Best WWE Year After the MNW?

[King Kamala]

I actually thought about making "What were WWE's best periods post Monday Night Wars?" into its own thread (maybe @HarleyQuinn or @cobainwasmurdered will spin this off into its own discussion so I can do it in laziest fashion possible).

Only year I will defend as unequivocally good is 2008 (and even that has too much dumb stuff to be considered a GREAT year in WWE history). I defended '01-'02 as a clear decline from MNW era but still decent to good a few posts above. I'm probably biased because I was watching it with my best friend who was really getting into wrestling for the first time but I thought early 2010s were roller coaster but had a lot of really good stuff. I would say past five years was first time since mid '00s where there was clearly more bad than good but WWE still has gems scattered through the year (hell, they had a couple last weekend).

 

[Valeyard]

2001, from a match standpoint, is fucking great by and large.

 

[snuffbox]

It's something that, with all of the talent they've had, WWE hasn't had a truly great year since 2001.

 

[Epic Springs]

If we do a TSM List of Survivor Series matches that one'll definitely be in my top 10. Fantastic match. And the only truly great match at a Survivor Series from 1998 until, well, off the top of my head I'm not sure, but several years after 2003.

Get @Alfdogg on it!

 

[strummer]

Another sneaky bad year is 2013. I guess Bryan's rise towards the end of the year and the .Shield stuff keep it from being all time bad but the first six months of the year are painfully boring and paint by numbers stuff. Mania 29 reflects that imo

 

[Epic Springs]

I'll be honest and say I didn't take Kane seriously because the second he unmasked the black paint and haircut looked like a cartoon character when a bomb explodes.

Fair but the very next week when he was clean shaven and had to be led to the ring by cops, it made him look menacing in a "they're not here to protect me, but you" way.

 

[Valeyard]

I've said it elsewhere but RVD vs Jericho from Unforgiven 2001 is a lost classic. Both were ready to break the glass ceiling more than any two people I've ever seen.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Done. In the future it's just easier if you make a new thread so I didn't have to select every post afterwards and verify it was pertaining to your discussion and not the original thread.

 

[King Kamala]

Another sneaky bad year is 2013. I guess Bryan's rise towards the end of the year and the .Shield stuff keep it from being all time bad but the first six months of the year are painfully boring and paint by numbers stuff. Mania 29 reflects that imo

I was gonna say in Old School thread that the early 2010s were generally good outside of some insanely frustrating booking and the trend of doing absolutely nothing interesting between WrestleMania and SummerSlam but 2013 stuck out like a sore thumb and an indicator of things to come. I think that's when the SPECIAL GUEST STARS as main eventers really started plus you had a lot of stop and start pushes of talent, (Curtis Axel debuted by injuring Triple H! Fandango beating Jericho at WrestleMania! Here comes Ryback's big push! There goes Ryback's big push!"

 

[alkeiper]

2007 was great until the pileup of injuries that led to Great Khali, World champion.

 

[snuffbox]

And then HHH decided he needed to squash Booker again.

 

[Brocklock]

2013 is weird because match quality wise, it might be one of WWE's best years. It has so many weird hidden gems like Miz and Wade Barrett having a super heated match on the WM after Raw, Cesaro and Kofi tearing it down on a random ep of Main Event, Goldust coming back and having a banger with Randy Orton, Old men RVD and Jericho bringing it on a random Raw match, Mark Henry and Big E's short lived Bill Watts boner tag team and having some fun tv matches with Cesaro and Swagger, the tag team scene in general was getting pretty great towards the end of the year which they fucked up early in 2014 giving the stupid Outlaws the belts, and a lot more I'm forgetting. And that's not even mentioning all the Bryan and Shield stuff. The roster was absolutely ridiculous by the end of 2013. You still had like Rey Mysterio and Mark Henry hanging around in the midcard towards the end of the year for example.

The booking and storylines horrific though and honestly the fact that they couldn't put on compelling tv with the roster they had in 2013-2016 or so is something they've never recovered from.

2004 was kind of good at times idk. Smackdown was really bad in the undercard and whatever Taker was doing, but Eddie and Rey were still bringing it usually even with some really bad stuff around them on the card. Raw in 2004 was kind of great from like Feb to October. Even the bad stuff like Kane's entire year is kind of hilarious and more entertaining than the bad stuff of other years.

2009 is a legit great year for both Smackdown and ECW, but Raw might of been the worst it's ever been. I can take the current stupidity somehow over 50 year old DX, Hornswoggle vs Chavo every week, guest hosts, Cena vs Orton times a billion, and so on. The new bad stuff is at least interesting to laugh at.

 

[King Kamala]

2014 and 2015 while not great, I think it seemed like WWE was at least trying to create new stars. Then Bryan got injured again and WWE was insistent on building around Roman Reigns as a white meat superhero baby face no matter what the fans thought. Then at some point, WWE decided nobody new could be bigger than the show.

I feel like there are a lot of parallels between WWE from the ‘00s on and SNL from the ‘00s on.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

2007 was great until the pileup of injuries that led to Great Khali, World champion.

there was also...you know...

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

i don't know about year but the time period where bryan, the shield, the wyatt family etc were all being pushed was really interesting. A lot of great matches and things felt like there was an actual chance to get hot again.

 

[Valeyard]

2004 had Snitsky kicking babies and Heidenrape. So awesome.

 

[alkeiper]

there was also...you know...

Fuck...yeah. It was a fun six months.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1313485121736052738

I wonder who chose these guest hosts. Chris Jericho in his 3rd book talks about how KISS got turned down for a Guest Hosting spot because WWE didn't think they were currently relevant enough but they gave way more washed/irrelevant people Guest GM spots like Verne and Jon Lovitz. I shudder to think what actually relevant in 2009 people Vince turned down cause he didn't know them.

