WWE 2013: What's The Grade?

[Jack-Hammer]

I tried posting this a little earlier but screwed, up, so I'm giving it another try. With less than a week until the start of a new year, what grade would you give WWE, overall, for the 2013? Did it rock? Was it vomit inducing? Somewhere in the middle? State your reasons why.

NO SPAM!!! If you can't muster the energy to provide a response that has some degree of sentence structure, legible grammar and consists of more than five words; please don't bother responding.

 

[Septumus]

Overall I would give the year a B or B-. In ring at least a B+ as there were some truly memorable matches. Every one of the Shields matches were great especially the ones with the Rhodes Brothers. CM Punk against Lesnar, Jericho and Taker were simply amazing. A rebirth for Orton, which has hit some potholes. Mark Henry's Oscar worthy acting deserves some note. AJ Lee and Kaitlyn had some matches that I paid attention to and got me quite interested. Tag Team wrestling has a whole is looking loads better than it has done in years. Time will tell if it goes on the back burner again this Wrestlemania season like it did last year.

There were a couple bumps this year however. SSeries was a major letdown for me. That 7 on 7 Divas traditional SSeries match was atrocious. Big Show and Orton... Yeah, Big Show and Orton...

And then there is Daniel Bryan, who had a very entertaining year. To see if the screwjobs against him this year will pay off will be determined in 2014. Depending on how that goes will have a major impact on how I look back on 2013 as a whole, but I have my hopes high.

I'd say that 2013 did a lot of things right, a lot more than the past few years before it. Things are looking bright in the WWE and time will tell on how that goes.

 

[DarksideEric]

I can't fully comment on the whole, as I don't really follow the entirety of WWE television, let alone the roster. But, if it's alright, I'll comment on what I did pay attention to.

CM Punk: I loved when he was still in his lengthy title reign. I loved that he got to face both the Rock and the Undertaker in the same year. I'm somewhat torn on whether I would have rather seen him win against the Rock or keep it the way it was. Post Undertaker, aside from Brock and specifically Heyman, I started losing interest (and CM Punk was the big reason I got back into paying attention weekly here and WWE.com rather than once a month of so on Wikipedia). For me, he went from an A down to a B- or C+. I didn't care at all about Axel or Ryback's program with him. His Shield thing is looking up though, and his touch on HHH again makes me happy.

Daniel Bryan: Honestly, grade of A for this entire year. Everything of his that I've paid attention to has been fun for me. I dug his thing with Cena. I dug what happened with him and the Authority. Wyatts are the only thing that I'm not majorly interested in. But then again I mostly read what happens on a weekly basis rather than watch, unless it's the stuff on WWE.com.

In all honesty I really stuck with just these two men and what happened with them, so B from me.

 

[GeneralKarim]

I voted B-. I think in ring competition wise its been amazing because of DB/Punk/Shield and ofc their respective opponents like Lesnar etc..

For me, the things that made me want to watch was :
1.Whatever Punk was doing

2.Whatever Bryan was doing

3.Whatever Bray Wyatt is going ( tho they seem to have like 0 direction for them and they keep spouting that nonsense about the fighting agaisnt the machine when they are in fact doing jackshit )

4.The Shield

5.And fudge it! The Real Americans at start I wasnt into them,but damnit I freaking love them now.

Story line wise it was a pretty poor year and full of false "promises".From Bray's awful rushed feud with Kane, to the whole "Authority lets bury DB and have Big Show who is now a christmas jolly giant steal the spotlight for no reason " angle was very badly executed with no logic behind it.

Ziggler getting the reaction he got and then buried, completely buried.It fkn disgusts me.

Tbh It was so full of dissapointments that I can barely recall the good times.Cause most of the good times where overshadowed by constant stupid decision that go agaisnt what the crowd is cheeering for and what they want.

I have no clue how they didnt fuck up The Shield,yet.Prolly so desperate for new talent that they wanted to be extra careful with them or smth, but if The Shield is all they can support and shit on the rest of the guys....they need to hire more people or fire some.

Might be a good idea to stop here cause im going on a rant mostly about how dissapointed I am in how Vince , Triple H & co have been handling stuff lately.Dont even get me started on Mark Henry returning as a bubbly happy piece of chocolate.

