Correct The Award: PWI Wrestler Of The Year

[The Brain]

Well it’s time to get to the Wrestler of the Year. This is supposedly the most prestigious of all the awards (I personally like match of the year as my favorite). There are a couple surprises when looking at the list. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and The Undertaker have never won the award. Triple H did not win until 2008. I’m hoping this award sparks some conversation so let’s take a look at the list.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWI_Wrestler_of_the_Year

I’m going to start with 2000. I mentioned Triple H did not win until 2008, but I feel he should have won eight years earlier. The Rock is certainly a reasonable choice, but I feel 2000 belonged to Triple H. HHH won the title just as the year began. He successfully defended against Cactus Jack in an awesome street fight at the Rumble and again in Hell in a Cell at No Way Out. He became the first heel ever, and only the third wrestler ever, to walk in and out of WrestleMania as champion. He lost the title to The Rock at Backlash but quickly won it back in an Iron Man Match a month later. For those who think HHH doesn’t get people over look at Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. HHH may have won the ppv matches, but both those guys became stars working with him. At the end of the year it was finally revealed that HHH was the man behind the attack on Steve Austin from a year earlier. HHH married Stephanie at the end of 1999 and the McMahon Helmsley faction was the story of 2000. Both he and Rock held the title for about five months in 2000, but I feel HHH had the more dominant year.

I’m looking forward to reading some responses on this thread and will close out the PWI Award series tomorrow.

 

[Frank Gotch]

Ill go with Bret Hart over Hulk Hogan in 1994. Harts year included winning the rumble, headlining Wrestlemania and winning the belt, also his feud with Owen was classic. Meanwhile Hogan beat Flair cleanly after a year off and didnt really do too much as he held the belt the rest of the year. i cant see how Hogan won this over Hart its a travesty

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

I've Gotta Say 2009. Last Year was Indeed a Fine year for Randy Orton BUT someone else had a far superior year to him; CM Punk.

Punk had a magnificent year in the WWE. He won the Intercontinental Championship, the Money in the Bank & TWO World Heavyweight Championships. He was the villain of the year, going up against a man who was top face in the company; and WINNING! Punk had two match of the year candidates, both with Jeff Hardy.

On top of all this, Punk became the best promo man in WWE. He absolutely was given the opportunity to excel in his gimmick. WWE gave him the perfect foil in hardy and they had one outstanding feud. It's a combination of these things that makes me believe that CM Punk is more worthy of this award than Randy Orton.

 

[Honkey_Kong]

Ill go with Bret Hart over Hulk Hogan in 1994. Harts year included winning the rumble, headlining Wrestlemania and winning the belt, also his feud with Owen was classic. Meanwhile Hogan beat Flair cleanly after a year off and didnt really do too much as he held the belt the rest of the year. i cant see how Hogan won this over Hart its a travesty

I'll agree with you Bret was the best that year. But saying his feud with Owen was classic doesn't do it justice.. That's how great of a feud it was.

But I can understand why Hogan beating Flair would've clinched it. We all had waited through the 80's for the day where the WWF champ would face the NWA champ and it finally happened in WCW for the WCW title. I mean we were even teased with this during Flair's first WWF run. That build up alone clinched it for Hogan.

 

[holdingholder]

For some reason the link you posted is incorrect, Triple H DID win the top slot in 2000, the first thing I was thinking of posting when I started reading was that the Rock should have won in 2000, he held the WWF down for the majority of the year when Stone Cold was out and was without question the company's top draw. Triple H's run that year was great, but I think it was more of them using the Rock's star power to fued with HHH to get him over to superstar level.

 

[Frank Gotch]

I'll agree with you Bret was the best that year. But saying his feud with Owen was classic doesn't do it justice.. That's how great of a feud it was.

But I can understand why Hogan beating Flair would've clinched it. We all had waited through the 80's for the day where the WWF champ would face the NWA champ and it finally happened in WCW for the WCW title. I mean we were even teased with this during Flair's first WWF run. That build up alone clinched it for Hogan.

Yea Im gonna have to disagree with that. We are not talking match of the year here but Wrestler of the year. Now I dont know exactly when PWI does their voting but in a 12 month period Bret Hart had the better year. Hogan waited 3 months to give Ric his rematch while Bret fought every card of the year.

