The Top Ten Wrestlers of 2017, Honorable Mentions part three

Tomorrow, we reveal the immensely talented number one wrestler of 2017 as voted on by the readers of this site. But first, we have the final ten talents that made a large impact over the year withotu quite reaching the top 10.

• Christopher Daniels (#20)
  
  

  

  Image credit: Oil Sandler / Sportskeeda.

  At 46 years of age and a quarter of a century into his career, Daniels is a veteran by any count. Only a few names can say they've made it as far and as high as he has without ever finding success in WWE. (While he never was on WWE television outside an appearance as a Conquistador, he did have a developmental contract from 1998-2000.) 2017 was one of his most impressive years in the business as he wrestled several great matches and finally ascended to the pinnacle of a world championship. While his run with the ROH title wasn't particularly long, it was quite an achievement for one of the best talents still going in the business.
  
  
• Johnny Gargano (#19)
  
  Injury slowed Johnny Gargano a bit in 2017, but he walked into the year as NXT Tag Team Champion and walked out as #1 contender to the NXT title. He ranked high on the list of talents here (while current NXT champion Andrade Almas didn't even get a vote.) And while he spent much of 2017 taking losses, he showed why he's called Johnny Wrestling in match after match. He and Tommaso Ciampa sold for the Authors of Pain like no other. The beating he took at Ciampa's hand set him up for a huge underdog babyface run. But he did succeed in putting Andrade on the map with a stellar match at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn III and bumped for Pete Dunne in perhaps the best UK title match so far. Gargano has a great 2018 in his future, although Tommaso has to be waiting in the wings as a major thorn in his side.
  
  
• The Young Bucks (#17 & 18)
  
  

  

  Image Credit: ROHwrestling.com.

  I marked Matt and Nick Jackson as the eighth and ninth best wrestlers in the world on my own personal list. They remained forgotten on several others. I suspect they may be victims of their own success. The Young Bucks don't ever have bad matches, but their place as a stalwart and true tag team means they often are forgotten during their dozens of reigns with multiple titles. They held the ROH tag titles twice in 2017, losing and regaining them from the Broken Hardys in their last match before jumping back to WWE. They would then team with Hangman Page (as the Hung Bucks) to capture the ROH Six Man titles. They would take the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team title on their sixth ride as well. (They have since claimed it for the seventh time at Wrestle Kingdom 12.) The Young Bucks have already reached the sky, but their lofty goal of selling out a ten thousand seat arena means they may draw a lot more eyes in 2018.
  
  
• Samoa Joe (#16)
  
  On any other roster, Joe would be a champion. Unfortunately, he's stuck on the roster of Raw, where Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns won't drop their matches without extreme circumstances. Joe dragged the best match Lesnar had this year out of him and actually made Reigns look better (if not great) when he played his latter day Hulk Hogan beatdown schtick. If all goes well in 2018, he will join AJ Styles on Smackdown. It might make that brand look like TNA circa 2008, but everyone and their uncle know the magic Styles and Joe can make. And just think if they threw Shinsuke in there...
  
  
• The Bar (Sheamus #15 & Cesaro #11)
  
  

  

  Image credit: WWE.com. 

  Cesaro and Sheamus were the only tag team not to rank one after another on this list. Both proved their worth by putting on great tag matches in 2017. Their heel turn cemented them as a unit. Cesaro has always worked at a higher level than Sheamus, but the Irishmen seemed relevant for the first time in years in The Bar. I suspect these two will hang together for some time to come.
  
  
• Charlotte Flair (#14)
  
  Charlotte's move to Smackdown and face turn have done wonders for her character and her in ring work. In my opinion, she works best as a face and she showed that off by putting on some matches far stronger than what we got in the last few months of her heel run. My only fear for her is that she will run out of goals to accomplish in WWE far too quickly.
  
  


• Neville (#13)
  
  

  

  Image credit: WWE.com

  My number six pick takes the cake for most improved character work by any meter. But this list is about in ring work and in WWE, he was right near the peak of that. WWE's decision to de-push and turn him was beyond idiotic and would have been a truly awful way to end one of the hottest runs in wrestling. I don't blame him for walking away to avoid being just another member of the Cruiserweight crew. I'm not sure if he will sit out his WWE contract or return, but smart money will be that he's back in the heavyweight division when he does. Honestly, who wouldn't love to see Neville on Smackdown feuding with Nakamura or Styles?
  