Mostly, I'm just mad we didn't get to see Paul Stanley take an RKO.

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1313514821309001728

cc @tekcop

 

[Laz]

Post-MNW, the company has worked best in short 3-6 month spurts instead of an entire year.

Yearly breakdown of what I liked or didn't like.

Spoiler

2001: A ton of great matches, both before and during the InVasion, but the booking was pretty shit if you were actually a fan of the WCW/ECW guys they brought in. I've made arguments before that WCW was actually putting on the better shows in the few months both were around, to the point where I was more excited to see who was going to finally end the Magnificent 7 than I was for just about anything being built to for WM17, but all of the backstage and unforeseen issues ruined it up. Kellner canceling Nitro, HHH's quad tear, Benoit's neck injury just as they were putting him with Austin, and Viacom not wanting a WCW show sent Vince into panic mode, and we got DDP stalking SaraTaker and the nonsense of WCW and ECW joining forces...

2002: The drizzling fucking shits outside of HBK's SummerSlam return, Brock's rise, and the SmackDown Six. So bad that the laughably goofy early TNA shows seemed like high art in comparison. "Ass cream"...FFS...

2003: WM19 and my beloved Vengeance '03 were awesome, but if it wasn't directly involving Angle, HBK, or Brock then it was pretty lame.

2004: Rumble to WM20 was solid all around, hindsight notwithstanding, but we started to really see the "soap opera for men" elements ramped up as people who didn't like wrestling were given head writer positions and top-notch talents were pushed aside for the return of Vince's beloved bodybuilder fetish. Diva Search. It didn't help at all that ROH was beginning to fire on all cylinders following the Rebirth shows.

2005: I remember kinda liking parts of it, but the Cena push was backfiring from the get-go. One Night Stand still holds up as a great "the band's back together" show. Eddie dying after that stupid-as-shit feud with Rey (great matches, shit story).

2006: Edge's first great heel run, Rated RKO, the epic program with Foley leading to ONS '06...and nothing else.

2007: Some really good stuff later in the year when HHH found his work boots again and had some killer stuff with Jeff Hardy, but nothing was going to wash the Benoit taste out of your mouth. Also, Khali.

2008: Only good for the rise of Punk. Literally the only positive I remember from the year as I was laser-focused on ROH and a handful of other indies.

2009-2011: If it didn't involve Punk then it wasn't worth watching, IMO. He was the only person to carry my interest at all, and MitB 2011 is still Cena's career defining moment.

2012-2014: If it didn't involve Punk or Bryan, and even sometimes if it did, then whatever. I enjoyed Miz as a character but didn't watch his matches. The booking got "meta" and didn't understand how to do it right.

2015: Cena's awesome US championship run, the single best stretch of his entire career. Kevin Owens makes due, but he's so watered down from the KILL STEEN KILL era that I loved him for on the indies (2006-2013) that it's like listening to the few good songs that Metallica had post-Black Album while wishing they'd at least try to match even Justice.

2016-2019: WWE is a company that exists.

2020: One of the worst, most pathetic excuses of a fucking product I have ever seen, made worse because Impact - IMPACT - is putting on better TV on a weekly basis.

 

[Brocklock]

2005 I think was a sneaky good in ring year especially in the first half, but there's so many brutal angles and segments that drag everything down. Heel Linda McMahon, Tim White's suicide, Doing a segment where they pull stuff out of a Fake Jim Ross' ass for ten minutes, The Eddiesploitation stuff, HHH having a ten minute match with Jim Ross and stiffing him, Matt Morgan stuttering, Jillian Hall's mole, The Undertaker's feud with the Ortons after Summerslam, Kurt Angle threatening beastiality rape on Sharmell, reenacting the UK terrorist attacks with Muhammad Hassan, Vince saying the n word, and on and on.

The bad stuff was so arrogantly mean spirited that it took the shine off of a lot of good ringwork throughout the year.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Doing a segment where they pull stuff out of a Fake Jim Ross' ass for ten minutes

I can’t stop laughing

 

[Brocklock]

I can’t stop laughing

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1313485121736052738

they gave way more washed/irrelevant people Guest GM spots like Verne and Jon Lovitz. I shudder to think what actually relevant in 2009 people Vince turned down cause he didn't know them.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1313617946543964160

I forgot about this and hate that I was reminded of it.

WHO THOUGHT DENNIS MILLER WAS A GOOD IDEA FOR GUEST GM/HOST FOR RAW!? Him color commentating Monday Night Football was one of biggest flops in sports television history and you think him hosting an even dumber show even longer after he was relevant is going to go over well!?

 

[Brocklock]

Tales From The Crypt: Bordello Of Blood is one of Vince's favorite movies ever.

 

[King Kamala]

"GOD DAMMIT! HE'S HILARIOUS ON The O'Reilly Factor! HE HAS TO HOST THE SLAMMYS, GOD DAMMIT!"

 

[Mickey Massuco]

Vince loved the way he coaxed joe dirt’s story out of him to create one of the best comedies of the early 00’s

 

[Valeyard]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

 

[BruiserBrody]

The highlights of much of the early 2000s are TSM freaking out over hosses being pushed over workrate guys. Peak of this was Brockolli vs. Angle at Mania and Team Sasquatch vs. Team Benoit at SSeries

 

[King Kamala]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1315294840339394560

2009 RAW might be even worse than 2003 RAW

The highlights of much of the early 2000s are TSM freaking out over hosses being pushed over workrate guys.

If that happened in the early 2020s, I feel like TSM that still watches WWE would be psyched. At least if they were non Baron Corbin hosses.