Monday, April 2, 2012

The 2011 A1W 100 Slow Release: 20-6

Here's the final group entry, going up to the doorstep of the top 5.

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20. Kofi Kingston
Points: 1414
Votes Received: 19
Highest Vote: 11th Place (Luke – Punk Rock Comedy)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 16th in '09, 32nd in '10

Mike Germano: It seems to be popular to write off Kofi as just another jumpy wrestler, or a poor man’s Shelton Benjamin. If you only have seen his work on RAW, I can understand the hate, because he often gets little time, or is stuck as the face-in-peril in tag matches. When given time on Superstars to tell a story, he always puts in a great match. Kingston has shown he can perform in big spots, and deserves to be more than the “token high flier” in big matches.

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19. Rey Mysterio
Points: 1494
Votes Received: 18
Highest Vote: 3rd Place (Devon and Dylan Hales)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 2nd in '09, 5th in '10

TH: Rey Mysterio is a guy we take for granted. I can't remember a time since getting back into wrestling in '08 when I heard Mysterio wasn't working hurt or when his knees weren't beyond shredded. And yet, there he is, every match, bumping like a pinball, taking spots that fully healthy guys might not be able to do, bopping around the ring like he was still half his size (steroids, yuck) and double his mobility. People love to trash him when he's around, whether it's for beating guys he "shouldn't" be beating or because his finisher set up is so contrived (as if Randy Orton needing people to get into increasingly more complex set ups just so he can RKO them "out of nowhere" is any better, and yet he's more praised), but imagine when he's gone for real.

When that happens? You get no more free TV epics with Alberto del Rio and CM Punk. You get no more big-time performances like winning the WWE Championship against Miz and then defending it on the same show against John Cena in two hellaciously awesome matches. You get no more memorable spots on PPVs where he kills himself to make opponents running the gamut from Kane to CM Punk look like superstars. Then what are you going to do, pine for him to come back "even as he was from '08 to '11?" Of course you are.

That's why when he comes back from this injury, we should appreciate the man, because he's going to put his body on the line and he's going to give us excellent matches to show for it. He doesn't give us ranas upon ranas anymore because he can't. He still is an excellent bumper though, and he'll still put in the A+ effort to make any match he's in look like a PPV main event. That's why I ranked him 6th place, and that's why I don't feel remotely bad about it given the amount of time he missed in the last year.

Devon Hales: He only was around for eight months, but he did it again. I don't have much to say about him because his body of work speaks for itself. Drew Mac, Henry, Punk, del Rio, Cena, and various multi man matches were all tremendous. Rey is just that great.

Dylan Hales: When Tom told me that Rey wasn’t on every ballot, I thought he was kidding. From where I stand Rey is the best TV match worker in wrestling history, and he had eight months’ worth of TV work that was typically excellent. Rey is on the short list of best babyfaces ever with the likes of Ricky Steamboat and Ricky Morton, and that was quite evident this year. He was in the first truly great match of the year v. Del Rio in January, had an excellent mini-series with Drew McIntyre, the first really great Mark Henry match of the year in April, the most underrated PPV match of the year vs. Punk at Capital Punishment, a tremendous tv match with Cena the night he won and lost the title (this was a seriously GREAT TV match) and a very good match with Cody at Mania. All of this and his best performances may have actually been in triple threats, tag matches and the Elimination Chamber where he stole the show as he always seems to do. Here’s hoping Rey can make a strong comeback and continue to add to his Greatest of All Time candidacy.

Robert Dorman: Whenever they inevitably poll the WWE wrestlers every year who the best wrestler is, CM Punk always answers the same... Rey Mysterio. Despite wrestling with basically non-functioning knees, he takes huge bumps, still leaps from the top, and still puts on great match after great match. With injuries continuing to pop up, it's debatable how much longer we'll get to see him. He makes every wrestler he's in the ring with that much better.

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18. Kevin Steen
Points: 1495
Votes Received: 18
Highest Vote: 1st Place (Alex Torres)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 48th in '09, 43rd in '10

TH: Kevin Steen is probably clinically insane, or at least that's the vibe that one might get from watching him wrestle. Here's a guy who has made giving and taking bumps on the hardest part of the ring, the apron, a spot as standard in his matches as Daniel Bryan's Matrix flip out of the corner or even the Five Knuckle Shuffle. He wrestles sometimes three times a night if that's what the promoter needs him to do, and each match is just as hard-hitting as one another. He's also not afraid to take an unprotected chair shot to the head, which is something that troubles me a bit. Then again, he takes them in big matches only, and wasn't the problem with He Who Shall Not Be Named and the ECW crew that they were taking them in every match, willy-nilly. There's something to be said for moderation.

However, I fully believe there's a method to Steen's madness. There really is no wasted movement in his matches, even if he takes a detour towards the silly, which he is apt to do. I think by now, you all should know that's not a complaint. Whether he's in full-on WAR STEEN mode or if he's just trading cheap shots with Finlay, the man is out there for the benefit of his many fans in the independent circuit. He's revered as a god in Reseda, and it's not just because PWG believes in him enough to push him. Every time he's out there, he's giving the fans what they want in between the ropes.

