The Most Underrated Year In Wrestling History

[TUFFY54]

People tend to talk about the different era's of wrestling. They compare the Hulkamania, Attitude, and Cena years and their various pro's and con's. Personally, I think that one of the greatest years in the history of the WWE didn't occur in any of those era's. 2003 was one of the greatest years in WWE history for many reasons.

The Big Four Were Great - 2003 started off with an incredible Royal Rumble match that saw Brock Lesnar get his main event title match at Wrestlemania. The event also saw Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit put on one of the greatest matches of all time. Wrestlemania 19 was one of the last great Mania's. Angle v. Lesnar, Hogan v. McMahon, HBK v. Jericho, Triple H v. Booker T, and the last match between Stone Cold and The Rock tore the house down. Summerslam featured one of the best Elimination Chambers in the match's history. The PPV also had unmasked Kane v. RVD, Angle v. Lesnar, and a great fatel four way. Survivor Series finished strong with two great elimination matches. Lesnar put together the biggest team of all time, and the Bischoff v. Austin match had everyone on the edge of their seat. Survivor Series also had an absolute bloodbath between McMahon and the Undertaker. In addition to the big four, every other PPV of 2003 was good as well.

Endings - Four of the biggest stars in the history of the WWE had their last run in 2003. Stone Cold, The Rock, Hulk Hogan, and Kevin Nash all gave it one more shot in 2003. Some of them have come back a few times, but 2003 was their last big in ring run that lasted for more than one match. It was great to see them all have one last great match to remember them by.

Beginnings - 2003 was the year that we saw the future. John Cena, Randy Orton, Batista showed the WWE Universe what they were capable of in 2003. In addition to them, guys like Edge, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Booker T, RVD, and Rey Mysterio showed they had the potential to be main event players in 2003. In a new beginning, Shawn Michaels proved to the world that he was still one of the greatest of all time, since comming back at the end of 2002, after his match with Jericho at Mania. We saw the debut of the last great WWE stable in Evolution. The WWE also finally saw the debut of Bill Goldberg in his huge match with the Rock.

Great TV - 2003 was a year when you couldn't afford to miss RAW or Smackdown. The storylines were great. You had the Angle - Lesanr feud, RVD unmasking Kane, Triple H having the best title reign of his career, Hulk Hogan against Vince McMahon, Stone Cold feuding over being GM with Eric Bischoff, and the wrestling was incredible. Guys like Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, Edge, RVD, Shawn Michaels, Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guererro put on some of the best matches of their careers. Thats something I'll always remeber about 2003: both the wrestling and storylines were as good as they have ever been.

So what do you think? Was 2003 as great as I've said it was? Do you have a certain year that you think was better? I look forward to your responses.

 

[The Ace of Knaves]

Better year than 2003? How about 2005?

I mean, at 2005 we got to see:

1. The rise of John Cena & Batista starting at Royal Rumble 2005, signaling a new era in WWE.
2. Wrestlemania 21 featuring Rey Mysterio vs Eddie Guerrero in a heated feud, Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle in one of the best Wrestlemania matches ever, the first ever MITB with Edge came out winning, Undertaker defeating Randy Orton to go 13-0 as The Streak finally became a major draw for the event, Batista winning the WHC from Triple H, and John Cena defeating JBL to start his reign as the WWE champion and the face of the company.
3. The Legendary One Night Stand PPV which became a huge success.
4. Shawn Michaels vs Kurt Angle feud which gave us two classic matches at Wrestlemania 21 & Vengeance 2005.
5. Triple H vs Batista in master vs apprentice feud which saw Batista defeating Triple H three consecutive times before getting drafted to Smackdown! and started his reign by destroying JBL.
6. John Cena vs JBL which began John Cena's domination in WWE before getting drafted to RAW.
7. The controversial feud between Undertaker vs Muhammad Hassan which culminated at The Great American Bash 2005. And also Shawn Michaels mocking Hulk Hogan live at Summerslam 2005!!
8. Undertaker vs Randy Orton becoming Feud of The Year 2005 after battling throughout the year starting from Wrestlemania 21. The feud continued at Summerslam 2005 before we witnessed Randy Orton and his father burned The Undertaker alive at No Mercy 2005. We also saw Randy Orton crashed The Undertaker with a car and held a funeral ceremony for him. The Deadman later returned at Survivor Series 2005 to ruin Smackdown! celebration before culminating the feud at Armageddon 2005 in Hell In A Cell.
9. The emotional feud between Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio for the custody of Dominic. This also became Eddie's last legendary feud before his death. RAW's tribute show for Eddie is regarded as one of the best RAW episodes of all time.
10. John Cena rising at RAW, starting his career as the icon of WWE since the departure of Brock Lesnar. A status he holds even now.
11. The heated feud between RAW & Smackdown! with Kane & Big Show vs Batista & Rey Mysterio as the presentation of both brands.

