2009 MOTY List feat. a very good week of WWE wrestling!

1. Jack Swagger v Christian, 2/24
2. John Cena v Rey Mysterio v Chris Jericho v Edge v Kane v Mike Knox, WWE, 2/15
3. John Cena v Shawn Michaels, WWE, 1/12
4. Matt Hardy v Jack Swagger, WWE, 1/13
5. Jack Swagger v Matt Hardy, WWE, 1/25
6. Edge v Triple H v Undertaker v Jeff Hardy v Big Show v Vladimir Kozlov, WWE, 2/15
7. The Miz v Primo, WWE, 3/10
8. John Cena v Chris Jericho, WWE, 2/2
9. Jack Swagger v Finlay, WWE, 2/3
10. Big Show v MVP, WWE, 1/16
11. John Cena v JBL, WWE, 1/25
12. Finlay v Jack Swagger, WWE, 1/6
13. Jack Swagger & Mark Henry vs Christian & Finlay, 2/17
14. Randy Orton v Shane McMahon, WWE, 2/15
15. Jeff Jarrett v Kurt Angle, TNA, 1/11
16. The Miz & John Morrison v Primo & Carlito, WWE, 3/13
17. Jack Swagger v Christian, WWE, 2/10
18. Finlay v The Brian Kendrick, WWE, 3/13
19. The Miz & John Morrison & The Brian Kendrick v Primo & Carlito & R-Truth, WWE, 2/6
20. Jack Swagger & The Miz & John Morrison v Christian & Finlay & Tommy Dreamer, WWE, 3/3
21. Shawn Michaels v JBL, WWE, 2/15
22. John Cena & Shawn Michaels v Chris Jericho & Randy Orton, WWE, 1/5
23. Rey Mysterio v Kane v Mike Knox, WWE, 3/2
24. Edge & Big Show v Triple H & Undertaker, WWE, 2/6
25. CM Punk v JBL, WWE, 3/9

OFF. Big Show v Festus, 1/30
OFF. Big Show v Triple H, WWE, 1/9
OFF. Randy Orton v Undertaker, WWE, 2/9

So this (03/9-03/13) was a damn fine week for WWE shows. RAW had the Punk/JBL title change match that made the list (and by the end of the week is barely hanging on), both RAW and Smackdown! had good Kofi Kingston matches that didn’t make the list (against Chris Jericho and Edge, respectively), ECW had a nice four minute kickfest with Tyson Kidd and DJ Gabriel (who I am digging the fuck out of but seems to have disappeared), not to mention maybe the best battle royal I’ve ever seen. On merit alone it is easily on this list, maybe even top fifteen or higher. Unfortunately I decided at the start that I wouldn’t include battle royals of any sort (to prevent myself from just sticking the Rumble at number one, I guess?) and I’m not in the mood to type out fifteen different names for one spot. However I may change my mind later and throw this on here. It was really fucking good. Smackdown! had an interesting ‘Taker/Kozlov match, wouldn’t really call it that good and it’s certainly not coming anywhere near this list but at one point ‘Taker takes like ten straight strikes to the face from Kozlov and he has to put up his hands by the end because Kozlov is not pulling those things at all. Then there were also these three matches which all made the cut!

7. The Miz v Primo, WWE, 3/10

This is another one of those ECW television matches that I’d seen pimped elsewhere so I was cautiously looking forward to it. Going in I hadn’t really been much of a Colons fan, I mean yeah I liked Carlito back in 2006 when I started watching wrestling but I also liked TNA back then so that’s not a good representative. I’ve been a really big Miz fan for a long time but I haven’t seen too many quality singles with him. This was pretty much what I was looking for, it just built and built towards the end. Having Morrison and Carlito on commentary actually helped, because at the beginning of the match where they are working slower and feeling each other out the commentary keeps you interested, and by the end when they’ve kicked it into high gear you don’t even notice them. So no matter what, the match holds your attention, which is exactly what you want. It builds and builds from a slow start until a hot finish. I don’t know that any of their tag matches were as good as this but damn does it ever make me want to see the tags.

16. The Miz & John Morrison v Primo & Carlito, WWE, 3/13

So not only is this a good week for WWE, this is the week that finally sold me on the Colons. Three matches in the top 25 by mid-March and I’d imagine a couple more will end up on there before they break up. They had a tag two months earlier that I didn’t much care for, and one the week before that was ok but kind of weirdly structured, it was almost all babyface offense with limited heel heat segments even though it got a lot of time. This blew both away, real good old school tag match with good heat stretches and a hot finish. Miz outclasses Morrison as a heel here, between his performance in this and the Primo match on ECW I don’t know how anyone would think Morrison was the stronger member of the team. Carlito throws really nice punches and Primo’s white meat babyface stuff works really well as a foil for the 00s reality douche heel work. Like the Primo/Miz match this left me wanting more of these four together.

18. Finlay v The Brian Kendrick, WWE, 3/13

I almost didn’t even bother watching this, I mean it barely touches four minutes in tape time but Kendrick is a really great cocksucker heel and Finlay does enjoy beating the shit out of smaller dudes, so I went back and watched it. It did not disappoint, Kendrick is an absolute motherfucker here, any sensible man would want to see Finlay go all Bear Jew on his ass with that Irish stick. I on the other hand write a wrestling blog and thus am clearly not a sensible man, so all I could think of was ‘why did you have to love drugs so much and rob ME PERSONALLY of seeing you work upper card’. I think it’s a very valid question. Finlay isn’t as spectacular in this as he is in his better Swagger matches and Kendrick doesn’t have the stuff (to use a baseball term that probably doesn’t really fit) to match Swagger, but Finlay is still very good and I really can’t say enough about Kendrick being a total fly on your ass. This needed fifteen minutes on Superstars or something.