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Follow @TheDocLOP QUESTION OF THE DAY: What is your choice for 2015 Match of the Year? Match of the Year 2015 Match of the Year is my favorite yearly category. I enjoy Wrestler of the Year and I’d like to see it establish greater traction as a discussion piece at the turn of each calendar, but for as long as I’ve been a part of this community, the award everyone seems to want to discuss most is MOTY. Fine by me, as I have no greater pro wrestling writing passion than discussing the stories told in the ring. In 2015, there were a lot of contenders. The majority of the PPVs offered at least a candidate to be considered. NXT continued to add tremendous value to the conversation. In addition to the Matches of the Month I've named throughout the year, I think there have been a couple of bouts that were too good not to at least be mentioned. When I took my first hard look at the complete 2015 list, I immediately eliminated the Matches of the Month from February (Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns), April (Roman Reigns vs. Big Show), and September (John Cena vs. Seth Rollins), but I had to give them their due one last time. Roman's work against Bryan and Show went a long way to winning me over and flipping me from purely critical to genuinely hoping that he'd succeed as a top star. The match with Bryan especially was of the sort that made me go “Whoa...this guy is the real deal.” Cena vs. Rollins, meanwhile, could wind up being one of the most rewatchable matches of the year. Of all the US Championship matches that Cena had this year – from Rusev to Ambrose to Neville to Cesaro to Owens – the Night of Champions bout with Rollins might have been the best of the lot. 16-minutes of awesome, put simply. Though not on the MOTM list, one of the aforementioned few that were worthy of mention was Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt. One of the readers nominated Reigns vs. Bryan from Fast Lane for MOTY, citing it as “so underrated.” I agree, but I feel the same about both Reigns-Wyatt matches on PPV. This was a year dominated on the main roster by one of two primary styles: the "Lesnar" and the "Cena" – the Lesnar featured rampant no selling by the Beast himself and an abundance of selling from his opponent, while the Cena featured a plethora of moves and finishers. Reigns vs. Bryan and Wyatt were different; and that made them stand out. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn at Takeover: Rival in February was another match that falls into that category in which psychological nuance more than made up for the lack of eye-popping physical domination or aesthetically-pleasing move sets. While not ultimately on the MOTY short list, I'd have felt remiss to leave them off the long one. Brock Lesnar and Undertaker's Hell in a Cell was excellent, destined to be as underrated in the modern era as their 2002 No Mercy Cell match was underrated in its era. Take out concussions and historically awful finishing sequences and those two guys, even at Taker's advanced age, can still have a great match together. However, I found it relatively easy to eliminate it from serious MOTY contention for the same tangible reason that it is easy to leave off New Day vs. Usos vs. Lucha Dragons at TLC: as good as they were, they were merely the best recent versions of gimmicks that have been done to such glorious degrees in the past that all iterations for the foreseeable future are competing for second to tenth place or beyond. It would take an absolutely amazing version of the Cell or the stunt brawl Ladder match to overtake other great works of art on the 20'X20' canvas. All of the above matches were on the fringe of my official ballot, but the finalists were: -John Cena and Seth Rollins challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble -Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton at WrestleMania -Roman Reigns challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, with Seth Rollins cashing in Money in the Bank to make it a triple threat -Kevin Owens vs. John Cena (pick among the three consecutive Match of the Month winners from May to July) -Dean Ambrose challenging Seth Rollins for the WWE Championship in a Ladder match at Money in the Bank -Sasha Banks vs. Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship (pick between the NXT: Brooklyn and NXT: Respect matches) Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton, I contend, could be the single most replayable match of this entire group in ten years. They wrestled like it was the main-event and capped it off with one of the greatest finishing sequences ever. Roddy Piper vs. Bret Hart wasn't MOTY either in 1992, but if I had to pick one match to watch from that year, I'd seriously consider choosing it over Bret vs. Bulldog or Flair vs. Savage; it was that good and so was Orton vs. Rollins. Nevertheless, it is the first from the above group to be crossed off the list. The next is Rollins vs. Ambrose. I fall into the camp that feels that match was special. It's such a smart match and I admire that those two, when given a classic gimmick, try their hardest to put a new spin on it that shapes its future use. Much like their Hell in a Cell match last year, the Rollins vs. Ambrose Ladder match struggles to strike the same chords on replay that they did on the first viewing. There's a particular frame of mind that you need to get into in order to best appreciate it. Combine that with the fact that the crowd is so unapologetically lifeless for 90% of it and it's difficult to elevate it above its peers. Both PPV matches this year between Ambrose and Rollins were overshadowed by the stylistically more entertaining bouts between Kevin Owens and John Cena. KO's debut at Elimination Chamber was given a lot of love in the reader voting, third only to Bayley vs. Banks and the Rumble triple threat. The least critically appreciated of their three match series was the last one at Battleground, but I felt that to be the best of the lot. Money in the Bank's rematch from EC was incredible and arguably holds up better on replay than any of them, but a few mistimed spots could be nitpicked into reducing its overall effectiveness in a discussion such as this. All in all, though, each of the three bouts was so incredibly good that they're the first really difficult elimination from the entire list. As strange as this may seem, the first viewing of the vaunted triple threat from the Royal Rumble is, like Ambrose vs. Rollins, done no favors on replay either. I've watched it three times since the original showing and there are some holes in the presentation when scrutinized that just were not there on the night