WWE Season Awards 2017-18

Well well well, what a weird figurative year for WWE. We've had some great stuff and we've had some down right terrible stuff. But I guess it's the time of the year I try and condense the WWE main roster from Raw after Mania 33 to Mania 34 via awards. Let's go.


Best Moment Of The Year - Daniel Bryan announces he's medically cleared to wrestle

Bryan is my favourite wrestler of all time, and it was felt among most that Bryan would leave WWE as soon as his contract was up to try and wrestle once again on the independant scene. Well we needn't have worried as WWE doctors finally cleared Bryan for in-ring competition again and it was the happiest moment of the year for me. On that Smackdown where Bryan took bumps and started attacking Owens and Sami gave me goosebumps. Welcome back!


Worst Moment Of The Year - Jinder Mahal wins the WWE Championship at Backlash

I have no idea what WWE were thinking this year. Jinder Mahal was, and still is, very plainly a mediocre to bad wrestler. Not only that, but he has no charisma, he cannot talk on the mic, to the point where you can tell how scripted his promos are. To me it's unforgivable that the WWE chose to put the WWE Title on him and keep it on him for the majority of the year. I stopped watching WWE apart from PPVs because of this, after several years of being a loyal weekly viewer as the product kept getting better, this was a horrid realisation that the company is still out of touch. It didn't helo that the Orton/Mahal feud was agony to watch as well.


Best PPV Of The Year - Royal Rumble

It had to be. These awards usually almost always go to WrestleMania, that usually has recency bias towards it, but not this year, Royal Rumble knocked it out of the park this year, with the first ever Women;s Royal Rumble and the Men's Royal Rumble being such a blast too, the show came back to the standard it should have always been at. Although the other matches around the rumble matches weren't anything amazing, the rumbles really made the whole show shine.


Worst PPV Of The Year - Battleground

God almighty, the card sounded horrendous and the matches were even worse, the return of the Punjabi Prison match was the worst offender along with the return of The Great Khali for a one night appearance. So bad it wasn't even worth watching.


Best Debut Year - Elias

Elias came to screens on Main Roster during the Superstar Shake-up, the second week into the figurative year, and although initially a little lack luster in NXT, Elias has really made a name for himself on Main Roster. Unlike all previous musical gimmicks, Elias actually has some great musical talent. The work he puts in to make his segments on each Raw memorable is astounding, recently on a Edge and Christian podcast he said that he sits and writes a song for every town they go to, that along with the extent he will go to continue his character outside the ring, like going to open mic spots, which was seen in New Orleans for WrestleMania 34. Another staning out point for Elias is the fact that he doesn't use the guitar as a gimmick weapon like most guitar wielding superstars. Elias is mainly a segment and entertainment character for TV, but he is good in-ring, he just needs some more chances to show that.


Superstar Of The Year - Braun Strowman

Let's just think about the year Strowman has had. At last Mania he was only in the Andre Battle Royal, not even winning. In between that time Strowman feuded with Reigns several times, with some of the best segments such as tipping over the ambulance and other amazing goofy feats of strength. He was in the Summerslam Main Event and shone. Turned face and was cheered unanimously, made it to the end of the Survivor Series Match and took out Triple H. Was in the Universal Title match at Royal Rumble. Completely slaughtered in the Elimination Chamber Match. Paired with Alexa Bliss in the Mixed Match Challenge, not only being comedic and making a fun storyline, but adding another layer to his character, softening it slightly, so when in came to WrestleMania, he could pick a 10 year old boy from the crowd to be his tag partner and win the tag team championships with him to 'Awww's. It almost sounds like this guy is the perfect person to be your figurehead. Everyone loves Braun Strowman.


Underutilised Star Of The Year - Rusev

It's just starting to get some traction behind it but Rusev has been a superb performer for years, and this year he fell off majorly. If it wasn't for his talent he would be in a hole right now, but the later part of this year has been a god send for Rusev. With 'Happy Rusev Day' getting majorly over and being paired with the entertaining Aiden English, it seems Rusev may be on the up again. Sadly he was pinned by Jinder Mahal at this years WrestleMania, but hopefully this can be rectified in the coming year. Oh and HAPPY RUSEV DAY!


