If things keep getting longer like this I am going to end up splitting this series
What’s up guys, Kingzak is back in action with another part of the WWE PPV-Star list. We are well on our way to the first PPV of the year, the Royal Rumble. Last year we saw one of the many match of the year candidates and for most the winner (as far as WWE goes) of that award. This year, I doubt it. Chances are we witness a standard Royal Rumble PPV that is sold entirely on the actual rumble.
So with that said it is time to move onto why we are here today, another fresh helping of PPV-Star goodness. We are in the top 50 superstars now, well almost, we still have to discover who was tied at 51st. and then we continue the climb towards 30, which if you ask me is usually where the series starts to pick up.
So without further ado, I can reveal that sharing the #51 with Mark Henry is none other than …
Tied #51
Alicia Fox
Last Year’s Ranking: 55th
SummerSlam: Divas Clusterfuck Tag Match 2.25 Stars
MSG Special: with the Bella Twins vs. Team PCB 2.5 Stars
Total Stars: 4.75 Stars
Total Stars = 2.375 Stars
It just occurred to me, this is the last entry where someone got more stars in a single match than someone did in the whole year (though if we are talking one night we still have a while to go), that is something that I will not miss. Speaking of things I wouldn’t miss, Alicia Fox, she competed in 2015, yep she was completely relevant and important to this year, totally couldn’t be replaced by a stick with her face on it.
Maybe she would be more relevant if she were able to compete in a singles match every once in a while, her last singles match on a real show (Raw, SmackDown or PPV obviously) was in October on SmackDown. Her last singles Raw match was on the 31st of August. On top of that she has only ever had four singles matches on PPV. In case you haven’t worked it out yet, I don’t give enough of a fuck about her to bother with a proper recap of her year. Maybe our next entrant will be someone worth talking about.
#49
Becky Lynch
Last Year’s Ranking: N/A
SummerSlam: Divas Clusterfuck Tag Match 2.25 Stars
MSG Special: with Paige and Charlotte vs. Team Bella 2.5 Stars
TLC: vs Sasha Banks 2.75 Stars
Total Stars: 7.5 Stars
Average Rating = 2.5 Stars
Hooray, someone worth talking about. Barely, but I am happy. And to top it off, she is at her most relevant right now. So we kick off the top 50 with another NXT alumni, fair enough. I am left wondering whether I was too optimistic about the divas at the end of the last part now. But anyway let’s move onto talking Lynch’s year.
The Lass Kicker made her debut as part of the great NXT call up of 2015, she would be forced by Stephanie McMahon to leave her spot on NXT and team up with former rival Charlotte and, as I learnt from Wikipedia, a friend of hers from back on the Indy circuit. The three women would win the SummerSlam clusterfuck but would lose to team Bellas a while later at the Madison Square Garden Special.
We then fast forward to recent history, as Lynch would take on former NXT rival, Sasha Banks on the TLC pre-show, and to be fair they did have a decent match, not NXT quality but one of the better main roster divas matches of the year, which is all kinds of depressing.
So looking forward, over the last few weeks we have seen Becky watch as her two teammates feud with each other and recently has been victim to Charlottes … antics, yeah that’s a good word for it, in the coming months we are absolutely getting Lynch vs Charlotte on PPV. And based on the way Charlotte has been antagonizing everyone, I think we could see Lynch take the gold from her in a mass of shenanigans leading to a big divas clusterfuck at WrestleMania. Or maybe just a nice simple triple threat between the former PCB members. Either way the road to WrestleMania looks to be an active one for Becky.
Tied #48
R-Truth
Last Year’s Ranking: 46th
The Royal Rumble: 4:13 and 0 eliminations 1.75 Stars
WrestleMania: Intercontinental in the Bank ladder match 4 Stars
Payback: vs. Stardust 1.25 Stars
Intercontinental Championship Elimination Chamber 2.5 Stars
Money in the Bank: vs. King Barrett 1.75 Stars
Battleground: vs King Barrett 2 Stars
Total Stars: 13.25 Stars
Average Rating = 2.20833 Stars
So last year Truth was on 4 PPV and this year he was on six, so I have to ask, why the fuck does it seem like he rarely every appears. I feel like he has done nothing over the last two years and yet he has been on a third of the PPVs both years. Amazingly we have a tie here, the more matches someone has the less likely a tie is, especially if they aren’t in the same matches. And I can say that these two entrants didn’t share a single match this year, I don’t think they even appeared in the same segment on TV either.
