What is your WWE match of the 3/4 year?

[JoeDirt 0]

Personally, I feel like the company's had tons of ***-**** stuff, but not much above that. I'm having a real hard time picking anything for clear MOTY except Angle/Michaels I...but there HAS to be something better than that, right?

 

Pimp your match of the 3/4 year!

[Lord of The Curry 0]

It's been a really weak year. Benjamin vs Michaels is the first thing that pops into my head, though I'm sure there's better if I think of it.

[Ripper 0]

Angle/Michaels

 

I really don't think anyone could pull out a better match in the WWE this year.

 

how....sad...

[pochorenella 0]

Personally, I think Angle vs Michaels from Mania21 is the clear-cut winner at this point, as far as PPVs are concerned. For TV, I'm partial to Benjamin vs Michaels from the Gold Rush Tourney on RAW.

[Dark Age 0]

The Eddie/Rey SD match. Not sure of the date. Shortly after Judgment Day.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Not a great year. I agree with Angle/Shawn from Mania, with four tv matches following it. HBK/Benjamin from RAW, Benoit/Regal from Velocity, Eddy/Rey from Smackdown after Judgment Day, and Benoit/Orton from Smackdown.

 

EDIT: Had to change Cena/JBL to Orton/Benoit. Forgot about that much. It still just makes into the top five though.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Benoit/Benjamin vs Edge and Christian was fun as hell for a short lil tag match.

[JoeDirt 0]

I guess I forgot about the chamber from NYR and the 6-man ladder match too. I really don't know, though...

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I'll take Awesome/Tanaka over Money in The Bank in a heartbeat.

[Guest Coffey]

I liked the Raw Street Fight between Edge & Matt Hardy. The Gold Rush first round match between Shelton Benjamin & Shawn Michaels was good too, as previously mentioned. I liked the Triple H Vs. Batista Hell in a Cell too. I liked the Shawn Michaels Vs. Kurt Angle match but when I was watching it, I couldn't help but think "this could be so much better." I guess my expectations were too high and it took away from the match for me.

 

I didn't see the big deal about Chris Benoit Vs. William Regal on Velocity. I watched it five times too. I just can't get into Regal matches because he bumps so awkward. I think it got praised just because they pulled out a couple of moves that you don't see in WWE so often anymore. That's the problem with WWE style. If you see a Piledriver or some shit, suddenly a match becomes a "contender."

[Guest Brian]

I didn't see the big deal about Chris Benoit Vs. William Regal on Velocity. I watched it five times too. I just can't get into Regal matches because he bumps so awkward. I think it got praised just because they pulled out a couple of moves that you don't see in WWE so often anymore. That's the problem with WWE style. If you see a Piledriver or some shit, suddenly a match becomes a "contender."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, IIRC, that match is a really beautifully worked in a style that completely different from WWE work, with stiff hitting, a fluid offense, fighting over every hold, and a sound psychology building off their previous match. The matwork alone smoke anything the WWE has done this year, and the transitions are beautiful.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Man I wish I'd have taped that match or wasn't too lazy to try and dl it.

[Guest Coffey]

Well, IIRC, that match is a really beautifully worked in a style that completely different from WWE work, with stiff hitting, a fluid offense, fighting over every hold, and a sound psychology building off their previous match. The matwork alone smoke anything the WWE has done this year, and the transitions are beautiful.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm pretty confident that just because it was Benoit/Regal, they could've sucked each others dicks in the middle of the ring and a lot of people would've still given it two to three stars.

 

Throwing in some real headbutts and a spot where they fight over a Tombstone and Tiger Suplex doesn't make it some epic encounter. It makes it a Velocity match, which it was.

 

I remember I first watched it and then said I didn't like it. Several people jumped on my case and tried to "show me the light." I watched if four more times. I even lied to myself after the second or third viewing by saying shit like "yeah, I can see that." It was all a stretch. A REALLY far stretch. It wasn't a bad match but it's not contending for anything.

