Toxxic

The Jayson Grant Memorial Trophy - For Wrestler of the Year WINNER: Toxxic ~What can I say? I'm very grateful to everyone for this and glad you all felt (or all who voted, anyway) that I deserved it. To be fair, a couple of good World Title runs tends to mean the fed is largely centred around you, which probably didn't help with swinging people's decisions. Hope I didn't hold anyone down too much The Divefire Memorial Trophy - For Comeback Wrestler of the Year WINNER: El Luchador Magnifico ~After a longer break away than any of the other nominees Mags has fitted back in perfectly, first as the nostalgic babyface and then as the nasty, sneaky, vicious heel, culminating in that 4th World Title win at Genesis. Congratulations, and welcome back! The Pay Per View Match of the Year Award WINNER: Toxxic vs Scott Pretzler, Ground Zero ~I'm guessing you were all just glad to be rid of me. The Non-PPV Match of the Year Award WINNER: Ejiro Fasaki vs Toxxic (World Title) ~...and I'm guessing you were all just glad to see me lose the belt! No, but seriously, Ejiro wrote a GREAT match that had such a brilliant story behind it, and was a worthy winner. Shame he's disappeared again, I hope it's not health-related. The Feud of the Year Award WINNER: Todd Cortez vs Landon Maddix ~Slow build since CHRISTMAS, gradual turn of Maddix, a few nasty attacks and matches and Maddix really developing his heel side to a greater level than the whiny brat we saw last year (not that that wasn't a good character in it's own right). Perfect. The Jay Dawg Improvement Award - For Most Improved Wrestler WINNER: Spike Jenkins ~He's come on leaps and bounds, LEAPS AND BOUNDS. C'mon, who thought you'd see Spike Jenkins, World Title Contender? The Axis Memorial Trophy - For Most Under-appreciated Wrestler WINNER: Spike Jenkins ~Hopefully this will soon change. The Rane Memorial Trophy - For Most Impressive Career WINNER: Sacred ~He's been around forever, and although flirting with other characters, Sacred is what he's always come back to. A generally enigmatic and overall BELIEVABLE character it is too. And with these characters, Muzz has pretty much done it all, including two World Title reigns. Kudos. The Fallen Tag Team Trophy - For Tag Team of the Year WINNER: Wild & Dangerous ~It looked like Griffon and Manson were going to take this for a while, but in the end common sense prevailed. Yes, there's been a bit of controversy lately, and yes, they really should have split up LOOOOOOONG ago... at the same time, they've only lost one tag match this year, and even if there is something of a dearth of challengers, they are still THE team to beat. The Midnight Carnival Cup - For Stable of the Year WINNER: Revolution Zero ~One of only two unanimous votes. I guess this year has been a poor one for stables. The Ace of Clubs Trophy - For Heel of the Year WINNER: Toxxic ~Yeah, even though he doesn't cheat. Toxxic was still an arsehole, but probably more importantly he was the only high-level heel over most of the year. Everyone else either disappeared or turned. The Grand Slam Trophy - For Face of the Year WINNER: Todd Cortez ~Sort of the SWF's Hurricane (only far more legitimate), by which I mean he's always around, he's been face all this year, he's always reliable and you can always side with him. And now he's FINALLY beaten Maddix. Go Todd! The Cyclone Comet Trophy - For Promo Writer of the Year WINNER: Toxxic ~Every show needs at least three Toxxic promos. The William Hearford & Toxxic Trophy - For Rookie of the Year WINNER: Scott Pretzler ~He's fitted in like a vet, and it's a real shame that school is taking him away for a few months. I for one hope he comes back soon. The Nathaniel Kibagami Trophy - For Promo of the Year WINNER: 'Suicide King admits defeat' ~End of an era. What else is there to say? The Hville Thugg & Edwin MacPhisto Cup of Champions - For Best World Champion WINNER: Toxxic ~The other unanimous vote. To be fair, out of the other champions only Ejiro had any successful defences of the belt. All the same, cheers everyone! The Fallout ICTV Champion of the Year Award WINNER: Landon Maddix ~VERY nearly unanimous, with only a single vote for Max King throwing things off. Come on, Landon was champion for the longest time ever, has held the belt for longer than anyone else ever, and the belt was a large part of his character. Thoroughly deserved. The Thoth US Champion of the Year Award WINNER: Todd Cortez ~It's that man Cortez again, who had a solid run with the title to legitimise it before the union. The Andrew Blackwell International Champion of the Year Award WINNER: Jay Hawke ~THIS IS JAY HAWKE'S BELT. He has made it what it is today. The single vote for Landon's five-day reign did amuse me though. The Grimedogg Hardcore Champion of the Year Award WINNER: Insane Luchador ~Very close to a tie between Rickmen and Cortez (who had a damn good run early in the year with some of the best hardcore matches I've seen in a long time). However, IL's three reigns really heralded a new dawn for him in terms of both consistent showing and consistent quality; he was on the best form of his career when he bowed out, which to be fair is probably the way to go. The El Luchadore Magnifico Cruiserweight Champion of the Year Award WINNER: Scott Pretzler ~Spike's record-breaking run was not enough to net him this award, as Pretzler takes it with a fair majority; although not especially long, Pretzler's time with the belt showed was treated with the sort of care one has come to expect from him and the image of the CW belt blossomed as a result. It's worth noting that it was during Pretzler's time of competing with the belt that a Cruiserweight Title match main-evented a Pay-Per-View. The Pay-Per-View Of The Year Award WINNER: Tie between Ground Zero (both halves) and 13th Hour. ~13th Hour was the show where the Cruiserweight Title main-evented, as stated above. It was also the show where Ejiro became the only World Champion apart from me to retain on PPV since the days of Tom Flesher, the show where Spike FINALLY beat me... and of course, the show where Scott Pretzler put the Pope into the Snowflake Clutch. ~Ground Zero is fresh in all our memories, but it was the show where Johnny picked up the World Title for the second time, where Landon and Todd fought in the casino, and where Toxxic finally bowed out having cheated for the first time in his career. The Mayor McCheese Comedic Moment of the Year Award WINNER: Fuvolution ~Not even really a fed thing in the strictest sense, this bizarre thread started with Arch Griffon/Munich writing a promo in which his character's chair collapses due to being designed to hold 1/4lb less than his weight, which led to him approaching management for better chairs. How this later turned into Li'l Buck shooting South African waiters, and JJ Johnson with a device allowing him to speak similar to Amy the gorilla in Congo is anyone's guess... but if you want to blame anyone blame Drea, IL and Munich, since they wrote most of it. BORT! The Blazenwing Memorial Trophy - For “Tool” of the Year WINNER: Johnny Dangerous ~Sadly, it seems that Johnny's no-showing of the main event of Genesis V may have counted against him here as he beat off competition from Mohammed 'Let's-rip-off-the-WWE-and-complain-about-being-unable-to-write-due-to-the-fact-that-I'm-in-a-British-timezone' Koran. But at least he's also one half of the Tag Team of the Year. The Stubby P. McWeed Trophy - For Booker of the Year WINNER: Tom Flesher ~Meh, Flesher IS the SWF these days. Now, if only we knew where he was...

