The 2025 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the 12th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com!  It is insane to me that I've been doin' this thing for TWELVE YEARS now.

2025 was a pretty crazy, tumultuous year for the wrestling biz.  WWE RAW found a new home on Netflix, Smackdown is back on USA, WWE PPVs are now on ESPN's streaming service which costs $30 a month instead of Peacock's $5, WWE began a parasitic symbiotic relationship with TNA and annexed purchased AAA, and AEW started their new TV deal worth $185 million a year ($100 more than their old deal), making them the second-most profitable wrestling company of all time and ensuring their solvency until at least the end of 2027 (Though grifters and fraudcasters are still pretending otherwise).  Their programming was also added to a whole new platform, HBO Max, vastly increasing their availability in the US and globally.

Both WWE and NJPW propped up ticket sales on the backs of retiring legends.  The latter treated their Ace with reverence and appreciation, while the former tried to shake things up with an ill-conceived heel turn no one really wanted, the catalyst for said heel turn disappeared from TV immediately afterward, and the whole storyline was so poorly received they reversed course less than six months later.

WWE attempted to cockblock multiple AEW PPVs, first by counterprogramming them with NXT specials that died a death in the ratings, and then with actual main roster shows like Saturday Night's Main Event which also did the worst number since the show's revival, and their ESPN Unlimited debut Wrestlepalooza, which garnered mixed reviews at best.  WWE dropped this strategy after that.

WWE also continued to jack up ticket prices to make up for the fact that overall sales have begun to slump, claiming record profits despite numerous sharp attendance drops in various markets.  AEW continued to struggle with weekly ticket sales, making slight improvements over 2024 but booking mostly smaller venues for Dynamite and Collision.  However their PPV attendance and buyrates remained strong, mostly up from last year.  TNA saw some of their best-ever attendance figures, mostly due to the PPV appearances of WWE and ex-WWE legends, and signed a new TV deal with AMC for 2026.  CMLL had a great year in terms of business, racking up numerous sellouts with Mistico continuing to prove himself the company MVP.  NJPW drew some of the weakest crowds in decades as they struggled to connect their audience to the latest crop of stars, but there is still hope after a sold-out WrestleKingdom 20 attendance.

WWE began openly aligning itself with the MAGA administration (inviting racist "comedian" Tony Hinchcliffe to a WrestleMania weekend event that went so poorly all recordings of it were pulled down) and brought accused sex trafficking accessory Brock Lesnar back into the company, alienating much of its fanbase and pissing away a lot of the goodwill they'd built up after Triple H took over Creative.  Even WWE Legend Mick Foley cut ties with the company.  AEW restored much of the goodwill they'd lost in the aftermath of the CM Punk fiasco by focusing on stars like Hangman Adam Page and Will Ospreay, and not trying to sign every free agent WWE let go.  Instead AEW additions included former independent talents like Megan Bayne, Kevin Knight, Thekla, and former TNA talents Speedball Mike Bailey and Josh Alexander.  WWE on the other hand snapped up every ex-AEW talent they could, signing Penta, Rey Fenix, Ricky Starks, Mariah May, Rusev and Aleister Black, none of which have been pushed very hard (Starks and May are still in NXT under new names). 

In-ring quality was night and day between the Big Two.  WWE personalities and podcasters now openly poo-poo the idea of good wrestling being important (though they still complain about the existence of star ratings when someone else gets high marks), while AEW delivered some of the best matches and PPV events in company history.

I'll get into more detail as we go through the awards, so let's get to it....

 

The 2024 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the 11th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I hand out nonexistent awards for achievements in a pretend sport. Unlike Pro Wrestling Illustrated and its readers though, I actually pay attention to companies not named WWE at the end of the year, because how much money a wrestling product makes is of little consequence to me when it comes to judging its quality.....

Another year gone, another 12 months of "WWE great, AEW bad, because money" discourse.  Ho-lee shit am I tired of hearing that one.  As a wrestling fan watching a wrestling show, does the amount of money or people watching said show even enter your mind as you're enjoying or not enjoying it?  If it does, I feel like you're doing it wrong.  

Yes, WWE once again smashed records for another year, partly due to the exorbitant prices they're now able charge for tickets (They're laughing at you folks), but partly because their product is still legitimately very popular at levels we haven't seen since the Attitude Era.  Don't ask me why that's the case, I watched a lot of it in 2024 and I still can't figure it out.  Is it better than the unwatchable shit show the company had long become under Vince?  Absolutely.  Is it the best work WWE has ever done?  No.  Stop with that hyperbolic nonsense.  

