Wrestler of the Year

[klunderbunker]

The big one.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Had to go with AJ Styles. For the past couple of years, Styles has been the guy you can 100% count on to put on high quality matches with just about anybody. If he can make Jinder Mahal look good, then you know he may be the best in-ring guy going right now.

 

[Bernkastel]

I'd say Brock Lesnar. He's had a number of high profile matches this year, and is arguably the biggest draw WWE has right now. He's not on the list, so I'll skip this one.

From the names on the poll, it's a toss up between Styles and Strowman.

 

[Uncle Sam]

It was a fuck-up for me not to nominate Samoa Joe. In terms of sheer chicken shit:chicken salad ratio, I'm not convinced there's been another wrestler better this year.

In contrast, Pete Dunne, say, has been given a phenomenal opponent and a perfect stage and has delivered. That's just lazy.

AJ Styles is the easy choice. Lots of kayfabe accomplishments, several excellent matches, is about the only thing SmackDown hasn't horribly botched.

 

[Pay Per Ghost]

I'd say Brock Lesnar. He's had a number of high profile matches this year, and is arguably the biggest draw WWE has right now. He's not on the list, so I'll skip this one.

From the names on the poll, it's a toss up between Styles and Strowman.

I concur with Brock.

I picked Styles because I seriously thought they would keep them apart till Mania this year and then go at it. They are the 2 single greatest attractions on the two brands. It still baffles me as to why they don't just pick AJ as the guy; Roman is great but if the machine got behind AJ, they'd do fine too.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Styles managed to wrestle the best match at Wrestlemania this year. Oh, and it was against Shane McMahon. He also managed to get two watchable matches out of Jinder Mahal, even when Jinder's bacne was popping all over the place.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

I'm sorry but, AJ is the greatest in ring perfomer right now, but, his feud with Owens just didn't live up to the hype and it lasted for 5 months. I can't vote for AJ.

The answers are Lesnar, Reigns and Strowman. Lesnar defeated RAW's top cream and Goldberg. He's always over and fans want to see him.

Roman is always at the center of attention. He retired Umdertaker, had an amazing feud with Strowman, an amazing Summerslam main event, defeated Cena, reunited with the Shield, started the year as US champ and ended it as IC champ.

And Strowman just had everyone talking about him. He was an important part of Survivor Series and Summerslam, had an amazing feud with Reigns, tried something with Brock. But most importantly, he got people talking and people were talking about him the whole damn year.

 

[ShinChan]

Kenny Omega for me. Easily. Trilogy with Kazuchika Okada, Second G1 Climax Final against Tetsuya Naito, Couple of matches against Tomohiri Ishii, and then two against Juice Robinson and Beretta. The latter two didn't seem like tough challenges before the match. But after the matches, Kenny Omega made me believe that both of them could defeat him. Add the angle with Chris Jericho. Or a couple of awesome promos. He's easily the best non-WWE wrestler in the world today.

Braun Strowman was almost a nobody in 2016 but was the best wrestler on Raw. Getting defeated by Brock Lesnar didn't do him much favours.

AJ Styles was phenomenal as always but after Wrestlemania and before winning World Heavyweight Championship back, he wasn't really at his best.

So, Kenny Omega.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

It's a shame AJ Styles wasn't around when HBK was in WWE.

 

[Navi]

Styles for me. He has put on quality matches with everyone he's faced. The guy is great and totally deserves being champ and walking into Mania with the title.

 

[@smarkmouth]

I voted for the wrestler that I thought embodied their brand the best throughout the year. I hovered over AJ, who has made even the worst Smackdowns watchable. But I landed on Asuka, who was a must-see wrestler on a must-see wrestling show.

 

[Khalifa]

I think there can genuinely be made an argument for Roman Reigns this year, dude delivered in almost every feud he was in. I feel AJ had a bit of a down here from his first year. Not by much but it started with Shane McMahon, went to a very bad feud considering who was in it with Owens and then did a lame feud with Baron Corbin. Not his fault as he killed it in every match he was in but I feel like the last 3 months is overtaking his first 9 which could’ve been better. Asuka didn’t do much since coming to raw and she was injured for some of this year to so I’m going to not count her. Jericho had a good year but I think there was too much hype for his match with owens and that killed it and then he left.

That leaves me with 3 choices as I don’t watch New Japan much and I have only watched 2 Pete Dunn matches. The choices are Samoa Joe, The Miz and Braun Strowman which looking at the list is probably the 3 lesser chances on there. Samoa Joe was great but he was lost in the shuffle when he first came into Raw. His feud with Brock Lesnar was awesome and I wish it went more than 1 month. He got injured and didn’t have the same impact he did in the middle of the year once returning, so imma rule him out.

