MVP: Daniel Bryan
Least Valuable Player: Alberto Del Rio
Rookie of the Half-Year: Bray Wyatt
Biggest Surprise: Randy Orton
Biggest Disappointment: Antonio Cesaro (Reason stated - Cesaro lowered to tag teaming with Swagger)
Most Likely to Achieve: Cody Rhodes
Most Likely to Underachieve: The Miz
Best Moment: The Ending of SummerSlam
Worst Moment: The Ending of Battleground
Feud of the Half-Year: CM Punk Vs Paul Heyman
Match of the Half-Year: Sami Zayn vs. Antonio Cesaro, NXT, 8-21-13
Most Improved: Damien Sandow
Sixth Man of the Half-Year: Big E Langston
Coach of the Half-Year: Zeb Colter
Defensive Player of the Half-Year: Dolph Ziggler
Diva of the Half-Year: AJ Lee
Tag Team of the Half-Year: The Shield (All three of them. Freebird Rules meet the
criteria of Grantland awards-giving)
Comeback of the Half-Year: Brock Lesnar/Goldust
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id...rds-taking-stock-2013-six-months-wrestlemania
I took Del Rio's LVP award to mean, where are WWE getting the least value for their money? I agree with you actually, I think this has been a very good year in his career, but he's still not a top guy. For the time, money and effort spent on him, that he reach that position and stay in that position is imperative.ADR doesn't deserve LVP. I'm not someone that usually sticks up for Del Rio, but 2013 has been his best year by far. He's had some really good matches (w/ Ziggler, Show, etc.) and furthered his heel character. He's still fairly low on the totem-pole, but to call him the least valuable player on the entire roster? It pretty much invalidates the entire list (despite having some good [obvious] picks).
Bryan is certainly the MVP. Zayn/Cesaro is a decent pick for MOTY, if only because it won't get mentioned very often. Shield are obviously team of the year. And Miz getting the 'most likely to underachieve' award warms my heart.
I'd change a lot of the rest. Punk/Heyman might have been FOTY had it ended straight after Lesnar left. It's dragged way too long and involved too many ancillary characters. Cesaro being added to the Real Americans was the best thing for the direction of his character - another stupid choice.
Can Lesnar really be chosen as the comeback of the year when he returned last year as well? Goldust is a good shout though.
Helps to be the only new guyI'm only faltering on Bray Wyatt as rookie of the half year, everything else seems pretty spot-on.
That was absolutely NOT one of the main events. The main event was Rock vs Cena and the other matches that they pretended were the main event but really weren't were Triple H vs Brock Lesnar and Undertaker vs CM Punk. Del Rio vs Swagger meant nothing, and Swagger is, and is treated by the company like a punk bitch."Getting lowered to teaming with Swagger"
Yeah his stock has really lowered since teaming with a guy that just this year was in one of the main event's of Wrestlemania. So stupid.
Shield debuted in 2012...Shield deserve that Rookie award. And mostly agree with the rest.
Shield and Big E debut was in 2012, this is about roughly the first half of 2013How is Wyatt rookie of the year when Ambrose, Reigns, Rollins and Langston are all better?
So it basically is Axel or Wyatt, so of course Wyatt takes the spotRookie of the Half-Year: Bray Wyatt
This was a tough call — the past six months have seen the debuts of other intriguing talents, like Curtis Axel (like Wyatt, he's not a pure rookie, but, due to repackaging, he's a rookie according to Grantland's Awards Rules Committee) and, of course, the glorious El Torito, who is hamstrung by his brief run to date.
No other rookie has hit the scene with the intrigue and charisma of Bray Wyatt, who seems to have sprung whole cloth out of a Barry Hannah nightmare and who has introduced Southern Gothic to squared circle consciousness. So far, he has been sequestered off in his own ghoulish feuds, and thus hasn't interacted with much of the roster, and if he hasn't been the force that some hoped he would be based on his run in NXT, he's still been very good, warbling and leering with stunning aptitude for such a youngster. With shocking mobility for his size, his unsettlingly offbeat promos, and the unfathomably creepy upside-down spider walk he recently worked into his repertoire, Wyatt has made an impression in a relatively short span of time. If nothing else, he's different, which is something WWE needs badly.
The half a year starts the month after Wrestlemania since thats the WWEs world series/superbowl. So this really only counts from like April through the end of Sept. The shield and Big E debuted way before then.How is Wyatt rookie of the year when Ambrose, Reigns, Rollins and Langston are all better and have done more?
I think Cena has been the MVP if they're using the logic of "best bang for the 'E's buck" which they are if they're calling ADR the LVP (so there's a hole I just poked in this joke article).
Best feud of the half year was Cena/Bryan for me and it lasted a month. Match of the half year is still Bryan/Cesaro for me. Cena/Bryan is overrated, Punk/Brock is extremely overrated and I haven't seen Cesaro/Zayn