Yes, AEW once again struggled with ticket sales and their ratings are down from a year earlier (along with virtually everything else on the dying medium known as cable television.  But, and this is a big but, AEW just signed a new TV deal worth over half a billion dollars over three years, which will make them the second-most profitable wrestling company in history.  Surely to the folks judging a wrestling product by the amount of money it pulls in this means something, right?  RIGHT??  Oh, apparently not, we're still dealing with "AEW circling the drain" bullshit, despite the massive chunk of change it's bringing in now.  Weird how quickly the goalposts moved.

NJPW is in a rebuilding period, having lost two more of their top stars in 2024 in Kazuchika Okada and Will Ospreay.  And while they haven't figured out who exactly will take the place of those two legendary performers, they have a strong slate of up-and-comers in Shota Umino, Yota Tsuji, Yuye Uemura, David Finlay and Gabe Kidd.  Plus Zack Sabre Jr. is carrying the ball admirably for the time being.  There's reason to be hopeful about NJPW's future.  

So with all that said, let's hand out some awards....

 

The 2023 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the 10th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I hand out nonexistent awards for achievements in a pretend sport.....

Well 2023 was quite an eventful year in the world of professional wrestling.  The biggest story of course was the merger of WWE with UFC's parent company Endeavor, a move which finally at long last took creative control away from the 78-year-old malignant narcissist/serial philanderer/embezzler/accused sexual predator Vincent Kennedy McMahon.  Now running the company are Chief Content Officer/Head of Creative Triple H, and Nick Khan, who's become a more and more prominent executive over the last few years.  The results have certainly been positive for the company, which is breaking financial records left and right and currently offers the hottest WWE product since the Attitude Era.  The shows have been much better creatively as well, though that's a very low bar to clear since VKM's booking has been mostly terrible since he acquired WCW in 2001.  But things are looking rosy for WWE and its fanbase.

On the other side of the North American wrestling war, AEW's year was a mixed bag financially.  They pulled in an estimated $175 million for the year, way up from the $100 mil in 2022, but are likely still in the red, understandable for what is still a startup.  One big TV rights fees increase would solve that problem, but that's all up in the air at the moment, as WBD is considering whether to keep AEW's programming or swap it for WWE RAW.  We likely won't know much more till late next year unfortunately, but hopefully loyalty means something to WBD.  AEW also smashed their attendance record by a factor of four, drawing one of the all-time biggest wrestling crowds at Wembley Stadium for All In, while increasing PPV revenues by leaps and bounds with a slate of eight events as opposed to the usual four or five.  All In became the second-most bought AEW PPV at roughly 200,000 buys, while the rest of the events fell into the usual 100,000-140,000 range.  AEW also added a third weekly show, Collision, which has mostly drawn decent ratings for a Saturday night (as long as a major WWE PPV isn't airing opposite).  Like them or not, AEW is the most successful #2 promotion since WCW.

But it wasn't all good news for the company, as live attendance fell dangerously low for a few months (it has since stabilized thanks to better local promotion and lowered ticket prices), and their biggest draw self-destructed for the second time in a year, starting another backstage melee, this time with Jack Perry over a minor on-air verbal jab.  Yes, CM Punk was reluctantly fired from AEW after two years (half of which he spent on the shelf with injuries/suspensions), and went back to the company he'd spent a decade trashing, WWE ("I couldn't get well by going back to the place that made me sick" seemed like such a heartfelt sentiment at the time...).  The official over-under on how long he lasts there has yet to be determined.

On the other side of the globe, NJPW is setting the table for a new era after losing their two biggest gaijin stars in Jay White and now Will Ospreay, and possibly Kazuchika Okada, whose contract is up in January.  Couple that with Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito no longer being close to peak form, and the company is long overdue for some new faces at the top.  Sanada's been the top champion since April but hasn't moved the needle much at all, while David Finlay has become the new top foreign name, and Yota Tsuji, Shota Umino and Ren Narita are being groomed as the next generation of Japanese main eventers.  Unfortunately NJPW is taking their sweet-ass time getting there and it's made the current product feel rather stagnant.

Impact is changing its name back to TNA, MLW won an antitrust settlement against WWE, and ROH continues to be a decent secondary brand for AEW.

So with all that said, let's hand out some awards....

 

The 2022 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to the 9th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I celebrate the highs (and lows) of the year that was, inside the squared circle!

What a wild year 2022 was.  Like, pretty batshit crazy when you think about it all.  

