Good stuff from 2014

[Mid-Carder]

I'm generally a positive WWE fan and, despite the crap from this year, a lot of it out of their hands due to injuries and walkouts, I've still enjoyed a lot of it. So this is purely a thread for positivity (so I will probably be the only post!). NXT doesn't count because it always gets positivity.

Here's stuff I personally have enjoyed. Add your own-

- Daniel Bryan's ascent to the WWE title and his short reign
- the ending of the Streak
- Seth Rollins' heel run
- Dean Ambrose' face run
- Seth, Dean and Bray Wyatt being considered PPV main eventers ahead of Cena
- Lana
- Rusev's continuous improvement
- the Authority (yep)
- Jack Swagger's face push
- Dolph Ziggler's re-ascent
- Brock Lesnar
- Mizdow (and Miz)
- WrestleMania, Summerslam and Survivor Series (all awesome to me)
- the Shield, while they were still together
- Nikki Bella since Summerslam, taking a turd of storyline and running with it
- the Bray/Dean storyline (yep)
- Ryback's return and face push
- Sting's debut
- Hogan and Austin together
- Lita finally getting her Hall of Fame induction and her due credit

Add your own. These are personal, by the way. I enjoyed the Authority and the Bray/Dean storyline, so there's no telling me it was rubbish

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

*Bryan winning the WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania. Covering their own asses it may have been, I don't give a damn. That f***ing ruled, and it's the kind of thing that will be in the montages for 30 years.
*Cesaro's run earlier in the year through to WrestleMania. He possibly had a better "Road To WrestleMania" than anyone on the roster except for Bryan and maybe Wyatt... Which is why it is so frustrating for so many to see him essentially back at square one now.
*The Usos winning the Tag Team Championship. I know people are down on them these days, but I was so happy to see them finally win the gold as reward for building a decent crowd following and consistently good matches over the last couple of years.

[Martin: #TeamBella Treasurer]

- WeeLC. Still love that thing

[Deleted]

Let's see, I guess if I'm inclined to list the good stuff this year...

- Bryan managing to break through to the main event scene.
- Shield / Wyatts.
- Shield / Evolution.
- Face Ambrose.
- WeeLC.
- The return of Douchetista.
- The first few months of the Ambrose / Rollins feud.
- Rusev's matches. (Gimmick, not so much.)
- Lesnar / Cena at SummerSlam, and to a lesser extent SummerSlam as a whole.
- Miz and Mizdow.
- Almost everything about Mania 30.
- The googly-eyed black guy. Truly the silver lining to the cloud of the streak ending.
- Triple H and Stephanie going all-in on being heel instead of half-assing it like they did last year.
- Ziggler's push.
- The brief period of time they were re-pushing Swagger.
- That Paige / Naomi match nobody remembers that was surprisingly brutal.
- Jake Roberts' Hall of Fame speech.
- The Usos winning the tag titles. Not so much the aftermath.
- Ryback being returned to what worked about him.
- The Survivor Series main event.
- The lack of Rey Mysterio.
- Bad News Barrett.
- Bo Dallas.
- Rowan and Harper ending up being better cut out to be singles stars than Bray is.
- Cesaro's depush meaning that we don't have to hear that awful ambulance theme very often.

[thegame415]

There was a lot of great stuff in 2014. It just seems like everything since SummerSlam has been brutal.

[Mid-Carder]

Dec 24, 2014 8:56:41 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

Let's see, I guess if I'm inclined to list the good stuff this year...

- Shield / Wyatts.
- Shield / Evolution.
- Jake Roberts' Hall of Fame speech.
- Bad News Barrett.

Forgot about these, good call

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Dec 24, 2014 9:17:20 GMT -5 thegame415 said:

There was a lot of great stuff in 2014. It just seems like everything since SummerSlam has been brutal.

It always seems to be like that, doesn't it? People watch the TV shows every week, it drags on and it always seems like nothing exciting happens... Then you actually write down all the positive things that have happened and suddenly you have about 20-30 things and it looks like the year was f***ing LOADED with great stuff.

[Bo Rida]

The tag-division at the start of the year, you still had The Usos and Dust Bros but also PTP, Real Americans, Rollins and Reigns, Harper and Rowan, New Age outlaws, Rybaxel and 3MB.
(Somehow Los Matadores outlasted most of them)

The Real Americans vs Sheamus and Christian seems worth a mention on it's own as it's unlikely to make many MotY lists.


The many angry crowds were great too.

[Ben Wyatt]

Dec 24, 2014 9:17:20 GMT -5 thegame415 said:

There was a lot of great stuff in 2014. It just seems like everything since SummerSlam has been brutal.

Yeah. What really sucks is that Summerslam itself seemed to plant the seeds for some cool stuff from then to now. The company then proceeded to drop the ball and kick it over and over.

[Mid-Carder]

Dec 24, 2014 10:01:34 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

The Real Americans vs Sheamus and Christian seems worth a mention on it's own as it's unlikely to make many MotY lists.

I have absolutely no recollection of this. When/where/why was this?

[mo]

Mania in general was the best in years. Some genuine Wrestlemania moments after several years of mediocrity.