of. The main issue is that Brock Lesnar was very sloppy. Granted, part of his character is an animalistic rage that can get out of control. Back when he was firing on all cylinders at the height of WrestleMania 31 season, sloppiness could be passed off as part of the act. Unfortunately for Rollins vs. Cena vs. Lesnar, when you place these matches under a microscope, the flaws stand out more. It's still an outstanding performance, mind you, but I for one do not believe it to be the masterpiece that we originally claimed it to be. Mid-way through the year, it was undoubtedly my choice for MOTY frontrunner. Looking back, I think it's Top 5 in a very good in-ring year. The WrestleMania 31 main-event was the best match wrestled in the aforementioned Brock Lesnar-style. Roman Reigns excelled in not just taking a beating, but also using facial expressions to show a different side of himself that, in the context of the match, served to further incite Lesnar. As much as WWE was rightly criticized for the poor pre-match hype, equal amounts of praise should be given to Reigns and Lesnar for telling a compelling story that the fans were heavily invested in. The added intangible of blood cannot be overstated. We see its use so infrequently these days that, when someone gets busted opened, there’s another layer of authenticity. By itself, Reigns vs. Lesnar was a very good WrestleMania match, but the Seth Rollins cash-in took the match to another level. Because of the setting, there is no more historic a Money in the Bank moment, boosting Reigns vs. Lesnar (vs. Rollins) to runner-up status. That leaves the runner-up from reader voting and The Doc’s overall 2015 Match of the Year: Sasha Banks vs. Bayley at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn . Before I officially stamp that match with my MOTY seal of approval, I need to take you through my thought process. Let’s rewind the clock six years. At that time, I was about the biggest detractor of women’s wrestling around. For as level-headed as I could be about most things WWE, my disdain for the women’s product after Trish Stratus and Lita retired could not have been misconstrued as level-headed criticism; I outright abhorred the genre. Brief glimpses of change were chronicled through the Doctor’s Orders since then – most notably AJ Lee vs. Kaitlyn at Payback 2013 in Chicago - but it was not until I saw Paige vs. Emma on the first NXT Takeover special in 2014 that I felt truly hopeful about women’s wrestling being capable of making a consistently significant contribution to the WWE product. That match showed a different level of in-ring prowess than had ever been seen previously under the Vince McMahon umbrella. By the end of last year, shortly after watching Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks on the same NXT Takeover that saw Sami Zayn capture the NXT Heavyweight Title, I had an epiphany that women’s wrestling in NXT had become a must-see affair. The Fatal Fourway between the Four Horsewomen in February accentuated that point. Banks, particularly, blossomed into a character that you couldn’t keep your eyes off of; she became a commodity in and of herself, elevating the women’s division in NXT to such an extent that it began permeating the WWE main roster bubble (without the Boss even being a member of it yet). Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch was the next step. They raised the bar that much higher and pushed not only women in WWE to the brink of the Diva’s Revolution, but also the NXT brand as a whole to a position in which it could sell out the Barclay’s Center in minutes. Filling Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center to capacity combined with huge viewership on WWE Network played an important role in it even being possible for Bayley vs. Banks to win Match of the Year. One of the primary roles of a wrestling match at the main-event or semi-main-event level is drawing big live crowds and substantial at-home audiences. Before WWE Network, NXT really was just developmental. So few watched it; it was largely irrelevant to the financial bottom line and, thus, stripped away an NXT match from being in any way comparable in scale to a WWE match in the “greatest of” conversation each year. Once the Network arrived and gave NXT visibility, suddenly WWE had a product on their hands. Selling out Barclay’s proved how lucrative that product had become in short order. NXT Takeover: Brooklyn was, thus, right on par with the second biggest WWE crowds of the entire year (equaling, in fact, the attendance for WWE proper’s second biggest PPV of the year) and the WWE Network allowed the same number of people who watched the majority of WWE PPVs to also watch NXT specials. And, suddenly, Banks vs. Bayley was competing on a near equal playing field as its main roster competition for Match of the Year. Without restrictions, it then became an exercise in comparing Banks-Bayley – the greatest women’s wrestling match of all-time – to the best from the men. The bottom line is that drawing conclusions in these discussions is about nuance. The little details in storytelling matter so much; and there was not a match that paid more attention to detail this year than Banks vs. Bayley. One of the best moments in any match in 2015 was the sequence at TO: Brooklyn that saw Bayley locked in the Bank Statement. Her hand having previously been broken and the focus of Sasha’s assaults throughout the match, Bayley struggled to literally reach for the ropes to break the hold. Banks, noticing her challenger’s pain, began viciously stomping on Bayley’s hand. That detail stuck in my mind for four months. When I sat down recently to watch the finalists in succession, it was that detail that allowed Banks vs. Bayley to shine a little brighter than every other contender. Similar details were found in their rematch two months later in a match that was just as good as the summer classic (I just prefer straight-up matches to gimmicks if prompted to choose). I wanted you to know of my thought process leading up to my conclusion because I honestly never thought that the day would come that I would name a women’s match the Match of the Year. If you’d have asked me if it was even 1% possible back in January, I no doubt would have said “No; not even 1%.” So, 2015 turned out to be a year in which something improbable happened; and, when the improbable happens, it creates an indelible memory. I don’t know about you, but I will remember Summerslam 2015 weekend more for NXT Takeover: Brooklyn than I will for WWE’s WrestleMania Lite; and that is in large part due to Bayley vs. Banks, which I will remember as the very best match of 2015.
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