wrestling / Columns
The 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards: Part Four – The Worst Major Shows/PPVs of 2015
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.
5. WWE Extreme Rules
4. WWE Royal Rumble
3. AJPW Champion Carnival
2. WWE Fastlane
1. WWE Survivor Series – In the interests of full disclosure, I’ve not seen any major TNA shows this year. That said, even with their booking, it’d be tough to out-do WWE’s Survivor Series for the benchmark of bad PPV. The whole title tournament that the WWE booked the show around was terrible. There were hardly any genuine title contenders present in the bracket to the point where Roman Reigns looked like the obvious winner without any heel turn shenanigans. The traditional Survivor match was weirdly booked and a waste of the New Day. The Charlotte vs. Paige match was weirdly booked and heatless due to both girls turning heel on each other in quick succession. The Wyatt Family vs. the Brothers of Destruction was appalling. And to cap all the crap off, Sheamus walked out of the event as WWE champion. A decision the company regretted almost immediately as RAW ratings went completely into the toilet. Survivor Series was a creative disaster. Only marginally salvaged by a passable Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose match.
5. WWE TLC
4. WWE Royal Rumble
3. WWE Survivor Series
2. TNA Bound for Glory
1. AAA TripleMania 23 – Oh man, I’m pretty sure this is the consensus worst show of the year. I don’t follow AAA all that much but that didn’t stop me from being interested in some of the things on the card. To get the positives out of the way, Cage/El Patron was decent and the main even was the only thing I’d consider good on the show. The rest of the show is pretty dire, with the low light being a ten-way elimination match that was pretty much the worst thing all year. Dave Meltzer gave it -*****. There was nothing all year that I can think of being as bad as that. Everything about this show, from the card to the commentary (Matt Striker even pointed out that wrestlers slap their thighs for sound effects at one point) to the stream itself, was pure garbage.
5. EVOLVE 48
4. CZW Sixteen: An Ultraviolent Anniversary
3. WWE Survivor Series
2. TNA Slammiversary
1. WWE Royal Rumble – Had I watched the entire AAA TripleMania show than I have no doubt it would take top spot; however I thankfully only watched the main event after hearing lots of negative about the rest of the card. I really disliked putting a show from EVOLVE on the list as the show wasn’t even that bad, but no matter how I looked at the numbers this was the 5th weakest show for what was eligible. Now the tough thing about putting this show as the worst of the year is that it featured one of the best matches of the year with the triple threat match. However the rest of the undercard was average at best with a horrid main event. I went back and watched the Rumble match recently to see if it had improved at all now that I was “out of the moment” and I actually enjoyed it less. No matter how good the triple threat match was it doesn’t excuse quite possibly the worst Rumble match in history.
5. WWE Money In The Bank
4. WWE Heck On A Deck
3. WWE Elimination Chamber (WWE Network Special)
2. WWE Payback
1. TNA Bound for Glory – Let it be known that I actually enjoyed most WWE pay-per-views this year. The WWE Network only specials were all really good, and my $9.99 per month payment is done so with a smile on my face. No better value than that. As for TNA, here is what I wrote last year about this exact same topic:
Oh boy, where do I begin? Keep in mind this category is for pay-per-views AND major shows. Since there is no such thing as a ‘major’ show in TNA, it was hard to really judge.
Yep. TNA is still TNA.
5. WWE Royal Rumble
4. WWE Survivor Series
3. TNA Bound for Glory
2. WWE TLC
1. AAA Triplemania 23 – I’ll admit to not following AAA a lot prior to getting invested in Lucha Underground – if I happened to be flipping through the channels on a weekend and saw some lucha libre on, I would leave it on until the show ended, but my Spanish has never really been good enough to pick up the nuances of what was actually going on. As a result, I developed an appreciation for the in-ring storytelling and the differences between the psychology of American, Japanese, and Mexican professional wrestling. Once Lucha Underground got me hooked, though, I started seeking out more AAA, and after watching the Lucha Libre World Cup in May, I was honestly jazzed for Triplemania. To say that it disappointed would be an understatement. I’m not sure how much of it was just my anticipation and how much was the show being outright under whelming, but this was an easy choice for the top of this list.
(And, for those wondering – WrestleMania nearly made my list, because it was just another show this year, with no real moments – that weren’t almost immediately ruined – outside of Seth Rollins’ cash-in. And WrestleMania, in my opinion, should be more than a mediocre show with an awesome ending.)
