411’s Wrestler of the Week 09.20.10: Week 26

Welcome to Week 26, Year SIX, of 411’s Wrestler of the Week. A quick overview of the rules to kick things off for us as a reminder…

Each writer chooses FIVE wrestlers from any promotion and each wrestler gets a point total attached to that ranking. It looks a little like this…

1st – 5
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 2
5th – 1

If you are wondering how some of the writers decide who to vote for, please check out our Wrestler of the Week Supplemental Column!

Then we tally up the votes and the official 411 Wrestler of the Week is crowned. But wait, there’s more! Each week the top SIX vote getters get a points value for their ranking which looks something like this…

1st – 15
2nd – 12
3rd – 9
4th – 6
5th – 3
6th – 1

…and they go towards the 411 Wrestler of the Year award to be announced each year at WrestleMania. This will be posted every Monday. Let’s see who wins this week…

Larry Csonka
1) AJ Styles
Kind of a slow week in terms of wrestling, but one thing that did happen is that AJ Styles defeated Sabu in the main event on Impact. AJ not only defeated Sabu, but he also scored the advantage for Team Fortune heading into Lethal Lockdown at Bound For Glory. Plus AJ was being AJ, which was completely awesome.

2) Amazing Red and Jay Lethal: Amazing Red and Jay Lethal traded the TNA X-Division title at the weekend TNA house shows, reportedly putting on good matches while doing so. Nice to see these forgotten guys get some attention.
3) John Morrison: John Morrison scored another victory over Chris Jericho in a really fun TV match. Morrison’s stock continues to climb.
4) Daniel Bryan
5) Kane

Michael Bauer
1) Bryan “Daniel Bryan” Danielson
He went 3-0 this week, by “defeating” Edge on Raw in a pretty fun match, then defeating YAMATO and Jon Moxley to finish up his run in Dragon Gate USA. Pretty good week for the Best in the World

2) John Morrison: Another huge win over Chris Jericho. Now if he can just keep a push going.
3) AJ Styles: Beat Sabu in a Ladder Match for the advantage at Bound for Glory.
4) The Undertaker/Paul Bearer
5) Chavo Guerrero

Steve Cook
1) AJ Styles
In a week without a PPV and lots of title changes that made it on television, Styles went out on Impact and had a pretty darn good ladder match with Sabu. Sabu’s not a guy that’s really known for having a good matches in 2010, but he can have one with AJ Styles & a lader. AJ’s win gives Fourtune the advantage in a match blowing off a feud that they’ve always had the advantage in.

2) AJ Lee: The Pocket Rocket won both of the challenges on NXT this week and also defeated Maxine in singles action. She also accompanied Primo to ringside for his Superstars match and got her butt smacked after her NXT Pro was victorious over JTG. Good week for News From Cook’s Corner‘s pick to win NXT.
3) Bret Hart: The Hitman had a successful return to Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, teaming with the Hart Dynasty to defeat the Nexus.
4) Daniel Bryan
5) Kane

Ryan Byers
1) Takashi Sugiura
Absolutely nothing happened in the United States this week, so we turn to Japan. There, at least in my mind, the big story is Takashi Sugiura defeating Go Shiozaki to retain the GHC Heavyweight Title in NOAH. When Shiozaki became GHC Champ not long after the death of Mistuharu Misawa, many though that he had been anointed the new man to carry the company on his back. However, his title reign was relatively short, and, before long, the championship was transitioned over to Sugiura, another younger wrestler. There was a large part of me that though Sugiura’s reign would come to an end here and that we would return to the apparent original plan, i.e. Go Shiozaki as the ace of NOAH. Sugiura beating him doesn’t necessarily show that the company has given up on Go in a dominant role, but it does a lot to establish Sugiura as being on the same level, a guy who could in theory be an on-and-off rival for Shiozaki for many years to come.