The biggest story of the year was of course WWE kingpin Vince McMahon stepping down from his duties as Chairman amid a rash of sex scandals and payoffs.  In his place running the big picture stuff, are his daughter Stephanie (who only weeks before assuming this role had announced her intention to take time away from the business) and Nick Khan, while all-but-ousted protege Triple H was made the new head of Creative.  WWE's business thrived through the second half of the year as curiosity over the Vince situation and later Triple H's new direction drove up ratings for a while, and improvements in overall programming quality kept people lining up to buy tickets.  While I personally still find WWE's product very stilted and pretty unexciting, there's no denying that the company is doing very well right now, and Vince's legal woes have so far been a blessing in disguise.

UPDATE: Turns out Vince installed himself back on the Board of Directors so he can sell the company.  What a shit show.

On the other side of the fence, AEW experienced its first real growing pains in 2022, most of it stemming from the year's second-biggest story, the Brawl Out fiasco (but also due an unprecedented rash of talent injuries).  The scene was Chicago, just after their highly successful All Out PPV wherein hometown hero CM Punk had just defeated Jon Moxley to regain the AEW Title.  But then Punk proceeded to publicly bury the company and its Executive VPs over rumors that he'd gotten former friend Colt Cabana reassigned to Ring of Honor (more on them in a bit), which led to the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega going to Punk's dressing room to confront him.  What followed was all Hell breaking loose over the next several minutes, as Punk made the confrontation physical and half a dozen people had to step in and break up the melee.  Numerous details have been bandied about by both sides, but what an independent investigation confirmed was a) Punk threw the first punch at Matt Jackson, b) Punk's friend Ace Steel threw a chair at Nick Jackson, and c) Steel also bit Kenny Omega.  All parties involved were immediately suspended pending the investigation, and Steel was fired.  The months-long controversy surrounding the incident led many to believe Punk would never be seen on AEW television again and also seemed to hurt AEW's attendance (TV ratings were up and down over the rest of the year). 

However AEW does seem to have renewed their focus on pushing younger, homegrown talent and in recent weeks it feels like they've won back much of the goodwill Brawl Out lost them.  They also managed to draw five separate million-dollar live gates in 2022, including the Grand Slam episode of Dynamite.  No other wrestling company aside from WWE has ever done this, least of all for a weekly television episode (though to be fair a few of WCW's big gates do break a million when adjusted for inflation).

In AEW-adjacent news, Tony Khan also dropped the bombshell in 2022 that he'd purchased Ring of Honor and planned to create a new weekly show while also running new PPV events.  The first two ROH PPVs completely under Tony's banner were rousing successes for the company, drawing some of their best attendance figures and buyrates.  As for the new weekly show, it will be streamed on the relaunched Honor Club streaming service, which will also include the ROH library and new PPV events 90 days after they take place.  With a massive talent roster under his umbrella TK has more than enough stars to populate the stalwart promotion.

Across the Pacific, New Japan Pro Wrestling, once an annual lock for Best Promotion of the Year, again struggled to maintain the quality they'd so long been known for.  For the first time in nearly a decade their flagship PPV WrestleKingdom was a rather underwhelming affair, and the company's attendance, though slowly improving from pandemic numbers, was still not back to normal.  But help did arrive in the form of AEW, as the joint AEW-NJPW PPV Forbidden Door shattered expectations, selling out Chicago's United Center in minutes and drawing a highly respectable 125,000 buys.  More than enough to justify making the crossover an annual event.  Between their expanded collaboration with AEW and Japan's loosening of attendance and noise restrictions, 2023 should see NJPW regain their mojo, at least somewhat.

All four companies should be interesting to watch in 2023 on one level or another, and that's something I haven't said in a long time.  With WWE I'm intrigued to see how Triple H oversees WrestleMania season (if a potential company sale doesn't fuck it all up that is).  With AEW I'm excited to see which young stars truly rise to the top and become crossover sensations.  With ROH I'm hopeful they'll become more profitable than ever before.  And with NJPW I'm eager to see them get back to where they were pre-pandemic

But enough with all that, let's hand out some fake awards.....

 

The 2021 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to the 8th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I celebrate the highs (and lows) of the year that was, inside the squared circle!

After 15 or so months of wrestling shows being held in front of virtual, or no, crowds, 2021 saw the welcome return of real, in-person wrestling fans.  For WWE it was Wrestlemania 37 that began the renaissance of live crowds, albeit in a limited capacity, and for AEW the May PPV Double or Nothing was the first of the year to feature a packed Daily's Place.  NJPW had been running shows with limited audiences for months prior, but since fans in Japan aren't allowed to vocalize, it wasn't as stark a contrast.  Regardless though, touring wrestling shows with packed houses was something we'd all dearly missed during quarantine.