Also the Rumble crowd backlash was one of the craziest things I've seen in wrestling.

[gr1990]

* Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania. The most emotionally invested in a wrestling match I've ever been. That's how you make people care about wrestling in 2014, give them a real underdog who legitimately has had the chance to succeed at the top level taken away from him time and again and have him finally achieve it, hinting until the last possible moment that the chance might be taken away from him yet again

* The sheer anarchy at the Rumble and immediately after. Even if it was the result of WWE completely ignoring its audience, watching the machine and its carefully-formatted plans get thrown into complete disarray by something totally unforeseen (by those in charge) was hilarious and thrilling

* Cesaro winning the battle royal. I've never been so disappointed with the follow-up of something ever. I genuinely thought he'd be #3 or #4 babyface at this point, and someone we'd be seriously talking up as a Rumble winner

* The Shield vs Wyatts, the Shield vs Evolution, and the break-up

* Ambrose vs Rollins, aside from it never getting a satisfying blowoff, and them both absolutely nailing their face and heel roles when I was almost certain it would only work with Rollins as the good guy and Ambrose as the bad guy

* Bad News Barrett making a potentially awful gimmick entertaining through sheer charisma and enthusiasm, and his surprise megapush post-Wrestlemania. Who knows where he might be now without the injury

* Survivor Series main event. Who would have thought 18 months ago that Dolph Ziggler and Sting would have starring roles in the main event of a WWE pay-per-view?

* Miz and Mizdow reviving both mens' careers and becoming legitimately the only consistently entertaining part of Raw at this moment in time

* Lesnar destroying Cena at Summerslam

* Rusev and Lana, and generally Rusev being booked strongly. All they need to do now is to stop him being morally in the right in just about every situation they put him in

* Lesnar killing Cena at Summerslam

* Lesnar ending the Streak. It's a fake sport and this was about as big a shock as it can give you, I don't see how this could possibly be a bad thing. People's ludicrously fierce anger towards something Taker himself had clearly approved made it even better

* Triple H's wrestling appearances being used exclusively to put younger talent over at long last, and him and Steph's performance as the Authority in general, even if the storyline itself ran out of steam by the end

* Everything in NXT apart from Mojo Rawley, the Ascension and the commentary team

* While unintentional on WWE's part and quite depressing, the whole CM Punk saga and the revelations it has brought us has been grimly fascinating

[berlynwright]

[Bo Rida]

Dec 24, 2014 10:09:40 GMT -5 Mid-Carder said:

Dec 24, 2014 10:01:34 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

The Real Americans vs Sheamus and Christian seems worth a mention on it's own as it's unlikely to make many MotY lists.

I have absolutely no recollection of this. When/where/why was this?

Feb 10th Raw, it was basically a throwaway match despite some flimsy USA vs foreign faces justification but it was really good.
Somebody else must remember it fondly?

[Chilly McFreeze]

Tyson Kidd inexplicably turning into a entertaining character.

[MrBRulzOK]

Honestly the wrestling itself was pretty great this year. From stuff like the Wyatts vs Shield, Cena vs Wyatt Last Man Standing, Daniel Bryan's matches at Wrestlemania, The Awesome Uso/Wyatts Tag Series, A good chunk of Cesaro stuff, practically every NXT Special Main Event...

It's just the other stuff that's hindered things.

[Abdullah]

Paige's debut and AJ's return.

It could have been a hell of a story.

[FAR5222]

Orton/Cesaro - Smackdown (February)

Cesaro/Cena - Raw (February)

Tag Teams were more entertaining in the beginning of the year prior to Mania 30. I was Uso-Crazy until commentary and the same booked matches killed it in June.

The Shield up until Payback.

Bryan Winning two matches at Mania and the World Heavyweight Title.

Batista being entertaining again after February.

HHH & Stephanie heeling it up

Swagger was super over in June and then they screwed it up.

Cesaro was super over and they screwed it up by June when they took Paul Heyman from him and he started losing and getting less air time on Raw

WrestleMania 30

TV matches were still hot coming out of 2013 but something happened when June rolled around.

The reoccurring thing in this list is that WWE screwed up everything in June and kept it this way until the end of the year.

Now onto things good post June

Brock Lesnar destroying Cena

Seth Rollins/Dean Ambrose fued

I guess Sting showing up for those who enjoyed it.

Ziggler being prominent on TV since September.

That's pretty much it. Too much negatives for WWE post Mania 30/Payback.

[Deleted]

NXT! NXT! NXT!!


Beyond that, I was really impressed by Douchetista 2014. That whole press conference thing where he was yelling at himself about wearing skinny jeans was easily in the top 5 moments of 2014 for WWE.

[The Legendary Ring Troll {BLM}]

Dec 24, 2014 10:01:34 GMT -5 Bo Rida said:

The tag-division at the start of the year, you still had The Usos and Dust Bros but also PTP, Real Americans, Rollins and Reigns, Harper and Rowan, New Age outlaws, Rybaxel and 3MB.
(Somehow Los Matadores outlasted most of them)

Didn't they break up last year?

Edit: Nevermind, was January of this year. Damn, feels like they've been broken up forever already.