As 2010 draws to a close, I always like to look back at the world of wrestling (or universe in this case) and really look at how things went. I will split this article in to three parts over the next few days, starting this week with a look at the big boy of pro wrestling sports entertainment: WWE.
WWE opened the year in a bit of a storytelling hump. Not a lot was going on, feuds were mostly lukewarm at best, and it looked like the PG rating might neuter the product completely. The first signs of life came with the return of Edge, for the first time a face in years. He came in to the Royal Rumble late and picked up a big win, last eliminating John Cena.
The story got stronger as Edge’s tag partner of the previous year, Chris Jericho, won the World championship and set up a huge battle between the two at Wrestlemania. At the same time, a new feud between John Cena and Batista rose up, and the two stars that marked the first decade of this century for WWE would collide.
Both those matches came at Wrestlemania, but neither was as important—or as good—as the show’s main event, a rematch of the previous year’s battle between Shawn Michaels and Undertaker. It was billed as Career vs. Streak, and ultimately it ended with the retirement of Shawn Michaels from professional wrestling.
Unfortunately, an ill conceived draft and a hotshot for Money in the Bank winner Jack Swagger to take the World title didn’t help things in the months afterwards. Smackdown’s main event became even more watered down, while the Cena-Batista feud ended with Batista leaving the company and pro wrestling behind. Meanwhile, Edge and Jericho faded as much as finished. One bright spot was the rise of the extended feud between CM Punk and Rey Mysterio, but lingering injuries for both slowed the momentum of their ongoing fight.
Things changed on June 7, 2010, as WWE did something it hadn’t done for years: changed the face of its programming entirely. As their rookie-based experiment NXT came to an end, the eight young stars of the show followed winner Wade Barrett on to the WWE Fan Choice episode of Raw. In a match between CM Punk and John Cena they hit the ring. For the final fifteen minutes of the show it was an exercise in brutality as the eight young stars beat down Cena, Jerry Lawler, Matt Striker, and ring announcer Justin Roberts. The night ended with them utterly destroying the set of Raw. This would be only the beginning of a six month storyline that would alter the face of Raw completely.
Smackdown made its own changes in the same few weeks. Kane was on the rampage on the show, in search of the man that incapacitated his brother, the Undertaker. He promised to punish everyone at the Money in the Bank pay-per-view, which he did before winning the briefcase and contract. By night’s end he cashed in the case and took the World title from Rey Mysterio. His feud with Rey would be brief, before Undertaker returned. He wanted vengeance on the true culprit for his vegetative state: Kane himself.
The NXT rookies would meanwhile take the name Nexus even as they lost member Daniel Bryan. Censors at the company considered Bryan’s choke out of Justin Roberts with Roberts’ own tie to be too graphic and quietly released him after the event. He would return to the independent scene as Nexus continued as a seven member squad. His departure would only last for a few weeks however as he returned for the first significant battle in the Nexus history: a seven on seven elimination match that main evented Summerslam. Cena’s Team WWE (with Bryan as a member) would win the fight and the next night Darren Young would leave the Nexus as well.
Meanwhile, the returned Undertaker remained weak after weeks in a “vegetative state”. His feud with Kane led to him being brutalized in the World title match at Night of Champions. It seemed he would be unable to beat Kane this time; he just didn’t have the strength. But his original source of strength would soon return, as Paul Bearer and the urn came to Undertaker’s aid. But a victory would not to be as in the Hell in a Cell, Bearer turned on the Undertaker and helped his son Kane retain the title.
While Randy Orton and Sheamus had a forgettable feud over the WWE championship, the true main event of Raw continued to be the ongoing battle between John Cena and the Nexus led by Wade Barrett. It came to a head at the Hell in a Cell PPV where John Cena lost a match (do to interference by new Nexus members Husky Harris and Mike McGillicutty) that made him a member of Nexus. But even as part of Nexus, Cena refused to simply follow orders. At Bragging Rights, he followed orders and helped Wade Barrett win the title match against Randy Orton—by hitting his own finisher on Barrett to cause the disqualification victory.
This led to the cleverly created match for this year’s Survivor Series as Wade Barrett faced Randy Orton, this time with John Cena as the referee. But the main story of the match was the stipulation for Cena: Barrett would win, or Cena would be fired. And this time the match could only end by pinfall or submission (though the rest of Nexus was banned from ringside). Cena did what he swore to do prior to the show: he called it right down the middle. Orton won and Cena was fired.
Kane and Undertaker’s feud ended in a Buried Alive match. Again the Nexus involved themselves, this time to help Kane eliminate the Undertaker, perhaps for good. Kane’s victory celebration would be short lived, as Edge won the #1 contendership. Their first match would end in a double pinfall and a draw.
Over those same months, Smackdown introduced another player that would shake the face of the promotion: Alberto Del Rio. Del Rio quickly ended two feuds by putting out his injured foe: both Rey Mysterio and Christian fell to his cross armbreaker. Rey would soon return, and their feud would continue through the rest of 2011 and beyond.
While Rey and Del Rio’s battle seems far from over, the other two sagas ended at the year’s final pay-per-view: TLC: Tables, Ladders, and Chairs.
In a fatal four way TLC match, Edge overcame Mysterio, Del Rio, and Kane to finally win his tenth World title (and his first as a face). Meanwhile, Cena, newly rehired after brutal attacks on the Nexus, would eliminate every member of Wade Barrett’s group before his match with Barrett. In the end he brutalized Barrett, hitting the Attitude Adjustment in to a chair to finish off the Nexus leader.
While the WWE title picture has meandered up until the Miz’s recent win, WWE recovered from a week first of the year to actually start building solid long run storylines for the first time in a couple of years. For a company known of late for throwing storylines together at the last minute, several feuds covered multiple months with both Cena/Nexus and Mysterio/Del Rio showing amazing reach.
All this unfortunately seems to coincide with sagging ratings for Smackdown, though Raw remains strong. A switch to cable and Syfy hasn’t helped the second brand at all. It looks like WWE hopes to change this with more cross promotional matches going in to 2011, but only a stronger roster post-draft will really give the brand any hope.
Even so, 2010 proved to be a strong year for WWE in storytelling, if not in wrestling. A few great matches did stand out from the Money in the Bank battles to Michaels-Undertaker II to the series of battles between Goldust and William Regal on Superstars, to my personal pick for match of the year: Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler at Bragging Rights.
As the Road to Wrestlemania begins, it remains to be seen if WWE can continue this current momentum. But as it stands, 2010 was a good year for the company and hopefully will lead to an even better 2011.
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