As far as wrestling content, the quality from the big three companies was quite varied.  

WWE once again struggled to present a consistently good product or elevate new stars without later cutting their legs out.  Bianca Belair began the year with a gutsy Royal Rumble win on her way to capturing the Smackdown Women's Title in the main event of WrestleMania Night 1, only to get squashed by a returning Becky Lynch four months later.  While she's likely to finally win back the title at this year's 'Mania, the abrupt title change made her look pretty silly and the subsequent Lynch heel turn hasn't been working much at all. 

Rhea Ripley was once again poised to be a top women's star, defeating RAW Women's Champ Asuka at 'Mania before losing the title to Charlotte Flair only three months later, basically duplicating the push-derailing loss to Charlotte at 'Mania 36.  Since then Rhea has been stuck in a go-nowhere tag team with Nikki ASH.  Once again the company failed to truly pull the trigger on this unique star.

Drew McIntyre spent most of 2020 at the top of the card and looked to continue that streak into 2021 but lost the WWE Title to a Miz cash-in, Miz dropped the title in short order to Bobby Lashley, and Drew found himself out of the title picture and out on his ass after failing numerous times to regain the title from Lashley.  Great for Bobby, not so good for Drew.  

Of course WWE television was dominated by Roman Reigns, who's in the middle of a year-plus Universal Title run, having beaten everyone they've thrown at him.  Really the only star they've portrayed as being on Roman's level is Brock Lesnar, begging the question, who ultimately benefits?  The point of having a dominant long-term champion, aside from making that guy, is to make someone new in unseating him.  But if he crushes all the full-timers and only the older part-timers look like they can hang with him, where are the new stars coming from?  As of now there isn't anyone who looks remotely ready to beat Roman for the title.    

Big E was perhaps the one real WWE success story of 2021 in terms of actually elevating someone, winning Money in the Bank and cashing in on Lashley over the fall.  While he's not being pushed on the level of Roman Reigns, at least they haven't made him look like a fluke champion like so many other cash-ins have.  Of course it remains to be seen whether he suffers the same fate Kofi did (a humiliating title loss followed by an express ticket back to the tag team ranks), but for now Big E is enjoying the best push of his career.

WWE cut a swath of talent throughout 2021, citing budget concerns despite raking in record profits.  Among the surprising releases were Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt, Nia Jax, Karrion Kross, Aleister Black, Andrade, John Morrison, Bronson Reed, and many others.  In some cases the release was the best thing for them - WWE's loss was AEW's gain - but a few of these were baffling indeed.  Part of the impetus for cleaning NXT house was Vince and his creative goons taking control of the developmental brand and renaming it NXT 2.0.  Gone was the emphasis on crisp in-ring action and great workers, and in its place was a garish mid-90s aesthetic, a focus on large men and pretty women regardless of wrestling ability, and as it turns out, even worse ratings.  Hunter must be soooooo pissed right now.

Okay, enough bitching about WWE.  

New Japan had a rough year to say the least.  Aside from their crowd size being limited, the company was plagued with injuries and illnesses affecting numerous top stars.  They also discontinued the IWGP Intercontinental Title, merging it with the IWGP Heavyweight Title to create an IWGP World Title, a belt that the vast majority of fans seem to feel is a major step down.  Regardless of the title design though, the belt took numerous hops through the first half of the year, some planned, some not.  Kota Ibushi finally won the championship at WrestleKingdom, the culmination of a multi-year journey, only to drop it to Will Ospreay a scant three months later.  Then Ospreay had to vacate the title in June due to a back injury.  The plan was for Kazuchika Okada to face Ibushi for the vacant title but then Ibushi developed pneumonia and had to be replaced by Shingo Takagi.  Takagi won his first IWGP Title, well-deservedly I might add, and has kept the championship picture stable ever since.  But the main belt wasn't the only title vacated, as Hiromu Takahashi had to step away in February, relinquishing his IWGP Jr. Title in the process.  And of course the most jarring blow to the roster was Kota Ibushi (this guy can't catch a fucking break) dislocating his shoulder during the G1 Climax Final, executing a Phoenix Splash and cutting the epic match short.  Jesus, this company needs a huge rebound in 2022.  Fortunately WrestleKingdom 16 is looking pretty stacked over its three-day(!) format.

But the most fun story of 2021 involves our first award.....

 

The 2020 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to the 7th Annual Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards, here at Enuffa.com, where I celebrate the highs (and lows) of the year that was, inside the squared circle!