 

[L@RISANO]

First off, I only restarted following WWE Post-SummerSlam,so whatever occured before then in 2013 is of no importance to me(ps: I only know about WM 2013).

The WWE title scene was rather interesting but also frustrating at times. It was puzzling how Big Show was thrown in and failed whilst a very over Daniel Bryan got no payoff at all.
How Big Show was then subsequently thrown off was even more baffling as he seemingly suffered a serious bout of amnesia after Orton's punt at Survivor Series.

Beyond the WWE title scene, only the Shield and Wyatt family programs coming on to TLC kept me interested but there was nothing much to look forward to in order for me to say that RAW or SmackDown was a must see or that I was in anticipation.

The pushes of Big E and Roman Reigns are very very interesting.Hopefully, they will be handled slowly and with a view to a long term run. I remember when there was a time that a Star Part-Timer was a Surprise Bonus to an already great product with great storylines.
Now, I see that part-timers are THE Boost to a very bland product, with a RAW program in which there is nothing interesting until the Main Event until they decided to have the Shield and Wyatts ambush Punk and Bryan. Also the mere fact that the only other interesting Story Feud at the time was Brodus' is a sign of mediocrity in the WWE product.

 

[Dagger Dias]

We saw some great feuds such as CM Punk VS Undertaker, Bryan VS Cena, Bryan VS Orton, and CM Punk VS Heyman. We also saw The rise of The Wyatt Family, continued excellence from The Shield throughout the year, learned what's "best for business" and there was constant show stealing from both Daniel Bryan and CM Punk. AJ's Divas Championship win has finally brought a degree of importance back to that belt to help revive the division. The unification of the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships was a moment over a decade in the making. Cena defeating The Rock at Wrestlemania 29 to right the wrong that took place the year before while also making the Royal Rumble win feel important once more was one of my favorite moments. Payback was a pleasant surprise, I liked it far more than I thought I would and it was probably the 2nd best show of the year behind Summerslam for me. Summerslam was absolutely amazing, Bryan VS Cena alone was worth the money.

Then there's the bad. The Rock should not have been the one to end CM Punk's lengthy WWE Championship reign. Battleground was an absolutely 100% useless show that I hope never comes back. The whole last quarter of the year was the low point for me, from after Night of Champions up until TLC. The TLC show definitely could have been better, more gimmick matches would have been nice. However, the big moment of the title unification is worth mentioning in a positive light, even though I disagreed with how it was done. The year had its ups and its downs and the positives outweigh the negatives. The only TRULY awful thing this year as I look back on it in the WWE was Battleground. They should never do that ever again. There were more than enough awesome moments to average out my final grade for WWE in 2013 to a B-. I have high hopes for 2014 after what they accomplished this year and when looking back on it, it really wasn't bad at all.

DAGGER'S REVIEW
B-

 

[NxtBigThing]

GeneralKarim and Dagger I pretty much agree with what both of you are saying and gave it a B- as well. To me things prior to the RAW after WrestleMania including WrestleMania was a C or C- at best. The Royal Rumble, Elimination Chamber, and WM were all ok at best to me. Sure each one had something cool but mainly it wasn't that great. The RAW after WM was great and I remember thinking how glad I was that I didn't buy WM and waited for RAW. After that I don't remember that much until Money in the Bank and the build up for Summer Slam. From Money in the Bank up to the end of the year I would give either give a Solid B or B+. I loved the promos between Punk and Heyman, the brutality of Brock Lesnar and the match he had with Punk, Daniel Bryan's rise, heck Summer Slam pretty much rocked even tho I didn't like the ending, The Shield keep on getting better with Reigns looking like he is getting ready for big time, The Wyatt Family debut and their matches recently, RVD vs Jericho, AJ Lee's matches, Rhodes Brothers, Big E, how the Real Americans and other tag teams like the USOs getting better, etc. Besides that with the unification and how in my opinion the RAW and SmackDown shows are getting better with some good matches (yes there are some bad shows) and I really enjoyed this past RAWs promo with Punk, Cena, and Big E which reminded me a lot of an old 80s promo that it got my 33 year old ass pumped. Now that's saying something haha. Overall as I got older I was more of a follower than a watcher but I got to say I see a lot of positives and yes there is a lot of room to grow but give it time. I think as J.R. would say "Business is bout to pick up."

