My Wrestling Yearbook – 2018

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.

You want a polarizing year in wrestling? 2018 takes the cake as there was much to rejoice about and a lot of ‘shoot your TV in disgust’ worthy material as well.  From a quality standpoint there was once again a gender divide in WWE but for the first time it did not favor the men.   There were a lot more firsts for the women, including some groundbreaking stuff that has yet to be duplicated. Ronda Rousey would arrive in WWE and take things by storm, altering the state of women’s wrestling for good in the process. But the men’s side saw a main event scene that was constantly in disarray and perpetually falling short of satisfying anyone.

Meanwhile outside of WWE Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega concluded their groundbreaking series with another classic, and then Kenny and his buddies took over New Japan in the most self indulgently bad way possible. All while taking Ring of Honor to it’s biggest moneymaking year ever. Yes, it was the best and the worst of times in lots of different places, all at the same time.

As for me, I started to expand my horizons a bit. AXS TV had started showing broadcasts of New Japan shows so I took the opportunity to acquaint myself. Ring of Honor ran a PPV nearby, Best in the World 2018, so I went and checked it out. I went to a few other shows around here too. I got familiar with Okada and Omega and many others from over there, and with Dalton Castle and Jay Lethal and some other guys from Ring of Honor including a guy named Punishment Martinez who you all would get to know as Damien Priest in NXT.

That being said…….what was good? What was bad? Was anything special?

The Good

Women’s Wrestling. 2018 was the best year for women’s wrestling ever in WWE, hands down. Here’s all what happened in this one year in WWE:

• The first ever women’s Royal Rumble
• The first ever all women’s WWE PPV
• First ever women’s elimination chamber match
• First ever women’s last woman standing match
• First ever women’s TLC match
• 3 PPVs where women’s matches main evented
• 5 PPVs that had 3 women’s matches, a new record
• Main eventing on the Holiday Tour (I got to see this myself in person)

And if that wasn’t enough we had the first WrestleMania where the two best matches involved women – Charlotte Flair vs Asuka and Ronda Rousey’s debut in a mixed tag match with Kurt Angle vs HHH and Stephanie McMahon, and one of the greatest women’s feuds in WWE history with Charlotte vs Becky Lynch. The women’s rumble saw present and future Hall of Famers Nikki & Brie Bella, Beth Phoenix, Jacqueline, Michelle McCool, Torrie Wilson, Trish Stratus and Lita all come back to compete while the Bellas, Trish, and Lita came back to work the Evolution PPV. The best of the feud of the year in WWE was between Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair, and Lynch was the breakout star of the year in the entire industry. On many a night be it on TV or PPV the women’s matches and segments either saved the show or were the best things on them. In short, the women’s division was THE reason to watch WWE in 2018 and they delivered whenever they were put in a spot to shine.

And you cannot acknowledge all of that without giving credit to one Ronda Rousey. At the end of the day Ronda’s first run with WWE was highly successful and if we’re going to be honest about things, well, most of this progress does not happen without Ronda agreeing to come on board. Remember that they were recruiting her hard as far back as 2015, when she made an appearance at WrestleMania 31. Ronda is a longtime wrestling fan and at the time was one of the biggest female athletes in the world when she drew some huge buys for her UFC fights. There’s no way Ronda was going to come on board to join the 2012-early 2015 Diva’s Division; the entire thing would have to be made into something 100 times better for her to buy in. Did the women who were already there deserve more PPV main events, more TV time, their own Rumble, etc.? Yes, but we all know that wasn’t going to happen just because they did. In the world of pro wrestling big, sweeping wholesale changes that come that quickly are because something forced them to happen, and in this case all evidence points to that thing being Ronda Rousey.

Outside of women’s wrestling there was Okada and Omega finishing their epic series. Ring of Honor had it’s best year of business fueled by Omega and his pals in the Elite – Hangman Page, the Young Bucks, and a guy named Cody Rhodes. In fact at WrestleMania weekend Ring of Honor’s Supercard of Honor drew 6,000 people in New Orleans to see Dalton Castle defend the ROH World Title and Omega take on Cody. Business outside of WWE had picked up nicely and a lot of people were doing well……which would lead to something huge that summer.

The first ever All In, produced by Ring of Honor and starring a who’s who of wrestling outside of WWE, was held at the Hoffman Estates arena in Rosemont, Illinois and drew over 11,000 in what was like Woodstock for Pro Wrestling.

It had been years since a non-WWE show in America drew that many people and this one reportedly sold out in 30 minutes. The event was like one big pilgrimage to fans of indie wrestling, which was thriving on merit and because dissatisfaction with WWE was beginning to creep in ways that no longer could be ignored. But this event’s success should only be seen as a testament to what the people involved were able to build in a short time.