  


• The Miz (#12)
  
  I cannot argue that The Miz is really the MVP of Raw, often carrying a show that's primary champion is nowhere to be found and who doesn't ever wrestle on television. His character work is second to none and his in ring work has vastly improved in the last couple years. While I personally wouldn't have ranked him nearly this high, I respect the multiple voters that chose him as a top talent in WWE. 

That's the final ten. Observant readers probably already know who that leaves as number one, the second time our top talent has made an appearance in the top half of our list. Who is it? Find out tomorrow!

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.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 23: The future is bright for NXT

While NXT is always in flux thanks to the nature of WWE call ups, it is also a promotion that is now frequently bringing in great independent talent to heighten the action. While folks like Finn Balor, Kevin Owens and Apollo Crews have made huge impacts in the last year, the company still has more hires waiting to make their debut.

Rich Swann still doesn't have a WWE ring name, but he's easily the most accomplished of WWE's non-televised talent. A regular in Dragon Gate USA, EVOLVE and CZW, he made a name for himself both for his amazing high flying style but also for his love for fun and a bit of humor. I've got two great matches featuring him below, the first against unsigned NXT talent Johnny Gargano and the other against three other future WWE/NXT talents: Sami Callihan (formerly Solomon Crowe), Luke Harper and Neville.




Athena was one of the top female stars on the indies, wrestling both men and women and finishing them with the incredible to watch O-Face, a top rope diving corkscrew stunner. Here she is in a battle with indie superstar Mia Yim, otherwise known as TNA's Jade. Now signed and working live events under a variation of her real name Adrien Reese, I would expect her to get a new name before she debuts.


Biff Busick was signed with Swann and Athena, and has also made his live event debut under his real name. A regular in both EVOLVE and CZW, his highly technical style brought him the most recognition in PWG. He even made the painful acquaintance of a woman that made her WWE debut at this year's Wrestlemania, one Ronda Rousey.


PWG has fun pretending they don't know their famous fan, but Busick was a guy that could be serious in the ring. Take a look at this technical classic against current EVOLVE champion Timothy Thatcher, from another Busick regular stop, the Beyond Wrestling promotion.


With all three of these stars likely to make their television debut in the next few months, I suspect 2016 will only continue NXT's rise as the best pro wrestling brand in the world today.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 21: Tyler Breeze's long road to WWE superstardom

Back in 2007, a young Canadian by the name of Mattias Wild started to wrestling for companies like Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling, Power Zone Wrestling and the Prairie Wrestling Alliance, all small Canadian independents. But while he never became a name of note on the independent circuit outside his home country, he did train under Lance Storm. And he happened to do so at just the right time.


As he started under Storm's tutelage, Lance had a television series about his training on Canadian television called World of Hurt. Emma and Sylvester LeFort were hired by WWE shortly after the series and several other Storm trainees would get the call as well. Mattias would be one of them.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 18: The wrestling career of Corey Graves

Since debuting at NXT Takeover: R Evolution last year, Corey Graves has proven himself time and again as a stupendous member of the announce team. But before that, he was a solid wrestler with a decade long career before frequent concussions forced him into retirement after three years in development.

Image credit: WWE.com.

Before that time, he was a star of the independents with the less than stellar ring name of Sterling James Keenan. A regular for Pittsburgh-based IWC, he made his way from Indiana to Florida as a independent talent, but never managed to get more than sporadic appearances in Ring of Honor nor did he ever appear for EVOLVE. He also made frequent trips to the UK, where much of the influence in his style can be seen.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 12: Neville & Finn Balor as a great tag team

Long before Neville and Finn Balor came to NXT, let alone wrestled at NXT Rival, they both regularly worked in Japan. Neville was PAC, a regular of the Dragon Gate promotion, while Balor used his real name Fergal Devitt (or alternately Prince Devitt) in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Both found tons of success, winning both solo and tag team gold in their respective companies.

Image credit: WWE.com.

But they didn't always remain apart. Japanese wrestling companies are far more likely to lend out their talent to other companies than American ones which brought about PAC into the NJPW Best of the Super Juniors tournament and Devitt into Dragon Gate as an infrequent tag partner with PAC. This gave us a chance to see the two master high flyers with great technical prowess team to take on some of Dragon Gate's regulars.

Watch below as the team of Neville and Finn Balor take on Dragon Gate veterans Ryo Saito and Genki Horiguchi.

The Shield battles... Xavier Woods, Neville and Corey Graves(?)