Braun Strowman has had a great year all round. I don’t think anyone saw him coming along this quickly and to be actually enjoyed week in week out. His feud with Roman is probably feud of the year behind Owens and Jericho. He took on Brock Lesnar and was one of the only focuses in the Survivor Series main event. He was also apart of Angles first match back.

The Miz just continued to shine this year. His promo work is on Cenas level and he is the best IC champion maybe of this century. He had a great feud with Cena, got moved to Raw and got a few average guys going against him first but eventually picked it up to main eventing at TLC. Maybe I’m paperhis year doesn’t look better than brauns but if you watched it, you could definitely argue it was more of a traditionally wrestling with the Miz and that’s what we like. A great heel that doesn’t need the big belt.

My vote is going to go with braun though, can’t argue with what he has done and the fact he has done it better than anyone could’ve hoped for.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

Why isn't Kazuchika Okada in the poll? I know most of you don't follow or care for New Japan, but it's hard to neglect the other half of the best match of the year. He's carrying the New Japan brand with a classic match per month.

Anyway, I don't think AJ Styles deserves the award this year. He simply didn't do enough for me, mostly because he was put into bad stories or lackluster ones for most of the year. Shane McMahon and Jinder Mahal come to mind. Also, his run against Kevin Owens showed that the two simply don't click as much as people would guess. There's always someone whose styles don't mash up. He only really had John Cena and Brock Lesnar to brag about this year. Both stellar matches.

Roman Reigns had a stronger year, wrestling wise. I know most of you will disagree because he's Vince's darling, but the dude delivered this year. Even on Raw with matches against Jason Jordan and Samoa Joe he was on fire. Let alone his feud with Strowman and his solid match against John Cena on PPV.

 

[That N Word]

New Japan is obviously Okada or Kenny Omega.

For WWE, it's Roman Reigns. Look at his PPV matches: Owens, Strowman, 5 Way (Extreme Rules), Strowman (Ambulance), Fatal 4 Way, Cena, New Day. All of them matches were MOTY candidates. He even carried a no hip battered Undertaker to a somewhat decent match. Look at his TV matches: Cesaro, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Finn Bálor, Samoa Joe, The Miz, Jason Jordan, Elias. All of those were incredible bouts, he had the best rivalry of the year with Braun Strowman, became the official Face of the WWE when he officially retired John Cena from full-time competition, retired The Undertaker (well at least at that time.) His rivalry with Samoa Joe was great TV as well, let's hope down the line it gets a full on story.

AJ Styles is the greatest in ring performer of all-time imo, but 2017 he was completely overrated.

 

[Uncle Sam]

For the most infamous man in wrestling, Roman Reigns does have an odd tendency to have his (generally excellent) in-ring work fly under the radar. Perhaps his lacklustre matches against The Undertaker and John Cena overshadowed the rest of his work this year.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Its a combination, me thinks, of people not wanting to give him even the slightest bit of credit and then over blowing the impact of his bad matches. Like no one that isn't an asshole is going to say Roman is the reason his match with Undertaker was bad, but assholes will still say it was a bad match because Roman sucks.

Also, since his matches are so consistently good, few stand out. He has had some matches that you could easily call great, but most of the time his matches fall into that good category. He isn't AJ who can pull watchable out of Jinder or Cena who pulled watchable out of Khali, but Roman usually delivers with anyone who has functioning hips.

 

[Uncle Sam]

That match he had with The Big Show a couple of years ago though. Cor fucking blimey.

 

[Hard Hit Prince]

That match he had with The Big Show a couple of years ago though. Cor fucking blimey.

I remember that. It was probably one of the best singles match The Big Show ever had. Heck, I nominate WrestleZone the boards that actually give credit to Da Big Dawg. He deserves the spot he has.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

I still vividly remember Show getting crotched on the top rope and yelling "my balls!" and the faces he kept making while selling the spot. Even Roman was laughing.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Somebody hurting their balls and then yelling "My balls!" is never not funny.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

For the most infamous man in wrestling, Roman Reigns does have an odd tendency to have his (generally excellent) in-ring work fly under the radar. Perhaps his lacklustre matches against The Undertaker and John Cena overshadowed the rest of his work this year.

Just as we've said, Roman always works better with the fresher generation. I think he's built for fast paced wrestling.

 

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

That match he had with The Big Show a couple of years ago though. Cor fucking blimey.

The Last Man Standing match at Extreme Rules?

Roman was getting so much hate back then and the guy just delivered 3 straight classics: with Bryan, with Lesnar and with Big Show.

Everybody, including me, just shut up back then.