 

[Mighty NorCal]

I went with a "C". Besides the Ascension of Dan Bryan, and the subsequent blow-off match, there was nothing particularly memorable or good, and, nothing particualry bad, either. Uninspiring is what I would call the majority of their programming, outside of NXT.

 

[GameOver]

C+ not great but enough to keep me interested, every show and PPV had atleast 1 thing that was compelling


Stand Out stars far exceed the quantity of the competition, long standing main eventers taking a back seat to new talent depending on how you look at it, gives a chance for the future.

Daniel Bryan is trending world wide outshines the What chants, when's the last time we heard What on a regular basis, thats never been the case til this year.

Cody Rhodes and Goldust go from nobodies to way over and give Tag Team division some credibility back.

Some classic matches throughout the year, Cena made to look almost vulnerable.

Money pumped back into expanding the business and a drop from going total kiddy friendly, atleast some adult related stuff returns. and lastly FINALLY, the roster split is almost gone and languishing titles become 1 title again well not quite there's still 2 belts but that will be addressed in time. and the possiblity that the InterStates title will be a thing in the near future..

 

[Alastor]

It was a year of solid B for me. The in ring action has been top notch most of the time for 2013. We have 4 legit 'over' names in the main event in Orton, Cena, Bryan, Punk who more or less are dependable and not as injury prone as the likes of Batista or Edge in recent past. Daniel Bryan's rise was a treat to watch. The Shield and CM Punk delivered on most nights. Lesnar did what he was paid to do. 3MB is still hilarious as the jobber group. The Waytts actually exceeded expectations considering they are mere lackeys. The Cessaro swing was fun. Enjoyed the short Alberto Del Rio face run but it ended as soon as it was gaining momentum. RVD's return for a short run was enjoyable too.

However there were many minuses too. Too many useless PPVs. Ziggler getting a concussion just as WWE was ready to pull the trigger on him and he never recovered from that. Ryback's year was wasted just as he seemed poised to take over as the powerhouse face but had to turn heel due to the overness of the existing face main eventers. Also the year was wasted pushing the likes of Axel and Sandow who clearly are not good enough to get over nor significant enough to put the people that beat them over. WWE also wasted the opportunity to really push Fandango the right way when he was hot after Wrestlemania.

 

[Pedigree1]

Most deserving of a B+ wish i could give it an A-! Think about what we saw. A brutal encounter of HHH Vs Brock,Punk vs Taker and Bryan vs Cena! Outstanding matches,the Shield kicked ass love them,and we saw the Wyatt Family Debut. Plus the Walrus got his ass handed to him by Punk,that in itself was priceless.

Now I have some BAD NEWS!! The rock should not have ended Punks historic reign,IMO he cheapened the title,and made it worthless for the 2 months he had it.. I have heard that the last quarter or so of PPVs were pretty much worthless and i cant agree more.. Maybe the WWE poured too much into the first half and kinda ran out of steam towards the last quarter.. All in all a very solid year,and 2014 should surpass this year

 

[NegativeFeedback]

Ryback's year was wasted just as he seemed poised to take over as the powerhouse face but had to turn heel due to the overness of the existing face main eventers.

He wasn't turned heel because the rest were so over. That hardly makes sense considering he was turned heel while Orton was losing pops, Bryan was still in a tag team and Punk was still the most hated heel in the company.

He was turned heel because he kept making comments about how it was time someone dethroned Cena and how that is going to be him. He was put in his place by feeding him to Cena for 2 straight PPVs.

They did the same with Ziggler. He said in interviews that he was SICK of Cena in the main events, which was even worse than what Ryback said, so he got shoved down the card as punishment.

I give this year a D+. It had some good matches, but every year has SOME good matches, it's the rest of the content that decides whether it was a good year or not. And the stories all around sucked.

Can you name 3 memorable feuds? Maybe Paul/Punk which was eventually ruined by the latter half of the feud. Punk/Taker was okay, although it was kinda tasteless. Rhodes/Authority was cut REALLY short before it got really good.

All in all, a pretty mediocre year. I really hope 2014 is better.

 

[MizisAwesome]

Gotta go with a solid B. There were just too many storylines that fizzled out or were forgotten about. Bryan got shoved from a main event hero push to kidnapped by the Wyatts to forgetting about the other 2 storylines. Lots of injuries all around with Cena, Sheamus, Barrett, etc. Authority storyline could have been executed better. Future plans are up in the air too much. There were some bright spots, but too many could have been spots.

