WWE Divas Divison
Best Diva: Kharma - Even though Kharma was only in WWE a short time before announcing that she was taking time off due to pregnancy, she caused more buzz and generated more interest in the Divas as a whole than any other woman has. Her videos in which she destroyed those little dolls were great uses of symbolism and many of us were chomping at the bit to see her. When she finally debuted, she got a great response from the crowd and she was being used in EXACTLY the right way by coming out and just demolishing the Divas. She didn't wrestle a single match but, then again, she didn't really have to. She made people give a damn about the Divas in some relevant fashion and that's a rarity.
Worst Diva: Rosa Mendes - There's just nothing redeemable about this chick. She can't talk and she sure as shit can't wrestle. Everytime she gets in the ring, all she does is botch everything left & right. She should just quit wrestling and try to find herself a rich guy to marry because, apart from how she looks, I don't see any future for this gal.
Most Improved Diva: Kelly Kelly - Kelly Kelly is someone that used to make me shiver when she came to the ring. Not in a sexual manner, even though she did, but I mean in her in-ring ability. She used to be so slow, clumsy, awkward and botched everything she did. She's improved dramatically inside the ring, she's actually watchable now, but she still needs to work on hitting the damn ropes.
WWE Superstars
Best Overall Wrestler: CM Punk - When you factor just about everything in, I don't believe there's a better overall talent currently on the WWE roster. Punk has it inside the ring, he's hugely over with the crowd, he's probably the best on the mic in wrestling currently today and he's making serious money for the WWE. We all know that Punk finally hit that next level over this summer and, based on reports, he's going to be majorly pushed in 2012. While it's still too early to say, Punk is currently the closest to being the next guy.
Worst Overall Wrestler: The Great Khali - For me, this is a no brainer when you think about it. He can barely speak English, he's supremely limited inside the ring, has zero charisma, is extremely slow, extremely clumsy and the vast majority of his matches have been absolute bores to watch. Khali is living proof that it takes more than just being a freakishly big guy to be a star in this day and age.
Most Improved Wrestler: Mark Henry - I'd have laughed at you a year ago if you'd said Mark Henry would have improved so much. Over the past 5 months or so, Mark Henry has really become one of the best things in WWE. His work on the mic has been damn good, his matches have actually been fun to watch and there's just an aura of believable intimidation surrounding the guy. Even more surprising, if that's possible, is that Henry is actually proving to be a draw for WWE. Ratings for SD! have been quite strong since he won the World Heavyweight Championship. The truth is that just about all of us had long since written Mark Henry off as an irrelevant waste of space and we've had to eat our words.
Least Improved Wrestler: The Great Khali - See Worst Overall Wrestler.
Best Face: John Cena - I know he's the IWC's most hated, but the man's a great traditional babyface like the type that many of us grew up watching as kids. He's a morally grounded character that's safe for kids to watch and adults do enjoy the guy, despite whatever proclamations you might hear from raving Cena haters. I'm not a huge fan of the guy, but he's very good in his role and is cut very much from the same cloth as Hulk Hogan in terms of a babyface.
Worst Face: The Great Khali - See Worst Overall Wrestler.
Best Heel: The Miz - For last month or so of 2010 and the first half of 2011, The Miz was the dominant heel in WWE. Whether you were a fan or you weren't, Miz had people more interested in the WWE Championship picture than they'd been in a very, very long time. Some have just flat out hated on the guy despite the fact that his in-ring ability is solid, he makes great use of his matches to tell a story and he's great on the mic. He's a classic cowardly heel and he does it well. Is it original? No, but he's still been very good at it.
Worst Heel: Jinder Mahal - This poor sap started out with so much promise but then, the WWE found out how green this guy was inside the ring and the brass' support for him went away. Aside from losing almost every match he's had, I just don't dig the guy's promos. I don't speak Hindi so I can't understand him. If I can't understand you, I don't want to hear you talk.
Best Technical Wrestler: Daniel Bryan - When it comes to mat based wrestling and use of submission holds, I think it's fair to say that Daniel Bryan is the best in the WWE. Bryan is capable of putting on a clinic with just about anyone if given the proper amount of time to do so. We haven't seen some of his more exotic submission holds in WWE but I think that will change at some point in time.
Worst Technical Wrestler: The Great Khali - See Worst Overall Wrestler.
Best High Flying Wrestler: Kofi Kingston - One reason why I chose Kofi Kingston was just the sheer amount of height he's able to get when he jumps. That big high cross body block and that springboard clothesline look awesome due to how high he's able to leap. I was tempted to go with Sin Cara but Cara relies entirely too much on high spots. I know that's his style but when you take out his suicide dives and his various variations of the hurricanrana, you take out much of his offense. Kofi's got the agility, the speed, the energy and just sheer height that makes me love seeing him do something off the top rope.
Best Tag Team: Air Boom - This is kind of a given when you think about it. Air Boom is a fun, energetic young tag team that's gotten people to give a crap about tag team wrestling in the WWE. WWE still has work to do, but Kofi Kingston & Evan Bourne both have the fans solidly behind them and invested in them. They've been good for the tag team titles and they're the first team in a while that can say that.
Worst Tag Team: David Otunga & Michael McGuillicutty - There haven't really been that many good teams in WWE for a while, but Otunga & McGuillicutty were just plain awful. Otunga is still pretty green and it shows in the ring, while McGuillicutty does have good in-ring ability but practically no real personality or charisma. They're just a good example of how lousy the WWE tag team scene has been overall for so long.