So let’s take a look at Truth’s year, he started off being just there competing in the Rumble and doing absolutely nothing with it. A few months later it would be WrestleMania and surprisingly he didn’t compete in the ATGMBR, he actually got to compete in a real match, well admittedly it was still a clusterfuck match, but it is a step up in my book. This would be when Truth would accumulate most of his stars for the year, while no one had him pegged as a winner he was there to provide an extra body for the match which with ladder matches tends to be a nice bonus. (This year’s ATGMBR should be a ladder match instead of a battle royal, that would be an amazing clusterfuck)
After WrestleMania, Ron would disappear for the aftermath, before coming back to fight WM opponent Stardust on the Payback pre-show, and in fairness to Truth he did win, because fuck logic. This apparently would be enough to qualify him for the Intercontinental title chamber, where he would eliminate King Barrett from the match, before shortly after being taken out by Ryback. Eliminating Barrett would start off his last feud for the year, going after the King of the Ring feverously. Truth would earn a win over him at Money in the Bank, but then when the crown was on the line at Battleground, Truth would fall short.
So last year I had Truth pegged as retiring soon, and then was unsure on whether he was injured at the moment or not. Well I was clearly wrong there, I would be tempted to say similar for this year, but if I say that then he will probably end up winning the world title or something stupid like that. So while that is what is most likely to happen, I am not going to say it or I may jinx myself. You’re welcome future me.
Tied #48
Brie Bella
Last Year’s Ranking: 47th
Royal Rumble: with Nikki Bella vs Paige and Natalya 1.75 Stars
WrestleMania: with Nikki Bella vs Paige and AJ Lee 2.5 Stars
Payback: with Nikki Bella vs Naomi and Tamina 1.25 Stars
Battleground: vs. Charlotte vs Sasha Banks 3 Stars
SummerSlam: Divas Clusterfuck Tag Match 2.25 Stars
MSG Special: With Nikki Bella and Alicia Fox vs. Team PCB 2.5 Stars
Total Stars: 13.25 Stars
Average Rating = 2.20833 Stars
So we are two members down on Team Bella and Team B.A.D and only one down from PCB. Currently there is a clear winner to that divas clusterfuck over the summer, here’s a hint, it wasn’t us. Brie spent literally the entire year working with her sister in pointless tag matches, which is the perfect parallel to Truths pre-show and multi-man matches. It mildly baffles me that these two managed to get to the same spot, for Brie it is an improvement, she is tied with the person that beat her last year, which is probably my favorite thing about this whole situation.
So Brie’s year started feuding with the same people as her sister, trying to stop them from having a one on one match with Nikki because that would be entertaining. Throughout the year they pretty much spent the whole time feuding with Paige and whoever Paige’s friend was at the time. At the Royal Rumble, Natalya would make her sole appearance to help Paige, but failed. WrestleMania rolled around and now the Twins would face off against Paige and AJ Lee, they lost this time, but it meant nothing. At Payback the Bellas would take on Naomi and Tamina, they lost again, but it still meant nothing.
Battleground would feature the only unique or interesting thing Brie did this year. She would compete in the Divas Revolution triple threat, a member of each team was nominated and they faced off in what was actually a pretty good match, this is one of few proofs that if we didn’t have this tag team bullshit then the revolution would have been an actual success. As is the rest of the year would see Brie team up with the rest of team Bella to face off in pointless gang warfare matches.
So last year I was still under the impression Brie was pulling some sort of long con on her sister and they would break up soon, I then posed a beer goggles-esque scenario that because her feud with Stephanie McMahon involved Daniel Bryan that we all thought it was good and when it just became the two Bellas it turned to shit. Well as Battleground proves, just let her go out and be an actual wrestler and we can actually see something worth watching.
So going forward I imagine that we will see much of the same we did here, hopefully the Bellas decide to take turns on competing on PPV, that would be better for all of us. That is really all I have to say on that topic, just stop having fucking non-title tag matches on PPV, I didn’t pay for that shit, I want to see title matches because it is a fact that when a title is on matches get better. Very few circumstances exist of a good non-title match, and with all those there is usually some sort of intricate feud to them.
#46
Sting
Last Year’s Ranking: N/A
WrestleMania: vs. Triple H 3 Stars
Night of Champions: vs. Seth Rollins 2.25 Stars
Total Stars: 5.25 Stars
Average Rating = 2.625 Stars
It is my honour as a representative of Royal Court Industries to welcome Gordon Sumner to the PPV-Star list. I am pretty sure I have heard at least one of his songs at some point in my life. What your problem with the Authority is I may never know, but it is nice to see you make it to the main list. At the year’s start I expected to see you only make it to the one hit wonders list, but you made it to the main list even though it may not have been the best idea for that second match.
