in 2008 every time that somebody has said WWE is complete rubbish. The fact of the matter is that sometime the biggest game in town is also the best game in town, and that’s what the folks from up north have provided for the last twelve months.

Be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, and Part 5 tomorrow! Thank you for joining us for the 2008 411wrestling.com Year End Wrestling Awards!