NXT was a lot of fun even before it became a wholesale brand in its own right. Let's take a look back to the final days of Corey Graves as an in-ring competitor where he and his tag team partner Neville teamed with lovable good guy Xavier Woods to take on the return of The Shield to the developmental brand.

Of course, only in NXT could these three men go fifteen minutes with the hottest thing in wrestling at the time. Even now on the main roster, it seems unlikely any of the men would be allowed to be competitive against Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose or Roman Reigns.


Adrian Neville, Xavier Woods and Corey Graves vs The Shield by AndresGuilherme

Ryback out of Battleground, but where are the Divas?

Word came down yesterday that Ryback won't make an appearance at Sunday's Battleground due to a staph infection in his knee. Generally a minor injury, the infection will keep him out of regular competition for at least a couple of weeks. While WWE seems intent on keeping the Intercontinental title on the Big Guy, he will not have a defense Sunday against Big Show and The Miz. No replacement match has been announced for the Intercontinental triple threat which leaves the card sitting at only five matches:

• Brock Lesnar challenges Seth Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight championship.
• Sheamus versus Randy Orton.
• Kevin Owens challenges John Cena for the United States championship.
• Two members of The New Day challenge the Prime Time Players for the Tag Team titles. 
• Roman Reigns versus Bray Wyatt

WWE puts on a 'beast' of a show in Japan

Last weekend WWE put on a special event that was unlike their usual programming.  Beast in the East gave WWE fans a chance to see wrestling they don't usually see on TV, both in look and style.  Chris Jericho vs.  Neville went longer than any match Neville has had on the main roster.  And while the Divas bout and Brock's squash of Kofi Kingston were unsurprising, it was the semi-main event that blew the roof off the joint.

Jericho and Neville put on a clinic in the opening (broadcast) match. Credit: WWE.com.

New Japan fans knew how good Finn Balor was as Prince Devitt. Everyone knows just how good Kevin Owens is. So when the two men met for a 20 minute classic at the Sumo Hall, it was everything you can dream. The two men threw everything they got at each other with Balor pulling out old finishers (a Bloody Sunday chant even rose in the Japanese crowd) and Owens pulling out Cena's moves. But in a wonderful battle that featured no interference and just pure wrestling competition, The Japanese wrestling fans got a very new Japan influenced battle and American fans got to see a style they don't normally get to view. And in the end, Balor walked away as the new NXT champion.

One of many stunning moments in this match. Credit: WWE.com.

Even the main event pitting John Cena and Dolph Ziggler versus King Barrett and Kane was unlike anything normally on WWE television. A twenty minute tag match that allowed everyone in it to show off their best stuff is pretty rare in WWE, but the four men did everything they could to end the show with grace, even if they did have to follow a mat classic like Owens/Balor.

Michael Cole and Byron Saxton might have been the most talked about part of the night though, so much so they trended in those early morning hours. Cole sounded like a real wrestling announcer for the first time in ages as the two men actually called moves and focused on the history of the wrestlers involved, rather than putting over pointless story bits shouted in their ear by a producer. It was a breath of fresh air in WWE television.

But it still wouldn't compare to the next night in Japan, when New Japan Pro Wrestling put on a hell of a show. More on that, tomorrow.

Those interested in checking out Beast In the East can still do so on demand on the WWE Network. And fans worldwide should look on this show with hope. Perhaps we will see more live international WWE broadcasts in the months to come.

Japan takes over the wrestling world this weekend!

That isn't a headline I thought I would be writing on this site anytime soon and I'm a New Japan and Dragon Gate fan. But nonetheless, WWE and NJPW are both putting on huge shows over this weekend, back to back on July 4th and 5th, and both frightfully early in the morning for us Westerners. Of course, I work nights already, so a 4:30 a.m. bell time shouldn't bother me too much. And both companies have streaming services more than nice enough to offer replays if I should miss them.

Source: WWE.com.

WWE's Beast In the East comes first early on the 4th of July. The WWE Network airing of what was just a Japanese house show has upped the impact of an already interesting card. Most interesting is the inclusion of a NXT championship match between Kevin Owens and his number one contender Finn Balor. With Owens on the main roster and Balor in the country that made him an international star, this has the biggest fight feel of any NXT title match ever. I suspect Balor to walk out with the belt, but not until after an epic match... and a new round of face paint.

In a perfect world, it would also inspire WWE to start calling it the NXT World title. But I won't hold my breath for that.