So Stings first match came at WrestleMania obviously, what other stage could contain such a famous wrestler (Apparently, Night of Champions). Sting started off by facing off against Triple H who Sting had cost a job for about a month the previous December. The match has a wide range of opinions to it, many not liking the match. For the most part people went with an above average rating for it. Personally I don’t have an issue with it, the nostalgia in the match is obviously not aimed at me, so I won’t comment on it so I don’t make an ass of myself (more than I usually do anyway)
Sting would disappear after this and would be revealed to have been in a really long game of hide and seek with the Authority; he was hiding under a sheet the whole time and would come out in late August to attack Seth Rollins, because he is Triple H’s illegitimate son or something. The two fought at Night of Champions and Seth came out victorious. This was not a good match, the two didn’t mesh well, but it had enough to it to keep people interested.
Sting would promptly disappear again, this time he was in fact injured during his match with Seth, so he will be out of action for a while. He will likely not be at WrestleMania this year, which doesn’t matter to me much, I don’t really feel any sort of attachment to Sting as a wrestler, like most part time superstars it relies on having fond memories of that superstar from when they were active, Sting is way to olden time for me to have any investment in. So I am not fussed whether he is here or not. But for those of you that do care about him, don’t worry he is slowly getting better with every breath you take.
#45
Erick Rowan
Last Year’s Ranking: 12th
The Royal Rumble: Time unspecified and 0 eliminations 2 Stars
Fast Lane: with Dolph Ziggler and Ryback vs The Authority 2.5 Stars
Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal: 22nd eliminated 2.75 Stars
TLC: with the Wyatt Family vs ECW 2.5 Stars
Total Stars: 9.75 Stars
Average Rating = 2.4375 Stars
Remember back in 2014 when Rowan was a part of all those great multi man matches. Yeah he didn’t do that this year. This year he tried to act as a singles superstar, but as the ranking shows, he is better off being a muscle for the Wyatt Family, I don’t think he should be acting as any specific muscle, but he should be one of them.
Rowans year kicked off with him fucking Curtis Axel out of a Rumble spot, Wikipedia don’t list how long Rowan was in the match for so fuck that noise, I know he didn’t eliminate anyone (Harper was technically eliminated by Bray) so really he only gets the 2 Star because he provided a unique moment in the rumble. It didn’t do much for him though, he could probably have taken 1.75 Star and still got this spot … actually I just done the math, he couldn’t.
At Fast Lane Rowan would provide a follow up to the widely enjoyed Survivor Series match, though without John Cena, Rusev, Luke Harper and Mark Henry. And apparently without them the match would only be average. And they thusly lost the match to the sound of the crowd going mild. Rowan would compete in the ATGMBR and lasted quite a while but honestly I don’t remember him doing anything particularly interesting with his time so it doesn’t matter really.
Rowan would team with Harper again in May and June before he was injured. He would return in mid-October and officially rejoined the Wyatt Family. He would be at ringside for the Survivor Series clash with the Brothers of Destruction, and then a month later he would face off against the ECW Originals at TLC, Rowan would be the only member of his team eliminated but at least it sort of counts as a win for him.
Last year I completely ignored doing a prediction for Rowan and I guess that makes sense, it was April/May at the time and all he was doing was making appearances on Main Event and Superstars so there wasn’t much to say. This year I am going to assume the Wyatts will still be together this time next year, WWE tried breaking them up once and aside from mild success for Harper, nothing happened. So Rowan will likely be staying with Bray attacking as a muscle.
#44
Paige
Last Year’s Ranking: 36th
Royal Rumble: with Natalya vs The Bella Twins 1.75 Stars
Fast Lane: vs. Nikki Bella 1 Star
WrestleMania: with AJ Lee vs The Bella Twins 2.5 Stars
Elimination Chamber: vs. Naomi vs. Nikki Bella 1 Star
Money in the Bank: vs. Nikki Bella 1.75 Star
Beast in the East: vs. Tamina vs. Nikki Bella 1.25 Stars
SummerSlam: Divas Clusterfuck Tag Match 2.25 Stars
MSG Special: with Becky Lynch and Charlotte vs. Team Bella 2.5 Stars
Survivor Series: vs. Charlotte 2.25 Stars
TLC: vs. Charlotte 2.75 Stars
Total Stars: 19 Stars
Average Rating = 1.9 Stars
Oh fuckballs, this is going to be a long entry. It is amazing to see someone with so many matches this low on the list, especially someone that is considered one of the better women’s wrestlers in the company. I don’t know how things went this poorly for Paige; clearly something wasn’t working for her early last year because those matches sucked.
