This is the next chapter of a year by year retrospective from my viewpoint as a wrestling fan. What did I watch, what was good, what was bad, which men and women were the best and what matches and moments stood out.
2016 was a year of major change and restructuring in WWE, and a year where some other places like New Japan Pro Wrestling and several indie promotions started to get more recognition. It was also a damn good year for the actual wrestling itself. How do you follow that up? Well in WWE they decided to do some experimenting. On the women’s side after over a year of Horsewoman dominance Alexa Bliss took over Monday Night RAW while on the other side Naomi got a mid year as women’s champion after taking that title off of Bliss twice earlier in the year. On the men’s side out of left field came Jinder Mahal, who went from the outhouse to the penthouse on Smackdown faster than maybe anyone in wrestling history, while on RAW the full on Braun Strowman push was in effect.
That wasn’t all. Survivor Series underwent a full transformation to brand warfare where every match was brand vs brand in some form or another. The Smackdown tag team division was treated to a feud for the ages between the Usos and the New Day while on RAW the legendary Hardy Boyz would return to the WWE after being gone well over half a decade. And oh yeah, the Shield got back together after 3 years of going their separate ways but still crossing paths. All this change wasn’t limited to the main roster, by the way. In 2017 NXT completed it’s metamorphosis from the developmental brand of WWE into a full on super indie promotion chock full of signees from Ring of Honor and various indie organizations.
Meanwhile outside of WWE Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada would meet in a series of matches that put the world on notice about New Japan Pro Wrestling. So yeah, 2017 was as busy as 2016 in a lot of different ways.
That being said…….what was good? What was bad? Was anything special?
The Good
In WWE-land, The Road to WrestleMania was finally done well for the first time since 2014! Everything that mattered on the show got a proper buildup, and the vocal jeering section was ok with everything for once. The show itself was got good reviews from what I remember, and in my opinion was one of the better ones. It brought back some familiar faces (more on that later) and was a perfect capper to what had been an excellent 12 months in the women’s division.
The Summer of Samoa Joe was wonderful to witness as Joe main evented three straight PPVs and went 3 for 3 for putting on great matches. I saw the first one in person at Extreme Rules, and then he followed that up with a banger vs Brock Lesnar at Great Balls of Fire and a Fatal Four Way at Summerslam with Lesnar, Reigns, and Braun Strowman. Strowman would also have the run of his career in 2017 thanks to his feud with Roman Reigns. They had some great confrontations in the ring and Braun came out looking like a million bucks.
But you can’t talk about 2017 without mentioning the Okada/Omega series of matches. They faced off three times in 2017 and captured the very essence of what New Japan Pro Wrestling was presenting to the world. For those who were just starting to pay attention to what happened over there this was the apex of the last 10 years of Japanese wrestling. Whether you’re into what they do or not you can’t ignore the significance of what they did and how well regarded it was then and still is today.
The Bad
I said that WrestleMania was the perfect cap to 12 months of great stuff on the women’s side but unfortunately boy did things take a turn afterwards……
Did Bayley piss somebody off backstage? After WrestleMania she was put through a creative humiliation ringer like I hadn’t seen in a long time. Not only did she lose damn near every match she was in the rest of the year, she was put through some absolutely mortifying situations to boot. The ‘Bayley, this is your life’ skit was one of the worst segments of WWE television ever created and made her look like a total goober, then she lost the RAW women’s title in her hometown to Alexa Bliss, then there was the atrocious Kendo Stick on a Pole match where couldn’t bring herself to use the kendo stick even though that was the point of the match and lost again. (I was in the building for that one and it was worse in person than on TV) From April to June she was treated like she was about to leave the company and had heat with the bookers. But she didn’t so it was just bad and weird to boot. Hands down that is the worst that a World Champion level wrestler has been treated who wasn’t on their way out the door that I’ve ever seen.
Over on Smackdown Naomi wasn’t buried like that but she sure wasn’t given much worthwhile to do as champion. Fresh off of winning the title back in her home town at WrestleMania, she didn’t get to defend it on a PPV until June and that was against………Lana. And it went about as bad as you’d think. Then she didn’t get to defend it again until Summerslam, where she lost it to Natalya. But that’s not the half of it. The Smackdown women’s roster became loaded with babyfaces but all of the heels were midcard level which led to an endless run of tag team matches and six woman tags that served little to no purpose after the first month or so. By the time Charlotte won the title in November a good six months had been wasted on all of that.
