What Year That I've Watched is the Best

[Toates Madhackrviper]

Started watching WWE in 2008, I was always curious about wrestling but never got to watch when I was young because the only thing my divorced parents ever agreed on was that wrestling is disgusting. I had caught a few moments of Smackdown before (I was flipping channels and saw Brock Lesnar distract The Rock in a match with Benoit and The Rock tapped out for what the announcers put over was the first time). I had looked at the WWE website and looked it up on Wikipedia while browsing the internet a few times, so I always had a moderate curiosity. But what got me watching was after I messed up college and was kinda just sitting at home watching TV all day and abusing my dad's DVR. I was flipping channels and saw ECW on SciFi and was QUITE CONFUSED because I had heard ECW's name before as a wrestling company and was curious why it was on SciFi channel. So I DVR'd it. Don't quite remember what happened on that episode but I remember it had an advertisement for the draft episode of RAW coming up, which sounded pretty interesting to me so I DVR'd that too and then slowly but surely I was regularly watching RAW, Smackdown, and ECW every week. I've never quite stopped, though there's been times that my schedule or motivation caused me to skip watching the actual shows I at least kept some level of track of what was going on.

So today I found myself curious, which of the years that I've watched this stuff was in FAN's opinion the best overall year? I'm not even sure myself, I think I might actually have enjoyed the product more this year than any other year I've watched. But I'm not really the best at judging that sort of thing, so I am pretty curious what the poll's results show. Some general discussion of the quality of each of the years individually and not just which was the best would be cool too.

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

I really liked 2008. The rise of Jeff Hardy, an incredible feud between Jericho/HBK, two of my favorites at the time, Batista and Cena, finally having a one-on-one match against each other. Lots of stuff that I dug that year.

[Deleted]

This is a tough one. Interestingly, these are the years I've watched on the second half of my wrestling fandom career, before that I watched from 1994 to 2002 or so.

2008 was strong, we still had a lot of the old stars that are now dusted off for big shows actually being a part of things every week. Plus SRS Jericho...nuff said. CM Punk, Kofi, Legacy, Edge vs. Taker, lots of good stuff. I don't even remember that much of it at this point, but there was more star-power and the creative direction seemed focused.

2009 sucked on Raw with Orton's title reign (which had promise that didn't really take hold), constant Batista/Orton/HHH/Cena, guest hosts, DX/Hornswoggle, was strong on Smackdown with Punk, Morrison, Hardy, Edge, Mysterio etc. carrying it and doing a great job.

2010 felt like things were starting to turn a bit, with the return of Bret Hart, a really well built WrestleMania (that fell somewhat flat in execution), the beginning of NXT, the Nexus angle, Sheamus as a top heel, it was pretty good in retrospect.

2011 was the most up and down. We saw the return of The Rock, heel R-Truth, CM Punk and Daniel Bryan catching fire. But we saw the return of The Rock (no typo), The Walkout/No Confidence stuff, Christian finally winning the WHC and losing it 2 days later. Strong moments and improved wrestling, interspersed with very repetitive TV and angles with not much resolution.

2012...kind of a blur. Maybe that's just me. But it was strong around Mania time, Lesnar Returns, Extreme Rules was an incredible PPV, . Raw went to 3 hours, which gave us a lot of good wrestling matches on TV featuring guys like Sheamus, Sandow, Cesaro, Ziggler. Punk's heel turn put a damper on the summer/fall, and going into early the next year. Very very forced and never really took hold.

2013 started off pretty weak, Punk/Rock having tough to watch main events at Rumble and EC, predictably setting up Cena/Rock again. The Shield killing it every week, eventually feuding with Daniel Bryan and got him more over showing what he can do working with guys that match his energy. Cena's title reign was average. I like the attempt at a big angle they started at Summerslam, but the execution has not been fun to watch.

I'm gonna say 2008 was the most consistently good, with 2011-2012-2013 all sort of tying for second, with higher highs giving way to lower lows.

[Instant Classic]

I feel like every year it gets better. Although 2009 is my least favorite year out of those mentioned.