I admit that how hard Steen goes in the ring is cause for concern for him burning out. He might be the most versatile wrestler in the indies, and if we count WWE and TNA, he's in elite company, so even if he does burn out of doing the bomb-lobbing bloodstained epic style, he can settle into a "safer", more veteran style. But that's for the future. In the here and now, Kevin Steen is my 7th best wrestler in 2011, and it's because the guy just knows how to give the fans what they want in perfect pitch.

Dylan Hales: There are really two Kevin Steens. One is an improv comedian whose shtick can be very entertaining at times, but mid-match I find incredibly distracting and to be a hindrance more often than not. The second is the world’s best and most athletic Jerry Saggs, running around crushing dudes with insane shit and taking it just as hard as he dishes it out. That is the good Kevin Steen and the one I enjoy. In 2011 his magnum opus was his match with Super Dragon v. The Young Bucks, but he had plenty of other quality singles and tag performances. I would like to see more of the Steen who went toe to toe with Finlay, than the Steen who told jokes around Finlay’s hard work in 2012.

Kevin Friskey: Workhorse of the Year, anybody? While Punk is #1, it was pretty hard to pick between him and Kevin Steen. In the end, as you see, it came down to Steen being a member of the ROH roster and only having one match in 2011 there as the reason why I chose Punk. While he didn't show up in ROH, his work comes down to the amazing job he did for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. In the 9 shows that PWG had in 2011, Steen worked an incredible 16 matches total. Most notably it was after an absence during the "Card Subject to Change III" show due to a family emergency that he felt so bad that he made it up to them by wrestling twice a night, and at EIGHT on July 23rd, he wrestled THREE times and won the PWG World Championship. That's dedication. Not to mention his tag work, creating two of the most dangerous tag teams EVER. "The Nightmare Violence Connection" with Akira Tozawa and "Appetite For Destruction" with long-time rival Super Dragon. The man is crazy, but well-deserving of the #2 spot.

Dave Musgrave: The work he did do in ROH set him up to be this year’s hottest act for the company. And the work I saw from him in C4 was a lot of fun. I haven’t seen as much of his PWG 2011 stuff as I should have but it’s on my to-do list. He is a great wrestler and one of the hottest program guys in the business right now.

Eric Smith: Steen’s PWG work absolutely blew me away this year. Four times in 2011, Steen wrestled multiple times on the same show. He was absolutely the MVP of my favorite wrestling company this year. His ladder match with El Generico was one of the most brutal matches I have ever seen, and he formed two of my favorite new tag teams of the year with Super Dragon and Akira Tozawa.

Vince Morales: Ummm when did Kevin Steen become the best independent wrestler in the world?

Alex Torres: With all due respect to CM Punk, Kevin Steen had the best year in 2011. Note, year. Kevin Steen has been the centerpiece in one promotion, and the interest point in another. A single promo from Kevin Steen brought intrigue to each ROH show, despite the fact that for the most part; he didn’t wrestle a single match for them. His angle against ROH was slow, really making the world miss him before he made his bloody return against Steve Corino, in one of the matches of the year in my book. On the flipside, his feud with the Young Bucks was the centerpiece of PWG this year, while his hatred of El Generico bled into his title defenses. Generico may have won the title (after BRILLIANT matches), but Steen got his vengeance on the Bucks alongside the returning Super Dragon in a match that needs to be seen to be believed. Also, sidenote, he was one of the major selling points of EVOLVE that summer. Kevin Steen was the most valuable player in independent wrestling, and for the man who can sell an iPPV just by promising to be there, he deserves nothing less than first.

Photo Credit: (3)
17. AJ Styles
Points: 1574
Votes Received: 19
Highest Vote: 1st Place (Jarret Aubry)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 8th in '09, 12th in '10

TH: AJ Styles is a sure thing in TNA. Every year he's there, he churns out solid efforts, whether he's working with his bros Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe or saddled with dead weight like Matt Morgan and Abyss. This year, he took somewhat of a backseat, although he did get to main event Destination X against Daniels. Alas, I did not get to see that match, but if it's anything like the free TV stuff they did in '11 that was good to great, then I probably missed out on one hell of a main event.

Dylan Hales: Someone has to come last. AJ will still take a lunatic bump and has some flashy offense. Bully Ray got a lot of him. The rest of the time he was just there, but it’s TNA. Who can fault a guy for just showing up for the checks?

Dave Maes: There is no better soldier in TNA than AJ Styles - a man who has every horrible storyline thrown at him, every breakup, reunion and other such farce that the TNA 'creative' team can come up with - yet he continuously brings his 'A' game to every single match that he's in. He may not ever make it to WWE (especially with that giant "AJ" tattoo, unless he wants to be known as Angelo Jumpingjacks), but he may be singlehandedly keeping TNA afloat by carrying both in-ring equals and stiffs to watchable and enjoyable matches. They always speak of being able to wrestle a broomstick to a five-star match - AJ Styles may need to. Soon. And repeatedly.

