Well, here we are. We set our course straight for oblivion and managed to come out the other side unscathed. Stupid Mayan attention whores. But having come so precariously close to the edge, so damnably near mass extinction, I've decided to streamline this Year in Wrestling piece a bit. I used to separate this thing into a news section, a "FTW" section and a "FML/FTL" section. But due to the fact that most readers/skimmers didn't even notice that there were sections, and the fact that using "FTW" these days is akin to doing the Arsenio Hall dog pound "whoof whoof whoof," I'm going to just prattle off a bunch of "things that happened." Some good, some bad, all ridiculous. Because it's freakin' wrestling.
BTW, if you don't get the Arsenio Hall reference you've managed to make me feel incredibly ancient while also hyper-illustrating my point.
IGN's Top 50 Wrestlers of All Time
Oh, and since I'm wallowing in my laziness, I should also point out that most of the pictures used here are pictures from the past year's Wrap Ups. So consider that part of the retrospect too. A year in dumb cat pictures. With a smattering of Phone Dog. Ah yes, Phone Dog. The magical dog who politely answered the phone without fail. Many wondered why I retired him, despite the fact that there were still thousands upon thousands of pictures of people on the telephone out there ready to be cropped next to a picture of the dog on the phone. Well, let's put it this way. By the end, I was posting things like this...
Yup, that's pretty much the tipping point, folks.
No, there won't be an official Wrap Up for the dreaded Christmas-themed RAW from last Monday. Shows like that just make me sad that all the boys and girls have to work shows like that. Of course, it was pre-taped from the previous week, but still. They could have just NOT done that show and given us a "Best of 2012" episode. But then they would have violated their no "rerun" policy, which would have then eliminated RAW from that weird race that only they seem to be running. That being said, Cena rolled a bowling ball into Alberto Del Rio's d***. So it wasn't a total loss.
Disclaimer, y'all. My New Year's resolution is to watch more ROH. I have a palpable dislike for watching things online and so I haven't really kept up with ROH since it stopped being on HDNet. The thing is though, even if I still kept up with it regularly, there's never all that much to write, Wrap Up-wise, about ROH. Or DGUSA. Aside from just saying things like "great match," "great match" and "great match" over and over. I'm better off addressing the lunacy of the WWE and TNA. The more "story" there is, the more I can kvetch. The more material I have to draw from. A few TNA fans wonder why I don't write as much about TNA as I do about the WWE and the fact is...TNA doesn't give me as much to work with. Also, I'd probably, almost immediately, chug a bottle of rust remover. TNA has two hours of TV a week and not everyone makes it onto TV. Simply put, there's just not as much going on. They're also still facing the same problems they've always had, but now their ratings are down 18% year over year and their attendance is down 40%.
Okay, Picard "WTF?" meme base image. Engage!
Now we can get into all the insane and crazy...
Um...Picard?
Dammit, sexy snuggly Picard! Knock it off! It's time for a look back at 2012!
Wayward son, Chris Jericho found his way back to the WWE this year, complete with a Lite-Brite "Dynamo from Running Man" jacket that made him look even more awkwardly naked when paired with his tiny trunks. The videos that harbingered his return had little to do with the man who actually showed up (something something post-apocalyptic detention hall) and then, when he did finally arrive, he trolled everyone by not speaking for weeks. Other than a 'Mania feud with Punk, it seemed like Jericho and the WWE didn't really know what else to with his character, and by the end he'd turned babyface again to face Ziggler at SummerSlam.
Oh, and let's not forget the 30-day suspension Jericho had dumped on his sparkly shoulders for stomping on the Brazilian flag during an international tour. At this point, negotiations for Jericho's upteenth return have fallen apart due to Jericho wanting more freedom to do non-wrestling things. No word yet on how negotiations with the jacket are going.
"Pow! You're pregnant!"
The Rock made his hotly-anticipated return in 2011, stretching out a year-long war of words with Cena leading up to an epic showdown at WrestleMania 28 in 2012. Leading up to the big battle, The Rock ramped up his TV appearance schedule, even getting in the ring with Cena a few times to trade barbs and scribble out a bunch of Brian Gertwitz notes on his wrist, like he was cheating on a middle school geography test.
The Rock beating Cena at 'Mania was surprising since, plainly, The Rock didn't need the win. He's so massively over, and not a full time member of the roster, that most everyone expected a Cena victory. And a Miami riot. But "The Great One" was given the Rock Bottom victory. And then another headlining spot at WrestleMania 29.
But here's the thing. Even though Cena, and others, criticize The Rock for A: leaving the WWE, and B: only coming back every now and again to steal the spotlight from the boys in the locker room... we don't give a s***. Nope. Not one s***. In fact, none of the guys ever seem to turn that whole equation around and look at themselves. What does it say about the modern WWE wrestlers if, say, a guy like The Rock, can come back and overshadow them ten times over? Man, I can't wait to see what happens when MVP, John Morrison and Shelton Benjamin return in 2013. We'll all be like primitive apes at the foot of the monolith from 2001.
2012 marked the return of wunderkind Brock Lesnar, back at the (storyline) behest of John Laurinaitis to destroy John Cena and "legitimize" the WWE. But Lesnar seemed to have, given his very limited amount of contracted TV appearances, only three PPV matches in him. One with Cena (which was pretty good and gave us our first real taste of WWE blood in years), one with Triple H and one more yet to come - presumedly a rematch with Triple H at 'Mania. So, because of this, Lesnar had to be off TV a lot. Be it a firing or a quitting. Which means that the best thing that came from Lesnar's big return was the return of Paul Heyman.
Paul Heyman, AJ Lee and CM Punk on page 2...
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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