Here's an understatement for you: 2020 was a weird year.  A global pandemic changed a lot of big plans for everyone, and the wrestling industry was most certainly not immune (no pun intended).  For the first time ever, holding wrestling shows without an audience became commonplace, and not only did every company take a major financial hit from the loss of ticket sales, but the wrestlers between the ropes were forced to reckon with the lack of crowd noise.  It really made everyone realize how vital an energized crowd is to the creative success of a wrestling match.  Some companies adjusted better than others.  Some came up with convoluted high-concept technological solutions and passed them off as revolutionary (You know who you are, Vince).  Some companies are located in countries that actually took the pandemic seriously and thus were able to let fans back in much sooner.  Regardless, 2020 threw all sorts of wrenches into everyone's plans.  But that doesn't mean we didn't get some fine wrestling along the way, and that's why we're here talking awards.

Before I hand out pretend trophies though, there's one major change to my wrestling viewing habits I'd like to discuss.  In April of 2020 I walked away from WWE, after 34 years as a fan.  Just take a moment to let that fact sink in.  I've been watching this wrasslin' stuff since 1986.  And while the WWF/WWE, historically my favorite wrestling company for most of that time, has had its numerous highs and lows, I stuck with them through all of it, at least on some level.  During the Monday Night War I was Team WWF through and through; never once did my loyalty to their product waver, even as they were getting their asses kicked in the ratings every week.  Starting in 2004 I fell off watching the weekly shows religiously and ordering every PPV, prompted by JBL's out-of-nowhere main event push.  Starting in 2005 I reduced my PPV orders to the Big Four.  With the advent of Netflix carrying WWE DVDs in 2006 I began waiting a month to rent most of the PPVs on disc rather than shelling out the $50 a pop to watch them live.  But when the WWE Network launched in 2014 I was all in.  I subscribed the first week and never looked back.  No matter how bad or nonsensical the weekly RAWs and Smackdowns became, I still watched every PPV event.  Even as NJPW became my new favorite wrestling promotion, spending $9.99 a month to watch every new WWE PPV (plus tons of nostalgic content) was a no-brainer.  So now consider just how unwatchably horrible the WWE product would have to become for me to decide after seven years as a subscriber that ten bucks a month was too much to spend.  I haven't watched a WWE show in ten months, and based on what I've been reading about them, I haven't regretted missing any of it.  It is a true indictment of Vince's cosmic ineptitude that someone like me, literally WWE's most loyal demographic, has completely lost interest in his product, at a time when he has probably the most talented roster ever assembled.  And now, given how great NJPW is and how much fun I have watching AEW, it would take a major creative and tonal shift for me to revisit WWE on a consistent basis.  I actually considered re-subscribing for one month just to watch the Royal Rumble, as it's always an enjoyable event.  And then they booked Drew vs. Goldberg as the main event.  Wow, Vince.  Way to clearly signal, "No thanks, fan of three-plus decades, I don't want you to resume giving me your money."  Such a business genius.  

Anyway, even despite all this, I've attempted to be impartial with these awards and give WWE their due when I feel they've earned it.  So here goes.....

 

The 2019 Enuffa.com Pro-Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to Enuffa.com's 6th Annual Year-End Awards! 

2019 was, putting it mildly, an interesting year in pro wrestling.  For the first time in nearly two decades, the industry juggernaut WWE faced real North American competition, in the form of Tony Khan and Cody Rhodes's brainchild All Elite Wrestling.  An upstart company that promised to be more fan-and-employee-friendly, that promised to make wins and losses matter, and that promised to present a more sports-like atmosphere than WWE's three-ring circus, AEW launched its weekly TNT program Dynamite to mostly positive reviews and solid ratings, winning the first seven head-to-head weeks (It's been a see-saw battle since then) against the revamped NXT show.  Even more impressive was the near-instant sellouts of the company's first two PPV events, Double or Nothing and All Out (the latter of which saw upwards of 80,000 people vying for seats.  The company isn't without its flaws, as was expected for a brand-new promotion, but with Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks, Cody, Chris Jericho, and WWE deserter Jon Moxley as their core main event crew, plus a host of promising young stars, AEW is a breath of fresh air in what had long been a stagnant North American wrestling landscape.  If nothing else their existence will hopefully force WWE to put more effort into their creative and worker harder to keep employee morale up.

AEW's top stars sadly came at the expense of NJPW, who found themselves in a bit of a lurch immediately following WrestleKingdom 13.  Amazingly though, as they'd done in 2016, the company adjusted quickly and put the focus on a crop of new and up-and-coming stars, selling out Madison Square Garden (the first non-WWE promotion to play there since 1961) and once again delivering loads of great matches and moments.  Impact's parent company Anthem purchased AXS TV, which also cost NJPW their weekly American time slot, but I don't doubt New Japan will find a workaround.

