KB’s Review: Insert Your Own Witty Slammy Line Here

This past Monday on “Monday Night Raw”, we were treated to the annual Slammy Awards. While there’s some question about whether or not the voting was rigged, there were some that were spot on and some that made me scratch my head. Therefore, this week is a simple concept: looking at the categories and seeing who I think deserves the award. Keep in mind that this is WWE ONLY in case you’re looking for someone from another promotion. Let’s get to it.

I won’t be using just WWE’s nominees so some of these might be a bit out there. Official winners will be in parentheses.

Fan Participation Award (You Sold Out!). I’m fine with the “You Sold Out” chant winning here, but this easily could have gone to “Let’s Go Cena/Cena Sucks.” That chant has taken on a life of its own over the years and is still going strong today.

Double Cross of the Year (Seth Rollins Betrays The Shield): There really isn’t another option here.

Animal of the Year (The Bunny). I didn’t see the Bunny winning the Royal Rumble and main eventing Wrestlemania so I’ll go with Batista. The Bunny was hot for awhile but they’re WAY past due taking the mask off of him at this point.

Best Actor (The Rock). I know they went with the obvious one here, but Damien Mizdow really deserved this. The stuff he’s doing and being SO into the character is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years in wrestling. Thankfully he’s getting a push and they’re starting to go somewhere with the idea instead of just letting it fizzle out.

Tweet It! (@HEELZiggler). I’m not much of a Twitter guy so sure why not.

Rivalry of the Year (Daniel Bryan vs. The Authority). This is a harder one as not a lot really stands out. I’d have to go with Ambrose vs. Rollins though as they had some great brawls leading up to a pretty solid Cell match (minus the ending). It made both guys look like stars and that’s exactly what an upper midcard feud is supposed to do.

Raw Guest Star of the Year (Hugh Jackman). Yeah this is fine. These things are usually nothing anyway and Jackman actually looks like he could beat a few people up so we’ll go with that.

Best Couple of the Year (Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella). Given that they have only been on TV together like once all year, I can’t quite give it to them. Seriously, why aren’t they EVER shown together? I have to go with HHH and Stephanie. They’re awesome at what they do and you can’t make up the natural chemistry they have together.

Faction of the Year (Shield). I’m fine with Shield for all the great matches they had, but I think I would have given this to the Authority. They were around longer than Shield and were by far the dominant story all year long. That being said, Shield is one of the best teams ever put together and I can see why they would get the nod after the awesome months they had to open the year.

NXT Superstar of the Year (Sami Zayn). Not quite. Zayn is most famous for never winning anything and Neville has been champion over nine months. This felt like a fan vote more than anything else, which is a shame as Neville has been having an excellent year of his own. Sami has probably had better matches, but the title reign is too much for me to ignore.

Anti-Gravity Moment of the Year (Seth Rollins dives off the balcony at Payback). Yep. Again I have almost nothing else here.

Tell Me You Didn’t Just Say That (Rock insults Lana and Rusev). Actually I’m going with Heyman’s rap on Cena. We’ve heard Rock do this kind of stuff so many times that it’s hard to top what he’s done, so I’ll take something a bit more fresh. Heyman nailed what he wsa supposed to do, just like he always does.

Tag Team of the Year (The Usos). There really aren’t many other options outside of the Dust Brothers so I’m fine with this one as well.

Breakout Star of the Year (Dean Ambrose). Given the absolute dominance of these awards by Seth Rollins, I have a bit of an issue with this one. Dean would have been the second choice though as that run he hit in September and October was some of the most fun I’ve had in years in WWE. Rollins had a better year overall, but he never got close to how hot Ambrose was at that time. I can see this one but I don’t quite agree with it.

Hashtag of the Year (RKOOuttaNowhere). Again, not much of a Twitter guy but I did like some of the Vine videos so sure why not.

THIS IS AWESOME Award (Sting debuts). This is one where my personal bias is going to be a lot stronger than it is in the other picks. I was lucky enough to be in the Superdome for “Wrestlemania XXX” this year and I have never been more excited than when the glass shattered and Austin came out to stand face to face with Hulk Hogan. That opening segment is as amazing of a visual as anything you’ll find in wrestling and I can’t put anything ahead of it this year. I’m a huge Sting fan and he would have won any other year, but he’s not Austin, Hogan and Rock in the same ring at Wrestlemania.

Surprise Return of the Year (Ultimate Warrior). Yeah this is fine, especially given that a lot of the others were announced in advance.

OMG Shocking Moment of the Year (Brock Lesnar ends the Streak). This might be the most shocking moment of all time so I think it’s a safe pick this year. True story from that night: grown men ran out of the building in tears and didn’t come back for the main event. Think about that for a minute. As for the other options, Bray Wyatt’s children’s choir still gives me chills and Rollins breaking up the Shield was a good choice as well, but they were in WAY over their heads here.

Diva of the Year (AJ Lee). I was BEGGING them to go with one of the Bellas so I could laugh my head off at them. You could easily go with AJ or Paige here and it would have been fine. AJ’s victory speech about wanting one of the NXT girls to take this award next year was a great touch.

LOL Moment of the Year (Damien Mizdow). I have to go with WeeLC. Seriously, that had the potential to be the biggest disaster in history and it was one of the funniest and most well done matches I’ve seen in a long time. Mizdow is great but WeeLC was glorious, much like most of the stuff WWE does when they put some effort into it.

Match of the Year (Team Cena vs. Team Authority). This was good but I have to go with Shield vs. Wyatts from Elimination Chamber. The build for it was great, the execution of it was great and the reaction was great. Those six guys went to war with each other and I was dying to see it from the moment the match was set up.

Extreme Moment of the Year (Chris Jericho dives off the cage). I didn’t remember this one about a week after it happened so I can’t go with this. Yet again, we come back to Seth Rollins as it’s either him crushing Dean’s head on the cinder blocks or the dive onto Evolution. I’ll go with the blocks because of what it set up but the dive at Payback was awesome too.

Superstar of the Year (Roman Reigns). This is by far the biggest head scratcher of the night as Reigns has only really had one major moment and that was coming in second in the Royal Rumble. It came off like WWE just had this one ready for him and made sure no one else was going to get it.

As for the winner, I’ll keep the trend going and say Seth Rollins. The guy DOMINATED these awards, had arguably the feud of the year with Ambrose, had a great stretch with the Shield, and won Money in the Bank. The only other option for me was Bryan, but as awesome as those five months were, they’re still just five months. Rollins did everything but win the World Title, and you have to imagine that’s coming next year. Orton and Cena had their regular years, but Rollins was solid from January through December, which no one else was.

Overall the Slammys were mostly fine, but Superstar of the Year really felt like WWE had decided who was winning the award way in advance. I mean, they just happened to have him at TV in case he won the award? That’s a bit more than a stretch and I can’t buy it. This was Seth Rollins’ year and he dominated the awards as he should have.

 

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