DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu – Jeff Hardy, 2007 Awards Feedback + More Awards
Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 12:03 AM EST






THE WRESTLING MENU #257

Welcome one and all to the 257th edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

Oh boy, what a week I have had! The car troubles I mentioned briefly last week have escalated to the point where I am about to start punching random things. Anyone who has ever had an issue with their insurance company may know how I feel right now. Otherwise, I don’t want to talk about it, if only because it’s likely to get me further into a bad mood! I just mentioned it as my different mood may show out in this column, whether it be in tone or detail. All the problems have cut down my spare time by a huge amount this week, so it was a little fortunate that I even got to churn this column out at all. So don’t be surprised if it comes out looking a little like filler.

On with the show.....


APPETIZERS – Jeff Hardy

This topic actually emanates from the feedback I received to my year-end awards which I will speak about in more detail in the ‘Main’ section of today’s column. Basically, I had emails that numbered into the double figures mentioning that Jeff Hardy simply had to be awarded something for his body of work in 2007 & that it was practically a crime that I didn’t even mention him.

The lack of a mention is a fair point actually, because I can assure everyone that I did consider him for a few awards, with ‘Most Improved’ seeing him come the closest to a category win. Other awards he was mentioned in were ‘Wrestler Of The Year’, ‘Overall Performer Of The Year’, Tag-Team Of The Year & ‘Match Of The Year’ (the under-rated & often forgotten ppv tag match that The Hardyz had against Benjamin & Haas).

So I admit that I should have mentioned him as a runner-up somewhere. However, that does not change the fact that at the end of the day, I still would not have given him a single award. As I said, I most considered him for ‘Most Improved’. And I tell you what, if that cage match against Umaga occurred during 2007, I may well have been swayed! What a wrestling match that was & I think we already have an early contender for 2008’s match of the year!

But in thinking about it a little more, I really should have considered Jeff for ‘Overall Performer of 2007’ a little bit stronger. I still would not have awarded him the win in that category as my eventual winner in John Cena was also at or near the top of many of the factors that I look at when considering that particular category. However, when you consider everything that Jeff did during 2007, he really does come into the mix.

Not only has Jeff held the Intercontinental Title for quite a few months now, but he also became #1 contender for the WWE Championship in December with his win over Triple H. Furthermore, Jeff was a huge ingredient in a surprise resurgence of the tag-team divisions of WWE earlier in the year. This often meant he was wrestling more than once during the week on television (not even counting house shows) with frequent trips over to both the ECW & SmackDown brands with brother Matt. And don’t forget that these matches were often grueling match types such as Ladder or Cage Matches

Those last 2 facts can never be under-estimated by us wrestling fans & it leads me to bestow a special award to Jeff Hardy for 2007. However, I cannot claim full credit for this idea as the thought was actually passed on to me by a reader of mine in Jason Brown. Thanks for the idea Jason. So without further adieu, I add one more award to my 2007 Year-End Awards (one which may even stick around in future years):

HARDEST WORKING WRESTLER OF THE YEAR: Jeff Hardy


MAIN – 2007 Awards Feedback

If you have yet to read my year-end awards for 2007, you may still do so by clicking on the following link: http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/2008/articles/1199856304.php

As I mentioned during my awards column last week, I really thought that I was going to get a whole bunch of disagreement for my choice of award winners this time around. This was partially because I thought there were not obvious winner’s in some categories & partially because I made some interesting choices. However, I have been pleasantly surprised with my strike rate as such & even in disagreement, most readers felt I was at least around the mark. I will briefly go through most awards now with the popular picks amongst the readers who emailed me over the past 7 days.

With regards to ‘Male Wrestler of the Year’, the popular pick here was John Cena, despite the fact that he missed a couple of months at the end of the year. I had Cena in 2nd spot here, while my choice of Batista also was fairly popular. In fact, it was pleasing to hear that some people hadn’t even thought of Batista, but when I put my case across in my column last week, they agreed that he was a genuine contender. Others who received some mentions here were Jeff Hardy, MVP, Triple H, The Undertaker & Umaga.

The ‘Female Wrestler of the Year’ award was very much a wide open race. My choice of Melina proved semi-popular, while Candice Michelle & Mickie James also proved popular. If I had to narrow down the most popular choice amongst feedback, it would have to have been Candice. There wasn’t too much of a spread in the ‘Overall Performer of the Year’ award though as John Cena was almost unanimous here. Only Jeff Hardy & Edge received mentions elsewhere from memory.