Alex Torres: Although I decided to only do people less likely to have something written about them, I had to write about AJ Styles, who is my current favorite wrestler (a spot trying to be ganked by Seth Rollins and/or Matt Cross). Despite 2011 not being the best of years for Styles, he made the most of what he was given, and for that he deserves points. Feuding with Daniels, while not necessarily new, is a tried and true formula and all the matches are pretty good. He also had some good matches with Bobby Roode toward the end of the year. I think the real reason I gave him so much credit is that, no matter what the match, AJ does manage to be a high spot.

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16. El Generico
Points: 1595
Votes Received: 20
Highest Vote: 2nd Place (TH)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 44th in '09, 37th in '10

TH: There are three things in life that are certain – death, taxes and that El Generico doesn't wrestle bad matches. He doesn't. If I ever come across an El G match that I find to be bad because of his effort, then I will believe that in my lifetime, I can see the fall of organized government into an agrarian collective of autonomous city-states and farms with no need for centralization. The no-death thing is something I can't wrap my head around, but hey, that's life.

It's not like I can sit here and write about what exactly draws me to Generico, or what made me stand up and take notice of him this year. He had a phenomenal slate of opponents with whom he had great matches. Eddie Kingston, Sean Waltman (in a match that actually got 1-2-3 Kid on my ballot), Christopher Daniels, Team FIST (in fact, all of his trios matches where he teamed with the underrated 3.0 were fantastic), Claudio Castagnoli, the Young Bucks, Jigsaw and that's just scratching the surface. Generico got me to buy tickets to cards, order DVDs, go out of my way to see him on YouTube. He was about as must-see as anyone sub-WWE for me, and hell, outside of my first place vote and maybe, just maybe CM Punk between the months of June and September.

But what is it about him? Is it the pinball bumping? Is it the animal magnetism and enthusiasm? Is it his appeals to the crowd? The perfect impact on his corner yakuza kick? His knack for getting high spots completely right? The way that he is the best punch-drunkard in pro wrestling? Or is it all of that put together? Yes. That's all I can say.

I'll also say that if I ever had a ballot for awards that wanted me to name the best wrestling maneuver, I would probably name his corner brainbuster, or the BRAINBUSTAAAHAHHHHHHH!, every year he was active. Seriously, it's one of the best high spots ever concocted, and yet, it's insanely simple in execution that I'm surprised he was the first one to really bring it to the forefront. To me, that is worth so much, and I'm not a guy who thinks that spots are the be-all, end-all in a single match. But if it's part of a total package like the one Generico has? Yeah, then it means a whole ton.

Dave Musgrave: El Generico is consistently one of the best wrestlers to see live that I can think of. His ROH TV title win was fun, and just his ROH work alone would have him high in my books. I really need to catch up on some PWG but it goes without saying that his work there is some of the stuff I want to catch up on the most.

Vince Morales: There are many things to love about El Generico, but my favorite has to be the way he can switch from a fun, almost comedic wrestler into a sadistic badass who wants to kill Kevin Steen.

Samantha Allen: Five Words: Sean Waltman versus El Generico. Now more words - Generico is a guy who very rarely has a bad match with someone. The thing is, bookers know this, and have taken the time to serve up the best competition they have to go against him. Just to name a few matches to watch besides the one I mentioned already: vs. Eddie Kingston (Chikara), vs. Christopher Daniels (ROH “Best in the World”), and vs. Kevin Steen (PWG “Steen Wolf”)

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15. James Storm
Points: 1627
Votes Received: 20
Highest Vote: 6th Place (Chus Killalea)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 57th in '09, 26th in '10

TH: James Storm finally got his due on two fronts this year. He's up in the top 20 after being arguably TNA's best wrestler for the last three years, and in character, he got to be World Champion, which has no bearing on this list, but hey, I like seeing good guys get good things happening to them. Storm is a fun brawler with just enough indie MOVEZ base that makes him stand out among the crowd. His highlights in 2011 include, but are certainly not limited to, dragging the only good match out of Kurt Angle that I saw in the last calendar year. Seriously, people pretend Angle is still good, but Storm IS great. Glad to see him get recognized.

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14. Robert Roode
Points: 1676
Votes Received: 20
Highest Vote: 3rd Place (Chus Killalea)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 60th in '09, 28th in '10

TH: Roode may have been self-christened as the "leader of the selfish generation" by the end of the year, but I feel like he, along with Bully Ray, Austin Aries and his former tag team partner James Storm, were the leaders of a main event in-ring renaissance for TNA. While he was serviceable in tags earlier in the year (as he always was and still is), Roode took the reins in the ring during the Bound for Glory Series and never looked back, having great free TV matches with a bevy of opponents.

