WWE Match of the Year - 2014

[Big Fresh]

 

 

 

It won't mean much because the match didn't mean shit, but the Divas match at Mania was the best divas match this year. Mainly for the Bellas busting out double suicide dives and Brie starting her slide into "dumbest face since Sting" role. Haha

Really? Charlotte/Nattie and Charlotte/Bailey rank pretty much higher for me.

Don't watch NXT. But Nattie is fucking awful. Awful.

 

 

Yes she is, but that match was still great. I'm sure it's mostly because of Charlotte.

[SirSmUgly]

Nattie is awkward in the ring, but Charlotte/Nattie was quite good, actually. 

 

I think Charlotte is close to being VERY good. She had a couple of good matches with Bayley and a couple of solid ones with Becky Lynch. Looking forward to Charlotte/Sasha Banks as that is surely coming up soon. 

[Greggulator]

I have to rewatch Bryan/Bray. But that match was absolutely unreal the first time I saw it and the violence between the two was really amplified. I love Bray hitting a Fatboy Senton on the floor. The finish is one of the best of the year, where Bray catches Bryan in a dive and hits Sister Abigail and then his a second for the win.

 

All of those Shield/Wyatt matches are awesome. They're all SO different from each other, too. ECW used to run a lot of similar series, where like Sabu and RVD would have an awesome match against Candido and Storm or whoever. All of the rematches were all so friggin' similar with the ends a bit different in terms of counters. But The Shield/Wyatt guys made a concentrated effort to really build different matches. Their first rematch on the Raw was another was also the greatness, and they had the awesome in-ring story where Seth walked out on his mates so they could get back on the same page at a later date. (And foreshadowed Seth being the guy to leave the group later.)

Cesaro/Cena was also nuts. Cena eating it on the floor after an uppercut was magnificent. But lest we forget Cena friggin' countered The Swing with some sit-up into a DDT thing? That's straight up insanity -- the core strength he has to pull that off is otherworldly.

Charlotte/Nattie was really good but had a few things in it that were meh. I hate Nattie but she was really good in this match. They had a Figure Four spot that just went on a bit to long but, aside from that, it was a classic.

But it's Shield/Wyatts in a cakewalk this year... and the first half of this year was absolutely AWESOME every week with greatness.

[Lamp, broken circa 1988]

Oh yeah, shit! I forgot about Charlotte/Bayley! that was the match that finally convinced me I should watch NXT regularly. Just excellent. That moment when they're facing off right before Charlotte slams the door would've been starmaking on national TV.

[ebbie]

Y'all praising Charlotte now better hope they start shortening the NXT matches before they call her up. Paige, who has a rep for being awesome during developmental, has really struggled to do anything with 3 min matches. And most people don't fucking care for her now because of it. Well, AJ hasn't helped but still.

[Brian Fowler]

The AJ vs. Paige matches have been excellent.

[Eivion]

Y'all praising Charlotte now better hope they start shortening the NXT matches before they call her up. Paige, who has a rep for being awesome during developmental, has really struggled to do anything with 3 min matches. And most people don't fucking care for her now because of it. Well, AJ hasn't helped but still.

Honestly I thought Paige was overrated. She is one of those I think was pimped more for coming up from the indies, but really even her matches in Shimmer were fairly average. She can do good character work, but WWE really didn't take advantage of this until the AJ feud. People not caring about Paige has more to do with booking/writing than matches.

[Niners Fan in CT]

There was the one AJ/Paige match that was pretty good. The one where Paige wins clean with that sick DDT. I thought the others were disappointing.

[mco543]

I think Charlotte would benefit from the shorter matches on the main roster. It'll reduce her pointless legwork and the chances of her getting completely lost.

[BillThompson]

 

 

 

 

It won't mean much because the match didn't mean shit, but the Divas match at Mania was the best divas match this year. Mainly for the Bellas busting out double suicide dives and Brie starting her slide into "dumbest face since Sting" role. Haha

Really? Charlotte/Nattie and Charlotte/Bailey rank pretty much higher for me.

Don't watch NXT. But Nattie is fucking awful. Awful.

 

 

Yes she is, but that match was still great. I'm sure it's mostly because of Charlotte.

 

 

Nattie called that match and was clearly leading Charlotte through most of it. Charlotte has a lot of potential, but she's not there yet. Nattie can be great, she's just on the main roster which means 90% of the time she can't be great.

[SirSmUgly]

I think Charlotte would benefit from the shorter matches on the main roster. It'll reduce her pointless legwork and the chances of her getting completely lost.