As for NXT, WWE's third brand had maybe their best creative year, delivering multiple yardstick TakeOver specials and amassing one of the best rosters in the business.  The AEW situation has been great for NXT, as the company is now motivated to treat the former developmental brand as a full-fledged part of the whole.  Given how badly the main roster squandered all the 2019 call-ups, I've about gotten to the point that I hope no one from NXT ever gets called up again.

Speaking of the main roster, there's probably never been such a collection of wrestling talent so badly used, ever.  RAW and Smackdown are bursting with great athletes and somehow they have no idea how to utilize any of them.  Pushes were bungled (perhaps intentionally in some cases), payoff matches were poorly booked, undeserving people were elevated and overexposed, angles were dropped without warning, PPV lineups were thrown together last-minute.  2019 provided so much more evidence (as though we even needed it) that the industry passed Vince McMahon by a long time ago and he needs to step down.  It's gotten so embarrassing I can't imagine how bad things will be in ten years if he's still there.  I skipped six main roster PPVs in 2019.  I haven't done that since 2010, and that was back when you had to pay for them.  For someone like me (a WWE Network subscriber since Week One) to not bother watching nearly half the company's PPV events in a given year, things have to be in really rough shape.  2020 isn't looking very promising for the red and blue brands.  Were it not for NXT I'd have likely dropped my Network subscription already.

But enough grim news.  Let's do something fun.  Let's hand out some pretend awards!

The 2018 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to Enuffa.com's 5th Annual Year-End Awards!  Hard to believe this website is already almost in kindergarten....

Like 2017, 2018 was a year of amazing highs and infuriating lows in the world of pro wrestling.  NJPW had just as spectacular a year as they did in 2017, with literally dozens of incredible matches, significant financial and global expansion, continued focus on creating new stars, one of the all-time great tournaments in the G1 Climax, and another IWGP Title match that got EVERYONE talking.  Narrowing down the five or ten best NJPW matches of the year is a tall order; there were so many ***** classics to choose from.  As we roll into 2019 the future continues to look very bright for the number-two promotion in the world, and they've led a non-WWE resurgence that's making it possible for talent to earn a living outside of Vince's umbrella.  Several of these stars have either turned down or intend to turn down WWE contracts in favor of launching their own new promotion that will presumably help New Japan gain even more North American fans.  We'll see how that pans out in 2019.  Also the NJPW-ROH Supercard booked for Madison Square Garden (WWE's home arena for decades) the night before WrestleMania sold out immediately (the first non-WWE show to accomplish this feat since before WWE existed), illustrating how hungry millions of fans are for something different in the North American market.  New Japan Pro Wrestling has been a beacon of hope for so many of us who are fed up with WWE's creative ineptitude, and they show no signs of letting up.

Speaking of said ineptitude, in 2018 Vince McMahon once again proved his seeming commitment to perpetuating a "worker bee" structure in his company, where no one gets over, no one is an attraction, and the WWE brand itself is what sells tickets.  No promoter with even a modicum of understanding of the business could take a roster exploding with talent like this one and actually get stars LESS over the longer they're on television.  Virtually every call-up from NXT (the one part of WWE programming that consistently works) has been immeasurably hurt by being on the main roster, and the few RAW and Smackdown stars who have managed to separate themselves from the pack have more or less lucked into it.  Between embarrassingly awful scripted promos, nonsensical storylines, 50-50 booking, and Vince's ever-shortening attention span, you're more likely to enjoy main roster PPVs if you avoid the weekly shows.  Ya know, the exact OPPOSITE of the way it's supposed to be?  Things started out very promising from January until WrestleMania, with stars like Nakamura and Asuka being built up as title challengers, Braun Strowman continuing to get over as a monster babyface, and Ronda Rousey being added to the mix.  Then at 'Mania the company went with baffling booking decisions and things went into a creative tailspin for months.  It were as though Vince's XFL commitments kept his focus off the product from the Royal Rumble until early April and he came back just in time to almost ruin WrestleMania.  Going into 2019 there are a few bright spots - the women's division currently boasts some of the most over stars in the entire company (their Evolution PPV in October was one of WWE's best offerings of the year), and Daniel Bryan (who miraculously came out of retirement in April) has reinvented himself as an asshole heel champion and actually gets to cut his own promos.  Smackdown has been on the upswing the past few months, while RAW is in the crapper, creatively and ratings-wise.  The company desperately needs to re-examine its approach or their programming won't be worth nearly as much in five years.