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13. Wade Barrett
Points: 1696
Votes Received: 22
Highest Vote: 4th Place (Robert Dorman)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: Not ranked in '09, 16th in '10

Dylan Hales: After Del Rio, Barrett may be my most improved pick for 2011. He’s clearly not a great wrestler, but at times he is a very good one. His PPV match with Daniel Bryan may have been Bryan’s second best match of the year, and he added a lot to it. I also thought he had a surprisingly strong match with Ezekiel Jackson. I enjoyed the Orton feud and was very impressed with him when I saw him in person. In fact in a year where I attended WrestleMania, two other WWE events and several indie shows, Sheamus vs. Barrett was probably the best match I saw live all year. That’s high praise and enough to get him a solid placement on my ballot.

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12. The Miz
Points: 1712
Votes Received: 23
Highest Vote: 4th Place (Chris Sloboda)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 9th in '09, 4th in '10

TH: Every year, I feel like The Miz improves in the ring, but every year, I end up ranking him lower than before. Why? It's a circumstance of a lot of other guys progressing better and me being exposed to more and more eligible wrestling as the years go on. I get why people rank him so high, but I feel like if Miz is ending up in your top 10 and not your top 50, then you need to watch more wrestling, and yes, this is coming from someone who enjoys him in the ring. That being said, I really liked his run after forming the Awesome Truth, where he developed a mean streak that will suit him very well in the ring in the future if he doesn't turn face.

Dave Musgrave: I liked his title reign even if common wrestling fan thinking says I’m not allowed to do so. His January title defense against John Morrison was my # 4 match of the year, and his February title match against Jerry Lawler was my # 12 match. The video package building him up at Mania was really strong even if the match against Cena fell flat. I liked his team with R-Truth and his feud with Alex Riley was strong. Even though his star has fallen for now this guy entertained me in 2011.

Photo Credit: (3)
11. Austin Aries
Points: 1818
Votes Received: 21
Highest Vote: 1st Place (Luke – Punk Rock Comedy)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 30th in '09, 64th in '10

TH: Austin Aries is one of my favorite people in wrestling for his mannerisms outside the ring, but inside of it, he's one of the better talents. He's got quite the knack for in-match taunting and using cheap, heel tactics for great effect. Posing with Jesse Sorensen's football during an Impact match was one of the best taunt moves all year. He also had a couple of really good, face/neutral performances in PWG in a tag team with Roderick Strong. I get the feeling that if I had seen his DGUSA/EVOLVE/ECWA stuff from earlier in the year, I might've ranked him higher, but what he's done in Impact, NWA Hollywood (where he had good matches with Scorpio Sky and Willie Mack) and PWG in the second part of the year has been nothing short of awesome.

Dylan Hales: On the one hand, Aries had a good year in a bad situation. He is the first guy I can remember having good X division matches with multiple guys in a long time. His appearances in NWA Hollywood were strong as well and he looked pretty good in the Super 8 tournament. On the other hand I don’t like him as much as a lot of other people. I think he’s the best possible sprint style worker (excluding Sami Callihan), but I don’t think he’s terribly versatile. He’s got some excellent spots and is willing to kill himself, but I would like to see him change things up here and there. If TNA goes the direction of Aries/Bully Ray we could get a program from the best two guys in the company in 2012, and I could get my wish.

Luke – Punk Rock Comedy Austin Aries is one of like, maybe 5 wrestlers who constantly wow me with every match. It doesn't matter whom he's facing, with whom he's working, he pulls out amazing matches. He does things in the ring I've never seen before. He has an awesome submission finisher with a punny name (Last Chancery). Also, and probably most importantly, his moves have a sense of flow to them. He's never standing there doing nothing. Aries sort of reminds me of Eddie Guerrero with his mixture of technical skills, intensity, timing, flow, humor, and expanse of move set. And any time someone gets compared to Eddie, that's a great thing. Austin Aries is a great thing.

Kevin Friskey: The only TNA guy on my list. Yep. I have him on here and NOT somebody like Davey Richards. Hate mail can be forwarded to...

Eric Smith: Anyone who can carry an entire division for the majority of the year deserves a lot of respect, and that’s exactly what Aries did in 2011. With a very small group of guys to fight and often limited support from TNA itself, he made the X-Division title mean considerably more than it did at the start of the year. Despite holding what is generally considered a midcard belt, he always looked like he could be bigger and that’s because Aries is one of the few guys in TNA who really carries himself like a superstar.

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10. Sheamus
Points: 2015
Votes Received: 25
Highest Vote: 6th Place (Dave Maes)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 29th in '09, 3rd in '10

TH: Sheamus, along with Mark Henry, Big Show and others, is part of the vanguard of a new generation of hosses in WWE. No longer are big and fat or tall and muscular guys expected to sloth it around the ring and be general sticks in the mud. Yeah, Warlord could lift things up and put them down with the best of them. So can Sheamus. But the difference is that Sheamus actually knows how to tell a good God-damned story in the ring.