 

I remember actually changing my opinion on the match, in text, so that I would "fit in" just so people would quit talking about it/arguing with me. I didn't like it on the first viewing. On the fifth viewing, it was worse.

[Ripper 0]

eh. Your opinon is yours I guess. But if Billy Gunn and Visera stepped in the ring and pulled off a match like that, I would praise it, because it was a damn good match(to me).

 

I personally didn't care for the MITB match, outside of a few nice spots from Shelton.

 

WWE has for the most part really disappointed me this year match wise. I mean the shows have been crap for a few years, but dammit you could expect some good matches to be broken out at least every month.

[Guest Brian]

WWE matches to me, lack the realism that was evident in that match, and a lot of the great little things that make that match. I don't think one can argue over how great the matwork is (especially by WWE standards), the stiff way they worked that match, the selling; but maybe all that isn't what you wanna drink at noon.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Coffey- Why should it matter at all if it was on Velocity? Noble/London had people blowing their loads last year and it was Velocity. A good match is a good match no matter where it is. The placement shouldn't have anything to do with what you think of the in-ring product unless there's an outside factor (announcers, crowd) that hurts it.

[Styles 0]

Angle vs. Michaels from WM21 is THE MOTY, even though I doubt I'd have any other WWE matches in the top 10 (maybe their rematch at Vengeance ironically enough).

[The Tino Standard 0]

There's just really not much to choose from here. Unless there's a match late in the year that comes out of nowhere to blow everybody away, the MOTY is going to be one of those "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" type of deals.

 

It's indicative of the whole year for the company. Everything has just been ... there. I can think of worse years for storylines and worse years for match quality, but when you put those two things together, this has been one of the most non-descript years of WWE TV in a long, long time.

 

It shouldn't be that way either, and I'm not just saying that because WWE is the only big company left. Hot runs for a company work like dynasties for a pro sports franchise. You can ride out the same talent through a series of good years, then you'll go into a down cycle developing new talent before heading into your next dynasty.

 

WWE rode a good wave of talent from late '97 to early '01. After that, the upper card was pretty much flushed out. Austin and Rock were done within a year and the Undertaker became a part-time special attraction. Angle has bounced in and out of things over the last few years with injuries. The only real constant has been Triple H.

 

Assuming that the rebuilding began somewhere late '01 or early '02, WWE should really be reaping the benefits at this point with its next wave of established main eventers. What we've gotten instead, tho, has been a series of flashes in the pan (Goldberg, Lesnar, Orton, Guerrero, Benoit and now Cena and Batista). Now that they're giving mind-boggling uber-pushes to Carlito and Masters, that trend doesn't seem like it's changing.

 

At some point, you've got to figure out who your top guys are, play to their strengths and go with it. They seem to have had more patience with Batista and Cena (which I'm not arguing with). But the net result of all this shuffling has been yet another year of turnover and lots of forgettable matches as a result.

[Guest *KNK*]

This has been an completely underwelming year for the WWE. Not a single match has hit **** and nothing as of right now would even make the top 15 in North America much less the world.

 

The "highlight" matches of WWE circa 2005 are drastically over-valued because the extremely low value of quality.

 

I'll name those "high-light" matches

 

Shawn Michaels Vs Kurt Angle

-Both versions, although WM21 gets the prefrential nod of approval is apprently the stand out "MOTY" which greatly proves my point that this has been a horrendously weak season from the WWE.

 

The subsequent matches making their place on this year's list of best WWE matches not so ironicaly feature the same 3 people.

 

Shawn Michaels, Shelton Benjamin, Kurt Angle

 

Shawn Vs Angle I & II, Shelton Vs Kurt, Kurt Vs Jannetty and Shelton Vs Shawn alongside Benoit/Regal from Velocity(and it has nothing to do with the participates in the match, it's match quality itself...which as a whole is pretty weak considering the capabilities of the talent involved but in comparison to the rest of the provided material from this company, it naturally rests high in this context of "WWE MOTY".

 

Picking a WWE MOTY for 2005 is like choosing your favorite Rob Schneider movie.

