Best Year of Your Favorite Wrestler

[Chris]

What year do you think was the best for a few of your favorite wrestlers? List as many as you want. I'll start.

Ric Flair - 1989, starts off with the amazing Steamboat matches, and goes right into the GOAT Funk feud for most of the rest of the year. Face Flair this year was the best he's ever been.

 

[Crippler]

Big Van Vader 1993 - The Starrcade match against Flair, the matches with Sting & Steamboat, Cactus Jack @ Halloween Havoc oh and one of the most underappreciated and unseen hidden gem tag matches not of that year but ever Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs. Big Van Vader & Steve Austin (11/13/93)

Triple H 2000 - He was hitting it out of the park on PPV matches, i don't think i even need to list them because i'm sure most of you know them. Fuck it I'll do it anyway. Foley @ RRumble and No Way Out, the mania match was a bit of a letdown but not awful. Backlash and Judgement Day with Rocky both classics. I don't even want to talk about the King Of The Ring match, Fully Loaded with Jericho was a classic and still imo the best LMS match. SummerSlam could have been better if not for the Kurt concussion. Unforgiven was a mess i don't want to talk about it, No Mercy with Benoit was great if you haven't seen it go watch. SSeries with Austin was weird Austin was fully back and to being Austin yet but if you like violent brawls then you would somewhat like this and then he finishes the year with the 6 man HIAC. But it's not just about the PPV matches his weekly 20 minute promos were great and he got so much heat with them, plus every once in a while we could get fun TV matches. The 8 man in Febuary the series or whenever he hooked up with Jericho, i remember a SD match he had early in the year with Rikishi and Taka for the World Title. Just an amazing year.

Stone Cold Steve Austin 2001 - The Year Austin took his game to a new level imo he was always over as fuck but, and i know he didn't like the heel turn but i loved ever second of if. Just the sadistic violent badass son of a bitch rattlesnake for the first 6 months then all of a sudden we see this softer comedic side of him it was a complete 360. As for the matches, the 2001 Rumble one of the best ever, the 2/3 with Hunter the epic match with Rocky @Mania. The Kane/Taker vs. Power Trip was a great build even if you didn't like the matches cause we got to see Austin kill the Hardyz with chairs, he had imo the greatest SD match with Benoit in Edmonton, Canada. He had 2 or 3 matches with Benoit and Jericho that i thought were great. Then he moves on to the greatest carry job in wresting with Kurt Angle at SummerSlam, i love that match. Even the 2 other rematches that followed was great before the end match of WCW/ECW vs. WWF then he kinda went downhill for December but it was the beginning of the end for Austin so it doesn't matter.

 

[Tapout]

Chris Jericho - 2008. Him coming back in 2007 was awesome for the nostalgia pop to see Y2J again but the 180 he did to his character was amazing to watch. His "No Country For Old Man" Gimmick is still one of my favorites of all time. His feud with Michaels and World title run were the best moments and matches of career.

 

[Kiffy Lube]

First of all, first post covers pretty much the greatest run ever so I'll mention some other cats.

Daniel Bryan in 2006- A lot of you would probably name his run last year but for the entire year it wasn't as consistent as his ROH run in 2006. Great title after great title match was to be had. He totally dominated everyone that year. His feud with Roderick Strong was off the charts for example. If you like tremendous wrestling contests you should definitely check out the entire year as besides a couple shows Daniel Bryan or I should say in this case Bryan Danielson was tearin' down the damn house. You know in typical American Dragon fashion.

Randy Orton in 2011- Maybe it didn't get to last the entire year but Orton was on fire when he wasn't on suspension. This is when I feel he truly came into his own in-ring wise... Character wise clearly goes back to 2009 and the Age of Orton. His Summer feud with Christian was just a gem of a series that we really got to see how smooth and seamless he had become inside the ropes. Haven't really seen him to get back to this level other than a few instances with D-Bry. I'd suggest lettin' him smoke his bud if it gets him back to his 2011 form.

The Shield in 2013- I hate when people say the current product sucks and have no idea what is really goin' on with it. Last year this entire case was knocked right open when The Shield were constantly puttin' on incredible performances on Raw. It was like you were guaranteed a ***+ to maybe even a ****+ match on regular cable television. These levels are hard to match and even harder to maintain and they did so with relative ease. Put 3 great wrestlers all lookin' for their moment to shine and did they fuckin' SHINE, you got yourself a formidable crew. And I haven't mentioned their PPV instant classics. Really though, I probably should have went with another singles wrestler here but The Shield last year was better than most Regal/Benoit/Finlay full years so I went with them.

 

[PHX]

Nice topic

CM Punk (2011): Could easily pick 2005 and even give 2009 some love but 2011 takes it. Was one of the most exciting times as a fan for me during his WWE version of summer of punk. Even prior to that I liked his feud with Orton.

Triple H (2000) Fab pretty much covered it just a year which Trips could do no wrong in. One of the greatest years for a single wrestler ever.

Shawn Micheals (1997): I felt this from a overall standpoint was just his best year. In ring wise it is debatable but character wise I don't feel like it is even close he was an awesome douchebag yet cool heel. Prior to that thought he did a great job playing the kinda edgy babyface

Undertaker (1997): Could have very easily gave this to 2002 cause of how awesome he was as Big Evil but giving this the nod mostly cause of his feud with Shawn if nothing else that turned out great and turned into a classic hell in the cell match.

 

[Deezy]

Bret Hart (1997): To me, this was him at his prime, he added some much needed edge to his character and his matches were clinics. Him and Austin were magic together. His promos were great, and that anti-American angle was money. I don't know if there was another performer who could've pulled that off. Especially at a time when the audiences were full of grown men who thought they knew everything. Watching the Raws with him and The Hart Foundation in Edmonton and Halifax had me acting patriotic and that Canadian Stampede 10 man tag was something else.

 

[The Cork]

Ultimate Warrior (1990): Year he finally took over the top spot after being groomed for so long. GOAT Mania match with Hulk, and dece defences against Haku, Perfect and Rick Rude. Plus the GOAT Survivor Series team with Road Warriors.

He had a good debut year in the WWF in '87 too, some fun squash matches agsinst Terry Gibbs and Horowitz.