 

[sanefan_har]

I gave a B, simply because of reasons that have already been mentioned

+ves of the year :
CM Punk, D-Bryan, Cena, Shield, Payback, MitB, Summerslam, Extreme Rules, Royal Rumble, top notch matches on Raw and Smackdown (Punk v Cena, Shield v Hell No and Orton, D-Bry's Gauntlet, RVD v Jericho), Rhodes Bros, All of taker's matches, Lesnar

-ves of the year :
Big Show (I like the guy, but he's been awful the whole time), Wrestlemania, Night of Champions, Survivor Series, TLC(only because there weren't enough stipulations as last time), Del Rio, Bad News Barrett(I mean wtf???), 3MB, Khali (I'm Indian and he's been boring me for a long time now), Bellas(not their appearance, but their annoying voices), Hornswoggle

 

[Bland]

Hard to decide between a top b or low A so I choose A- because of the description: Spectacular, a truly rememberable year. That sums up this past year perfectly. We've had loads of rememberable moments like rise of D.Bryan, dominance of the Shield, debut of Wyatts, Cena vs rock II, Lesnar in feuds (rather than last years quick build Cena match and poor Summerslam main event), rock wwe title run, tag team division shaping up, triple h authority role and most recently wwe & WHC unification. There has been so many moments this year that will either be remembered a long time or for setting up future main events (eg shield, Wyatt, d.Bryan etc).

Although, the authority has gone a bit stale since Summerslam with the constant silly finishes. I understand the long build but surely the Bryan vs orton feud should've at least temporarily ended at Survivor Series instead of silly HITC finish. The one orton vs show match killing the remaining wwe title momentum and that is why they quickly went for title unification.

I predict 2014 will be building future stars as well leading to passing of torch at WM 31 in 2015 similar to WM 21 was.

 

[Alastor]

He wasn't turned heel because the rest were so over. That hardly makes sense considering he was turned heel while Orton was losing pops, Bryan was still in a tag team and Punk was still the most hated heel in the company.

He was turned heel because he kept making comments about how it was time someone dethroned Cena and how that is going to be him. He was put in his place by feeding him to Cena for 2 straight PPVs.

They did the same with Ziggler. He said in interviews that he was SICK of Cena in the main events, which was even worse than what Ryback said, so he got shoved down the card as punishment.

I give this year a D+. It had some good matches, but every year has SOME good matches, it's the rest of the content that decides whether it was a good year or not. And the stories all around sucked.

Can you name 3 memorable feuds? Maybe Paul/Punk which was eventually ruined by the latter half of the feud. Punk/Taker was okay, although it was kinda tasteless. Rhodes/Authority was cut REALLY short before it got really good.

All in all, a pretty mediocre year. I really hope 2014 is better.

You need to get off this blind hate of Cena. Orton wasn't losing pops. Punk was not the most hated heel. He was getting pops even as a heel. The other face spot was Alberto Del Rio and a soon to be turned face Ziggler. I give you that Bryan was not in the main event picture at the time but he sure as hell was mad over. If Cena really wanted to put Ryback in his place he would have forced WWE to keep Ryback face in the mid card and have a 2 PPV programme with Mark Henry or Big Show or Christ Jericho instead.

Memorable feuds for the year: Cena/Rock. Punk/Heyman. HHH/Lesnar. Hell No/Shield. Bryan/Orton. Authority/Every face in the company?

 

[Softcore Holly]

The year started off pretty well. The promos between Rock and Punk were great, after that we had that amazing Cena vs Punk match on Raw,with more entertaining(although a lil long) promos between Cena and Rock along with the buildup to Taker vs Punk which I thought was a lot of fun. Been a while since Taker had legitimate reason to get POed at someone, and Punk is really good at ticking people off. Team Hell No was continuing their entertaining ways which eventually led to Shield's tag title reign, and some great matches between Orton and Bryan.

WM29 despite having a few great matches was overall disappointing and had waaaaaay too many ads/useless stuff, especially for the biggest PPV of the year. The night after got us Ziggler's cash in which got a amazing reaction, which lead to the great double turn and looked to be the start to something huge, unfortunately that never happened and I think that may have been the 1st of many bad things to come in 2013.