The card gets its name from Brock Lesnar's in-ring return as he faces Kofi Kingston. A lot has been made of this odd choice of opponents, but I love it. I think Lesnar and Kingston are a great fit for one another with their contrasting styles and ability to sell anything. Plus with the rest of The New Day in his corner, Kofi should have a nice little army to help him against Brock. Not that it will matter, I suspect, as this sounds like a solid setup to show that Lesnar can overcome even 3 on 1 odds.

The other matches aren't too shabby with a first time meeting between Chris Jericho and another former star in Japan, Neville. John Cena and Dolph Ziggler will team up to take on King Barrett and Kane in the show's oddest match. The Divas title will be on the line as Nikki defends against Paige and Naomi. The Lucha Dragons will take on the other two members of the New Day while Cesaro gets an intriguing singles match with Diego.

It should be a lot of fun, but it won't be as amazing as New Japan's Dominion 7.5, a stacked card from top to bottom coming out of the world's second biggest wrestling promotion. All six New Japan titles will be on the line.

Source: NJPW.co.jp

The show kicks off with an all-gaijin battle for the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Titles. Redragon and Roppongi Vice both challenge the Young Bucks in what will be a spot fest. The Young Bucks have been strong in New Japan, but I could see the fast rising team of Rocky Romero and Trent unseat them on July 5th.

Jr. Heavyweight champion Kenny Omega will also put his title on the line against the Best of the Super Juniors winner KUSHIDA in what may be the match of the night. These two men are both at their very best right now. Given fifteen or twenty minutes they could show up one of the best rosters of wrestlers in the world.

One incorporates Street Fighter II moves into his repertoire and the other thinks he's Marty McFly. How could this match ever be bad? 

The IWGP Tag Team match also features only gaijin in action as the ongoing war between the Kingdom of Taven and Bennett and the Bullet Club's Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows continues. This seems like the time for the feud to end, but it is anyone's guess how much longer these four men can destroy one another.

It's rare to see a New Japan card this big without Hiroshi Tanahashi in one of the top two matches, but New Japan's answer to John Cena didn't make it into either. Instead he takes on Toru Yano in an interesting clash of styles.

Shinsuke Nakamura lost the IGWP Intercontinental belt back in May to Hirooki Goto in what many saw as an upset. Over the course of the last three years, Nakamura has elevated the title nearly to that of the IWGP Heavyweight title, but now seems like the time to possibly move him past it. Every American fan of New Japan has been itching for an ongoing Nakamura and Styles feud, but that can only happen if Nakamura moves past trading the titles with his contenders.

Goto and Nakamura should also have a coolest coat competition.

The main event features the aforementioned AJ Styles as he defends the IWGP Heavyweight title against Kazuchika Okada. This is far from the two men's first encounter as Styles began his first run with the belt by pinning Okada. Styles would drop the belt in order to set up a bigger main event for Wrestle Kingdom 9. But NJPW seems firmly behind Styles now and there's a good chance he may hold the belt to next year's January Tokyo Dome mega-event. Though some suspect this might be the comeuppance for the former Okato over a TNA original, I expect Styles to pull out the win.

Fans can watch the broadcast live on New Japan's own streaming service NJPW World.

Finn Balor takes Japan... and the NXT title?

As announced on this week's NXT, WWE's house show from Japan on July 4th will now be a live broadcast on the WWE Network. Not only will it feature Brock Lesnar's return to in ring action as he stomps the daylights out of Kofi Kingston, but it will also feature a Divas and Tag Team title match (one assumes under Freebird rules so Kofi doesn't pull double duty.) Even Chris Jericho is in on the action as he takes on Neville.

WWE.com

But the big news is that Finn Balor finally gets his epic rematch with Kevin Owens for the NXT title. With Owens making the early move to the main roster and taking names in the process, now seems to be the time for him to lose the NXT title in a big way. Finn made his name in Japan as Prince Devitt where his current demonic alter ego was first designed as creepy cosplays of Carnage, Hannibal and the Joker. One should suspect to see him in his full Eye of Balor regalia as he seeks to unseat Owens.

John Cena will also be in tag team action that night, but hopefully this will not lead to some kind of shenanigans with Cena involving himself in the match. Instead, I would love to see Balor take a big victory that can propel him to the top of NXT before he too makes the transition to the main roster.

In case you're wondering how good Finn was in his pre-WWE Japanese days, here is a match from 2012, where the then-Prince Devitt took on Dragon Gate's PAC, just months before he became Neville. Enjoy.