Seriously, 2005 was the last great year of WWE cause it had little to no flaws. From 2006-present, WWE has never touched the greatness of 2005 even once. But because 2005 is supposedly the year when Batista and Cena rose, most IWC never mentioned it for an obvious reason.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

This one might be a controversial pick, but I am going to go with 1995 as being one of the most underrated years in professional wrestling. And I am going to break it down by the then-three major promotions in North America at the time.

WWF:

Yes it's true we had some really questionable gimmicks like the Ringmaster (Considering the role he had in ECW where he was a disgruntled ex-WCW wrestler was a lot more intriguing than being the Million Dollar Man’s protégé, because that that time, the Million Dollar Man’s angles were starting to run thin, after all in this same year he added Xanta Klaus to his regime, hardly enthralling and hardly positive for Austin to work with as his first angle in the company.), Mantaur, Duke Droese and other less than memorable characters were ruling the roost, which looking back on it now was pretty lame at times.

However, the New Generation era of the WWF had a lot of great things going for it. Diesel was the World Champion for most of the year, Bret Hart was still in the title hunt and would eventually get the belt back from Diesel, which in turn planted the seeds for the legendary Iron Man Match at WrestleMania XII, Shawn Michaels was rising up the singles ranks towards the World Title, and Triple H and Steve Austin as I mentioned at the top of this paragraph had just made their debuts with the company. Bottom line this era of wrestling introduced some stars that would be a part of several key moments in wrestling history.

With the debuts of Triple H and Austin that year in the World Wrestling Federation we had two key aspects of the WWF’s later success towards the close of the decade and then the beginning of the 2000s. While their personas vastly changed in the following years, 1995 was arguably just as important a year for their career as any because this was their chance to prove themselves in the WWF and despite WCW’s gain in prominence, the WWF was still an important stomping ground for any competitor looking to prove themselves. And like I mentioned Bret Hart’s continued success in the main events laid the groundwork for him to meet the rising Shawn Michaels and Diesel’s one year title reign which gets some flak because he was supposedly not the highest drawing champion means very little when looking in the grand scheme of things, because a year after, Diesel (Kevin Nash) would be at the center of one of wrestling’s most revolutionary angles with the new World order when he returned to WCW.

WCW:

This was the year that Nitro debuted and Lex Luger returned to the company on the same night the WCW’s answer to Monday Night RAW started. Sure, we had to deal with Hogan shilling out Pastamania and all that jazz, but some great ring action happened that night and the roots for the nWo arguably started on this night in September of 1995. While some people might cringe about Hulk Hogan having been the WCW World Champion for over a year plus at this time, it was still a time in wrestling that benefited the business a lot more than hurt it, at least in my opinion. Sure we had the Yeti, The Zodiac and the Dungeon Of Doom segments, but again for as cringeworthy as some aspects of Hogan's storylines in WCW were, can we really say that Mantaur and Duke Droese were any better or even Xanta Klaus? In WCW during 1995 we got some foreshadowing of Hogan's descent into heeldom with his donning black during the Dungeon Of Doom storyline and showing a Hogan that was not the "American Hero" that we fans as a whole were getting tired of. I feel when you look at things in a bigger picture sense, you can see that for a lot of the silliness this era in wrestling had in WCW, I think some aspects of the Dungeon Of Doom storyline with Hogan did help. After all, the Giant (now Big Show as we call him today) was established as a legitimate threat in wrestling and has been a star ever since. A lot of great talent either debuted or returned to WCW in that same period, such as Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko with other great talent soon to follow the year after like Chris Jericho and Rey Mysterio. Also a lot of foreign talent from Mexico and Japan got a chance in WCW because of Eric Bischoff. Ultimo Dragon, Otani, Cicolpe, Psychosis all got opportunities that the WWF didn't offer due to their lack of establishment for cruiserweight talent.