My choice of Deuce & Domino as ‘Tag-Team of the Year’ was a little out of left field, but I will definitely stick by it. Cade & Murdoch were indeed the most popular choice here, although it seemed that only a few matches here & there were enough for some people to present the award to The Hardyz. I must admit that I did consider them as well! As per usual, I received a spread of responses for the ‘Most Improved Wrestler of 2007’. My choice of Matt Hardy had fans, but the 2 most popular picks here were my runners up of Jeff Hardy & Candice Michelle. I have no issues with any of the 3 to be honest, as they definitely all improved in one way or another.

MVP was the clear ‘Rookie of 2007’, while Chris Jericho was also the popular pick as ‘Return/Debut of the Year’ (although the likes of Triple H & Edge were also mentioned here). With regards to the ‘Most Over-Used Wrestler’ & ‘Worst Wrestler’ awards, all the usual suspects came up. If anyone, it was The Great Khali who was most prominent in these categories, but the likes of Mark Henry, Big Daddy V & Snitsky also were put forward. My suggestion that Hornswoggle was indeed the ‘Worst Wrestler of 2007’ raised some eyebrows, but if he continues to waste 5+ minutes of my time week in & week out, why shouldn’t we compare him to all the rest of the roster?

Like the ‘Most Improved’ award, the ‘Most Under-Used Wrestler’ category always serves up a good spread of wrestlers from year to year (although Shelton Benjamin has had a mortgage on the award of late). People considered my choice of Super Crazy as an interesting one… Maybe because they had forgotten about him! No one response really stood out here as there were many wrestlers mentioned equally. However, if I had to nail it down to one, it would be the tag-team of Paul London & Brian Kendrick… And who could argue with that!? Some of the others that came up here were Carlito, Shelton Benjamin, Elijah Burke, John Morrison & Jimmy Wang Yang.

My choice of Batista vs The Undertaker from WrestleMania 23 as the ‘Match of the Year’ was actually quite popular amongst my readers. However, the clear favorite here amongst feedback was the John Cena vs Shawn Michaels 50+ minute Raw bout that emanated from England. I don’t know… I find it difficult to award such a bout the match of the year when we miss about 15% of it due to commercials. That’s not to say that I didn’t consider the match for the award, because I did & also felt it was an excellent bout.

My ‘Feud of the Year’ choice of Benoit vs MVP was not all that popular, but I stand by it. I don’t think it was the Benoit factor here, I just feel that most fans felt it got overshadowed by the later MVP vs Matt Hardy feud which was indeed the popular pick here, just over The Undertaker vs Batista. They were also my top 3 & all of them were booked to perfection for mine. Carrying on from their feud, many felt my choice of Matt & MVP’s teaming as the ‘Best Storyline of 2007’ was justified. As for ‘Worst Storyline’ it was simply a case of tossing a coin to see if it came up ‘Vince is Dead’ or ‘Who Is Vince’s Son?’

Finally, votes for ‘Pay-Per-View of 2007’ were rather evenly split between my choice of Backlash & The Royal Rumble. Only WrestleMania 23 managed to get a few votes here & there elsewhere, but it was the January & April events that were most popular here. If that doesn’t get us pumped up for the next few months, then I don’t know what will!


DESSERT – 2007 Non-Wrestling Awards

I did this last year for the first time ever & I’m really unsure that it went down well. But stiff, I’m going to do it again, even if it’s mainly for my own sake. And no, ‘Car Accident of the Year’ & ‘Insurance Ballz Up of the Year’ will not be 2 of the awards here! Actually, in all seriousness, one reader suggested a band that I had never heard of this time last year & they ended up being a good listen, so at the very least I got something back from writing these extra awards last year. These awards will be fairly random & a little off the cuff, so I will probably miss something obvious here. Oh well.

MOVIE OF 2007: Spiderman 3 - To be honest, I didn’t watch as many movies as usual this past year. I’m not even sure why to be honest. Maybe it was simply because I spent more time listening to music than in years past. But anyway, of those that I did view, it may not sound very critic-like of me, but the 2 that stand out in my memory are Spiderman 3 & Transformers. I didn’t think I would like the latter film (especially since I feel that Michael Bay is a horrible director), but it was indeed a pleasant surprise. But I give the nod to Spidey3 despite the fact that many people didn’t like it as much as the previous 2 installments in the series. Something in the storyline obviously struck a chord with me.