 

[Megadeth]

1997, The Total Package Lex Luger. How he won it this year (or ever) is a mystery. His only real accomplishment was winning the WCW title from Hogan and holding for a whopping 5 days before dropping it right back. There are several people who deserved it much more that year. You could argue for Stone Cold, Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, or my personal pick, though I am sure others would disagree, Bret Hart.
The Hitman won 2 WWF titles that year (although to be fair the first reign did only last a day), reformed the Hart Foundation, Turned Heel, had one of the greatest WM matches in History with Austin,beat the Undertaker at Summer Slam, and feuded with HBK leading up to the Screwjob, leading to his WCW debut.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

ill go with 1997 too.1997 was perhaps the most awesome year for wwf.i think either austin or bret hart should have won the award.look at austin for example.winning the royal rumble,wrestling the greatest match ever with hart,turning babyface,feud with the hart foundation.winning intercontinental and tag team titles and ending the year with that famous truck match against rock.bret rocked the year too but i feel the screwjob probably left a sour taste in the mouth

ill say rock deserved it in 2000 too coz yeah if you go by match quality then it was a triple h year but this was the year rock cemented himself as the top babyface in the industry albeit due to austin's absence.plus he had great feuds with angle and hhh as well.and if you look closely this award has generally been dominated by faces so i guess rocky was a good choice

1996 should have been michaels or possibly hogan coz michaels was the only thing that kept wwe afloat but i guess ill go with hogan coz his turn possibly changed the industry as a whole.

ill go with hbk for 2008 too.retiring ric flair,highly acclaimed feud with y2j and a great ladder match with him.interesting feud with jbl as well.hhh didnt have that great a year.while wwe continued to let him dominaate the main event his matches just didnt feel epic like hbk's matches did.i think wwe realized midway that hhh was a bit stale on raw and they moved him to sd that year.

 

[Dum Dum Dudley]

I'm going to argue with 1997's decision, and award it to Stone Cold Steve Austin. He had just come off the back of a great 1996, with his King of the Ring win and the birth of Austin 3:16.

At the beginning of 1997, he 'won' the Royal Rumble for the first of his record breaking 3 times only to be denied his Wrestlemania world title shot. However, he instead face Bret Hart in a truly historic match which resulted in a double-turn for both men, with Austin becoming face and Hart becoming heel. After this feud, he won the tag team titles with Shawn Michaels and then Dude Love after HBK vacated the titles due to injury. He won the IC title from Owen Hart at Summerslam but suffered a serious neck injury resulting in him dropping both the tag and IC titles. He returned to in-ring competition at Survivor Series but still made a few appearances in his feud with Hart and eventually won the IC title back from him at Survivor Series.
He then began a feud with Rocky Maivia who eventually became The Rock, and the two feuded over the IC title. After dropping the belt to Rock, he began one of the best wrestling feuds in WWF/E history with Vince McMahon.

So looking back, during 1997, Austin was a 2-time Intercontinental champion, a 2-time tag team champion and a Royal Rumble winner. This are some great achievements in themselves, but i think his feud with McMahon really clenched it for Austin. Sure, this was the early days of the feud but i think that the great 1997 that Austin had allowed him to have an even better 1998 where he would go on to win the PWI wrestler of the year award and again in 1999. I don't think Luger did much that warranted this award. A 6 day world title reign and a tag reign, in my opinion, do not warrant him getting this award ahead of Austin.

 

[god-soldier]

There arent that many i disagree with but i don't agree with 1992 Ric Flair won and i believe either Randy Savage or Sting should have won they both of had great years leading up from the end of 91 and had world title regins Nature Boy had a great year too but i believe they har better ones

In 1997 PWI was on the money Lex Luger maine evented almost every nitro n pay per view in some caliber in WCW he beat all the competiton when WCW was hot the right call was made.

IN 2006 Rob Van Dam should have been the winner he won money in the bak 2 world titles at the same time and stayed on top as headliner n midcarder on WWE cards he was definatley the top wrestler of 2002.

 

[Dum Dum Dudley]

In 1997 PWI was on the money Lex Luger maine evented almost every nitro n pay per view in some caliber in WCW he beat all the competiton when WCW was hot the right call was made.