 

It's understandable to lack the creative greatness and logic but with talent like this in WWE just to be wasted and surrendered to nothingness is the biggest shame of all.

[I like Forums 0]

Any love for Angle-Jannetty?

[Precious Roy 0]

PPV: Jericho v. Cena (I liked it better than Angle v. HBK, sue me). This will buck popular opinion, but Orton-Taker was my favorite match at Mania.

 

TV: I really liked the Edge-Benoit-HHH 3-way w/ the false title switch from early in the year, and I think there was an awesome Edge-Benoit match or two around that same time. Rey and Eddie had a great match on TV before Mania, I guess it was the post-Vengenace one people have mentioned. Angle v. Marty was awesome. I liked Shelton v. HBK, but not as much as other people seem to. Benoit v. Regal was great (better than Shelton/HBK IMO). I didn't like the JBL/Taker matches much, but I've seen a lot of people pimping those.

 

Like people have said though, it's been a ***-**** year for the WWE, which makes it really hard to pick a clear cut MOTY.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

PPV: Jericho v. Cena (I liked it better than Angle v. HBK, sue me). This will buck popular opinion, but Orton-Taker was my favorite match at Mania.

 

I find Orton/Taker to be the most enjoyable, and it certainly was the match I was most into live, so I can see where you are coming from to a certain extent.

[snuffbox 0]

I havent watched too much wwe this year...Ill have to pick HBK-Shelton.

[Ripper 0]

Angle vs. Michaels from WM21 is THE MOTY, even though I doubt I'd have any other WWE matches in the top 10 (maybe their rematch at Vengeance ironically enough).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wait.....are you suggesting that this is the MOTY when including other north american companies? Fuck that, including TNA?

 

WHOA now....that is a stretch.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Any love for Angle-Jannetty?

 

*pokes brain with fork*

 

Most over-rated match of the year, bar none.

 

I'm like Coffey on Benoit/Regal as far as Angle/Jannetty goes. I watched that match three times, because it had been hyped so much on the board and saw nothing. The 'mat-work' everybody was drooling over, no different from somebody slapping on a chinlock, except Angle changed the moves up to make them look different. Still the same boredom. Jannetty doesn't really look in pain at all during the match, which takes away from it. I wouldn't say he 'didn't sell', but he certainly didn't sell anything with a blank look on his face while in most submissions. Then Jannetty makes his comeback, which is okay enough but hardly anything to go crazy over. Cue 'dramatic' AnkleLock sequence and that's that. It wasn't a 'bad' match, but it was hardly MOTY candidate.

[Guest *KNK*]

Angle vs. Michaels from WM21 is THE MOTY, even though I doubt I'd have any other WWE matches in the top 10 (maybe their rematch at Vengeance ironically enough).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wait.....are you suggesting that this is the MOTY when including other north american companies? Fuck that, including TNA?

 

WHOA now....that is a stretch.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's not a stretch. It's an out right idiotic statement to make calling it the MOTY (which im still not clear if he was specificially excluding all other promotions or actually counting all promotions).

 

Ring of Honor; alone has 10-12 matches that completely smoked Angle/Shawn and blew it out of the water (and there's 4-5 shows I've yet to seen from ROH).

 

TNA, even has a small sample of matches that can lay claim to having legitimate MOTY's over Shawn/Angle.

[Guest Coffey]

Coffey- Why should it matter at all if it was on Velocity? Noble/London had people blowing their loads last year and it was Velocity. A good match is a good match no matter where it is. The placement shouldn't have anything to do with what you think of the in-ring product unless there's an outside factor (announcers, crowd) that hurts it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm saying it being on Velocity is the reason that they get time to work and are able to do moves that you don't see on Raw and Smackdown. It was actually a compliment to the show, not a derrogatory comment.

[CanadianChris 0]

Any love for Angle-Jannetty?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was surprised by the fact that it was a decent match, as opposed to the mediocre-to-bad one I was expecting. It sure isn't MOTY, though. Not even in the top 20.

 

That people are holding up matches like this one show just how thin a year it's been in terms of match quality.