TV SHOW OF 2007: Lost - This was a tough one to pick this year as I didn’t really think that any show was very consistent throughout it’s season. Hell, if this was decided on consistency, I may have very well gone for some drama like ‘Brothers & Sisters’. But I’ve gone with ‘Lost’ & this has a lot to do with the way they dug themselves out of a hole. Most of the first half of the most recent season was fairly lackluster & at times bewildering actually. But it was one of those rare times in a long-running series where there were multiple payoffs for those who were patient enough to sit through a season. And just as importantly, those payoffs were larger because of what went on during those earlier episodes.

MOST DISAPPOINTING TV SHOW OF 2007: Heroes - I’m not as big a superhero/comic book fan as a lot of people in the LOP community, but I genuinely enjoyed the 1st series of Heroes. Strangely, when the 2nd series started similarly to Lost in that early episodes were ho-hum & often didn’t make much sense, I was quietly confident that it was all leading to multiple payoffs. Unfortunately, it didn’t. How much of this had to do with the writer’s strike, I am unsure. But I genuinely have to think about whether or not I give this show my time when next it comes around!

SPORTSMAN OF 2007: Christiano Ronaldo - I could be boring & award this to Roger Federer or Tiger Woods, but that would be obvious & I prefer team sports myself. Instead, I’m going with Manchester United’s Christiano Ronaldo, as he almost single-handedly took his team to the English Premier League title in 2006/2007. An absolute excitement machine that has all the skills in the world, if he isn’t the best soccer player in the world right now, he will be soon. The scary thing is that he is only 22 years of age!!!

MUSIC VIDEO OF 2007: ‘Thnks Fr Th MMrs’ by Fall Out Boy - It’s fair to state that I watched an absolute heap of music videos throughout 2007, but for some reason nothing really stands out in terms of the best of them. And when nothing stands out, it’s simply easiest to go the cheap Funniest Home Videos route. That either means people getting hurt accidentally or animals. And what animal is funnier than a monkey? Throw in some sub-titles for these clever looking apes of video directors & I had a chuckle while Patrick, Pete & the guys were hamming it up on screen.

SONG OF 2007: ‘The Pretender’ by The Foo Fighters - I can already imagine a conversation occurring in 10 years time when a teenager & their father discuss rock music of the past. If the year 2007 came up, ‘The Pretender’ would have to be mentioned. Simply a great ballz-to-the-wall track that had attitude by the bucket loads, yet was still blessed by The Fooeys’ knack of still making their songs accessible to the mainstream.

ALBUM OF 2007: ….. - You may be asking if there was an album called dot, dot, dot, but I am actually going to remain mysterious for a little while for other reasons. Throughout the 2nd half of last year, I was writing weekly album reviews in the LOP Forums. I ran out of fuel towards December, but a webmaster of another website noticed these & asked if I could write at least one for his site. So I re-edited one of my reviews & recently had it posted. Needless to say, it was my album of the year & the main reason for this was because it did not contain one below average song in my opinion. To find out what my album of 2007 was, click on the following link & look for the ‘DaveyBoy’ link toward the bottom right hand side of the page: www.feeltheword.net/magazine/. While you are there, take a look around the site as well.


Ok, I don’t know how this column has come out to read, but it rolled off the keyboard rather nicely & at least I don’t feel like punching random things as much now! Seriously, I hope this didn’t come off too much as filler & you enjoyed it to some extent. It’s difficult to provide feedback on feedback I suppose, but you know where I am if you would like to pass on any thoughts to me. I will reply. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com. Meanwhile, the new & improved LOP Forums have been reset now, so if you are a member there, it would be appreciated if you could leave feedback at http://www.lopforums.com/showthread.php?t=159

Next Wednesday in 'The Wrestling Menu', I will once more post one of my most popular columns of the year… An annual staple of DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu that readers consistently like to interact with. That’s right, it’s DaveyBoy’s ‘Yearly Predictions’ column. For those of you that don’t know what this is, it’s where I make a total a$$ of myself by seriously trying to predict some things that will occur in WWE for the remainder of 2008. And just to show you how it works, I will even look back at my predictions for 2007 that I made last January to see how I did. Of course, on top of that, I also have some little matter called ‘The Royal Rumble’ to predict, so next week’s column should be jam-packed with wrestling goodness for everyone to enjoy. As per usual, my column will be posted at the same Wednesday time on the same LOP channel next week. Until then, this is DaveyBoy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.


DaveyBoy’s Wrestling Menu. 2002-2008

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