MITB was a fun event that had a amazing MITB match for the WHC, which also looked like it was going to lead to big things for Cody Rhodes and Sandow. Unfortunately that didn't really pan out either. It was also the real start of the Punk Heyman feud, which had it's great moments but that went a lil long and imo definitely could've been done better.

Then Summerslam happened, and that was probably the beginning of the end. While the event had some great matches it was only the first of non-stop screw jobs and non-finishes thanks to the Authority, who from SummerSlam forward became the face of the WWE in Cena's absence, and it was pretty terrible. The WWE champ got to reduced to a lapdog, the #1 contender was put down every single week, and the cherry on top was us watching a giant man constantly cry, all for a stupid storyline involving nonsense lawsuits and ending with a terrible title match.

Meanwhile ADR and Curtis Axel was competing for the most boring and lackluster title reign of 2013, both facing tossed in opponents with no feuds and no real buildup to their title matches. US title was mostly ignored, and still is. We got to watch Ziggler sink like a rock, Punk competed in lousy matches against Ryback, and of course Sandow's failed cash in. Sure the match was great but the ending was terrible, funny how WWE seemed to do that quite a bit this year. Oh and before I forget they had months of Barrett being inactive to come up with something for him to do, and the best they could come up with is putting him on a podium and insulting the crowd. It's not like they didn't already have a guy with a funny mustache doing that job before, and better too.

But it wasn't all bad. The tag division got a huge boost thanks to the Rhodes teaming up, which lead to quite possibly the most emotional moment of 2013 when they "won their jobs back", and from that moment on went on to steal the show for every PPV since getting the titles. AJ produced some of the best promos to ever come from a Diva, and had some great matches as well. And lastly while the PPV itself was pretty lousy the actual TLC match was good. Not great, but not that bad considering that they were playing it so safe. Oh and the promo Cena made on the Raw before the PPV was epic.

Overall I give it a D+. Again it started off well and had a lot of potential, but man did they drop the ball so many times and in so many ways. The good news is they ended the year reasonably well, and really it won't be hard at all for 2014 to be a upgrade from this year.

 

[kadroan]

I'll go with a C.

The politics of wrestling got in the way of "what's best for business". Witnessed the depush of new stars Ziggler (punished for talking bad about Orton) and Bryan (punished for yelling at HHH backstage for ending his match on a RAW early - I believe his match was against Orton).

However, we seen the rise of future stars in Big E., Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Damien Sandow (MITB winner) and The Wyatt Family (defeated the Rhodes Bros., Kane and Bryan).

I'm excited for the Batista return next year. I'm just hoping like with the Lesnar return in 2012, that these part time stars can be used to elevate the younger talent like Reigns and Big E just as Taker/Hogan/Rock did for Lesnar and Kane/HHH did for Batista

 

[BigThunder]

Match Quality: A
Memorable Moments: B
PPVs: C+
Storylines: C-
Overall: C+

This was the year that I really enjoyed watching the in-ring action, thanks to great performances by the Shield, Bryan, Punk, Lesnar, Cesaro, the Rhodes, and (yes) Cena, with some good works from folks like Shamus, Orton, Del Rio, Sandow, Swagger, Ziggler, Jericho, the Usos and Shamus as well -- any other year, their ringwork would be A-level.

Unfortunately, Vince's seeming reluctance to place the strap on Bryan, to build storylines like the tension between HHH/HBK and Bryan, or the McMahon/Rhodes rivalry and fail to pull the trigger on a feud has deeply hurt the product. Storylines that do engage the viewer are aborted when they get interesting, and those that don't go on and on.

 

[Mark Henry's Beard]

D+

While it was a great year if you love random six man tag matches every week (Teddy Long gives it an A+), it didn't really do it for me. It doesn't really matter to me how high the match quality is if I'm not given a reason to CARE why they're fighting. The obvious highlights if the year would be the build up to WM XXIX, the ascension of Daniel Bryan, the promo and acting job of Mark Henry's life, and the push of the Shield. Despite that, I'm disappointed with the Shield's lack of character development and the aforementioned over-reliance on six man tags.