So for the less than good storylines that existed a lot of good was there that laid the groundwork for the next couple years in the company.

ECW:

This was the year Heyman bought ECW and for the good and bad that happened in the following years. We can’t deny the initial benefits that Heyman’s overhaul of the company provided.

I was never much of an ECW follower not really out of choice, but just sheer circumstance, in the pre-internet days and not having the means to tape trade, seeing ECW was a true rarity for me, but being able to go back and look at some of ECW’s history allowed me to get an appreciation for what this rebellious promotion was doing at this time in the history of the business. I think the arrival of Steve Austin to the company was a very important moment in the business that we all love to talk about on this forum. After all, he had a platform where he could let lose and shed a lot of elements that his Stunning Steve persona limited him in doing. While I think Austin’s WCW stint is often vilified on here, there were some good aspects of it, he wrestled great matches which I think were just as good as any WWF match he wrestled even his main event ones. He was also a very solid wrestler in the US, TV and Tag Title divisions. It is true that WCW might have dropped the ball with him in elevating him to the top, but no one can discount how important these formative years in his career were because if not for his WCW stint despite the negative aspects of it. It’s questionable if he’d ever had the chance to really showcase himself like he had in ECW and WWF. In many ways, the end justified the means with Austin. And I think his time in ECW is what really allowed us to enjoy him as Stone Cold, although like I mentioned in my WWF paragraph, it took a little bit of time for us to really see Austin’s true potential and the Ringmaster could have very easily damned him to a very short WWF stint if he was not handled properly and allowed to be more of himself through the Stone Cold persona. Like Hulkamania had its true roots in the AWA, I feel SCSA’s gestation truly started in ECW. Just look at his storyline with Sandman and you can see what I mean.

And a lot of the WCW cruiserweight talent that dominated Monday nights had their first exposures start with ECW. Malenko, Benoit, Guerrero, Mysterio, Jericho all benefited from working for Paul Heyman.

Overall:

The state of wrestling in 1995, that while in the short term looked less than great at times, I have no doubt that it was a year that arguably created much of the foundation of what followed into the next year and then the years following.

Again, just think the debuts of Triple H and Austin in the WWF showed us two vital pieces of the puzzle for the WWF’s attitude era, with Austin’s time in ECW being a good warm up for SCSA.

Then, Hogan’s fall from grace in the title division in 1995 and the impending returns of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to aid Hogan in his storyline frustration towards the fans helped make the nWo have weight.

ECW giving younger stars and shunned stars have a platform that WWF and WCW wouldn’t give them at the time helped solidify the company’s cult status and give these aforementioned talents a chance to shine in ways they might have not been able to.

With all that being said for all the lame that might have existed in the pre-Attitude and pre-nWo eras, a lot of important stuff went on in 1995 that arguably needed to happen or we might not have seen these aforementioned changes in wrestling have the same resonance at the time they did.

 

[TUFFY54]

Better year than 2003? How about 2005? QUOTE]

I completely agree that 2005 was an almost perfect year in wrestling. Everythng you pointed out was awesome. (Except the custody feud. I've always hated feuds that involved peoples children for some reason.) When I started to make this thread I almost did it on 2005. The reason I picked 2003 was because it was a "lost" year in between the Attitute and Cena era's that no one really remembers.

 

[TUFFY54]

This one might be a controversial pick, but I am going to go with 1995 as being one of the most underrated years in professional wrestling.

Interesting point. As humilitating as this might be for me to admit, as a 12 year old kid I loved Hogan vs. the Dungeon of Doom. I also liked Nash vs. King Mable. 1995 was also the first year that I ever heard about ECW. I read about it in PWI and ordered some tapes. It certainly was a year that changed wrestling.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

2003 is a good choice as well as 2005. The only gripe I have with 2003 is that it was a wrestling heavy year with little scope for storylines. The big feud was obviously Lesnar vs Angle in 2003 and it was built solely on great matches. I don't think there was much of a storyline there except for two guys with an amateur background going at each other. Also 2003 was a great year for Smackdown but a shit one for Raw in my opinion.

This might be your opinion versus mine but Triple H's reign as champion was a really boring one. He began every Raw with his same old boring 30 minute promo. He also buried almost every superstar that dared to oppose him. Match quality wise, I feel this was Triple H's worst year as well. Apart from HHH also I feel that Raw was pretty boring. The HBK vs Jericho feud was certainly good but they did not feud for a long time. Still it was one of the few bright spots on Raw. Same deal with Steve Austin. He was entertaining in small doses but his run as GM is not something that I will remember him by.