The biggest and best example of this is a match I've been citing since it happened, the match with Henry at Summer Slam. It was two big men throwing bombs at each other, but it actually looked like they were fighting in real time rather than going in slow motion. The thing that impressed me most though wasn't anything Sheamus did offensively in the match, but the bump he took through the ring barrier. It was the best example of a guy who isn't afraid to crumple up into a heap in order to sell a match.

He also served as a great canvas for smaller wrestlers as well. Evan Bourne, Daniel Bryan and Christian all bumped their asses off for Sheamus, and to his credit, he knew how to sell for each of their own offenses. It also doesn't hurt that he has probably my favorite spot in WWE right now, the one where he gets the guy tangled in the ropes facing the crowd and just clubs his chest with the force of a Viking ship drummer. Sheamus is proof positive that size is no longer a detriment for WWE wrestlers on the whole.

Dylan Hales: Though I think he is much better as a heel, Sheamus is very over as a babyface and had a solid year in 2011. I was particularly impressed by his continued growth as an offensive wrestler. I am a mark for guys who work stiff, have a variety of offense that can be used for credible near falls and know when to time the “big kill” spots. Sheamus is exceptional at all of those things. In tag matches I was consistently impressed with him, but the Henry series was probably his in ring high point in 2011. Well that and his match vs. Wade Barrett that I saw live, which was probably the best match I saw in person all year.

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9. Randy Orton
Points: 2032
Votes Received: 24
Highest Vote: 1st Place (Rob Franklin)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 6th in '09, 14th in '10

TH: I was absolutely vexed on where I should've put Orton on my ballot. He did have a slew of good matches, but I had the feeling that he wasn't the one driving the action in them. How could I tell? Well, I really couldn't until ruminating about the matches he'd have with Christian after Christian's heel turn. They were basically Orton doing moves and Christian taking all the bumps. It wasn't something I noticed out of this skewed notion of fairness that some fans seem to have – squash matches and uncompetitive matches are necessary sometimes. It's that if you want to be ranked high on my ballot, you have to know how to sell and be willing to bump sometimes. It felt like the only opponent Orton was willing to do that for was Mark Henry. So yeah, for his great offense, I'll throw him a 51st place vote, which is actually pretty good, but no way he deserves an elite mention from me.

Dylan Hales: Randy is a strange case of a guy who was in an awful lot of good matches and yet with the exception of taking the clean fall on the Henry title switch, I can’t think of a single thing he did in one of those matches that really enhanced their quality. I can think of no other instance of a guy like this in the history of wrestling. Shitty clotheslines or not, it would be impossible for a guy who was in so many good matches to be left off the ballot altogether. On the other hand if I can’t cite one aspect of your game that stands out you aren’t getting into the top tier.

Dave Maes: I am not a fan of Randy Orton. He takes the SuperCena act to new and strange places. Not even 'Diamond' Dallas Page pulled that diamond cutter out in more ridiculous situations than Orton does. That being said, Orton really stepped up his game in his summertime feud with Christian. He made us believe that he actually deserved to have that World Title, instead of having it handed to him in a transitional championship sham (or possibly shamola). I hated Randy Orton for most of the summer, but, for once, it was for the right reasons.

Robert Dorman: Orton, for a long time, was really just an RKO waiting to happen. However, he hasn't gotten the credit he's deserved for the drastic improvement he's shown inside the ring. He had an epic series of matches with Christian over the summer, and then several great matches with Mark Henry, really sealing Henry's domination over the Smackdown crowd. He continues to refine his in ring work, and it shows.

Mike Germano: For years, I couldn’t stand Orton. As a character, I felt he was boring, with awful promos and fairly bland in-ring work. Whether this year was just a series of great opponents or Orton truly stepping up his game, it was definitely exciting to watch. Instead of seeing the move to Smackdown as a demotion, Orton went on to have an amazing summer of matches with Christian, Mark Henry, Barrett and Daniel Bryan.

Eric Smith: Orton probably gets more undeserved flack from the internet than anyone this side of John Cena. I don’t think the fact that WWE used Orton to torpedo Christian’s first world title reign helped that at all. However, he had easily his best year in-ring in 2011. His series of matches with Christian were all top MOTY contenders, he had one of the most underrated matches of the year at WM with CM Punk, and great TV matches with guys like Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre.

Rob Franklin: I had every intention of putting CM Punk at the number one slot, but I had to keep moving Orton up. I mean, great matches came to Orton all year, with Christian, Ziggler, Henry and Punk. I didn't set out for this to happen, but I can't deny how much I enjoyed Orton in 2011.

Photo Credit: (1)
8. Christian
Points: 2200
Votes Received: 25
Highest Vote: 5th Place (Samantha Allen, Dave Maes)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 3rd in '09, 10th in '10

TH: Christian is one of the unsung heroes of the WWE ring. He's so willing to put his body on the line to make a match look good that it might have cost him the last three months of the year, three months that were looking to be filled with awesome bumpfests with Sheamus. He deserves a medal for the yeoman's work that he did making Randy Orton look like the most offensively effective wrestler in the world after his heel turn.

