Favorite Years of Favorite Promotions?

[Stuttsy]

I really love 1996 WWF. It's like this bizarre transition period from the 80's/early 90's way of doing things into the more modern way of doing things. You get Mankind, Dustin, Ron Simmons, Marc Mero, Austin brought in from Atlanta breathing new life into things and clashing with the established WWF guys like Shawn, Bulldog, etc., there's the Ultimate Warrior experiment again, Sunny's rise as the first "diva" and a ton of SMW/territory guys like Smothers, Tony Anthony, Tom Brandi, Bill Irwin, etc mixing it up on Superstars. To me in a lot of ways its the most fascinating year in company history as WCW was really starting to click on all cylinders so what you get in retaliation is this hodge podge style of wrestling where Marc Mero is doing what WWF thinks is a cruiserweight style match and the Smoking Gunns & Godwinns & Rockers & Bodydonnas are doing the four way dance concept borrowed from ECW, Pillman and Austin are starting to push a harder edge to their stuff but at the same time you've got your WWF cartoon characters like Uncle Zebekiah and WHO and TL Hopper running around. It's right at the end of the old way of doing things and right at the beginning of the new way of doing things and that's fascinating to me.

[Domino_Not_Deuce]

I really love 1996 WWF. It's like this bizarre transition period from the 80's/early 90's way of doing things into the more modern way of doing things. You get Mankind, Dustin, Ron Simmons, Marc Mero, Austin brought in from Atlanta breathing new life into things and clashing with the established WWF guys like Shawn, Bulldog, etc., there's the Ultimate Warrior experiment again, Sunny's rise as the first "diva" and a ton of SMW/territory guys like Smothers, Tony Anthony, Tom Brandi, Bill Irwin, etc mixing it up on Superstars. To me in a lot of ways its the most fascinating year in company history as WCW was really starting to click on all cylinders so what you get in retaliation is this hodge podge style of wrestling where Marc Mero is doing what WWF thinks is a cruiserweight style match and the Smoking Gunns & Godwinns & Rockers & Bodydonnas are doing the four way dance concept borrowed from ECW, Pillman and Austin are starting to push a harder edge to their stuff but at the same time you've got your WWF cartoon characters like Uncle Zebekiah and WHO and TL Hopper running around. It's right at the end of the old way of doing things and right at the beginning of the new way of doing things and that's fascinating to me.

 

That's kinda why I love early WWECW because you've got this crazy product where guys like Sandman and Balls Mahoney are working in the super corporate WWE and being entertaining with it. It really felt like a show that was as different as something as it could be whilst still falling under the WWE banner. In fact, that whole period of 2006 with Sabu/Cena PPV matches and long Flair/Foley segments was pretty surreal and it's all worth a watch now.

[The Natural]

1997 WWF for reasons people have already given. Also fond of 1994, 1998 and 2002.

 

1997 WCW for Sting/WCW vs. n.W.o.

 

For ECW, 1996/1997/1999.

 

2005 was easily TNA's best ever year with the X Division, Samoa Joe joining TNA and AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Christopher Daniels at Unbreakable.

 

2004-2006 for Ring of Honor. Very tough call between 2005 and 2006 for the best year. Can't go wrong with either. Went for 2005 with James Gibson, Aries/Gibson, Summer of Punk, the start of Bryan Danielson's ROH World Title reign and the ROH debuts of Kenta Kobashi and Samoa Joe.

 

2004 for NOAH with Kobashi's GHC Title defenses against Yoshihiro Takayama, Jun Akiyama, Akira Taue and NOAH's first Tokyo Dome Show.

[Kaptain Kayfabe]

1996 was such an interesting year for both WCW and WWF, which is why reading the classic Observers from that time period are so interesting. WCW began just ammasing this huge amount of talent but from the get go obviously had no idea what to do with it, while WWF was starting to really get edgy/ECW-esque and build for the future. Looking back on it now, it was like an NFL team drafting for the future. The second half of '94 was rough and '95 was even worse, but by '96 the corner was being turned and then by '97 it was on fire. 

 

ECW in 1995 was the best year ever for that promotion, by far.

 

SMW 1994 was awesome too.

[Jiji]

Yeah, Natural, if you haven't done so already, check out ECW '95. By far the best year of the promotion. I'm going through '94 and it's quaint and enjoyable but it's amazing what the Raven/Dreamer feud did for the company. The transformation from Tazmaniac to Taz helped to. In general, Heyman's booking was much tighter; it helped that he got rid of the fat from the early days still lingering around in '94 (lookin' at you Tommy Cairo).

[Petey]

'95 ECW is ridiculously awesome but I don't know if it's by far better than '96. Really splitting hairs though.

[Jiji]

Eddie, Benoit, Malenko, and eventually Rey 'n' Psicosis bringing the in-ring abilities and the Raven/Dreamer feud supplying the drama would put it ahead of '96 by a decent margin. Austin dropping by and Sandman vs. Mikey was also enjoyable. And the Public Enemy training Mikey! That was one of my favourite bits from ECW.

 

'96 had the halo incident and Pillman though.