For it's worth, he finishes fast.

So Deacon Batista had a bad gimmick, which meant that his physique and look wasn't enough to get him over. It took until he got a better gimmick that allowed more expression in the ring and on the mic to get him over. I'll agree Masters didn't injure anyone except Stevie. He did do it twice though.

I didn't say 'great'. I meant 'better'. But no, i don't think it's about his look and physique. That's a part of it, for sure, but he only started to get over when he took on a more pronounced character, first of the possibly-disloyal lackey and then of the uber-cool but still prone-to-violence face. And part of that was him expressing himself in the ring better. His look hasn't changed. His in-ring work has, to some extent. His mic work has to an ENORMOUS extent. As for everything else, see the extensive edit to my post above.

Batista first appeared as Deacon Batista on Smackdown, and no-one gave a shit about his spinebusters/clotheslines/powerbombs etc, or his look. Give him a couple of years of actually learning how to work a huge crowd, of how and when to do the moves, of how and when the face should get beaten down and then make his comeback, of developing a character that isn't just 'HULK SMASH!'... THEN he gets over. Likewise, Chris Masters. He's a fairly impressive physical specimen, but he's getting X-Pac heat, 'fuck off my tv/out of the ring that I've paid to see' heat. He's not a 'hate me' heel, he's a 'please god not this guy again' waste of space. Plus, not only can he not get over despite never losing a singles match before Michaels (so not even good... well, strong booking, probably not good) help him, but he's not just green in the ring, he injures other workers. EDITED TO ADD: Basically, I think guys aren't going to get over if they expose the business. Brock Lesnar had a fucking awesome look, but also knew his way around the ring. Even if he hadn't been able to throw half the roster around like rag dolls, he could participate in a decent wrestling match because he had good timing, his moves looked realistic, his selling (such as he was called on to do, he was a monster after all) was good, the psychology was fairly decent... that sort of thing. This is why women's matches are generally such duds for the live crowd. Sure, the males may want to get into Trish's pants, but if she's got people like Ashley and Torrie in there with her who can't even do/take an Irish whip correctly, it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief and the focus turns to how bad they are at pretending to wrestle. The same with guys like Masters (to a lesser degree, I'll admit). You stop remembering that you're meant to hate him because he's arrogant and instead concentrate on the fact that he's shit at his job.