But before it? When he was wrestling Orton for the title after his emotional win? Yeah, those were the matches to look for. The one that happened on the Smackdown after Extreme Rules was just amazing, a well-paced back and forth match between two thoroughbreds that ended in a great RKO spot. Hell, even before then, Christian had his working shoes on, turning in an amazing series with Alberto del Rio before WrestleMania, including a cage match on Smackdown that was among my favorite matches of the year.

To me, the biggest casualty of ECW going off the air was Christian. Yes, we all like seeing him on the big brands, and he finally got a couple of pops with the World Championship, something we've been clamoring for FOR YEARS. However, when he was on ECW, he was having the main event matches with a varied slate of opponents from Mark Henry to Tommy Dreamer with an amazing series with Jack Swagger interspersed between them. He's not getting the opportunities to have those matches now, although maybe I'm speaking out of turn since he was injured after the Orton series. Either way, I hope he remains having a focus on him when he gets back from injury, not because I want to see him get pushed (I do, but that's besides the point), but because when he does get the long, showcase matches at the top of cards, he turns in some of the best bouts of anyone on the roster.

Dylan Hales: On merit Christian may have deserved to be higher on my ballot. He was in an awful lot of good matches, and for the first portion of the year looked to be unstoppable. But I docked points because despite the good matches, Christian as a heel does not work with me. Christian is a guy whose offense is a cornucopia of hope spots and near fall teasers. They work well in the repertoire of a sympathy babyface. As the tools of sneaky, whiny heel? Not so much. Still you can’t discount the volume or the effort of a guy who has been one of the more consistent talents of his generation.

Dave Maes: 2011 wasn't supposed to happen for Christian. Edge was the World Champion, had a hot feud with Alberto del Rio, and 'Captain Charisma' was heading straight for midcard hell. But, then, Edge's career ended abruptly, and Christian was handed the ball. We all cheered when he won the World Championship in a memorable ladder match, but it was his subsequent loss of the title, a mere 2 days later, that angered fans and ignited a storyline with Randy Orton that generated an entire series of amazing matches. Injuries have sidelined him, but his 2011, inadvertent as it was, was a masterstroke.

Mike Germano: Christian spent 2011 making the perfect turn. By bringing Orton to his best matches in years and a perfect run as the chickenshit heel champ, he stepped up his game. Christian’s in ring work has always been great, but looking at his PPV matches this year, it seems like he always stepped it up a gear to go all out.

Dave Musgrave: His career year in my opinion. Randy Orton is one of WWE’s favorite stars, and he seemed to handpick Christian as his favorite opponent. His title victory over Orton was a positive example of a screwjob finish getting heel heat, and his original win over del Rio for the title was great as well. I hope to see a lot of great stuff out of him this year.

Lee Spriggs: He made Randy Orton look a hell of a lot better in the ring, and took some nasty bumps (leaping off the turnbuckle into an RKO on the steel steps). The match against del Rio for the Heavyweight Championship was also a keeper, with some great ladder spots and overall solid execution in the ring. I've only seen him at this later point in his career, but I look forward to going back and watching his earlier work.

Vince Morales: We should really stop all that "who is the Marty Jannety of this tag team?" stuff shouldn't we?

Photo Credit: (1)
7. Cody Rhodes
Points: 2213
Votes Received: 26
Highest Vote: 4th Place (Dave Maes, Chus Killalea)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 37th in '09, 13th in '10

TH: I liked Cody Rhodes in '11, but not nearly as much as some other people. He had a really good match with Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania, and he had some fun spots that he would pull out from time to time. However, I feel like his biggest problem continues to be his disjointed movements. At times, he doesn't look all that comfortable in his wrestling boots, which is shocking given how naturally his brother and father were in the squared circle. Still, Rhodes was above-average most of the year, so I give him that much.

Dylan Hales: Cody is about as hit and miss as it gets. When he’s on he’s a guy who can really work a crowd, takes great theatrical bumps and works tight with his offense. When he’s off he’s boring as hell in the ring, incapable of working a heel control segment that even borders on compelling. In 2011, I thought he showed strides and has definitely gotten more consistent. There are still moments where the old Cody shows up, but he’s eliminated some of the more cringeworthy traits of his game and it was fun watching him change up things to work guys as different as Rey and Big Zeke. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a MITB push in 2012 and a chance to see just how much he is really capable of delivering.

Eric Smith: Cody was another guy that I had really never cared much for up until this year. I, like most people at the time, thought Ted DiBiase would be the breakout star of Legacy and I never really enjoyed his in-ring work. It was his feud with Rey Mysterio that really changed my mind and made me a Cody fan. They had my 2nd favorite match at WrestleMania this year, and Cody transformed himself into one of the most fascinating characters in WWE. Cody’s shown an impressive ability to constantly change himself and stay fresh, never keeping one character long enough for it to be stale, going in the last year and a half from the Dashing gimmick to the demented mask-wearing psychopath and now to his current cocky heel with bits taken from both previous gimmicks. He’s one of the most versatile characters in wrestling today, and that’s caused him to go up a lot in my book.