So her year began with the Royal Rumble, and she would join forces with Natalya to face off against the Bellas starting off their almost yearlong feud. The match wasn’t great but there were worst ones this year so it isn’t bad by comparison. At Fast Lane Paige would get a one on one match with Nikki but it didn’t go well for her, not having her win or get a lot of stars. She would return to fighting as a team, this time teaming with AJ Lee to take on the Bellas. This time Paige won the match, and it actually earned her some decent stars.
Paige would take a few months off at this point and we wouldn’t see her again till Elimination Chamber when she took on old foe Nikki Bella, and the woman that put her out of action, Naomi. Another match that would be described as bad here, it is annoying when good wrestlers have bad matches, because it is considerably more difficult to mock them for it. Paige would then face Nikki once more at Money in the Bank and in fairness they did improve on the quality of their previous encounter so it is not all bad. The follow up triple threat at Beast in the East was mostly bad, only doing a little better than the previous triple threat.
At this point the divas revolution took place, and we went from having bad to passable matches, to having subpar to average matches. The first of these matches that Paige would be involved in would take place at SummerSlam; Paige’s team would come out victorious in the clusterfuck tag match, hooray it means absolutely fuck all. In early October she would compete against Team Bella with the rest of PCB however this time her team lost this time, again meaning absolutely fuck all for consequences.
Paige would then turn on her team mates following Hell in a Cell, which lead to a match at Survivor Series between her and Charlotte who had won the divas title recently. The build to the match was pretty lackluster, and then really non-PC at the end. The match itself was okay-ish. The feud would continue onward and into TLC, this would be Paige’s only match above average which is probably why she is this low down.
So Paige’s entry last year was done before Fast Lane, and my wording was “Should be a good match”, damn was I wrong there. I also said expect to see a lot more Paige going forward, and to be fair, that was dead on, she has been at the forefront of the divas division pretty much all year. Even when not on PPV she was featured prominently on Raw. So I was half right there.
So what do I think is going to happen to her in the coming year, well I imagine another title match is on the horizon, that is a lazy answer but this way next year I can say I was at least a little bit right. I think she is going to be used as a beginning feud for any NXT divas pushed onto the main roster now, or that are being pushed, she can pull off a good match and is a relatively credible opponent to beat. So expect something along the lines of Paige vs Sasha Banks/Bayley/Asuka/Emma/Nia Jax ETC to take place on PPV this year.
#43
Braun Strowman
Last Year’s Ranking: N/A
Night of Champions: with the Wyatt Family vs. Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose and Chris Jericho: 3 Stars
TLC: With the Wyatt Family vs The ECW Originals 2.5 Stars
Total Stars: 5.5 Stars
Average Rating = 2.75 Stars
I do not envy Paige at all, stuck in between Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman, that is not a spot you ever want to be, the smell of methamphetamines and incest would be horrendous. But enough on Paige, this entry is to talk about the former powerlifter that is Bran Strongman.
Brawns year began just after SummerSlam, attacking Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose. He would become the third member of the Wyatt Family for the time when Erick Rowan was out injured. His first PPV appearance would be at Night of Champions where he would choke out Chris Jericho with some sort of arm choke; well at least it is better than jobbing to Fandango.
Braun’s next PPV appearance would be at TLC, when he would work with the rest of the Wyatt against team “We would punch Paul Heyman for not paying us if we weren’t terrified of Brock Lesnar”. Braun would survive the match, eliminating Bubba Ray with a chokeslam through a table. Braun is actually quite lucky here, having only two matches but making a decent place on the list for it.
So there isn’t much I can say about Braun that I didn’t say about Rowan. In fairness they are the two weaker members of the team, Luke and Bray could make it on their own but these two couldn’t, as a tag team Erick and Braun could provide the perfect example of giant jobbers for other tag teams, but not much else. So like I said for Rowan, cling to Bray for all your worth.