2) Bryan Danielson – He didn’t look that great as Daniel Bryan on Monday Night Raw, so I’m not even really considering that – but I do give Danielson a lot of props for two reportedly very strong matches this weekend for Dragon Gate USA against YAMATO and John Moxley. Moxley and YAMATO are both still relatively unestablished wrestlers in the United States, and high level matches against a guy with Danielon’s reputation will go a long way to solidifying them as top wrestlers on the indy level in this country. Thanks to Bryan for hopefully helping to “make” these up and comers.
3) Orochi – Osaka Pro Wrestling is such a small group that I very rarely mention it in this column, but, like I said, this was a largely uneventful week. As a result, I’ll give some love to Orochi, a young junior heavyweight with the company who recently got involved with its brand spanking new heel stable. Apparently being part of the new group is leading to a serious push for the youngster, as, on the promotion’s September 26 show, he beat O-Pro veteran Tigers Mask to win the Independent Jr. Heavyweight Title. I would have to do a bit of research to confirm, but I’m fairly certain that is the first gold if Orochi’s career.
4) Togi Makabe
5) Kendo Kashin

Chad Nevett
1) John Morrison
Another big win over Chris Jericho that I hope keeps him near the top of the card.

2) Alberto Del Rio: While Christian’s legit injury resulted in cutting his feud with Del Rio short, Del Rio got to take on-screen credit for it by doing to Christian what he did to Rey Mysterio previously.
3) “Dashing” Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre: Two wins for the new Unified Tag Team Champions this week, including one over the former champs, the Hart Dynasty.
4) AJ Styles
5) Samoa Joe

Andy Critchell
1) MORRISON
So the Monday Night Delight seems to be getting a push of some sort. I really hope it takes and that MORRISON will be able to live up to the potential we all know he has. A win over Jericho is a great start and I hope it is the beginning to a feud that will ultimately get MORRISON over but unless he can back it up on the mic it might not mean much in the grand scheme of things.

2) “Dashing” Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre: Another nice week for the tag champs as they were successful in both their matches this week. But more importantly, they were on both Raw and Smackdown. This kind of exposure will only help as it gives people the chance to see how talented they are individually and collectively.
3) John Cena: Cena performed amazingly in the Nexus gauntlet match, beating three of the Nexus members before Barrett came in with a chair and got the DQ for Cena. Cena looked strong of course but he gave the Nexus guys plenty of offense and none of them looked like chumps except Tarver, although I think Tarver was hurt and couldn’t really go anyway so it had to be short. Still, Slater looked good, Otunga looked good, and Gabriel looked good and Cena deserves credit for at least some of that, right?
4) AJ Lee
5) AJ Styles

Jeremy Thomas
1) John Morrison
This was a really bad week. Not much at all of significance happened. Because of that, John Morrison gets my number one vote for beating Chris Jericho for the second time in a row. Will this push mean anything for him? Hard to say, he’s had so many other near-pushes. But I’m hopeful.

2) DASHING! Cody Rhodes & Drew McIntyre: The new WWE Tag Team Champions beat Koztino on Raw and then the Hart Dynasty on SmackDown. I think that’s more title defenses in a week than they gave the Harts in two months.
3) AJ Styles & CM Punk (tie): AJ got a win in the main event of Impact over Sabu in a ladder match to give Fourtune the edge at Bound For Glory, while Punk got a much-needed win over Luke Gallows and was intensely entertaining for his brief commentating stint on NXT.
4) Daniel Bryan
5) The Other AJ

THE WINNERS~!

Year-End Rankings Key:

WWE, Raw, SmackDown and NXT-Contracted Wrestlers are represented in BLUE.

TNA Contracted Wrestlers are represented in GREEN.

ROH Contracted Wrestlers are represented in RED.

US Independent Wrestlers are represented in MAROON.

Japanese Contracted Wrestlers are represented in BLACK.

Mexican Contracted Wrestlers are represented in MAGENTA.

Australian Contracted Wrestlers are represented in INDIGO.

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**PREVIOUS WINNERS** Year One Winner: Ric Flair Year Two Winner: Samoa Joe Year Three Winner: John Cena Year Four Winner: Chris Jericho Year Five Winner: CM Punk

If you are wondering how some of the writers decide who to vote for, please check out our Wrestler of the Week Supplemental Column!