That's right kids, Christmas is mere days away. And you know what that means - the time has come to reflect, to ruminate if you weeel, on the previous 12 months in the whacky world of professional wrestling. Without a doubt, of all the years in the history of this industry, 2010 was the most recent.
January:
* The year started off with a bang, as January 4th saw the first ever head-to-head Monday night confrontation between WWE Raw and TNA Impact, a night that had a phenomenal amount of buzz going in. It was the reunion of the artists that brought you the death of WCW, Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo and on this landmark night, the new TNA braintrust finally shook off their reputations as being behind the times and out of touch, bringing in young, vibrant, dynamic performers into the fold such as Scott Hall, The Nasty Boys, Bubba the Love Sponge and Val Venis.
* WWE countered TNA's fearsome effort with the return of Bret "The Hitman" Hart, 12 years after the famous Montreal Screwjob. The surreal in-ring promo with Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels was capped off with an angle where Vince McMahon kicked Bret in the gut. Indeed, after all this time, we were going to actually see Bret Vs. Vince, the most talked about issue in forever before our eyes.
* After being out of action for months on end, Edge made a surprise return as a babyface, winning the Royal Rumble match, allowing him to headline WrestleMania.
February:
* Off the success of the January 4th special, TNA announced that Impact would be moving to Monday nights, head-to-head with Raw on a permanent basis. Further showcasing their greatest attribute over the WWE, the superb writing, they constructed an intricate, well thought-out angle where Samoa Joe was kidnapped on live television. Cleverly ignoring the flagrantly criminal and possibly fatal act, it wasn't mentioned again until his return months later, where TNA explained the situation by acting like nothing had ever happened.
* Feeling that the 12 year ready-made real-life backstory between Bret Hart and Vince McMahon wasn't enough, WWE fucked the whole thing up by basing the storyline about Bret Hart having his leg run over by a woman. This despite the fact that, until the reconciliation, Vince McMahon referenced or used the Screwjob almost every single year without fail.
* Off the back of his huge Rumble win, Edge, the new top babyface, began randomly appearing on shows and spearing people to a vociferous wave of apathy.
* Shawn Michaels continued to be the greatest man alive in the run-up to his WrestleMania match with Undertaker.
March:
* The new Monday Night Wars began, as RVD, arguably the hottest free agent in the business debuted on TNA, pinning Sting, and then getting the living shit beaten out of him with a baseball bat for approximately 16 hours. Surprisingly, Van Dam never increased ratings after this. The show did a 1.0 to Raw's 3.4, only retaining 66% of the audience that watched the January 4th Impact.
* WrestleMania took place. After Edge was accepted as a face about as well as a black man is in Hell's Angels, he completed his heroic comeback by successfully jobbing clean to Chris Jericho.
* Shawn Michaels retired from wrestling after losing to the Undertaker, in quite possibly the most tragic news to hit planet Earth since 9/11.
* On the following Smackdown, Jack Swagger won the World Heavyweight Title. In an effort to push Swagger as a viable main event talent, he went on a crusade of crushing defeats to Edge, Big Show, John Morrison, Tiger Ali Singh and Todd Pettingill.
April:
* Volcanic ash threw a major spanner in the works, as the WWE crew ended up stuck in Europe after a tour, and were unable to make it back in time for the scheduled Raw show. WWE instead put a test pattern on the screen for two hours, still beating Impact 3.2 to 0.8.
* The WWE Draft occured, as various people moved from one brand to another to the confusion of the fans, who had just seen every wrestler on every show for the past five months.
* Seeing the lack of credibility in championships as a potential issue, TNA had Angelina Love win the prestigious Knockouts title by picking a box with the belt inside on pot luck.
May:
* TNA announced that by popular demand, they were tucking their tails between their legs and going back to Thursday nights. The war was over. When questioned about getting obliterated in the ratings and buyrates dropping to 8,000 for Pay-Per-Views, Vince Russo stated "The world isn't ready for us bro."
* The WrestleMania buyrate came in at only 450,000 domestic buys, causing Vince McMahon to throw headsets, slap papers out of his employees hands, and cut Jim Ross' pay in half, just because he can.
June:
* After a largely horrendous episode of Raw, a genuinely shocking (in a good way) moment occured, as the eight men who served as the cast of NXT Season 1 ran roughshod on Raw, destroying John Cena, tearing down the ring, and assaulting staff, security and the commentators. It was the hottest angle on Raw in years.