Tied #42
Jack Swagger
Last Year’s Ranking: 20th
The Royal Rumble: 13:06 minutes and 0 eliminations 2.25 Stars
Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal: 18th eliminated 2.75 Stars
TLC: vs. Alberto Del Rio 3 Stars
Total Stars: 8 Stars
Average Rating = 2.666666 Stars
We are almost done with the ties, after this one we only have one more to go and then everyone has their own spot. If I am honest it came as a surprise to me when Swagger made his return to prominence to face off against ADR. I was unsure if he was injured or not at the time. Anyway this is not a good ranking for Swagger, seeing as last year he cracked the top twenty, this is quite the drop, though last year’s ranking could be thanked in part to that fantastic mid-summer feud with Rusev.
Swaggers year began with appearances in the two battle royals, I may have ranked his Rumble score a bit high all things considered, but then when you consider that he has the sixth best time in the rumble, his score in fact starts to seem a bit low. But you can put that down to the lack of eliminations. Swagger would then make it to the second half of the ATGMBR earning himself the full 2.75 Stars for that one.
So then he would disappear for the year because John Cena had usurped his job of defending America. However hope arrived for Swagger when Cena took a break for the holiday months. Alberto Del Rio would then become some weird sort of pro and anti-American, which prompted Jack Swagger into action. The two would face off at TLC and much like his matches with Rusev, Swagger would lose, but at least it was a good match.
So last year I did say that I was unsure of where he would go, and that uncertainty was clearly justified, he did nothing let’s be honest. So I was right there. This year I think there is hope for him, WWE has a stable based around being anti American right now, and once John Cena has finished beating them senseless they are going to need to beat an American hero to return to prominence, and who better to be American who gets crap kicked out of him then Jack Swagger. If he gets a match with each one then that is four PPV matches plus a rumble and ATGMBR appearance. Do I expect this to happen, not really if I am 100% honest, but it does sound like a good idea.
Tied #42
Sasha Banks
Last Year’s Ranking: N/A
Battleground: vs. Charlotte vs Brie Bella 3 Stars
SummerSlam: Divas Clusterfuck Tag Match 2.25 Stars
TLC: vs Becky Lynch 2.75 Stars
Total Stars: 8 Stars
Average Rating = 2.666666 Stars
Well this is unexpected, sort of. For three matches this isn’t too bad a place, admittedly I didn’t expect her to get this high until the match with Becky, all things considered I was expecting a late 40s number for her. I guess the extra match really did wonders for her, even if it was nowhere near the quality of their NXT encounters.
So Sasha’s year began as part of the Divas Revolution and would take part in the first and best match of the revolution (we aren’t counting NXT matches as part of the revolution right) she would face off against Brie Bella and Charlotte, to Sasha’s credit she wasn’t the one that lost the match so at least there is some pride there. Then the clusterfuck tag match happened, again Sasha didn’t get pinned so it could be worse I guess.
Over the next few months Sasha would be chanted for by the fans but by WWE logic that means ignore them. Eventually Sasha would get back onto PPV at TLC facing Becky Lynch on the pre-show; it’s a start I guess, she would win this one, so that is two not losses and one win for Sasha, it could be worse I guess, there is no actual losing going on at the PPVs.
Going forward I think it is obvious to say that she is going to be pushed hard in the coming year. I find it hard to imagine this but I feel it is the way we are going, we are going to see face Sasha vs heel Charlotte at some point in the year, probably for the divas title. I don’t know that Sasha will win the title in the coming year, I imagine Charlotte holds it for most of the first half of the year, and if I have learnt anything about WWE, it is that they never think more than six months ahead about anything so I may as well have predicted the whole year.
So that is the next ten superstars on the list, I think that was an even split between ladies and gentlemen for this part, which I find quite interesting. Going forward I don’t think the list has enough divas to keep that up, so expect this list to become a sausage fest shortly. However that does mean we are close to naming our PPV-Star diva of the year, well for the WWE list anyway.
So we are 34 superstars down now, not long left until we hit the mid-point of the series. But it is time for me to bid a fond farewell once more, so that means another week of waiting in anticipation for you and another week of me desperately mashing my keyboard in hopes of something good coming out. For now though, I hope you have all enjoyed todays part and I will see you this coming weekend for more of the NXT PPV-Star of the year and then again this time next week for more WWE PPV-Stars.
Wrestling Question: What order do you think the current champions will lose their titles in?
Non-Wrestling Question: Have you ever broken a bone?
Fun Fact: Of all today’s entrants, only Sting, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, R-Truth and Jack Swagger have had a one on one match last more than fifteen minutes. However none of those matches took place on main roster WWE, Stings was back in 80s NWA, Banks was in NXT, Lynch was in SHIMMER, Truths was in NWATNA and Swagger’s was in WWECW.