2009 MOTY List, still very far behind

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. John Cena v Chris Jericho, WWE, 2/2
8. Jack Swagger v Finlay, WWE, 2/3
9. Big Show v MVP, WWE, 1/16
10. John Cena v JBL, WWE, 1/25
11. Finlay v Jack Swagger, WWE, 1/6
12. Jack Swagger & Mark Henry vs Christian & Finlay, 2/17
13. Randy Orton v Shane McMahon, WWE, 2/15
14. Jeff Jarrett v Kurt Angle, TNA, 1/11
15. Jack Swagger v Christian, WWE, 2/10
16. The Miz & John Morrison & The Brian Kendrick v Primo & Carlito & R-Truth, WWE, 2/6
17. Jack Swagger & The Miz & John Morrison v Christian & Finlay & Tommy Dreamer, WWE, 3/3
18. Shawn Michaels v JBL, WWE, 2/15
19. John Cena & Shawn Michaels v Chris Jericho & Randy Orton, WWE, 1/5
20. Rey Mysterio v Kane v Mike Knox, WWE, 3/2
21. Edge & Big Show v Triple H & Undertaker, WWE, 2/6
22. CM Punk v JBL, WWE, 3/9
23. Big Show v Festus, 1/30
24. Big Show v Triple H, WWE, 1/9
25. Randy Orton v Undertaker, WWE, 2/9

OFF. Chris Sabin v Alex Shelley, TNA, 1/11
OFF. Jack Swagger v Finlay, WWE, 2/15
OFF. John Cena v Shawn Michaels, WWE, 1/26

17. Jack Swagger & The Miz & John Morrison v Christian & Finlay & Tommy Dreamer, WWE, 3/3

This is kind of strange, because Miz and Morrison went out and took their six-man tag match onto all three WWE shows. This is the second one, from ECW. It’s a lot better than the third from RAW, which seems crazy because it’s replacing Swagger with Kane (big step down) and Dreamer with Mysterio (nearly incomprehensible step up). But that match was short and kinda shitty. The first one was on Smackdown! a month before the ECW match, and it had Kendrick instead of Swagger on the heel team, which is a plus for the ECW match, traded the Colons for Christian and Finlay, which is a plus for the ECW match, and R-Truth instead of Dreamer on the face team, which is at worst a wash. So the ECW match had the best lineup of the three but it’s only the second best, I definitely liked the first one more. This is still a pretty awesome match, but for some reason they decided to have Dreamer working FIP and Miz and Morrison work the bulk of the heat which doesn’t work so well for me when presented with more attractive options. Finlay trapping Miz in the apron at the start of the match is pretty boss and it’s a shame he doesn’t get to do too much more, but then again he’s pretty old. When Christian gets the hot tag the match finally kicks into A++ gear and leads to a great finishing stretch with Morrison, Christian, and Swagger. A damn fine six-man.

20. Rey Mysterio v Kane v Mike Knox, WWE, 3/2

So I fucking hate triple threat matches. I was texting my friend Brian one day about this and he was amazed because he thought I preferred multi-man matches to singles. I gave my phone the funniest look when I read that. I also tend to not like them when they’re run with “RAW guys”, because “RAW booked wrestling” is almost always really really fucking lazy with the tropes they use. So I was pretty surprised when I dug this match as much as I did and it is all, entirely, 100% Rey Mysterio, your 2009 wrestler of the year (yes, I’ve decided this as of March when I watched two straight John Cena television main events, couldn’t really get into either of them, decided he just isn’t as good without a title for whatever reason, remembered that he’s only held a title for like nine total weeks as of the end of August, and went “…oh”). The match does start with the stupid three way crap of ‘knock a dude outside, other two dudes work each other’, but it’s ok because Rey takes a swank bump to set that up. Then Kane takes a shitty bump, but it’s ok because you’ve got Rey in there with Knox. Then they abandon the two inside one outside bullshit and get down to all three in the ring, Rey running around hitting both of the big dudes with all this great looking Rey offense. Kane and Knox are pretty much perfect as pillars for Rey’s insanity, and they both kill the fuck out of him when it’s their turn to smack Rey around. The ending sequence is awesome and it has everyone biting on nearfalls. Even me. I watched this match live six months ago. What the fuck? I almost think this should be higher.

22. CM Punk v JBL, WWE, 3/9

CM Punk is my favorite wrestler but I’m not really that high on too many of his matches, this is his first match on the list. It’s the last match of his Intercontinental title reign, which sucks in a sense, but is also awesome because I really like JBL, too. JBL manages to beat the shit out of the Punk in a manner that lets you admire the stiffness and brutality, as opposed to the Punk/Regal series where it was vaguely creepy to the point that I found the matches uncomfortable to watch. JBL also has the best clothesline in the God damn world and Punk takes two of them like a fucking MAN. Punk works just fine as the fired up babyface here and JBL works in his big match violence stuff and I don’t know, I just got into it. Fun little match!