And finally there were the things that had promise but fell short, for various reasons. AJ Styles vs Kevin Owens was on paper a feud that should have been an all time great one. And yet they just didn’t mesh well in the ring and the matches were all pretty lackluster. It took them until Summerslam, their third PPV attempt, to get it right and then thankfully it was over. The Braun Strowman main event push came to a crashing halt at No Mercy when he and Brock Lesnar had a disappointing match to close the show. Strowman had looked like a million bucks while he was feuding with Reigns over the summer but one match was all it took to suck the air out of that balloon. Lastly the Jinder title reign was a real chance to do something fresh with a new face at the top, but unfortunately the matches didn’t deliver in any good kind of way, until he lost the belt to Styles (the irony of Styles having better matches with Jinder than Kevin Owens will never be lost on me).
Anything special happen?
The Hardys return to WWE at WrestleMania was a true mark out moment for all of us. I was not big into wrestling dirtsheets at the time so I had no idea it was going to happen and was shocked and surprised like I should have been. The stadium erupted when they emerged and they had one of the best matches of the night to boot. Having been a fan during the Attitude Era who missed all of their Ruthless Aggression Era singles stuff, I was back in 2000 all over again.
And while it was panned in a lot of circles, I was here for World Champion Jinder Mahal. Even with the matches not being anything to write home about it was nice to see them try something different with someone new as world champion. If nothing else it gave us one of the best closing shots ever for a PPV at Battleground with the Great Khali holding up the belt like he was the World Champion:
Guys, if you’re going to wax poetic about people who got released from WWE coming back an flourishing then you can’t leave Jinder out. His story is as good as anyone else’s, and I got up out of my seat and cheered when he won title.
But that wasn’t all. If you’re a fan of New Japan Pro Wrestling then the Okada/Omega series was your Steamboat vs Flair. Now in full disclosure I have not watched much of what they did in full but it would be foolish to not recognize the significance it holds to the wrestling fan community at large.
There was also a first on the women’s side with the first Women’s Money in the Bank match, although in pure 2017 fashion it was marred by a controversial finish that saw James Ellsworth grab the briefcase for Carmella and toss it down to her. I’ve gone back and forth on this a lot – I originally maintained that it fit Carmella and Ellsworth’s characters for her to win that way, but I get why having the first ever women’s money in the bank match ending with a man essentially winning the match for his woman is a non starter. So they re ran the match two nights later and Ellsworth helped Carmella win it again but in not such an egregious fashion.
Awards – Who was the best?
Top 5 Male Wrestlers: 1. Kazuchika Okada, 2. Kenny Omega, 3. Roman Reigns, 4. Braun Strowman, 5. Cody Rhodes
It was tough to get to five here. Okada, Omega, and Reigns were easy picks. All three did great work all year, Okada and Omega having three match of the year candidates against each other in one year, and even though Reigns did not hold a singles title most of the year he put on great matches the whole time and was pivotal to Strowman moving up the ladder. Speaking of which, Strowman’s best year of ring work was in 2017 from Fastlane in February through the summer when he got exposed a bit vs Brock Lesnar. Everyone else in WWE had some kind of red flags either by way of some bad matches or not being in a big enough spot consistently enough to be considered. Which is why number five goes to Cody Rhodes. Now out on the indies Cody put together one of the best indie runs in history and was Ring of honor World Champion for a bit.
Honorable Mentions: Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles, Jinder Mahal, Seth Rollins, The Hardys, Cesaro & Sheamus
Top 5 Women Wrestlers: 1. Asuka, 2. Alexa Bliss, 3. Charlotte Flair, 4. Naomi, 5. Bayley
Asuka virtually stood alone all year at the top in NXT, going undefeated there and after she joined the main roster in September while continuing to put on great performances to boot. Bliss held the women’s titles on both brands and was a champion for nine months out of the year, and scored wins over Becky Lynch, Bayley, Sasha Banks, and Mickie James along the way. After that it’s a tossup to be honest. Flair and Bayley started off hot and had IMO the best WWE women’s match of the year when Bayley won the RAW women’s title in February, but then after WrestleMania Bayley went through booking hell and Charlotte was living in tag team match purgatory until November. Naomi had a really good start to the year but was treated like a lame duck champion after WrestleMania.