That is why I feel that 2005 was a better year. The wrestling was still great and the storylines were also very good as has already been mentioned by The Ace of Knaves.

 

[S.J. Maximus]

I'm sorry but I'm going to join the '2003 bandwagon' and say it was the most underrated year in wrestling. I'd watch WM19 over WM21 any day and the brock/sd and goldberg/raw connection was definitely more entertaining than the cena/sd then raw batista/raw then sd connection.

I also feel like shawn michaels was only the heartbreak kid of the 90s from 02-04, and by the end of '05 when he changes his tights he's just an older legend who has no real chance to win again (he never held a world title, despite challenging MANY TIMES) so I'm thinking about Shawn when i say 2003 is better too

Most importantly, EVOLUTION was formed in this year. Evolution is the only group of the new millenium to rival the likes of the Horsemen, the NWO, and DX. Evolution is probably right behind the DX as the fourth greatest stable of all-time and it was really interesting to see this group come together, bringing a young Randy Orton and green Dave Battista together.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

Interesting point. As humilitating as this might be for me to admit, as a 12 year old kid I loved Hogan vs. the Dungeon of Doom. I also liked Nash vs. King Mable. 1995 was also the first year that I ever heard about ECW. I read about it in PWI and ordered some tapes. It certainly was a year that changed wrestling.

LOL! Yeah, all seriousness when you do look at the state of wrestling at that time, Hogan vs Dungeon Of Doom had some outdated cheesy lameness but with Garbagemen, Plumbers, and Hogfarmers up North, it was all par for the course in the world of wrestling.

I would have liked the Dungeon Of Doom storyline if there was no Yeti or Monster Truck Collision at Halloween Havoc. But Kevin Sullivan was a great heel and the Giant (Big Show) being legitimized instantly was a great plus. To this day that angle has paid off in some sense considering that the Big Show is still around and doing well in WWF/E where most big sized men have failed to quite measure up (i.e. Giant Silva and Kurrgan).

Nash and Mabel was not that bad either, I have to admit, I thought Diesel was just so awesome and it was a good match for Nash to have while waiting on Bret Hart's return to the title scene. I think we forget that Mabel had a certain presence for sometime and considering what some of the other WWF roster was like at that time, he was not the worst choice to go against Nash, especially since he had already defeated the Undertaker at King Of The Ring that same summer, he definitely was booked with legitimacy.

You are right about ECW being that interesting to learn about, that's why I felt it so important to at least touch on what I knew during that time period of wrestling.

Also, I forgot to mention this in my first reply to you TUFFY54 and I apologize about this, but your pick of 2003 is a very good one. I've had to do some major backtracking since the Katie Vick angle just months before scared me away from wrestling and I knew little to nothing about TNA. But what I do remember about the 2003 WWE did make up for the Katie Vick fiasco.

I enjoyed seeing Goldberg debut in WWE, and despite what some fans say about him, I have heard that he did fulfill his contract and figured out that the WWE was not his place to be. Can't fault him as a performer for trying though and it's sad that a year later a lot of people reviled him the same way they did Lesnar. But when he showed up and finally met guys like Triple H, Kane, Michaels, Orton and Batista it was something to behold.

Evolution, the WWE's answer to the Horsemen totally rocked. I long for the days of a stable again, I think it'd be great, especially with the talent WWE has at this moment, a lot of guys could benefit from being in a group.

Vince and Hogan was a long awaited meeting, it's unfortunate that Hogan and Vince's egos collided in real life, I don't know the whole story and won't speculate, but despite my fandom of Hogan, I won't deny that he probably did showcase a less than desirable disposition amongst some backstage, it's possible, I won't say it was a one way street on his part, but it's a good possibility. Considering that he talked about it before on radio shows when he departed the federation as Mr. America, but I don't know how much of that was just PR work, you just never know!

Other moments were the Lesnar-Angle series, god damn, totally memorable. I also believe this was the same year Lesnar put Big Show through the ring on a SmackDown.

Plus you did have a mix of talent rising and riding off into the sunset. I.e. Orton, Cena, Batista for the new blood and Nash, Austin and Rock giving their last major hurrahs in WWE.