The lack of presenting anything other than the main event as important is a black mark. Undercard feuds were few and far between. To everyone giving this year an A or similar, let me ask you this: who is better off entering 2014 than they were entering 2013? Aside from Daniel Bryan, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, and the Shield, I'd be hard pressed to say anyone. Most either stayed the same, or went WAY downhill, such as Dolph Ziggler and the Miz. The midcard titles also continued on their downward slope of being completely irrelevant. Dean Ambrose has had the US title for quite awhile. And despite him getting pushed, he's done absolutely nothing for the belt. Has he EVER had a feud over it? Like most of the roster, the US title is JUST THERE. If it went away with no explanation, not many people would notice.

What will change my grade next year? Simple. Give me a reason to care. And stop the ridiculous practice of win trading that we see nearly every week. I truly believe the WWE has forgotten how to get people over. Characters that have no feuds, no mic time, and go over on RAW only to lose to the person they just beat on SmackDown or the next week on RAW DO NOT get over. Things aren't unfixable. In just not sure WWE gives enough of a shit to fix them.

 

[TheOneAndOnlyGOAT]

Then there's the bad. The Rock should not have been the one to end CM Punk's lengthy WWE Championship reign.

The Only Reason CM Punk held the WWE title for so long was because The Rock was returning.

WWE's plan was to make Punk the bad guy and have Rock come back and end his reign so he can look like a superhero going against Cena in their rematch.

WWE wanted Cena vs Rock II for the title, it isn't even debatable, it's a fact.

Had Rock not returned to face Punk, Punk wouldn't have held the title for so long.

 

[TheOneAndOnlyGOAT]

Now I have some BAD NEWS!! The rock should not have ended Punks historic reign,IMO he cheapened the title,and made it worthless for the 2 months he had it

Same story, so I'm going to repeat myself.


The Only Reason CM Punk held the WWE title for so long was because The Rock was returning.

WWE's plan was to make Punk the bad guy and have Rock come back and end his reign so he can look like a superhero going against Cena in their rematch.

WWE wanted Cena vs Rock II for the title.

It isn't even debatable, it's a fact.

Had Rock not returned to face Punk, Punk wouldn't have held the title for so long.



Also, just because it was long doesn't mean it was historic or important.


You say Rock cheapened the title and made it worthless?

Punk made the title a joke, during his title run he couldn't main event a PPV without Cena or when Cena wasn't injured.

TLC 2012 was the first PPV that didn't feature a WWE title match in over 5 years (No Way Out 2007 being the last one).

During Punk's feud with Bryan, Punk tagged with SANTINO to face Bryan and Rhodes. During the match, I remember Santino trying to do a Suicide Dive and failed just to get some laughs from kids.
The WWE Champion was relegated to a mid-card comedy match.



Punk made the WWE title a joke, a farce. Rock brought it's prestige back by only wrestling at PPVs, appearing on Smackdown more...

 

[Mustang Sally]

They brought us a fine mixture of young and old, allowing groups like the Shield to ascend and other young stars to make a significant impact instead of serving just as fodder for the established people, while blending in a few legends and giving us the pleasure of seeing them while not letting them knock the stuffing out of the folks who do the bulk of the entertaining and performing. At the top, I always find it amusing to read folks on this forum who claim "Cena never loses" and "Everything is about Cena" when, in fact, that was anything but true in 2013. He certainly doesn't "always" win and given his #1 status in the company, they've used him in a variety of different ways, often with him coming out second-best.

Although it seems many fans will never appreciate it, the company keeps the feuds, non-feuds and developing feuds flowing. Those of you who find the storylines to be "boring" or "non-existent" don't appreciate how hard it is to come up with fresh, original programming week after week, year after year. Given the pressure they work under, I think the creative aspects of WWE are incredible. There's always something new being thrown at us.

This year just past was super, imo. True, every-damn-thing they come up with isn't going to score, but I found myself entertained every week. I gave the year an A-

 

[TheOneAndOnlyGOAT]

I have to give this year a C.