 

The legwork has a reason - she wants to get her opponent on their knees to hit Natural Selection. 

[Ziggy]

Nattie is one of those types that is made to believe that she's this great worker because she's a Hart.  I think she's ok but she's should be more of a power type like Beth Phoenix rather than a technician like Bret and Owen. More like Davey and Jim.

[Big Fresh]

 

 

 

 

 

It won't mean much because the match didn't mean shit, but the Divas match at Mania was the best divas match this year. Mainly for the Bellas busting out double suicide dives and Brie starting her slide into "dumbest face since Sting" role. Haha

Really? Charlotte/Nattie and Charlotte/Bailey rank pretty much higher for me.

Don't watch NXT. But Nattie is fucking awful. Awful.

 

 

Yes she is, but that match was still great. I'm sure it's mostly because of Charlotte.

 

 

Nattie called that match and was clearly leading Charlotte through most of it. Charlotte has a lot of potential, but she's not there yet. Nattie can be great, she's just on the main roster which means 90% of the time she can't be great.

 

 

Nah, she's really awful. One of the worst on the main roster.

[BillThompson]

 

 

 

 

 

 

It won't mean much because the match didn't mean shit, but the Divas match at Mania was the best divas match this year. Mainly for the Bellas busting out double suicide dives and Brie starting her slide into "dumbest face since Sting" role. Haha

Really? Charlotte/Nattie and Charlotte/Bailey rank pretty much higher for me.

Don't watch NXT. But Nattie is fucking awful. Awful.

 

 

Yes she is, but that match was still great. I'm sure it's mostly because of Charlotte.

 

 

Nattie called that match and was clearly leading Charlotte through most of it. Charlotte has a lot of potential, but she's not there yet. Nattie can be great, she's just on the main roster which means 90% of the time she can't be great.

 

 

Nah, she's really awful. One of the worst on the main roster.

 

 

I disagree and the Charlotte match is all the proof one should need that she is far from awful. 

[SirSmUgly]

It's really hard to tell how good the women are on the main show. They usually get no time. Nattie having a good match in NXT with a still-learning Charlotte over 15+ minutes means a lot more to me than her half-assing a bunch of three-minute specials on RAW and Superstars. I agree with Bill on this one. 

[Eivion]

I think Nattie is underrated a good deal due to the rise of NXT and people disliking the personality she has on Total Divas. That said, its pretty much an reverse of how overrated she was before those things happened where she was definitely perceived as the best WWE woman on the roster simply for being a Hart.. I think Nattie is weak as character in and out of the ring but a generally solid wrestler when facing another competent wrestler. Her matches with Alica over the years have been good and she had a nice little match with Sasha during the title tournament. That said, the Charlotte match wasn't remotely a carry job, and you have to be delusional to think otherwise considering how Charlotte has looked since. Charlotte just has a natural talent that keeps growing and growing. She does a bunch of smaller things as a character and even on the mat that Nattie just doesn't have the mind for at all.

[BillThompson]

No one said carry job, but she did call the match, she was visibly the lead, and she was the one guiding the greener Charlotte through the match. That doesn't mean she carried Charlotte, but that via taking the lead she deserves the lion's share of the credit for the match being as good as it was. It also means she deserves the blame for the terrible Figure Four reversal sequence. Like I said, Charlotte has lots of potential, but I haven't seen anything from her, especially on the mat, yet that leads me to believe she's better than someone like Nattie. 

[ebbie]

Nattie gets the benefit of the doubt because she doesn't have a modeling background and because she's a Hart. She's been on the main roster since 2008 and is still the same wrestler she was way back then. She hasn't developed a finishing sequence that every WWE wrestler is expected to have. She transitions from spot to spot like she is trying out the moves in a video game. She doesn't know what to do if something goes wrong. And will wrestle the same match against someone athletic vs someone who prolly shouldn't be in the ring. Don't get me started on how all she can do is smile like an idiot or do an ugly cry for emotions.

The Bellas get a lot of unnecessary shit for being terrible. Well, Brie has her Brie Mode sequence that usually means the end of the match. Nikki's finishing stuff includes knocking the other broad da fuck out before hitting her Rack Attack finisher. Their matches may be forgettable for the most part, but their formulas do work for the environment that they are in. Lo and behold, their matches at least get some of the crowd to react to the pinfall.