Honorable Mentions: Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch
Standout Matches
- Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega, Wrestle Kingdom
- AJ Styles vs John Cena, Royal Rumble
- Charlotte Flair vs Bayley, February Monday Night RAW
- Fatal 4 Way Ladder Match, WrestleMania
- Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg, WrestleMania
- Auka vs Ember Moon, NXT Takeover Tampa
- Okada vs Omega, Dominion
- Reigns vs Seth Rollins vs Bray Wyatt vs Finn Balor vs Samoa Joe, Extreme Rules
- Reigns vs Lesnar vs Joe vs Braun Strowman, Summerslam
- New Day vs The Usos, Hell in a Cell
- Styles vs Lesnar, Survivor Series
Others worth your time: Roman vs Kevin Owens at Royal Rumble, Styles vs Shane McMahon at WrestleMania, Men’s Money in the Bank Ladder match, Sasha Banks vs Alexa Bliss at Summerslam, Okada vs Omega at the G1 semifinals, Charlotte vs Bliss at Survivor Series, New Day vs The Shield at Survivor Series, The Usos vs Cesar & Sheamus at Survivor Series
Match of the Year
Men: Okada vs Omega at Wrestle Kingdom
The first in the series and it redefined ring work for it’s era. This match sounded the alarm that the wrestling business was picking up outside of WWE and it was time to start paying attention.
Women: Bayley vs Charlotte on Monday Night RAW
I’m sure this is where some of you guys will tell me to go watch Stardom if I wanted to see some real women’s wrestling from 2017, and you may not be wrong this time! There were plenty of good to very good women’s matches in WWE in 2017, but this is the only one that I see people still talking about years later. It was one of the best performances ever by both ladies, and it has historical significance as Bayley’s first main roster title win. I’d put Asuka vs Ember Moon at Takeover Tampa in the same class but Bayley vs Charlotte is a more important match in history so it gets the nod.
Show of the Year
Royal Rumble 2017. PPVs were hit and miss all year, and even the better ones usually had one or two great matches surrounded by some trash. The Rumble card had two excellent title matches for the World and Universal Titles, the most stacked men’s Rumble match ever, and a good RAW Women’s Title Match between Charlotte and Bayley. Survivor Series was also a really good show that year.
Final Verdict
Despite all the criticisms, I had a good time in 2017. I checked out some more shows when I went to the Road to WrestleMania tour and to Extreme Rules. I dug the Jinder title reign; yes the matches were at best ok and in some cases just bad but everything else about it was very entertaining IMO. It did kinda blow up the idea some have been expressing lately that the matches don’t matter so much. Between Jinder’s matches, the Braun/Brock match being a letdown and the KO/AJ feud not hitting there was plenty of proof that the matches do indeed matter very much.
Taking a wider view 2017 was cooking right up until WrestleMania and then things took a turn. The women’s division went on virtual autopilot save for the sheer humiliation of Bayley, which was just flat out bad any way you slice it. As for the Men’s side there were some gems like everything surrounding the Universal Title and the New Day/Usos feud but there were also all the things I mentioned earlier. Was it a bad year? I’d say no; there was too much talent in house to keep things from getting but so bad. But this was a year where it wouldn’t have been crazy to argue that what was going on in New Japan and on the indies was a more consistently good product than in WWE. If anything it was a testament to how much progress had been made so quickly. This exact same level of quality would have gotten a much warmer reaction in say, 2012 or 2013. But the bar in WWE had been raised since then and 2017 barely cleared it so I give them a C. For wrestling as a whole when you factor in NXT and what was going on in New Japan and on the indies then I’d raise it to a B overall.
The grade tally so far – 2012: B, 2013: C, 2014: A, 2015: A-, 2016: A
Stroke of Genius 