* Daniel Bryan was fired from WWE for kicking too much ass in the angle, a move the audience respected so much that, in the Fatal 4 Way main event, the fans drowned the final scene with a chant of "Daniel Bryan"
July:
* Staying on the cutting edge of current events, TNA brought in a number of ex-ECW talents for a one night reunion show, claiming they were to the 90s what Hulk Hogan was to the 80s. Fans took this the wrong way, with the term "Hulk Hogan deathmatch" doing monster numbers on Google.
* The Miz won the Money in the Bank ladder match, ironically giving an erection to the fans who have the balls to say John Cena can't wrestle, despite the number of good matches the two have had comparitively.
* The term "WWE Universe" was uttered a record 386,293 times on Raw.
August:
* Summerslam was the buzz of the month, headlined by Team WWE Vs. Nexus. Sanity was displayed and Daniel Bryan was resigned to star in the match, which concluded with the shocking defeat of Nexus. The storyline continued to the end of the year, not drawing a single dime.
* T'was a month for Internet fans to rejoice as Kaval (Low Ki) won NXT Season 2. After being selected as the best wrestler and favourite performer by WWE wrestlers and fans, he was rewarded by getting his ass kicked and winning no matches on national television for the rest of the year.
* RVD was stripped of the TNA World Title for getting hit by a 2x4 with nails in it. A tournament was held to crown a new champion, which wasn't even finished before Van Dam made his return with not a mark on him. He has yet to get a rematch for the title he never lost.
September:
* Going on memory and thorough internet research, nothing happened.
October:
* TNA had it's biggest show of the year, Bound for Glory on 10.10.10. After reviewing the finances and looking at business indicators, it was decided that house show business wasn't low enough, so it was decided to turn Jeff Hardy heel. Sleazy car salesman Eric Bischoff lauded the move as expert, revelling in all the money they won't make.
* WWE held Bragging Rights on Pay-Per-View, a show doomed to fail on the basis of going one day after a Brock Lesnar UFC fight, going head-to-head with a major NFL game, and being a terrible idea for a show. Defiantly, they ran the show. Nobody cared.
* Matt Hardy got pilled up one time too many, and exposed himself as the biggest mark in the world before getting canned by WWE. Brother Jeff shook his head, claiming "there's no place for drugs in this business".
November:
* After a full year and $50 million, Linda McMahon failed in her attempt to buy her way into U.S. Senate, doing the job to Richard Blumenthal. Vince McMahon cried foul, after his competitors brought up the misclassification of his wrestlers as independent contractors in order for him to horde cash, ignoring the history of steroids and drugs in the business that led to an epidemic of deaths, and the general bad taste and decision making on-screen, asking for his audience to "Stand Up for WWE". Rumour has it that after fans stood up, they were disqualified from helping the company if they were under 6'2" and 245 pounds.
* John Cena was fired from WWE in storyline for "doing the right thing". After a heartfelt goodbye speech, John honored the stipulation by appearing on every single episode of Raw until he was rehired three weeks later. A look into the crystal ball for 2011 shows the WWE inner circle scratching their heads at why stips no longer draw.
* The Miz won the WWE Title from Randy Orton in an effort to make him a credible top guy for the future. In his first defense, he came inches from being defeated by 61 year old facelift guinea pig Jerry Lawler, until he was helped to victory by Michael Cole. Shockingly enough, Michael Cole was not granted a title shot the following week to claim his place as the best grappler in the world.
December:
* WWE, refusing to let TNA be the very best at anything, booked the number 1 shit storyline of the year, as Edge hijacked Paul Bearer, smuggling him across international borders, threatening to kill him a number of times, before Kane, in an attempt to rescue him, accidently shoved him off a 50 foot ledge to his demise. The feud was recapped with Benny Hill music, and did a record zero thousand buys on Pay-Per-View.
* To the shock, awe and dismay of intelligent humans the world over, Vince Russo kept his job for yet another year.
* In an attempt to reconnect with disenfranchised hardcore fans, Kaval lost in 23 seconds to Drew McIntrye on the live Smackdown.
* Vince McMahon called an emergency meeting to discuss the declining buyrates and unstable ratings. The meeting proved fruitless, as somebody brought Buckaroo.
Bring on 2011....
