IGN's 2011 Wrestling Year in Review

It's that time of year again. A crisp chill is in the air. People are scrambling to get all their work done so they can jet off to their respective "middles of nowhere" and visit with family. Unhealthy levels of alcohol will be consumed in order that those people can tolerate the repugnant funhouse mirror-effect of spending awkward evenings with said relatives. Then, on a quiet night, distant from the watchful eye of the guiding stars above, someone will head out into the black, driving to the store to get more DuraFlame logs, and crash their Dodge into a thick, Scottish pine. They'll lie dying in the snow, with their last thoughts dizzily obsessing over their life's ironic regrets.

Oh, and it's also time to look back at the wild, wacky world of pro-wrestling and tell you what ruled and what sucked ass in 2011! The WWE, now addicted to any form of internet buzz, appropriately ended their year with Punk, Bryan and Ryder all holding major titles, standing tall and victorious on a RAW emanating from Philly. As a noisier-than-average part of the proud internet wrestling community, I can say that this was a perfect way to end the year. As soul-sucking as the WWE's late-to-the-dance worship of Twitter is, the fact that they now heavily pay attention to online fandom is a major step towards providing a more well-rounded product that older, persnickety a**holes like us can appreciate. But all in all, WWE-wise, this was the year of The Rock's big return and CM Punk's "shoot heard round the world."

After a ghastly beginning of the year (thanks to the low-blood sugar Day-Glo Man-Bat, Jeff Hardy), TNA was pretty much business as usual this year right until the very end when they put World Championships on a couple of their talented work horses; James Storm and Bobby Roode. TNA has still failed to take that quantum leap to the next level, despite the fact that Hulk Hogan's cell phone is "blowing up" 24/7 when he walks through airports, but having guys like Styles, Daniels, Roode, Storm and Aries on their roster certainly makes their mostly crude, loud-mouthed programming a little more digestible.

I have to admit that I look forward to these "Year in Wrestling" recaps because of all the damn joke-recycling I'm gonna throw at you. Yup, not a single original thought is going to pour out of my brain as I just sift through this past year's best images, gifs and gags. It's gonna be a goddamn laze-a-palooza, folks. And it will spotlight what I do best; reconstituting bulls***. There are three main parts to the year-end Wrap Up: News, Things I Liked and Things I Didn't Like. It's pretty much the USA Today info-graphic of wrestling analysis. Except more about ice cream bars, anal bleeding and David Otunga than about "Which Country Eats the Most Big Macs."



Nobody thought The Rock was coming back to the WWE full time. Even when he kind of got in the ring and told millions of people that he was coming back to the WWE full time. Well, to be fair, all he really said was that he was back and that he was never going to leave. What actually constitutes "leaving" is another matter entirely, but 2011 will definitely be remembered as the year the "Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment" came back to call out John Cena for some disparaging remarks that he made about The Rock during an interview back in 2008. And while The Rock, and his love of turning his massive foot sideways and inserting it up random people's crap canals, brought us much joy, his return also served as a stark reminder that in all the time he'd been away no one had been able to come close to filling his sideways-turned boots. After hosting WrestleMania and then challenging Cena to a match at the following 'Mania, The Rock climbed back in the ring at Survivor Series and proved that he hadn't lost an electrifying step.



In the story that certainly garnered the WWE the most mainstream media attention unexpectedly, CM Punk, a month away from his contract expiring and with one honest foot already out the door, squatted down on the entrance ramp with a mic and proceeded to tear down the curtain protecting the great and powerful Oz. How much of what Punk said was actually planned out ahead of time will always be a mystery to those of us on the outside of the carnal carnival that is pro-wrestling, but it should probably be said that very little ever gets on RAW that isn't plotted and planned out ahead of time. As much as s*** gets re-written at the eleventh hour, everything still needs final permission.

Regardless, Punk wound up giving the WWE the adrenaline shot in the ass (that's where it goes, right?) that it needed and while many of us still don't feel as though the WWE fully capitalized on Punk's "3:16" moment, he still remains one of the organizations best assets and has now been given an impressively longer leash. Punk's WWE Championship wins over Cena at Money in the Bank and Del Rio at Survivor Series were huge highlights of the year; tickling us in all the right places. And by that I mean "balls."

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More News of the Year on page 2…