But enough blathering on - let's hand out some awards!

The 2017 Enuffa.com Pro Wrestling Year-End Awards

Welcome to Enuffa.com's 4th Annual Year-End Awards! 

Man, what a strange year.  One major company soared to new creative and nearly unprecedented commercial heights (at least for the past twenty years), while the other engaged in one baffling, counterproductive decision after another, wasting arguably the strongest talent roster they've ever boasted.  Said company's developmental brand, seemingly on the verge of equaling its main roster a year ago, took a step back in 2017 after losing so many of its stars and being forced to rebuild.

Remember a couple years ago when we were worried about New Japan after they lost several top guys?  Yeah, that's all out the window.  New Japan Pro Wrestling delivered on every front in 2017, offering some of the most incredible matches anyone's ever seen, elevating multiple new stars and building one of the deepest rosters in years, and enjoying some of the biggest financial gains since the Great Muta era.  Not only that but NJPW's fanbase in North America is the largest it's ever been (the company promoted NJPW-only shows on American soil for the first time) and 2018 promises even more significant growth in that area.  Shows like WrestleKingdom 11 and Dominion were shining examples of what a stacked wrestling PPV should be, while the G1 Climax tournament delivered easily a dozen Match of the Year candidates.  November saw the company deliver a bombshell revelation, with the announcement that 18-year WWE stalwart Chris Jericho was jumping ship to New Japan, marking one of the most US-impactful NJPW-related stories in history.  With the card set for WrestleKingdom 12, including one of the company's all-time biggest main events, we could see the largest Tokyo Dome crowd since the company's heyday.  It's a very exciting time to be a New Japan fan.

On the other side of the Pacific, WWE took an incredibly stacked roster and used it in some of the most logic-defying ways imaginable.  At least once a month the company presented a head-scratching booking decision that cumulatively wore down fan enthusiasm, until by year's end the brand seemed about as uncool as 1999 WCW.  Let's take a look at some of WWE's more bumbling creative moves of the year, shall we?  I bet I can name at least one per month.

The 2016 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to Enuffa.com's 3rd Annual Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards!  

2016 was a year of overwhelming change in the wrestling industry.  We saw defections, roster splits, new stars made, dream matchups realized, and above all a gluttony of available wrestling content.

The WWE Network alone added so many events, specials and series it became damn-near impossible to keep up with all of it.  Couple that with NJPW's usual, robust schedule, TNA, ROH, Lucha Underground, RPW, etc. and it's safe to say the wrestling business is financially pretty healthy overall.

WWE expanded to the point that their various sub-promotions are beginning to resemble the old territory days.  RAW, Smackdown, NXT, 205 Live, and the impending UK and Women's tournaments are providing something for just about everyone, and there's certainly no shortage of PPVs and Takeover specials to gorge on.  The second attempt at a roster split has been a mixed bag, but the two main roster brands have provided fairly divergent products thus far.  Adding to WWE's appeal this year was the influx of new faces and established outside talents, many of whom were allowed to keep their existing names and gimmicks.  It's created a refreshing set of new matchups and in some ways taken us back to the Monday Night War era, when known wrestlers would jump from one company to the other.  And much like the old territory days, familiar faces in a new environment allows some of these veterans to freshen up their gimmicks and movesets against a new crop of opponents.  It's all made for a very diverse WWE product, about which I obviously have numerous reservations and criticisms, but which does instill cautious optimism.

NXT continued growing into a full-fledged third brand, adopting a new TakeOver schedule based on the main roster's Big Four PPVs and making greater use of established veterans to add credibility and seasoning.  The "developmental" territory outclassed the main roster at every turn, providing most of the company's best major shows.

New Japan rallied after the loss of four top stars, quickly filling the void with some new blood and reinvigorating rising talent, thus allowing the company to break out of their comfort zone and take some booking risks.  Most of these paid off big, and while the overall quality might not have been quite at the pitch-perfect level of 2015, the company's long-term health looks extremely good.

Amid controversies and lawsuits, TNA still managed to hold on by a thread, changing up their product and employing some unconventional tactics, mostly involving Matt and Jeff Hardy.  I haven't kept up with TNA in quite some time, but from what I understand the product in 2016 was vastly improved from recent years.  So there's still hope for the Keith Richards of wrestling promotions.

Ring of Honor solidified and expanded their relationship with New Japan, making much greater use of NJPW's roster for special events/PPVs, and lending their own talent to the Japanese promotion.  ROH Titles were defended on NJPW shows, ROH stars captured NJPW gold, and it's allowed both companies to reach wider audiences.  TNA would be wise to try and get in on this action.