Let's look at the positives / negatives:

Positives:
-Sammartino in The HOF
-Rock WWE Champ for the 1st time in over a decade
-Daniel Bryan Main Event Push
-A lot of great matches (Bryan vs Cesaro, Bryan vs Cena, Punk vs Lesnar...)
-Post-WM 29 RAW / Post-Payback RAW
-The GODFATHER IS BACK!!
-Jericho's surprise return at the rumble.
-Mark Henry retirement promo
-RVD returns
-SummerSlam's 2 biggest matches (Punk-Lesnar / Bryan-Cena)
-Orton and Triple H heel turn
-Cody turns face / Cody n Goldy
-The Shield destroys everyone
-Cesaro Swings Khali
-WWE world titles are unified
-Taker wrestles 3 matches for the 1st time since 2010 / Lesnar wrestles 3 matches for the 1st time since 2004 / Rock wrestles 3 matches for the 1st time since 2003
-Dolph Ziggler cashes in
-New WWE title is unveiled
-Big Show KO's HHH
-Championship Ascension ceremony
-Aj wins Divas title
-Roman Reigns as sole survivor
-The Shield - The Wyatts brawl on UK RAW
-Edge's return on RAW


Negatives:
-WM29 one of the most predictable WrestleManias ever.
Punk-Taker, Rock-Cena II, Lesnar-HHH II: 100% predictable
-SuperCena back in town: Wins Royal Rumble, Wins WM Main Event, Beats The Rock / Ryback / Henry, Wins WWE title, Wins WHC title.
-Damien Sandow getting buried
-CM Punk burying new talents: Ryback, Axel, The Shield, The Wyatt Family...
-Bryan's first WWE title reign ends in 10 minutes, 2nd title reign ends in a day.
-Every PPV after SummerSlam
-Los Matadores
-CM Punk beating The Shield 3-on-1, biggest farce in wrestling.
-Del Rio in 11 out of 12 PPV World Heavyweight title matches
-The Snake charmer (Santino-Khali)
-Ryback: from top star to jobber
-Christmas RAW
-Xavier Woods vs Brodus feud
-Titus O'neil vomiting
-Musical chairs
-Broadway Brawl
-Los Matadores vs 3MB
-El Dorito biting Zeb's behind
-Big Show : Worst babyface ever
-The un-ending burial of Bryan
-Kane's gimmick is dead
-Big Show crying
-CM Punk exploiting Paul Bearer's death
-WWE App
- 1-800 Fella
-Curtis Axel getting pushed
-Del Rio and Ricardo imitate Swagger and Colter
...

 

[SmattyG]

I voted B+

A caveat - I watch Raw, Smackdown, Main Event, Superstars and NXT every single week, but I do DVR them (kids, work) and do read spoilers. In saying that, I still watch about 4-5 solid hours per week.

Why not an A? Coz I need to fast forward through replays every five minutes of what just happened; replays of what happened on previous shows; APP shills; anything to do with the Divas; Randy Orton as the face of the company.

Why not a B- or C? NXT has a huge part in this. The Shield, Big E, Kassius, Leo Kruger, Sami Zayn, Aaron Neville, and of course Antonio Cesaro - the most under rated guy on the roster.

Commentary? Almost always awful - JBL is dreadful, Cole is a shill, no one calls the matches; but again Regal on NXT saves the day.

To be an A you need your stars to shine - Cena got better once he moved away from the abortion that was the 24 month feud with The Rock; his promo at the Raw before the unification match was right up there. Orton (yawn).....Daniel Bryan was excellent every single week. CM Punk seemed to dial it down a notch all year - being stuck with Ryback and Curtis Axel did not help.

Mid card - Shield and Wyatts have been awesome. Luke Harper is one scary dude. 12 months in and I STILL can't tell who will be the breakout guy from The Shield - all three have so much potential, and Tyler's, er Seth's match on Smackdown with Cena was double top this week. I'm an Ambrose guy still, but either they won't let him wrestle or he is just relying on charisma.

Cesaro, Cody, Goldust, Usos, Sandow, Ziggler, Del Rio have all entertained me throughout the year.

Tag Team Division seems to be solid again. I'd like to see more build up to PPVs but I guess it's hard with only four weeks in between (would love to see just the big four again). Would love to see a lower belt back like the European Title but NXT title will suffice for now (but No more Bo!)

I think the transition with Hunter in the driver's seat has been pretty successful and they have laid the groundwork for success in the future. WM 35 will probably have Reigns, Langston, Ambrose, Cesaro, Rollins, ADR, Ziggler, Swagger, Kruger, Zayn, Neville, Tyson Kidd. And Cena in the main event lol.

One more caveat - been watching wrestling since 1976...it's been better, it's been worse.