[Big Fresh]

Nattie gets the benefit of the doubt because she doesn't have a modeling background and because she's a Hart. She's been on the main roster since 2008 and is still the same wrestler she was way back then. She hasn't developed a finishing sequence that every WWE wrestler is expected to have. She transitions from spot to spot like she is trying out the moves in a video game. She doesn't know what to do if something goes wrong. And will wrestle the same match against someone athletic vs someone who prolly shouldn't be in the ring. Don't get me started on how all she can do is smile like an idiot or do an ugly cry for emotions.

The Bellas get a lot of unnecessary shit for being terrible. Well, Brie has her Brie Mode sequence that usually means the end of the match. Nikki's finishing stuff includes knocking the other broad da fuck out before hitting her Rack Attack finisher. Their matches may be forgettable for the most part, but their formulas do work for the environment that they are in. Lo and behold, their matches at least get some of the crowd to react to the pinfall.

And maybe it's not fair to judge her ringworm based on this, but when Nattie spends 90% of her time telling everyone how amazing she is because it's in her blood or whatever nonsense she's always spewing, you better live up to that. And she doesn't.

[mco543]

Nattie is carny as fuck for getting people to buy into her bullshit. The amount of people who think Nattie is some superworker or something whom WWE is wasting and misusing is staggering. Despite listing Bret and Davey Boy as, likely, my two favorite wrestlers of all-time I never realized the cachet that the Hart name carried until her.

[SirSmUgly]

People should get off Nikki Bella's case too, though that has nothing to do with whether or not Nattie is good. Nikki actually does some pretty hurty-looking offense. I wouldn't mind seeing Nikki trying to put her forearm through Charlotte's face for fifteen minutes. They should find a way to run that match on NXT after Charlotte completes a full face turn. 

[Eivion]

Charlotte should never do a full face turn.

[SirSmUgly]

Charlotte should never do a full face turn.

 

I agree in principle, but I think they might be moving that way on NXT, where it doesn't hurt to see how she works as a face. She comes off as naturally snotty, though, so she definitely makes a better tweener or heel.

 

I guess since we're talking about the women coming up through NXT and wrestling on the main shows right now, I'll ask as a side question which women's matches of the year, if any, would make all y'alls top tens for WWE matches in 2014

[ebbie]

People should get off Nikki Bella's case too, though that has nothing to do with whether or not Nattie is good. Nikki actually does some pretty hurty-looking offense. I wouldn't mind seeing Nikki trying to put her forearm through Charlotte's face for fifteen minutes. They should find a way to run that match on NXT after Charlotte completes a full face turn.

She punches people in the fucking face before dropping them like 5th period French. She hit a vicious right hand to Emma in one match that would made most male workers blush. She's been rough with Brie too and been hard titty slapping in tag matches also. Nikki wants to her people and I want to have her babies for that tbh.

[Greggulator]

How did this become a Nattie thread? I enjoy Nattie discussions more than anyone but...

We had an ongoing Best Of The Year for a while that we failed to keep up. There are some matches on there I completely forgot about.

Dean Ambrose, obviously, had a fantastic year. My worker of the year is Bray (all the ShieldWyatts matches, Bray/Bryan, Bray/Cena LMS and a few forgotten gems) but Ambrose is maybe number two.

Case in point: His singles matches against Bray (on a Smackdown) and Albert Del Rio on a Main Event. The Main Event match is an awesome watch. This is when Dean's arm was all bandaged up and there's no one better at attacking arms than ADR. Bend blows (run-in from Rollins-type thing) but we really missed out on these two having some sort of feud at some point.

Ambrose/Rollins also had the best lumberjack match of all-time. People went in hating on the match just because of people hating the gimmick. They used the gimmick fabulously well, using the bells-and-whistles of everyone else at ringside to make their stuff so wild looking. The stuff with them in the crowd fighting was so awesome. Their match on Raw where Dean ate the bricks is also spectacular and everything great about hate-filled wrestling.

Also, NXT had some fantastic stuff. I forgot about the awesome Zayn/Kidd match where Kidd tapped out. The workrate stuff in it is textbook. But the greater storytelling is even better. Tyson Kidd's insecurities got the better of him in his NXT run (and he became THE douche heel of the year, with apologies to Seth Rollins) and he took shortcuts to get ahead as a result. Sami's the epitome of spitfire babyface fighting spirit, and he overcomes Tyson by putting him in his submission finisher and chickenshit Tyson taps out immediately, taking the ultimate shortcut as opposed to fighting through his personal adversity. A+.