Your chance to vote in the year end Top 10 is almost gone!

Voting for the year end Top 10 ends the night of December 24th at midnight Central time. You have less than 72 hours to get in your votes for the best wrestlers of the year!

Who will join 2015 winner Sasha Banks and 2016 winner Broken Matt Hardy
as the best wrestler of 2017?  

As in previous years, the process is simple. All you have to do to vote is to send me your list of the top wrestlers from anywhere in the world. Your list can be as short as one or as long as 25, but it needs to be ranked in order of worst to best. Send your choices to wwfmegs{at}yahoo{dot}com (or leave them in the comments below) and I will tally the fan choices as well as my own top ten to give a full list of the top stars of 2017.

The only requirement for a wrestler to be eligible for the list is if they were active in the calendar year 2015 as an in ring worker. Promotions, gender and age are not limited, just as long as they wrestled a match at some point in the year 2017. Wrestlers should be rated on quality of match rather than out of match promos or shenanigans, all though those can be taken into account as an overall reason for your choice. Television programs recorded previous to the year but aired in 2017 also count to the calendar year. Tag teams and units must be listed separately on this list. If you feel they had equal levels of performance in your list of twenty, please put them one after another.

Though it is not required, any commentary on the wrestlers you chose and why you chose them would be appreciated, as it will be included as thoughts on the wrestler in the final Top Ten list.

Looking back at Wrestlemania XXXIII

It's hard for me to look back objectively at this year's Wrestlemania. Why? Because so much of it seemed to be booked by executive committee rather than through good storytelling or in a lot of cases, even great wrestling.

This is as close as I'll come to mentioning the awful tag line this year.
Image credit: WWE.

Don't get me wrong. The show had great bits. I think it was superb after weeks of weeks of Austin Aries talking about it on commentary that Neville beat Aries through a poke to the eye. Brilliant. Mojo Rawley winning the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal worked wonderfully too. Mojo may be reviled by a lot of smarks but he's really building a following with his pseudo-Warrior gimmick and a chance for him and Gronk to shine together is a true Wrestlemania moment.

That was the pre-show. Unfortunately, the main card didn't deliver nearly as well as the free giveaway across platforms.

AJ Styles and Shane McMahon did what they could with who they were. Owens and Jericho wrestled a decent match, but it seemed wanting from two talents as good as they are, probably because it was meant as just a first match in a series. Neither women's title match was allowed to shine as well as they could, especially with less than twenty minutes on the show devoted to them combined.

Rollins / Triple H and Orton / Wyatt were both pretty much what anyone expected, all though I had held out a vague bit of hope that Bray Wyatt might retain. Brock Lesnar and Goldberg gave exactly the match they needed to give with a initial punch of offense from Goldberg before Lesnar dismantled him with Suplex City.

And for the second year in a row, the main event was absolute crap built to force feed us Roman Reigns. Sure, this time he played the heel a bit more in the lead up, but he's still not a heel in any practical way. The booking was beyond asinine and as a final match for Undertaker, it just felt like an insult. Reigns just isn't capable of putting together a great match with anything less than a true mat genius in their prime and he just wasn't able to give Undertaker the great sendoff he deserved. The final moments of the night were moving, sure, but unlike so many others I could not embrace the somberness of them after the twenty minutes of garbage that came before it.

Instead, the real Wrestlemania moments of the show were nestled right in the middle of the card. The point of the Cena-Nikki and Miz-Maryse feud were made clear when John proposed in the center of the ring. It was a touching moment and truly a unique bit of Wrestlemania history.

But the true highlight was the return of the Hardy Boyz (complete with a Z) in the tag team ladder match. While working as a weird combination of their classic gimmicks and Broken Matt / Brother Nero, they put on a solid showing in what was their second ladder match in as many days. (Jeff Hardy looked exactly as banged up as he should have after the reportedly insane ladder match with the Young Bucks the previous day.) They took home the tag titles that night in a great welcome home. Interestingly, it was the first time the titles changed hands since the best Mania of all time, Wrestlemania X7, where they lost the belts to Edge and Christian in TLC II.