The 2015 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to Enuffa.com's 2nd Annual Year-End Awards!

2015 was largely quite a shitshow if you're a WWE fan.  For the second straight year the product started off on a completely tone-deaf note, as Roman Reigns was pushed as the company's central figure for the first few months, despite soft fan support and a poorly defined character.  Even after the long-awaited return of Daniel Bryan, Vince stayed the course in building Reigns as the #1 Contender at WrestleMania, and fan relations took a big hit.  Bryan was booked as an afterthought, Reigns won the Royal Rumble, and both he and The Rock met the wrath of a pissed-off live crowd.  This caused WWE to hedge their bets for 'Mania, as the Showcase of the Immortals was not Reigns' crowning moment as originally anticipated.  Instead Mr. Money in the Bank Seth Rollins swooped in, joining the Reigns-Lesnar match in progress, and walked away with the strap.  Thus began a banner year for Mr. Rollins.  Or at least a banner year by WWE standards.

As has been the case over the past five years or so, WWE's booking in 2015 has been full of scripted promos, confusing angles, and 50-50 nonsense that gets no one over.  Their way around the consequences of that is to rely heavily on stars from the past to sell the big events.  But what happens when those established guys aren't around?  Well, WWE's shortsightedness came back to bite them in a big way in November, when not only was John Cena on hiatus, but Randy Orton, Cesaro, and WWE Champion Seth Rollins went down with injuries, leaving massive roster holes (Daniel Bryan, Tyson Kidd and Nikki Bella were already on the shelf by this time).  The depleted roster, coupled with horrid booking and go-nowhere storylines has led to some of the company's lowest RAW ratings in two decades, and fan enthusiasm up until Roman Reigns' WWE Title win was about the weakest I can remember.  WWE needs to seriously re-examine its strategy if they hope to turn things around in 2016.  With Reigns at least it seems they're doing just that, as his character has been given a more aggressive edge and he finally got the job done against Sheamus.

When I speak of all these WWE-related issues I'm of course only speaking for the main roster, as NXT became a full-fledged alternative brand in 2015.  Triple H's former developmental territory got everything right that the main roster got wrong (in particular the incredible Women's division), presenting a simple, streamlined, wrestling-heavy product that has attracted a rabid fanbase.  NXT reached a huge milestone in August, selling out the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, also the site of SummerSlam.  That this little upstart brand was able to sell out a major arena is truly amazing, and the hungry roster delivered in spades, arguably upstaging their main roster counterparts that weekend (Another TakeOver special is planned for WrestleMania weekend next year).  NXT is so much better at pushing new talent in fact, that being called up to the main roster often hurts, or at least stagnates, a wrestler's career.  Case in point Neville, who has scarcely been involved in a meaningful feud since his RAW debut in March.

The 2014 Enuffa.com Year-End Pro Wrestling Awards

Welcome to the Enuffa.com Year-End Awards for pro wrestling!  I'll talk a little about the major events of the past year and then get to the Awards section, which includes my picks for every year I've been watching this wacky stuff.

Well, we've come to the end of 2014.  It was quite a roller coaster year for wrestling fans, as WWE presented the good, the bad, the awful, and seemingly everything in between.

The biggest story of 2014 is probably the advent of the WWE Network, which while drawing very disappointing numbers thus far, is nonetheless a game-changer.  Offering every PPV of the year for only $9.99 a month seems like a no-win prospect given how expensive traditional PPV is, but WWE took the gamble that the low price tag and the vast content library would draw enough subscribers to make up the difference in volume.  As of now they're about 300,000 subscribers shy of breaking even.  Hopefully in 2015 they'll grow the library and be able to attract more fans.  Of course presenting consistently entertaining programming week-to-week would help.  They sadly don't seem to grasp that concept. 

WWE was on both sides of the fence as far as being in touch with its audience.  At times they clearly listened to the fans, albeit begrudgingly (case in point the Daniel Bryan saga), and at times they were totally oblivious (Batista anyone?).  NXT has emerged as a viable third brand that presents simple, cutting-edge wrestling featuring exciting young stars eager to make a splash.  The third brand has consistently outshone its main roster counterparts, as it's booked by former wrestlers such as Dusty Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat, and overseen by Triple H who truly seems to "get it" as long as he's not an on-air character.  What's sad is I almost fear the top NXT stars being called up because the main roster creative is in such a shambles.  I trust the NXT team much more than their RAW/SD counterparts to utilize talents properly.  That's not a good thing.