Yes, he may have main-evented every nitro and nearly every PPV, but wheres the 4-5 star match? Where's the killer feud he carried throughout the year? Luger, IMO, did nothing in 1997 that deemed him wrestler of the year. He may have won the world title (something Austin failed to do in 1997), but it was a short reign intended to throw a swerve at the audience. He took the belt off Hogan who had it for 359 days only to drop it back to him in less than a week for Hogan to then have another fairly long reign. Austin feuded with both Harts, The Rock and Vince McMahon which more than made up for a 5 day reign and should have won the award in 1997.

 

[The Brain]

I think either Bret Hart or Steve Austin would have been a better choice than Luger in 1997. The case has already been made for both, but I’d like to add one thing about Austin. We all know he became the hottest thing in wrestling after WM13. What’s amazing is how he maintained his popularity after SummerSlam 97. Austin suffered an injury that should have kept him out a year. Since he was the hottest thing since Hulk Hogan he didn’t want to lose his momentum. Instead of missing one year he did not miss any time. He wasn’t able to wrestle for three months but during those three months he remained on tv and became more and more popular. When I think of 1997 there are a few guys I think of before Lex Luger.

 

[Dum Dum Dudley]

I think either Bret Hart or Steve Austin would have been a better choice than Luger in 1997. The case has already been made for both, but I’d like to add one thing about Austin. We all know he became the hottest thing in wrestling after WM13. What’s amazing is how he maintained his popularity after SummerSlam 97. Austin suffered an injury that should have kept him out a year. Since he was the hottest thing since Hulk Hogan he didn’t want to lose his momentum. Instead of missing one year he did not miss any time. He wasn’t able to wrestle for three months but during those three months he remained on tv and became more and more popular. When I think of 1997 there are a few guys I think of before Lex Luger.

Agreed. It was a particularly nasty looking piledriver and i remember Owen dancing for what seemed like ages to give Austin time to recover. The idea of keeping him on TV was brilliant and when he got involved in the Faarooq/Owen IC title match to allow Owen to win, as bizarre as it sounds, it made sense. He came out and said he personally wanted to win the title of Owen Hart as payback for the injury. It really added some fuel to the fued as opposed to Austin just coming back and winning the belt.

 

[legendkiller1979]

I'm gonna go with 1985. I'm sure Ric Flair had some great matches and he did hold the NWA title for the entire year. I don't know because it was before my time and I know very little about what happened in the NWA at that time. I guess it could be said that flair's matches were better than Hulk Hogan's. What did Hulk Hogan do in 1985? He headlined the most important event in the history of wrestling. He made wrestling ten times bigger than it had ever been. Everybody knew who Hulk Hogan was in 1985, only wrestling fans knew the name Ric Flair and I would bet there were a number of wrestling fans that didn't know who he was since cable was still in it's infancy. Speaking from a strictly wrestling standpoint, Ric Flair may have had a better, and I'm not so sure that he did. But when you look at the big picture, Hulk Hogan's year was so much bigger and more important that I can't even come up with a good metaphor to put it into perspective. Let's be honest, for the vast majority of fans, wrestling might as well havae started in 1985. I hadn't heard the name Bob Backlund until he returned in 1993.
To so many people everything that happened prior to 1985 is simply irrelevant. This is thanks to Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan

 

[god-soldier]

I here both dudley and Brains agurements against Luger for 97.Dudley you ask where were the 5 star matches for Luger where were they for Bret and Austin in 97 there match at wrestlemania 13 was great n the final four were the best of the year after that the other matches were okay not great brets match against undertaker shawn michaels n Patriot were hyped to be great but the matches were just okay with lousey endings Austin had an okay match with Undertaker an okay tag match with HBk against owen n the bulldog a horrible 10 man tag a match that ended with an injury sure Austins popularity had risen but match wise he gave us an epic batttle an 2 okay matches. Lex Luger fued with the entire nWo all year long which means he fought the main event guys all year long. Lex may not put on a 5 star match but he can entertain the crowd and when he racked the Giant at the end of the year and racked Hogan and gave hogan his first submission lost by saying I give up is a major accomplishment sure Hogan had to get the title back to lose Sting @ starrcade Lex Luger had a great 1997 and i still believe PWI made the right call because WCW was still on top then and Lex had been WCW as in the faction against nWo biggest star so let the man have his due.