Woman Of The Year - Asuka

It is about time Asuka got to Main Roster. To be plainly honest if she wasn't in NXT for the previous years Asuka would've been winning this award every year. She debuted around midway through the year but Asuka has been great. She won the first ever Women's Royal Rumble and she had an amazing match with Charlotte at WrestleMania (even if I don't fully agree with the way her streak has ended). Definitely deserving of this award.


Team Of The Year - The Usos

The Usos have had a phenomenal year. Although their heel turn and thug-ish gimmick change weren't done this year, the Smackdown Tag Team Championship title reign that happened this year along with their amazing feud with The New Day has properly made The Usos stand out more than any other team in the WWE this year. The Usos solidfy themselves as one of the best teams in the industry today and prove the doubters wrong.


Heel Of The Year - Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn

Yes, I'm cheating, but these are my damn awards. They get a joint award because they spent most of their heel runs this year together, and although Owens has been a superb heel since debuting in WWE, Sami Zayn has really broken his character mold by being the ying to Owen's yang on screen. It's hard to imagine that either of these two being as successful as they were this year, as heels, without the other one their, so I'm making the executive decision to have joint winners this year.


Face Of The Year - AJ Styles

AJ has been face all year and he hasn't lost a beat from his heel run from last year. It was a seamless transition from heel persona to his face persona and has been consistently great since. Overall faces have been very lack luster this year, Finn and Seth both were fun babyface but the booking for all these guys have been a little under par, but after this WrestleMania it looks like it is on the up.

Shock Of The Year - Jinder Mahal winning the WWE Championship at Backlash

Shock the year isn't mutually exclusive to being a positive thing. Read Worst Moment Of The Year for more.


Match Of The Year - Ronda Rousey & Kurt Angle vs Triple H & Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania 34

Wow, just an amazing match from start to finish, not a beat was missed when it came to this match, completely enthralling the whole time. It was more on the 'sports entertaining' side of WWE but it didn't hinder the quality at all. This is where Triple H shines in my opinion and it's clear that Ronda worked her ass of to make her match super memorable. Don't forget that Angle and Steph brought out surprising performances too. But the highlight of the match was the short inter-gender section between Triple H and Ronda. This match did not have any right to be this good but it was. Match of the night, and match of the year.


Feud Of The Year - The Usos vs The New Day

In my Fluffie Awards from the end of 2017 I had Owens and Zayn vs Shane McMahon above this feud between The Usos and The New Day. But since that point the feud has become infuriating. Shane McMahon acted like a heel consistently and expected to be cheered, and the feud only came around when Bryan was cleared to compete again. Here with The Usos and The New Day, the teams have had several classic matches with each other back-to-back. Not forgetting the amazing promos between the teams. Truly career defining for both teams, something to be remembered for years to come.

So that's it for this year, let's quickly shout-out a couple of things, The Usos vs New Day at Hell In A Cell and Summerslam were very close to winning MOTY, most of Smackdown's tag division matches were all very stellar. 205 Live got no mentions here, because the division had been in the toilet for the majority of the year. But ever since the Cruiserweight Championship Tournament started on the lead-up to WrestleMania the show has been absolutely amazing. Buddy Murphy has been an amazing stand-out that would've gotten Best Debut Year if he didn't debut so late. As such Murphy and Kalisto put on an amazing match on 205 Live that was nearly a MOTY contender. Rollins and Balor had a fairly decent year, Rollins and Ambrose had a great run as The Shield again, such a shame that Ambrose got injured, Rollins vs Ambrose would've been a great Mania match-up. Balor hasn't been pushed back to the heights of the Universal Champion yet and this year since returning at the beginning of last year has kinda been floating around the upper midcard of the Raw roster. Sadly I think this year was extremely weak for WWE Main Roster, for the majority of the year we had Lesnar as Universal Champion, who hardly ever appeared, an idea that worked a number of years ago with the WWE championship, but not anymore, and the WWE Title on the most boring and incompetent wrestler in the company. Couple that with AJ and Owens' feud being surprisingly mediocre and the IC belt being round the waist of Miz who didn't get to have many stand-out feuds and matches, meant the tag division shined the brightest, but didn't wipe the bitter taste in our mouths that we didn't get enjoyable singles runs from our favourite wrestlers.