5. TNA Slammiversary
4. AAA Triplemania 23
3. TNA Bound for Glory
2. WWE Payback
1. WWE Survivor Series – This show has become an annual disaster. This time around we got another negative reaction to what was supposed to be an uplifting Roman Reigns win. Then they did something even more unpopular by having Sheamus cash in Money in the Bank during Reigns’ confetti party. Before that we got the baffling and awful feud between the Brothers of Destruction and the Wyatts. In a way it was a fitting 25th anniversary tribute to the Undertaker, who, despite his legendary status, has been in some of the most headache inducing angles in the history of the business. That was dumbshit Taker voodoo at its absolute worst. Tyler Breeze won a lifeless debut match over Dolph Ziggler. Even worse, Sheamus took the loss in an unannounced mid-card traditional Survivor Series match when New Day walked out on him. This is the guy who’d end the night as WWE champion. Ryback, Kalisto and Jey Uso wound up kicking his tail. Booking disaster. The Reigns-Ambrose main event match was also a bloodless affair. It never got going. Seems like every year, of late, Survivor Series is where the WWE hits bottom.
5. WWE Elimination Chamber
4. WWE Extreme Rules
3. WWE Payback
2. WWE Battleground
1. WWE Survivor Series – My list makes it look like WWE had a really bad year of pay-per-view, but it’s more a reflection of my viewing habits from this year- I watched almost everything WWE put out, and cherry picked the most interesting stuff from other promotions. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch a badly received event from, say, Ring of Honor, but since I’ve paid my £9.99 subscription anyway, why not kill three hours on some indifferent B-show on the WWE Network? Honestly, I didn’t regret spending my time on any of the shows from 5th to 2nd on this list, since they all had at least one genuinely worthwhile match or moment on them. Survivor Series, however, was an outright bad show, which left me disappointed and frustrated. It offered no particularly great matches, with Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens turning in the Match of the Night with something that was about on the level of a high quality Smackdown match. Elsewhere, Charlotte vs. Paige largely failed to deliver on its promise, The Brothers of Destruction vs. The Wyatt Family was less a match than a poor quality blowjob for the Undertaker, and Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose, which could have been something really special, was truncated to a measly ten minutes so they could fit in an angle at the end with Sheamus that was specifically designed to troll people so hard that they’d cheer for Roman Reigns as an act of defiance against WWE itself. It was that, the combination of lackluster wrestling and tedious, winter of discontent WWE booking that made Survivor Series such an unpalatable show, and the only event I think I saw all year that was essentially a waste of time. It’s a better way to spend three hours on the Network than a Total Divas marathon, but not by anywhere near as much as it should be.
5. WWE Survivor Series 2015
4. TNA One Night Only: World Cup 2015
3. TNA One Night Only: Classic
2. AAA TripleMania XXIII
1. TNA One Night Only: Knockouts Knockdown 3 – This was a show that completely offended me as a wrestling fan, it served no purpose and at the end of the show, it did nothing to get anyone over or make me want to see any of these people ever again. The show did nothing but frustrate me on several levels, and that is a complete shame because it could have been so much more.
* The Wrestling: The wrestling was no good here, not even consistently average; and at times some of it was really bad and even embarrassing. The ladies you expected to deliver didn’t, none of the “aspiring knockouts” made a big impact or impressed at all. This was a big chance for the TNA regulars to show that they could deliver, and they didn’t. This was a big chance for some of these lesser-known talents to show that they deserve attention, and they failed to deliver. Not all of it was their fault, but most of the show felt “passable’ as in it didn’t offend me in terms of it being atrocious, but considering I paid for this, I did not feel good about myself when this was over.
* The Show’s Production and Layout: Whoever was in charge of the laying out and formatting of this show, whoever acted as the agents for the match, whoever did the final cut of the show; all of these people should be ashamed of themselves. Many of the matches felt as if they did not get enough time, many of them felt rushed or just poorly laid out. They telegraphed the end of the PPV with the poorly planned stuff between Kong and Havok, which while many could have guessed that was the end game, let it happen organically. The layout of the show was pathetic, as they wasted almost the first 30-minutes on a big grab ass session featuring the BroMans, who hit on the women and failed to introduce them or give us a real reason to care about them. And then later on, when no one gave a shit about the new women involved, people acted shocked. They wasted 30-minutes, 30-minutes that should have been given to matches, and did a poorly planned and executed high school drama class production. And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, they replayed a 14-minute match from 2014 to fill additional time (which I guess thankfully was the best thing on the show), and then ended the show 15-minutes early. The layout was pathetic, it didn’t help the women and made the show feel completely bush-league. We couldn’t have something with all of the eliminated ladies, maybe a tag with them? And then, I don’t know, the winners of the tag face off in an impromptu match for a spot in the gauntlet, like a last chance thing but they have to be #1. Something that would have kept the focus on the ladies. But hey, someone thinks the BROMANS are fucking hilarious and need over 40-minutes of PPV time.