I could stand him in the ring and on the mic (and I said 'stand', not 'like'), but I hated his character. Of course, as far as we know that wasn't his choice, so overall I think he's got kind of a rough deal given that the writers made him so godawful that their network banned him.

Bruce Blank vs J3 - Comedy Moment fo the Year for next years awards.

When is Nigeria NOT pissed, if we're honest? The SWF: Making light of the international political sensation since we got bored waiting for GVI

Because we love you. *moves to other side of pitfall trap* Now come here. Ghana is still hungry.

Only in kayfabe, sir. The real Janus weighs about as much as my left leg. He's still furry though. And it sticks in yer teeth *spits*

When he falls into the pitfall trap he becomes impaled on a stake. At which point I barbie him. Then, after I've finished giving him a blonde wig, makeup and a 36-24-38 figure, I barbeque him.

*digs pitfall trap for Janus and stands on the other side making bunny noises* Mmm... fresh Aussie...

That's just what she wants you to think.

*Takes picture* More blackmail material. Heh heh.

Wait! An unprovoked Giant Gonzales comment! *looks around for Drea* *slaps J3 silly with armour-plated trilby while I wait* Tally ho.

Not the fucking robot, Todd. We'll have Ghost Machine claiming gimmick infringement. *stabs you all with umbrella before donning trilby* What ho.

it's odd, though. I mean, Spike was online earlier today.

We'd still need the Spike/Tom match.

That's what the ROH crowd chant. Definitely 'Hom-O-cide'. I laughed.

Oh shush. You might as well ask why he looks like he's hurt when people hit him with chairs. Stop trying to bring logic into it.

I thought everyone knew that the WWE only bothers to shift itself to come over here when North America is fed up with them, because we have very little wrestling and people will play extortionate prices to see shows where nothing of note will happen? I guess that piece of knowledge must have passed JoeJoe by.

Easily, EASILY the best promo Spike has ever done. This WILL be marked and remembered to be nominated for next year's End-Of-Year Awards, because it is FUCKING AWESOME.

I'm probably going to be turning in a 6k PPV match. This is the first time a PPV match of mine has even been below 9k.

The whole 'body dismorphic disorder' explanation for Kane not actually being scarred would work a whole lot better if they hadn't put that shit makeup on him under the mask and JR hadn't tried to sell it as scarring when it first came off. They should have just have him look totally normal. The 'mask wig' was a nice touch, apart from the fact that when his mask had been stolen previously (once by Taker at once by the nWo that I know of) he still had all his long hair.

MAIN EVENT SWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP "Deathwish" Danny Williams (SWF World Heavyweight Champion) v. El Luchadore Magnifico ~I'm saying ELM. Dunno why exactly. SINGLES MATCH "Hollywood" Spike Jenkins v. "The Superior One" Tom Flesher ~Spike. Can't be anything but Spike. SINGLES MATCH Landon "La Cucaracha" Maddix v. "Urban Legend" Todd Cortez ~I reckon perhaps, maybe, Toddski. SWF INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP "The Dean of Professional Wrestling" Jay Hawke (SWF International Champion) v. Zyon ~Go on Zyon. You can do it. SWF HARDCORE CHAMPIONSHIP HOUSE RULES: WE DESTROYED IT ONCE AND WE CAN DO IT AGAIN MATCH Bruce Blank (SWF Hardcore Champion) v. JJ Johnson ~J3 all the way. Ex-stable pride. SINGLES MATCH TORU v. Marcus "The Mastermind" Ward ~That's TORU Takahara to you, bitch. SWF WORLD TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS TWO ON TWO MATCH Wild and Dangerous (Wildchild and Johnny Dangerous, SWF World Tag Team Champions) v. The Crimson Skull and Ghost Machine ~Um, lemesee. W&D TRIPLE THREAT MATCH FOR #1 CONTENDERSHIP TO THE SWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP Akira v. Manson v. Devon Walters ~I'm gonna say Akira, for the hell of it. Cos I reckon he's a ringer.