Some people cast their votes on how well a person was booked, others on how engaged they were by these wrestlers as characters and other by how well these people can wrestle an actual match. The common thread linking all of these factors together is that these are the people we most enjoyed to watch over the entire year.
We'll be breaking our countdown down into five bite-size blogs of ten wrestlers a piece, so, without further delay, lets head into the 2013 TWF50!
50: Thommaso Ciampa
Ciampa spent the first half of the year on the sidelines thanks to an anterior cruciate ligament injury he picked up in 2012. After his return he took part in the ROH World title tournament, reaching the semi-finals before being eliminated by the eventual winner Adam Cole. He began his first reign as the ROH World Television Title at Final Battle 2013, on December 14.
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| ROH and New Japan Gold |
A first time entry into the TWF50 for the team of Alex Kozlov and Rocky Romero. They started out the year feuding with The Timesplitters for the IWGP Jnr Heavyweight tag titles which they won in May, before losing the titles in October to the team of Taka Michinoku and Taichi. The Hooligans reached the finals of the The Super Juniors Tag Tournament (losing to the Young Bucks) and also made sporadic appearances for ROH where they defeated redDRagon for the ROH Tag-titles before losing the belts to The American Wolves.
48: Kane
After having having an excellent first half of the year (thanks in no small part to his tag-team partner) Kane saw his eight month WWE tag-title reign as part of Team Hell No end in May. He was then part of the team that ended The Shields undefeated streak in six-man tags alongside Daniel Bryan and Randy Orton. He made two unsuccessful challenges for the United States Title against Dean Ambrose before being injured by the Wyatt Family. Upon his return Kane pledged allegiance to the Authority and handed his mask to Stephanie McMahon. He spent the rest of the year unmasked, in a suit, as The Authoritys Director of Operations.
47: Brock Lesnar
After breaking Vince McMahons hip with an F5 in January, Brock had a feud with Triple H which led to a duo of matches. One at Wrestlemania which he lost and the other at Extreme Rules which he won. As a charge of Paul Heyman, Lesnar then took part in the excellent Heyman vs CM Punk feud, defeating Punk in a match of the year candidate at Summerslam. Lesnar has provoked massive interest every time he's returned to television and on the final Raw of 2013 challenged the winner of the John Cena vs Randy Orton title match at the Royal Rumble to defend the WWE title against him.46: The Rhodes Brothers
The offspring of The American Dream may have only had a short tenure as a tag-team but their participation in The Wrestling Media Nations Angle Of The Year has catapulted the current WWE Tag-Team Champions into the TWF50.
45: Damien Sandow
The former Rhodes Scholar has had an up and down year. Spending the first few months in a continuous tag-team losing streak alongside Cody Rhodes before winning a Money In The Bank briefcase, the one thing Sandow has been consistent with are his entertaining promos and matches. He became only the second man to unsuccessfully cash in the Money In The Bank contract in October on the first man to unsuccessfully cash in, John Cena, and rounded out the year with an unsuccessful challenge for Big E Langstons Intercontinental Championship.
Sabin returned from ACL surgery in May, having spent the first part of 2013 recovering from the injury sustained almost one year earlier. He quickly made up for lost time though, winning his fifth X-Division title in an Ultimate X match exactly one month after his return. He'd lose and then re-win the title before using the "Option C" clause pioneered by Austin Aries to cash in the X-Division title for a World Championship match, in which he defeated Bully Ray to claim his first ever World Title, making Sabin TNAs sixth triple-crown champion. After losing the TNA World Title back to Bully Ray on his first defense Sabin would turn heel and win the X-Division title a further two times, taking his grand total of X-Title reigns to a record-setting eight.
43: Big E Langston
Up until Summerslam Langston was a affiliated with AJ Lee. His highlights up to the biggest show of the Summer included stepping up to the plate to wrestle Alberto Del Rio in a series of matches when Dolph Ziggler sustained a concussion and pretending to be Kaitlyns secret admirer in order to gain AJ a psychological advantage in their feud over the Divas title. After splitting from AJ, Langston received a massive push, standing alongside CM Punk in tag-matches against Curtis Axel and Ryback, winning a US title match via count-out and then winning the Intercontinental Championship from Curtis Axel.
42: Sami Calahan/Solomon Crowe
Calahan spent the first half of the year wrestling for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla before signing for WWE. He made his NXT in August under a hacker gimmick and his new name of Solomon Crowe
41: Corey Graves
His style has drawn comparisons to CM Punk but so far Graves is yet to get an opportunity on the big stage. He spent the entire year of 2013 in NXT with his highlight being a defeat of The Wyatt Family to claim the NXT tag-team titles alongside Adrian Neville in June, lost the titles to The Ascension in September and turned heel on his tag-team partner.
Come back tomorrow for numbers 40-31!
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