Lee Spriggs: The first time I turned on Smackdown (which was this year), I remember seeing some goofy-looking guy in a cloak and a plastic mask. I didn't know that he'd end up becoming one of my favorite guys in the ring. He's crisp, he's got two (!) great finishers, and his vaguely- to completely-unbalanced persona carries over nicely into the ring. From the match where he got injured to the present day, Rhodes has been getting better and better.

Photo Credit: (1)
6. Mark Henry
Points: 2247
Votes Received: 25
Highest Vote: 1st Place (Dylan Hales)
2009 and 2010 Rankings: 23rd in '09, 39th in '10

TH: Mark Henry in 2011 was vindication for a small crowd of people that included myself and fellow Henryphile (and first place voter) Dylan Hales that always knew the big guy could be excellent between the ropes. Long saddled with a "lazy" or "green" label from the days when he was lazy and green, Henry worked hard to get into ring shape, only to be told to regain his weight for a lifting competition. Since then, he's made the best of bad situations, having fun brawls and bringing great big man wrestling to the forefront against opponents as varied as from the Undertaker to Christian.

In the past year though, Henry took the leap, and everyone started to take notice. It started with his heel turn at the draft, although I was seeing some really good stuff in tags and on Superstars even in the first half of the year. He started to plow through guys and really get across that he was one of the biggest, angriest badasses in the ring. He sold when he had to, and that made for a monster push that wasn't so much early Goldberg as it was late Godzilla, when the world's most famous kaiju decided he'd stop pillaging Tokyo and start doing battle with other planet-weight monsters in flashy and violent spectacles. With that being said though, Godzilla vs. Mothra had NOTHING on Henry's war with Sheamus at Summer Slam.

Even when the bloom was off the rose in the front office and they decided they would do to him what they had done with every other heel who gained momentum through long winning streaks, he held his head high and still went out there and had great matches. The most notable of these was his cage match against Daniel Bryan on the Holiday Smackdown, which stands to me as one of the best twists on the David and Goliath matchup ever. Mark Henry was always a good wrestler. In 2011, he became elite, and fuck everyone who jumped on the bandwagon now despite not listening to me and the rest of the Henry Fan Club in years prior.

Devon Hales: Henry was the most compelling person to watch over the entire year, even more so than Punk. His character development was remarkable and quite frankly one of the best I've ever seen. He cut marvelous promos that were intriguing and highly entertaining. His massive shit talking was awesome and never got old. Offensively, he was extremely impactful and some of hiis moves looked brutal and nasty in their execution. Bumping wise, he was terrific as well really taking a lot of impressive ones against Big show and Sheamus. His series with Show, Sheamus, Bryan, and Orton were all tremendous. Overall he was just incredibly awesome and truly deserves to be high on this list.

Mike Germano: Mark Henry had one of the great “Hoss” years in wrestling. I never got tired of him yelling at his opponents in the ring, and his work this year made Smackdown a must-watch every week. I don’t know what clicked this year, but his work as the angry badass really brought a smile to my face each week.

Dave Musgrave: The argument between whether Henry improved this year or just finally got a push leads people to an either/or hypothesis. If you ask me, he both improved and finally got pushed. His title reign saw the best booking of a first-time champion by WWE probably since Battista. Henry took the ball and ran with it, putting out great promos and strong matches to become the monster heel WWE wanted for a long time.

Eric Smith: In 2011, Mark Henry brought back something that has become hard to find in wrestling, that being the legitimately scary monster wrestler. Whether it was taking out Kane, Khali, and Big Show, putting Sheamus through a guardrail, or cleanly pinning Randy Orton, Henry could not be stopped. It’s a testament to his skill that he became the first monster heel in many years that people could legitimately fear.

Vince Morales: I ranked Mark Henry 23rd for one reason and one reason only: he scares me. I don't want to cross him. Watching Mark Henry brings me back to a simpler time when heels scared the ever living shit out of me.

Lee Spriggs: When the atom bomb was detonated, Oppenheimer famously declared, "I am become Death, destroyer of worlds." Mark Henry could make the same claim. But I prefer to think of Mark Henry in terms of another vision of Krishna, also taken from the Bhagavad-Gita. When Krishna reveals his celestial form to Arjuna, Arjuna sees all of the armies of man marching into the gnashing teeth of Krishna, who is devouring all of creation. During that glorious stretch of 2011, Mark Henry was that supreme incarnation - devouring the entirety of the WWE as well as the entirety of creation. Big Show, Kane, Randy Orton, all were devoured. When the universe finally ends, the last glimmer of light will be in the glowering eyes of Mark Henry.