The best description I can give Wrestlemania is a slog. For seven hours of entertainment, it was far from the caliber the biggest company in the world should be able to deliver on their grandest stage ever year. And the sacrifice of great matches made at Takeover the night before just made the weekend feel rather bland.

In almost everything, Wrestlemania 33 felt like paint by numbers WWE, but so has much of the booking since January. Hopefully with the big show of the year out of the way, Vince can fade back into the shadows and the company can return to putting on some of the absolute stellar shows they put on over the last six months of 2016.

Later this week, I'll talk about the actual best show of the weekend, one which is about as far removed from huge WWE extravaganza as you can imagine.

The inaugural Impact Wrestling Top 10

I have written several unique Top 10 lists in the last couple years of producing The Wrestling Weekday. But somehow Impact Wrestling has always escaped my coverage. Considering the year end Top 10 featured a long time Impact star now in WWE at #2 and an actual Impact star at #1, it seems the time is ripe to feature the first ever list of Impact talents!

Image credit: Impact Wrestling. 

1. Ethan Carter III: While it currently feels like EC3 is treading water a bit at the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, he is cemented as a perennial main eventer on the Impact roster. He could still make huge moves in the year ahead, especially if the company decides to play off the loss of his storyline aunt from the roster. 
2. Drew Galloway: I am not a fan of Galloway as a heel. He made one of the best faces the company had to offer, while as a heel he feels like just another bad dude in a sea of bad dudes. But he has definitely made waves since his in ring return and looks to have a solid run as Grand Champion. 
3. Decay: After Total Nonstop Deletion, Abyss and Crazzy Steve are in a bit of a random space, but they continue to be one of the best units on Impact Wrestling, even if it seems unlikely they will challenge for the tag titles much this year. 
4. Davey Richards: Davey's path upon his return seems clear. After a short uniting of the Wolves for a few weeks, he will take a heel turn against his former partner. Hopefully, Impact uses Angelina Love as his mouthpiece during his heel run, because while Davey can go in the ring, he is still one of the worst talkers on the Impact roster.
5. Jade: If Impact is smart, they will start to build a major part of their promotion around Jade. The perennial #1 contender to the Knockouts title, the former Mia Yim has to be on WWE's radar now. She has the potential to be a game changer in the world of women's professional wrestling and Impact would be wise to market on that. 
6. Moose: Unlike Mike Bennett, Moose was smart to make the jump from ROH to Impact. Impact not only gets him in front of more eyes, but it also helps him develop more attention on his career as it continues to grow. He might still have a future in WWE, but with a more solid place on Impact, he can develop the same kind of following that has helped names like Styles, Roode and Samoa Joe in WWE.
7. Eddie Edwards: He finished 2016 as TNA World Heavyweight Champion, but his obvious impending feud with Davey makes the continuation of his reign seem unlikely, especially with Lashley after him this week. But Eddie has cemented himself as a growing star for the company, and arguably far more valuable than Davey.
8. Lashley: It seems likely Lashley will win the title just a few hours after this posts. Outside the #1 pick, no one on this list did as good a job as reinventing themselves in 2016 as Donald Trump's former wrestling buddy. His dominant work week in and out on Impact Wrestling builds upon his goal of making professional wrestling seem credible and he does a great job of that even when he's warring with Eddie Edwards at the Hardy compound. I never thought I'd say it, but I've became a big fan of this man in the last year. 
9. Rosemary: The Knockouts Champion is easily one of the most over talents on Impact television. With a compelling character, a unique in ring style and a propensity to do things in the ring to make a true impact, the former Courtney Rush is a figure a company could be built around. Along with Jade, she makes a strong case for Impact to double down on the Knockouts side of the roster. 
10. The Broken Hardys: Broken Matt Hardy was the top wrestler of 2016 as chosen by the readers of The Wrestling Weekday and the staff of the ESO-PRO podcast. But Brother Nero did his own reinvention in the second half of the year and even freed from his obsolescence, he still is in a much better place in his career in 2017. No tag team is as in demand in 2017 as the Hardys. The twenty year veterans look to make a huge mark with international matches that will likely be rebroadcast on Impact Wrestling broadcasts, even as they continue to push the boundaries of storytelling in the year ahead. 