* The treatment of the Women: And that brings me to the treatment of the women. This show is called “Knockouts Knockdown,” it is supposed to feature the women on Impact Wrestling as well as possible future Knockouts. Instead, THE BROMANS were featured on 25% of this show (between the promo and the match they had). This is no way got the women over, this in no way helped the women, in fact it made them look like shit because they were props in their comedy act. And then, then there is the commentary. Between Borash and Spud either talking about things that had nothing to do with the match, adding some bad jokes to their comedy reel, Borash making gay jokes at Spud’s expense (she’d be your type if you liked women, eh Spud?) and spending several minutes discussing Brooke’s ass, they were a complete embarrassment and did nothing to elevate the show, or to get the women over. They completely failed at their job. TNA likes to talk about how they feature their women (and they have) and in theory this PPV is an awesome idea, but not when it is executed this way; this did more harm for women’s wrestling than good.
I get that they have to do these shows for international TV obligations, but TNA should be completely ashamed that this made air and that they charged money for this show.
5. WWE Beast in the East
4. WWE Elimination Chamber
3. WWE Extreme Rules
2. WWE Royal Rumble
1. WWE Survivor Series – For the past few years, the WWE has gotten by on the wrestling talent that they possess when it comes to PPV quality, but 2015 saw a drastic downfall in the quality of wrestling, which only served to shine a light on the horrible product that it has become. Whereas before, one could depend on a few good to great matches, we really didn’t get too much of that the past year. The WWE continually screwed the pooch, and this was none more apparent than the annual November PPV, Survivor Series. In an event that practically writes itself, the WWE created one of the least anticipated Big Four PPVs in a long ass time. Rather than banking on a, you know, Survivor Series match, they made this entire PPV about the 25th Anniversary of The Undertaker. While this isn’t the worst thing to build a PPV around, it just wasn’t nearly as fun as it was built up to be. This, coupled with an Ambrose vs. Reigns match that SHOULD HAVE been built to be a huge clash, and was kind of just tossed out there, really just put a damper on things. The Charlotte vs. Paige match was forgettable, Tyler Breeze’s win amounted to nothing, and the TWO Survivor Series match that we did get meant absolutely nothing to anyone involved or watching. This crap show was wrapped nicely with a bow known as Sheamus’ cash-in, which really just put some extra stank on a shit sandwich that was unnecessary.
5. WWE Royal Rumble
4. WWE Extreme Rules
3. WWE Fast Lane
2. WWE TLC
1. WWE Survivor Series – Oh, how the mighty have fallen. The Survivor Series used to be my favorite WWF/WWE pay per view on the calendar, but things have gone downhill hard in the last several years. WWE used to have confidence in the show’s gimmick of multi-man elimination matches up and down the card, but, for whatever reason, the show’s original concept has been almost completely abandoned and transformed into a run of the mill pay per view. Unfortunately, it’s the run of the mill pay per view that falls at the absolute least exciting time of the year, when all of the excitement from Summerslam has died off but you’re still not quite close enough to the Royal Rumble that you can begin to get hyped for WrestleMania season. This year’s edition of the program did nothing to break the Survivor Series out of the doldrums, as we got the under whelming semi-finals and finals to the WWE Championship tournament combined with a “celebration” of the 25th anniversary of the Undertaker’s debut that felt more like a WWF Superstars squash match than a main event spectacle. Plus, in one of the most truly mind-bogglingly stupid booking decisions of 2015, Sheamus was made out to be a midcard comedy act and then pinned by THE RYBACK of all people before going on to be crowned the primary champion of the largest professional wrestling company on the face of the earth. It’s enough to make me wish that they’d drop the Survivor Series name altogether and call the November PPV “Payback II: The Search for Vinnie Mac’s Gold” or something similar.
5. WWE Payback – 11 points
4. WWE Royal Rumble – 14 points
3. TNA Bound For Glory – 15 points
2. AAA TripleMania 23 – 16 points
1. WWE Survivor Series – 34 points
THE 2015 411 WRESTLING AWARDS:
* The Biggest Disappointment of The Year: The WWE Main Roster Creative Is Largely Shit – 26 points
* The Best Non-Wrestler of The Year: Dario Cueto – 43 points
* The Best Tag Team of The Year: The New Day – 65 points
* The Worst PPV/Major Show of The Year: WWE Survivor Series – 34 points
* The Best Female of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 8th)
* The Best PPV/Major Show of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 11th)
* The Best Promotion of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 12th)
* The Best Match of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 13th)
* The Biggest Stories of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 14th)
* The Best Wrestler of The Year: TO BE DETERMINED (January 15th)