The Bad

Speaking of dissatisfaction with WWE……

The ending of WrestleMania 34 was an all time bad decision, and reverberated through the men’s roster for the rest of the year and well into 2019. The ongoing online wars over Roman Reigns and his place on the roster had reached an all time peak for nastiness and were spilling over from the IWC into the fanbase at large, leading to the crowd in New Orleans totally high jacking the main event between Reigns and Brock Lesnar. And then faced with a choice of putting the Universal Title on Reigns and taking on the headwinds or moving on after this match…Vince chose to do neither, thus managing to piss off both the Roman loyalists like me and the Roman haters. If an image can tell a story it’s this one right here:

People throw the phrase ‘bad booking/creative’ around way too much but in this case there was a very quick, measurable effect in things like TV ratings once the reality set in a few weeks after Mania was over. Correlation and causation are often conflated but in this case the two line up almost perfectly so it’s not crazy at all to blame the quick and sharp decline in interest on Vince’s indecision here. And it had a ripple effect that brought down both brands. The IWC can get into a lot of 10 point arguments about why a wrestling company is succeeding or failing but at the end of the day it’s pretty simple. If the main event tier of your men’s roster is hitting then your company is going to succeed and if it’s not then you’re gonna have problems. As stellar as the women’s side was doing this year they could not overcome the disdain people had at how the top of the men’s side was being handled.

The main event scene on the men’s side was chaotic and unsatisfying for the rest of the year. Reigns went from the Main Event of WrestleMania to headlining Backlash in a slapped together match against Samoa Joe to a midcard match at Money in the Bank against Jinder Mahal to putting over Bobby Lashley clean at Extreme Rules right before the main event to beating Lesnar in the main event at Summerslam. Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler had an Ironman match at Extreme Rules that had people really giddy going in but then became a story of the fans counting down every minute with the countdown clock that was on the big screen during the match. Then there was the nostalgia paycheck run on back to back shows that saw three part timers grab one more check (HHH, Taker, and Kane) and would bring back Shawn Michaels in one of the biggest mistakes ever.

Circling back to Roman….unfortunately the bad things were not limited to what happened on camera. Earlier in the year there were dirtsheet rumors flying all around that he was going to implicated in a steroid scandal, leading to all kinds of speculation and in some cases flat out wishful thinking that he was going to be pulled the Mania main event and replaced with Daniel Bryan. Then in October he would share with the shocking news that he had leukemia, it had had returned, and he would need to take time off for treatment. That day took me back to 1986 when David Crockett announced that Magnum TA had been in a car accident and his career was likely over, and to 1991 when Magic Johnson announced he had HIV. Two young men, two horrible announcements, and in the latter case a life that was presumed to not have much time left. Not knowing anything about leukemia I feared the worst, that while Roman was trying to be upbeat we may not ever see him again as we knew him.

Roman’s absence was another blow to the company’s prospects; while the strife over how Roman was booked had finally begun to drive away some people earlier in the year this news drove away many of Roman’s fans who did not want to continue on without him, and others who just felt a dark cloud over Monday Nights in light of what we knew. It didn’t help things when Roman’s Shield mates would come out of it feuding with each other in bizarre and excruciating fashion that would have to be cleaned up when Reigns returned in 2019. Things got bad and then worse on that side real fast, and by the end of the year the audience numbers had dipped to the worst levels ever.

WWE wasn’t the only place making people shake their heads, though. On the other side of the world, the Elite creative takeover of New Japan resulted in a onscreen family feud that droned on for months and sidelined everyone else in the company creatively while they engaged in a circle jerk storyline that pitted them against the other members of the Bullet Club in a battle that no one was really asking for and few people outside of Bullet Club superfans seemed to enjoy. And as we’ve seen it was merely a precursor to how the group would book themselves over the next six years up until this very date.

Anything special happen?

I’ve already talked about these two, but the women’s division and all that transpired within it was a truly special thing, the lone consistent bright spot in WWE all year. All of those first, all of those big spots, and all of the home runs that those ladies hit whenever they got to step to the plate. All In was the other thing that really shined this year, and was the spotlight for wrestling outside of WWE that had long been missing in the world.

I’d be remiss to not include Daniel Bryan here. Bryan’s return at WrestleMania 34 after three years away from the ring was one of the few good things that happened on the men’s side in WWE that year, and he gave us the one men’s main event that lived up to the hype when he put on a classic with Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series.

Awards – Who was the best?

Top 5 Male Wrestlers: 1. AJ Styles, 2. Seth Rollins 3. Roman Reigns, 4. Kenny Omega, 5. Kazuchika Okada

Styles may be a head scratching pick for some but when you look back at the year he was consistently very good to great all year long. The IWC hated the way his feud with Nakamura was booked but the matches delivered, particularly the blowoff at Money in the Bank. But before and after that he put on really good work as well, more than any man in WWE not named Roman Reigns or Seth Rollins. Okada and Omega delivered huge at Dominion but after that both kind of tailed off into other things. The rest of the WWE roster was real hit and miss, as much due to booking and creative as anything they were doing themselves. Reigns was continuing the great work he’d been doing in 2016 and 2017 but only worked for nine months.