Definitely an interesting time in the years following the Attitude era's close and WWF's name change to WWE. Again, I definitely wanted to give you props on your statement man, I definitely didn't want to snub your discussion on 2003.

 

[TheHitMark-SirJoseOle]

I'm sorry but I'm going to join the '2003 bandwagon' and say it was the most underrated year in wrestling. I'd watch WM19 over WM21 any day and the brock/sd and goldberg/raw connection was definitely more entertaining than the cena/sd then raw batista/raw then sd connection.

I also feel like shawn michaels was only the heartbreak kid of the 90s from 02-04, and by the end of '05 when he changes his tights he's just an older legend who has no real chance to win again (he never held a world title, despite challenging MANY TIMES) so I'm thinking about Shawn when i say 2003 is better too

Most importantly, EVOLUTION was formed in this year. Evolution is the only group of the new millenium to rival the likes of the Horsemen, the NWO, and DX. Evolution is probably right behind the DX as the fourth greatest stable of all-time and it was really interesting to see this group come together, bringing a young Randy Orton and green Dave Battista together.

Nothing to apologize for man, some really good action happened in 2003 like I was bending TUFFY's ear about. Evolution definitely was awesome and I forgot to mention the night all four members walked out with gold, I might have a hard time getting this one right but I believe it was Armageddon 2003, I don't want to cheat and use google right now, but I am thinking that's what it was, if I'm wrong I'll stand corrected obviously.

Orton's "evolution" as well as Batista's pardon the pun were the two highlights of that year for what little I was able to follow at the time and for everything I got to see when I caught up on much of what I missed.

I also can't help but remember with fondness Ric Flair's player-manager role with the group. Then of course Triple H definitely had a very intriguing stranglehold on the World Title division, no doubt about it.

 

[The Ace of Knaves]

Better year than 2003? How about 2005? QUOTE]

I completely agree that 2005 was an almost perfect year in wrestling. Everythng you pointed out was awesome. (Except the custody feud. I've always hated feuds that involved peoples children for some reason.) When I started to make this thread I almost did it on 2005. The reason I picked 2003 was because it was a "lost" year in between the Attitute and Cena era's that no one really remembers.

Well, I can understand why some people hate 2003. No Way Out, Summerslam, and Survivor Series was horrible back there in 2003.

I chose 2005 not only because it was indeed underrated, but because the reason why so many people in IWC overlook it is infinitely moronic: Because it was the year when Cena and Batista rose!

So what?! Cena and Batista are more successful than Brock Lesnar even if the haters in IWC try to deny it. Their work from 2005-2007 was PURE GOLD!

Who can say that Cena's feuds with JBL, Angle, Edge, HHH, and HBK were bad feuds?!

Who can say that Batista's feuds with HHH, JBL, Kane, Big Show, Booker T, and above all others his 2007 Feud of The Year with Undertaker were lame?! I'm sorry, IWC can flame me for saying this, but the chemistry between Batista and The Undertaker in 2007 was rivaled only by Taker's later feud in 2008. It was something I've never thought possible ever since his feud with Mankind. And yes, I'm saying Taker vs Batista series of matches was better than his matches with Stone Cold, Brock Lesnar, Triple H, and Randy Orton.

Cena and Batista are two very successful WWE superstars. And hating 2005 because it was the year they rose is very very very stupid.

Good reply, mate ^^

 

[Pole Smoker]

I have to agree with 2003. 2002 was a boring year IMO and because of that people tend to look at 2003 in the same way. Because the attitude was over and Rock and Austin had left as full time wrestlers people tend to call it bad.

Smackdown in 2003 was great. Lesnar vs Angle was amazing IMO. Some great matches between the two. The WWE Championship was on Smackdown as well which for me gave the brand more credibility because in WWE being a WWE Champion is usually more important for people.

Raw in 2003 was good but not as good as Smackdown. Triple H's run as champion was good and bad. Good because as a heel Triple H is great IMO and very entertaining on the mic. However he crushed most competition. Booker T got crushed at Wrestlemania 19 and I have no idea why. I think he was on a great run.

Wrestlemania 19 is underrated as well. The card was great. Rock vs Austin. Shawn Michaels vs Jericho. Hogan vs Mcmahon in a street fight. Brock vs Angle.

Also I loved Hollywood Rock. He needed that to stay fresh. His character had became so boring for me. He was not near as funny in 2002 as he was in 99. But now he was great again.