Most Promising: Dolph Ziggler & Cody Rhodes - This one was too close to call and I just couldn't go with one and exclude the others. Both these guys have come a long way over the span of a year and a half. Cody Rhodes is very good in his current role and has just steadily improved over the past year or so especially. Him being the IC champ is the best thing that's happened to the title since Ziggler had it and he's done a helluva job putting over the importance of the title and its history. Bringing back the classic design just made his stock rise even further. To me, it also signals that Rhodes could be in for a long run as the champ. Ziggler had an impressive 2010 including a very strong run as IC champ. His feud with Edge in the later part of last year and early into this year produced some great matches. Ziggler has got it in the ring and the WWE has used his time as United States Champion to develop Ziggler as a character. He's actually gotten some real promo time, he and Rhodes both have, and that's something WWE hasn't really done with its mid-card champions in a while. Both are extremely talented and I'm hoping that we'll see them both move onto bigger things once their current reigns are up.
Least Promising: Heath Slater - To me, this guy has future endeavored written all over him. He's ok inside the ring but the guy is just flat out annoying. He has kind of a stupid look about him and he sounds like a backwater hick from Tobacco Road. Being a southerner, I've heard every sort of variation on the southern accent and, believe me, Slater's accent definitely falls into the "man, we sound like we're missing half our brain cells" category. His future in WWE hasn't looked promising in quite a while and that's not likely to change as he's recently failed the WWE Wellness Policy.
Most Underrated: Drew McIntyre - Drew McIntyre is someone that I think has gotten sooooo much better inside the ring since losing the Intercontinental Championship. McIntyre has got it inside the ring and he just needs to let his personality out. If he can do that and get some time on the mic, he'll be a star. McIntyre is still a very young man, he's only about 26 I believe, and he suffered from getting a big push before he was ready for it. I think the kid's a diamond in the rough just waiting for a little spit & polish.
Most Overrated: Zack Ryder - I enjoy Zack Ryder, he's an entertaining guy. However, I simply don't see what so many internet fans seem to see in this guy. Sure he's fun, but he's just not as good as some fans try to make him out to be. Ryder caters especially to the IWC and people have actually been saying that Ryder is ready and has been ready for a main event run. His character is entertaining, but not THAT entertaining. Besides, nobody is going to take Ryder seriously as a main eventer with this comedy, Jersey Shore type of character he has.
Matches, Angles & Storylines
Best Match: John Cena vs. CM Punk at MITB - Cena vs. Punk was just about everything a rational wrestling fan could ask for. It had the feeling of a huge match, it was built off of a white hot angle, the live crowd was just plain ecstatic for the match and the WWE was able to generate a feeling in which you had no idea what was going to happen or what to expect. It's so rare that you can capture that level of mystique anyhow, but it's even more rare in this day and age. The match told a great story and we saw the emergence of a new, legit main event level superstar in CM Punk when he won the title.
Worst Match: Jerry The King Lawler vs. Michael Cole at WM XXVII - This is one of those matches that had the potential to be entertaining filler but it ultimately felt more like a waste of time. For one thing, the thing ran much too long. This should have lasted, at most, 5 minutes with most of those 5 minutes involving Lawler beating the snot out of Cole. Instead, it dragged on to close to 3 times that length and ended with Michael Cole winning by DQ. The WWE dragged the Lawler vs. Cole feud out for longer than they should have, even though their segments were big draws on Raw. They were just putting more emphasis into feuds between two announcers rather than some very talented wrestlers on their roster.
Best Pay Per View: Money in the Bank - This year's MITB ppv was one of those rare ppvs in which it seemed that everything just simply went right. There wasn't a bad match on the card, the live crowd was hot for everything going on and the wrestlers that should have won the matches are the ones that ultimately won, at least in most cases. It was the right atmosphere, the right crowd and everything just fell into place.
Worst Pay Per View: Hell in a Cell - HIAC was a decent ppv in my opinion, but there was just ultimately nothing about the show that really stood out. None of the matches were particularly great. They were all at least solid and servicable matches, but there wasn't really anything that happened to set anything apart. I think the HIAC concept in and of itself has just lost a ton of steam.
Biggest Surprise: CM Punk's "shoot" promo - This is really what put Punk over the top and ultimately led to so much buzz being generated around him over the summer. Punk's promo was so convincing and so passionate that even hardcore smarks and wrestling insiders were having a hard time figuring out whether or not it was a legitimate shoot. The part where Punk's mic was cut off was just a fantastic means of adding fuel to the fire. I was tempted to go with Daniel Bryan winning the SD! MITB match but Punk's worked shoot just had everyone buzzing for weeks on end.
Biggest Letdown: Follow up of the "walk out" angle - This was just piss poor booking and ultimately led to the worst Raw of 2011. It sounded intriguing on paper and the initial walk out looked promising. But, instead, Triple H spends his promo time burying the talent that "walked out" and the whole thing was like watching crash tv. It seemed like an angle that WWE put out there without really stopping to think long and hard about the execution and follow up. It also seemed that they realized that it just wasn't feesible to make the "walk out" last and just ultimately decided to dump the thing right in the middle with some piss poor lazy booking.