Honorable Mentions: Cody Rhodes, Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, Ricochet

Top 5 Women Wrestlers: 1. Charlotte Flair, 2. Becky Lynch, 3. Ronda Rousey, 4. Alexa Bliss, 5. Asuka

Charlotte Flair put together the best year ring work not just in WWE this year but the best that any woman ever has in WWE history. Not only did she have matches that you can put in a time capsule and show to any era but between TV and other PPVs I can rattle off another half dozen or some matches that I would put up against anybody else’s work in WWE or anywhere else that year. She took the ball and ran with it in the ring for 12 months like no woman before or after. And when she took on Rousey on a moment’s notice with no prep and no storyline but put on that match the last talking point anyone had, that she was reliant on having great opponents who she was familiar with, was gone.

Lynch was her most frequent dance partner from August through the end of the year and more than held up her end when they clashed. Given her ascension during that time, she’s easily number two here. Rousey, for a being green as all get out, performed in the ring far above anyone’s expectations and was the woman who’s arrival caused all the progress in the division. Yes she had a lot of help from tag team partners, her opponents, and protective match layouts, but there are people who get all of those things and still fall flat on their faces. Bliss continued the roll she started on in 2016 through Summerslam, finishing one of the best 20 month runs anyone has ever had in the company. Lastly Asuka who was great but like Lynch got stuck in some booking situations that kept her from being in big spots for a large part of the year.

Honorable Mentions: Sasha Banks, Naomi, Bayley

Standout Matches

• Women’s Royal Rumble
• Johnny Gargano vs Andrade at Takeover Philadelphia
• 6 Way North American Title Ladder Match, NXT Takeover New Orleans
• Charlotte Flair vs Asuka, WrestleMania 34
• Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey vs HHH and Stephanie McMahon, WrestleMania 34
• Kazuchika Okada vs Kenny Omega, Dominion
• AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura, Last Man Standing, Money in the Bank
• Women’s Money in the Bank match
• Charlotte Flair vs Becky Lynch, Evolution
• Charlotte Flar vs Ronda Rousey, Survivor Series
• Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan, Survivor Series
• Charlotte Flair vs Becky Lynch vs Asuka, TLC

Others worth your time: Okada vs Tetsuya Naito at Wrestle Kingdom, Men’s Royal Rumble, Men’s and Women’s Elimination Chamber, IC Triple Threat at WrestleMania 34, Styles vs Nakamura at WrestleMania, Nia Jax vs Ronda Rousey at Money in the Bank, Flair vs Lynch vs Camella at Summerslam, Flair vs Lynch on October 9 Smackdown

Match of the Year

Men: Okada vs Omega at Dominion

The match that capped their epic saga was better than any other men’s offering that year by far. Not a whole lot to say there.

Women: Charlotte vs Becky at Evolution

Best match of that night and to this day for a lot of people the best women’s match they’ve ever seen. Although if you ask me on a different I might pick Charlotte vs Asuka at WrestleMania 34. It’s not lost on me that for many people on the internet Charlotte winning or losing will literally change the way they grade one of her matches, and that some very vocal people hate the Mania 34 match because she did win, and love this one so much because she lost.

Show of the Year

Evolution & All In (tie)

What else? Not only was Evolution historic, it delivered from top to bottom and had a match of the year candidate in the Last Woman Standing Match between Becky and Charlotte. I challenge you to find any card in 2018 that had a better good to stinker ratio of matches (Evolution had none of the latter, btw). If we’re judging cards in total then it was the best one start to finish in 2018.

All In on the other hand was the most significant the most significant show of the year in that it was the biggest non-WWE show in America since the Monday Night Wars, and was the Genesis point for what would be come All Elite Wrestling in 2019.

Final Verdict

2018 in WWE was like there were two different companies, one for the men and one for the women.  It was and still is the best year all around for women in WWE history and maybe any American wrestling company ever. For that they get an A. However the men’s side gets a big fat D-; the only thing keeping them from failing was that there were still some great individual matches that took place throughout the year. As for me, it was a great year and a rough year. Being the huge Roman Reigns fan that I am, it was a real struggle to get through the year. Being involved in the online Reigns Wars took it’s toll on me as a fan, and then for it to all lead to him announcing he had leukemia and needing to take off was like the knockout blow after a series of haymakers. Like many people I stuck around for the Women’s stuff and was not disappointed. By 2018 Charlotte had become my favorite woman wrestler and proved time and again that I had made the right choice, and it was awesome to see her in all of those big matches and to deliver every time out.

I also enjoyed getting into Ring of Honor and New Japan that year, and had a good time at Best in the World when I checked that out.  I didn’t watch All In, but I was happy to see it happen.  It is better for everyone involved in the wrestling business if there is more than one place that can draw bigger crowds and bring in more money.  All In was the first step in that happening and it was good to see so many people get a showcase like that.

So yeah it was the best of times and the worst of times. And for that reason I give 2018 a split grade. WWE Women get an A+, WWE Men get a D-, and the outside world gets a B. A lot of great stuff happened, and a whole lot of crap, too. But if I had to give the whole experience I had one grade it would be a B.

The grade tally so far – 2012: B, 2013: C, 2014: A, 2015: A-, 2016: A, 2017: C