[Aero 0]

It's a toss-up for me between HBK-Angle from WM and HBK-Benjamin from RAW. I was going nuts watching them both live, mostly during the last few minutes of each.

 

Other matches that I think could qualify...

 

- Taker vs. Orton (WM)

- Money in the Bank (WM)

- Benoit vs. Regal (Velocity)

- Angle vs. Flair (RAW)

 

I don't want to come out and say that they could be the MOTY, but I remember really liking the HBK-Edge street fight (post-Rumble, when Angle attacked HBK) and Benoit-Edge match (post-WM), both on Raw.

[The Mandarin 0]

Cena vs. JBL is probably the MOTY for WWE. It was vicious, it was exciting, full of good spots, told a good story and gave the crowd what they wanted to see. Giving Cena/JBL a gimmick blowoff was a good idea considering that for the most part, the action didn't live up to the writing during the feud. I'd say it's about ****-****1/4 and is the best match ever for both guys. Cena has had several better "wrestling" matches (before and after) but I can't say the same for JBL, who's match with Benoit was okay and that's about it.

 

Angle vs. Michaels is a very good match when it comes to in ring action but kind of fell flat when it comes to being a dramatic match. Michaels could have brought some extra energy into the match, but he didn't. Vengeance delivered more "bang" but did not deliver the same quality of actual wrestling. ****, ***1/4 in that order. Michaels had a better match with Jericho at WrestleMania XIX that is my choice fror Jericho's best match ever regardless of the finish.

 

Benjamin vs. Michaels was very solid for a Raw match. They hit all their spots correctly and it just looked good. It's depressing to see what happened to Benjamin after that match.

 

The Elimination Chamber match was very entertaining but was booked poorly. It was a very good match on an absolutely awful show.

 

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio was an alright feud with one standout match. However, this match really depended on the "story" and the heat of the Eddie-Rey feud was not really at a peak. It's still a very good match and even moreso when you take into consideration how disappointing the series of matches were until that point but I think it just lacks in comparison to HH '97 (of course) and wasn't as good as the one right after WrestleMania XX either. It just should have been a bit of a better match. Angle vs. Flair was an unexpectedly hard-hitting brawl and I think it did a better job of making Angle look like a star than Rey's victory did in their feud (Michael Cole saying everything Rey did was "out of desperation", plus the feud continued until you wanted to see Rey lose).

 

HHH/Orton was good but Orton/Undertaker Parts I and II (and soon to be III) are better and are Orton's MOTYs, IMO. Money in the Bank was alright. John Cena had excellent PPV matches with Chris Jericho (twice) and Christian as well, and he's become really tremendous when it comes to pay-per-view shows (if he has a good opponent and good booking). I didn't see Cena vs. Angle at No Way Out but heard good things. Awesome-Tanaka was fairly decent but I remember how much I loved their ECW matches and it's not exactly equal to the rest of their series. Michaels vs. Hogan was a really enjoyable match for me and that was mainly due to the hilarity of Shawn's bumping. Velocity had some pretty good stuff this year, thanks Paul London.

 

To summarize, so you don't have to read the above posting-

My WWE MOTY Rankings Thus Far

1) Cena vs. JBL, Judgment Day

2) Angle vs. Michaels- WrestleMania

3) Cena vs. Jericho vs. Christian- Vengeance

4) Benjamin vs. Michaels- RAW, May

5) Flair vs. Angle- Raw, June

6) Undertaker vs. Orton- WrestleMania

7) Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero- SmackDown, May

8) Benoit vs. Regal- Velocity

9) Cena vs. Jericho- "You're Fired" Match

10) Undertaker vs. Orton- SummerSlam or Edge vs. Michaels- Raw, February

 

And I really hope to add Cena vs. Angle to that list.

 

Cena is WWE's MVP this year when it comes to PPV (and occasionally TV) and needs to be the company's #1 guy regardless of Triple H's return.

 

Anyways, all of the above is my stupid opinion so you might not like it and then you'll have to argue with me.