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Welp, 2013 is almost over and boy what a year has it been. Shitty groups have been disbanded, internet darlings have become world champions, and Natalya’s cat died. But at the end of every year, wrestling bloggers and Bleacher Report writers race to their keyboards to all do one thing: make a dope ass list. That’s right, it’s time for me, another obscure wrestling writer who has little to no audience, to make his 2013 wrestler ranking. This list is not based on personal opinion, but win/loss record, PPV attendance, championships, and match quality. Sorry JTG. Also, none of the women wrestlers will have a place on this list. Why? It’s kind of hard to compare the women wrestlers to the male wrestlers when the girls are only getting 1-2 matches a months and the guys (especially in WWE) are wrestling 2-3 times a week. Maybe I’ll do a women power ranking, but that would be pointless. Spoiler: AJ Lee wins. Anyways, here’s numbers 50 through 41 for the year of 2013.
#50. Magnus
Throughout 2013, Magnus has been primed to be TNA‘s number one guy. Whether it was joining the Main Event Mafia to take on the Aces and Eights, or umm, joining the Main Event Mafia to take on the Aces and Eights, Magnus has always seemed to be a part of TNA’s top story lines. Well, it seems as TNA has finally pulled the trigger on Magnus being the top guy, as over the past month or so Magnus has turned heel and become Dixie Carter’s hand picked TNA World Heavyweight Champion. While he may be on top of the TNA mountain, he was still somewhat inactive throughout the year and didn’t really have any stand-out matches. That drops ol’ Magnus to the bottom of the list.
#49. Christopher DanielsThe man who is widely considered to be the best guy in TNA to never win the World Championship finds himself at number 49. While he spent the year being the most entertaining part of Impact alongside his tag team partner Kazarian, Daniels found himself on the losing side of almost every match he was in. At least he has his appletinis.
#48. Roderick Strong
Ring of Honor’s first ever triple crown champion had an interesting year, and by interesting, I mean extremely uneventful. Let’s play a game, okay. Name ONE storyline Roderick was a part of this year. You can’t think of any? Well, mean either. Strong went the whole year in ROH without having on single feud. I think the closest he came to anything was when he had a series with Elgin at the beginning of the year. Other than that, he just got put in random ass matches on every iPPV. So why is he even ranked? Well, because every one of the random ass matches happened to be pretty great. Hopefully we can have him put on awesome matches AND be in an actual angle next year.
#47. Fandango
This man defeated Chris Jericho cleanly at WrestleMania. Now he’s just a Main Event (the show) playa. Fandango started the year off in the best way possible, with a clean with over a legend in your first match at WrestleMania. While no one expected a ballroom dancer to be a main event guy, I don’t think we expected Fandango to fall to the low-card so fast. Don’t get my wrong, he’s still entertaining as all hell, but it’s hard to care when he wrestles in 3-minute doses. It does look like he’s starting to get a bit of a push as of late however, as he’s scored wins over Kofi and Dolph. And just like Kofi and Dolph, this push will probably lead to nothing and be over in a month.
#46. Erick Rowan
Erick Rowan, or “upside down Sheamus“, has been one of the highlights of year alongside partner Luke Harper. Whether it was on NXT or Raw, Rowan has been a part of some of the best tag matches of the year, even holding the NXT Tag Team Championships for a bit. Unfortunately, Rowan hasn’t really been a part of the best singles matches of the year, as his partner Luke Harper is usually chosen to go solo in a match. Maybe next year Harper can watch him wrestle Daniel Bryan a gazillion times on Smackdown.
#45. Samoa JoeSamoa Joe was basically a background character this entire year. Whether it was during the war against Aces and Eights or the battle for the X-Division Championship, Samoa Joe was always just in the background. Like a new girlfriend in a family photo. But while Samoa Joe was never the main focus, he did still put on some great matches. Samoa Joe was as good as ever in-ring this year, and hopefully he can be the main character next year instead of the sidekick.
#44. Goldust
What a comeback! After being fired a year or two ago for giving the okay to a dangerous spot, Goldust made his return to WWE late in the year to fight for his brother’s job. Fast forward two months, and Goldy is the highlight of Raw and Smackdown every week. I don’t know what happened when he was gone, but Goldust has gotten WAY better than he was before. I don’t ever remember Goldy doing diving Huricanrana’s before. While his current Tag Team Championship run with his brother Cody is entertaining, his inevitable heel turn and feud with Cody for WrestleMania XXX will be even better.
#43. James StormJames Storm is pretty lame. His whole gimmick is just a less-cool version of Stone Cole Steve Austin who yells all his promos like the audience is partially deaf. What do you do with a lame person? You pair him up with another lame person of course! Storm spent most of the year teaming with fellow obvious republican Gunner, holding the Tag Team Championships. That is until they were beaten by Robbie E and Jessie Godderz. Yup. Anyways, it looks like Storm is on a collision path with Gunner, which should be a giant lame feud full of cowboy hats and country music. Sorry about our damn luck.
#42. Jimmy Jacobs
After spending half the year being a part of Steve Corino’s S.C.U.M. faction, Jimmy Jacobs re-emerged as a babyface trying to regain the respect of the ROH locker room. Ever since than, Jimmy Jacobs has been having awesome matches and just being and awesome in general. Not that he wasn’t awesome before, it’s just hard to show your awesomeness when your a part of ROH’s version of Aces and Eights. Jacobs even main evented a show facing Adam Cole for the World Championship. While I don’t think Jacobs is going to win any championships next year, I do think he’ll be a more prominent figure in ROH, and more Jimmy means more awesomeness.
#41. Mark Briscoe
Talk about being the Jannety, right? In a weird case where one of two brothers who look the same and basically have the same amount of wrestling skill gets chosen to be World Champion while the other is chosen to keep being a lowcarder, Mark became the lowcarder. In my opinion, none of the Briscoes should be World Champion, but if you’re going to have one of them win it might as well have the other beat them for it, right? Brotherly feud? No? Okay then, I guess we’ll just send Mark to wrestle Silas Young in the opener while his brother main events the PPV. It’s kind of like Harlem Heat but with rednecks.