[BayleyTiffyCodyCenaJudyHopps]

Punk's heel turn put a damper on the summer/fall,

Couldn't disagree more. I know his fans wanted him to be a face, but you have to admit he was insanely entertaining during that period. I'll take Snidely Whiplash Punk over the "Dime Store Steve Austin" stuff he's doing now any day. Besides, he had no chance whatsoever of replacing Cena as the top face/ambassador, his appeal just wasn't as broad.

[Deleted]

I’d probably say 2008

Great rivalries like Jericho/Michaels and Undertaker/Edge, great moments like Cena’s surprise Rumble return and Punk’s MITB cash-in, Jeff Hardy’s rise and a lot of great matches.

It’s the only year where I don’t think they had a single bad pay-per-view all year. Even the worst show (Cyber Sunday?) was pretty decent. Royal Rumble-No Way Out-Wrestemania 2001 is rightly regarded as the greatest stretch of three pay-per-views ever but I think RR/NWO/WM 2008 may be the second best. All three shows were great.

[Deleted]

He was entertaining, but it was more of a meta way, like "how will he top himself in this desperate attempt at getting booed?" I've had my fill of the meta stuff. Punk (in Yankees gear) vs. hometown guy Cena in Boston (in "fight breast cancer" gear), with both guys getting mixed response resulting in about %70 boos was awful, and sums up that whole period for me. It's Punk though, so of course there was entertainment value. The best was destroying Lawler in the cage and telling us he's the real King of Memphis.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

I'll say 2011 just for Punk and his pipe bomb. Too bad it fizzled out before 2011 even came to an end, but still it was the most excited I've been about the WWE product in years.

[Bravo Echo November]

2008. Every PPV (except for Survivor Series) was incredible.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

For pure wrestling and spectacle, I think 2012 was the best. The Shield were tearing down the house at the end of the year, but at the start of the year was the Cena/Rock match which I'd wanted for years.

[kidglov3s]

My favorite from 2010 to 2013 has been 2011. Grotesque Cody Rhodes, Christian's return/title win (my favorite moment of modern wrestling, even One More Match Christian was great, CM Punk's face turn, cute CM Punk w/ New Nexus, Del Rio at his most entertaining. I had its bad moments for sure but the good moments were a lot more enjoyable for me than the good moments of other years.

[AdamAFL was sooooo wrong]

I know a lot of people have become disillusioned recently but I'd still say 2013 is the best of the years mentioned.

I can't speak for '08 and '09 because I wasn't really watching aside from 'Mania and the odd PPV/RAW/SD here and there.

2010 was pretty bad for the most part but did have a few bright spots (the start of the Nexus etc.)

2011 was okay, it was good around 'Mania time but really caught fire in the summer, kind of fell apart towards the end of the year though.

2012 was okay to start off with and then really caught fire after 'Mania for a while. The end of 2012 was really awful though, with the forced Punk heel turn and everything just sucking, I had to take a couple of months off because I couldn't deal with the awful 3 hour RAW's which were just unwatchable at this point. Very bi-polar year - even by wrestling standards.

2013 has been great though, the build to 'Mania was decent and although the matches were a let down, the build to both Rock/Punk matches entertained me a lot. The Shield and Daniel Bryan have made this year though. There have been some really entertaining moments and opposite to what most on this board believe I've really enjoyed this Corporation/Bryan storyline. Honestly the only bit I've hated is the Big Show shit, could've done without that utter turd of a storyline. We even got a few months without Cena! 2013 is my favourite year (WWE-wise, not counting TNA/ROH etc. here) since 2001.

["Trickster Dogg" James Jesse]

WWF mid-1997 until November 1998 and WWF 2000 until Wrestlemania 17 to me will always the highest of highs that match the quality of the 1980s/1990s Hogan years, but also some of the lowest lows (barring the Kane/X-Pac team and Triple H's rise to the main event, 1999 is the most horribly Russo of years).

In comparison, 2008-2013 is really blurry in terms of what I thought was interesting. 2009 was a cesspool of guest hosts. I oddly remember more about TNA's 2010 because of how terrible it was rather than what WWE was doing. Punk's mid-2011 run is probably the only thing from this era I've been really excited about, so I'll say that.