Image credit: SI.com.

The Broken Brilliance of 2016's Greatest Wrestler

"Wrestling Weekday, I knew you'd come!"

In 2017, TNA could not even make the list of the Top 10 Wrestlers of the year. But as the promotion puts their first star on the list, he comes in as the greatest star of the year.

Image credit: Matt Hardy.

Matt Hardy started 2016 with his second reign as TNA World Heavyweight Champion. But strangely, that might have been the low point of the year for him. His reign came with a heel turn and a new enforcer in Tyrus, but it never quite worked. The reign ended just a few weeks later with Matt's loss to Drew Galloway.

From there, he started a feud with Jeff Hardy and the true brilliance started to come forth. After two straight brutal losses to his brother, it seemed like Matt might be done with wrestling. But just a few weeks later, Jeff's old alter ego Willow appeared in the ring despite Jeff already being present. But after beatings at the hand of three different Willows, Matt revealed himself as the mastermind of the false form. He declared himself broken, a shadow of his former self obsessed only with the deletion of Jeff, a man he would now only refer to as Brother Nero.

He lost two more matches against Brother Nero, but Matt had one more battle in mind with his brother. The war would continue at Matt Hardy's personal compound, in a battle Matt dubbed "The Final Deletion."

And in one night, the wrestling world would change forever.


From there, the Broken Brilliance finally started to shine. Now the sole owner of the Hardy name, he brought the now "obsolete" Brother Nero into his fold. From there, the tag titles became their target, but it seemed clear this was still Matt's show. From appearances on just about every wrestling podcast still in character to promo after promo to premonition after premonition.

Over the course of the year, Matt became the biggest star in TNA by leaps and bounds, and arguably the most talked about wrestler in the world. He made King Maxel, Senor Benjamin, Vanguard 1 and even The Dilapidated Boat famous names in the wrestling world. An epic feud with Decay started the path to Delete and Decay.

He ended the year with Total Nonstop Deletion and the Tag Team Apocalypto. But Hardy's Great War is far from over.

"Delete! Delete! Delete!"

Matt Hardy's crazy has been around for awhile

Let's be honest, of the two Hardy Boyz, Matt clearly wins out on pure zaniness. He's had insane stories, real world events that reshaped his character in odd ways, and gimmicks way stronger than anything his brother has ever done. He's clearly the better actor of the two as well. Not a great actor mind you, but better than his brother.

Image credit: Matt Hardy on Twitter.

But Broken Matt has become instant gold in pretty much every promo. Look no further than the recent Talk is Jericho interview, where the active WWE star interviewed the active TNA star and Matt didn't break character once.

As covered at Diva Dirt, Matt Hardy had a major point in his career (and in oddball storytelling) on this day back in 2004 as he learns the identity of Lita's baby. (An aside: I love bringing up this story arc anytime someone tells me TV 14 WWE is inherently better than the modern product.)


Lita Reveals That Kane is Her Baby's Father (8... by irenenesser
That may be one of the earliest incarnations of Matt Hardy crazy eye. He uses it regularly now though. Broken Matt has taken the world by storm, literally as can be seen in this promo from a few days back. His threat to the Young Bucks for their South American showdown might be the most unique I've ever heard.


With nearly twenty years under his belt now, fans have seen Matt Hardy grow from young hotshot to grizzled veteran. Few have weathered that storm half as well as he. He may now be at the peak of his career. And while TNA is definitely a B-level product, its narrower range makes a lot more room for his character to shine.

What do you think of Broken Matt? Let me know in the comments below.