Dylan Hales: In the previous two years my vote for number one was not tough at all. In both 2009 and 2010 no wrestler in the U.S. combined volume of quality, with consistency and strength of big match performances as well as Rey Mysterio. In actuality no one was particularly close. However, 2011 was a different story. Rey got hurt and left the fold in August. On top of that CM Punk had put together a remarkable year up to that point, including an all-time great series with John Cena, a far better than it should have been series with Randy Orton, consistent TV performances and of course an excellent match with Rey himself. In a year with Rey on the shelf, Punk seemed like the heir apparent.

But there was a sleeping giant that emerged from the pack. That giant was Mark Henry, a polarizing figure in many circles, but someone who seemed to enjoy near unanimous approval in 2011 on the strength of a career defining run. I myself have been a fan of Henry for some years and considered him one of the top workers in the States in both 06 and 08. Still there was something about last year that was different, as Henry was no longer just a player. As the year went on he started to feel like THE player.

Henry started the year slowly as he was still a babyface on Raw, being used in radom settings as a sort of “gatekeeper” for guys trying to work their way into the upper tier or as a monster for little guys to bounce off of. He had some quality matches during this period, mostly notable a tag match from Superstars and a quality house show bout with Tyson Kidd that is available online. He was not setting the World on fire though and it would have been unimaginable to see him breaking out to have the most successful and entertaining year of his career.

And then the unimaginable happened. Henry was drafted to Smackdown, turned heel, and in relatively quick order went on a tear. Starting in April and running through the end of the year there was no more consistent and interesting figure in wrestling than Mark Henry. Where Punk had extremely high highs, he also had extremely low (and frankly embarrassing) lows. Part of this was due to booking and circumstance and Punk remained a consistent performer in the ring. But Punk started to feel stale and it became a chore to sit through segments involve him that ultimately felt like a great performer being set up to fail. Even in matches Henry was simply more fun to watch.

It was not just about “fun” though. Henry had very good to great matches with a multitude of wrestlers. His series with Sheamus, Big Show, Randy Orton and Daniel Bryan featured a multitude of high quality matches in a variety of different settings. In particular the matches all had a distinct feel and showcased different aspects of Henrys character (and talents). His matches with Sheamus and Big Show looked and felt like brutal clash of the titans affairs. His matches with Orton saw him work as a remarkably effective dominating heel, with decisive power. In some respects his most impressive performance was against Bryan in the cage where he was working as a wounded wild animal, evoking a legitimate sense of vulnerability, without losing the any of the sense of violence that made his character so compelling. His trash talking and domineering attitude in the ring made nearly every affair watchable to the point where seeing him matched up with The Great Khali actually made me excited wondering if and how Henry would be able to make it work (he did).

He was remarkably adept at saving and building to the big spots at the right moments. The World’s Strongest Slam off the top of the cage was the finish of the year. Or was it the definite shrug off of the RKO and WSS the night he won the title? Or was it the superplex spot that “broke the ring” with Show? Or was it putting Sheamus through a barricade before beating a ten count? They were all so great it’s hard to pick.

His parting of the red seas spot with the lumberjacks in his Smackdown match with Christian was one of the more entertaining spots of the year. His bout with Rey from April was one of the most underrated bouts of the year. He took the Big Show’s WMD better than anyone and would regularly surprise with other impressive bumps. There was just a lot of stuff in 2011 that Mark Henry did really, really well.

In December I had a chance to see Henry and Punk live within a week’s time. Henry lapped Punk despite already feeling the effects of the injury that would cut his run short. At this point I really started to consider “is Henry the (U.S.) wrestler of the year over Punk?” Overall the Smackdown ratings trends and direction of their characters led me to conclude the answer to the question was “yes.” In the ring…?

The best way I can explain my decision is by looking at the 2009 Academy Awards. Sean Penn ended up winning the Oscar for Best Actor for his lead role in the bio-epic Milk, edging out Mickey Rourke for his excellent work in The Wrestler. As a wrestling fan and a movie fan I felt that Rourke should have won for two reasons.

Firstly it was a role that transcended the movie and told the viewer as much about the troubled career and past of Rourke as it did about “Randy The Ram.” It was a career peak that sprung up out of nowhere signaling the resurrection of a man who had seemed permanently damned to irrelevance.

Secondly Penn had a tight template to work off of. He was to become Harvey Milk, a man who really did exist and about whom a lot is known. Rourke’s job was to create a new character, realistic enough to connect with viewers. He had to study the context of a business he knew little about, understand it and take scraps of his own life to mold an authentic representation of a man who embodied the reality of that World.

CM Punk is Sean Penn. He’s had other dances and will have more. I cannot begrudge someone for voting him the best in ring performer of 2011. He was handed a role and played it well. Mark Henry emerged from nowhere, created a role, made himself relevant again and had a career year in the process.

Maybe the Academy voted with their head when they picked Penn in 2009, but they should have voted with their heart. I voted with my heart. I voted for Mark Henry.

Photo Credits: 1 - WWE.com, 2 - Scott Finkelstein, 3 - ImpactWrestling.com