411’s Wrestler of the Week 5.28.13: Year Nine, Week 7

Welcome to YEAR NINE, WEEK SEVEN 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

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 around WrestleMania. This will be posted every Tuesday (the voting week runs Monday through Sunday). Let’s see who wins this week…

Larry Csonka
1) Ricochet
Ricochet has been very impressive for Dragon Gate USA, but this past week was easily the biggest of his career. He went to Japan to work for Dragon Gate proper, and won the KING OF GATE tournament. While he earned his first Dream Gate title match, the bigger accomplishment is that he is the first foreigner to ever win the tournament. This is a huge vote of confidence from the big promotion from Japan; add in the fact that he is also taking part in the Best of the Super Juniors tournament at the same time, and it’s a good time to be Ricochet.

2) Ethan Page: Won the JT Lightning Memorial Tournament in AIW defeating Johnny Gargano and Michael Elgin in a three-way dance final (he pinned both guys to do so).
3) Mickie James: Your NEW TNA Knockouts Champion!
4) Curtis Axel
5) Big E Langston

Ryan Byers
1) Ricochet
Originally just a skinny kid from Kentucky, Ricochet is now a bona fide main event level wrestler in Dragon Gate, where, this past weekend, he won the company’s annual single elimination tournament, called the King of Gate. Ricochet took out two big stars in the same night in the semi-finals and the finals, specifically Susumu Yokosuka and Shingo Takagi. Ricochet now receives a shot again former tag team partner CIMA for the Open the Dream Gate Title in June. If that weren’t enough, Mr. O’ Shea is also Dragon Gate’s representative in the annual Best of the Super Juniors tournament promoted by New Japan Pro Wrestling, and he won his first tournament match there this week by defeating Trent Baretta. (No, seriously, Trent Baretta. Yeah, the guy from WWE Superstars.)

2) Big E Langston: Langston defeated Alberto Del Rio on Monday Night Raw and came back for a second match with ADR on Main Event that went past the ten minute mark, even if Big E lost in the end. This likely means that WWE really is looking at the big guy to be a bona fide top of the card performer as opposed to simply being the silent muscle for Dolph Ziggler.
3) The Shield: We’re almost at the point where this is expected and therefore not worthy of a vote, but the Shield did go 2-0 in six man tag matches again this week against some pretty stiff competition, including Randy Orton and Sheamus.
4) Ethan Page
5) Prince Devitt

James Wright
1) Dean Ambrose
A technically successful first defense of his newly gained US title in that he kept the belt, then actually got the pin over Kingston in their tag match leading on from the DQ. What’s more on Raw it appeared as if Ambrose will be the first of the group to truly take centre stage.

2) Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns: Despite Ambrose’s individual success, the other two members of the group aren’t doing too shabby either. If the group continue to dominate like this it will be unlikely that anyone will be able to pass them on the rankings even at this early stage.
3) Curtis Axel: Don’t take this as an endorsement per se, with all the hype the WWE put in place for the new ‘Paul Heyman Guy’ that person should have automatically bagged first place this week. Still despite this you can’t ignore that the former McGillicutty had more exposure this week than his entire career so far, and certainly if you believe the old adage that ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ then the amount of people talking about just how much this debut didn’t work could spell big things for the son of Mr. Perfect.
4) Bully Ray
5) Ryback

TJ Hawke
1) Ricochet
While Johnny Gargano is the most heavily pushed American in DGUSA, the biggest success story has probably been Ricochet (unless you think Jon Moxley, Samuray Del Sol, and Sami Callihan signing with the WWE makes them bigger success stories, but so many other factors contribute to that. So, whatever. To each their own). In the past week, Ricochet won Dragon Gate’s annual King of Gate tournament to earn a Dream Gate Championship match. He’s the first foreigner to win the tournament (and foreigners even being entered in the tournament is fairly rare). Ricochet ALSO was successful in his first Best of the Super Juniors match (he defeated Trent Barreta with a double rotation moonsault).

2) The Shield: As Ryan pointed out, The Shield winning matches is soon no longer going to be enough to warrant votes…but that day is not today.
3) Curtis Axel: Became a Paul Heyman guy. Wrestled HHH in the main event of Raw.
4) Ethan Page
5) Big E. Langston

Jack McGee
1) Mickie James
Mickie James defeated Velvet Sky on Impact and won the Knockouts Title. James is in great shape, is working just as good as ever, and the victory and heel turn are just what the doctor ordered for her character and the division as a whole.

2) Big E Langston: With Dolph Ziggler out of action, Big E Langston is the beneficiary of his time off as he got to step into the ring with Alberto Del Rio. The fact that he split the matches with Del Rio, getting the win on Raw, is a great sign for what WWE may have planned for him.
3) Ricochet: Doing big things in Japan, and getting noticed a lot these days for his work there as well as in DGUSA and EVOLVE.
4) The Shield
5) Curtis Axel

Greg DeMarco
1) Curtis Axel
Monday is the biggest day of the wrestling week, and looking back at Monday it was obvious that no one had a bigger week than Curtis Axel. The former Michael McGillicutty seems to finally have the chance to make good on his “Genesis of” claim, just under a new moniker. I admittedly have my doubts as to if he can live up to the lofty expectations of being Larry “The Axe Hennig’s grandson, Mr. Perfect’s son, and CM Punk & Brock Lesnar’s colleague as the third Heyman Guy. Success or not, he’s going to get his shot.

2) Big E Langston: While I think the WWE would be better served to have Big E defend the World Heavyweight Championship in Dolph Ziggler’s absence, followed by a blue briefcase win at Money In The Bank, but they obviously don’t have me make those decisions. Regardless, his win/loss trade with Alberto Del Rio and higher profile treatment show that he WWE has big plans for the former NXT Champion.
3) Mickie James: Mickie beat Velvet Sky to win her third Knockouts championship, and her ninth overall women’s title in the two largest promotions in America. She also has a character change, and should soon become the featured character of the Knockouts division.
4) Ethan Page
5) Ricochet

Michael Benjamin
1) Curtis Axel
Whether you agree with the booking of Curtis Axel or not, he had the biggest week in all of professional wrestling. He went from being a jobber with no direction to being paired with Paul Heyman and becoming a featured wrestler that’s going to be getting plenty of screen time moving forward.

2) The Shield: Their momentum continues to grow as all three men are paving their ways for long tenures in the WWE even after this angle.
3) Big E Langston: The first time I saw him on NXT, I knew that he had all of the tools to become a major player in the industry. His win over ADR tells me that people in the back have faith in him, which is great news (for me at the very least).
4) Ricochet
5) Mickie James

Francisco Ramirez
1) Ricochet
The winner of Dragon Gates King of Gate tournament. The Indy high flyer has continued in his upward momentum and regardless of the fact this occurred in Japan, it is still a huge deal. Foreigners are usually few and far between in this tournament, and Ricochet still came out on top also netting him a title shot for the Dream Title against CIMA.

2) Curtis Axel: A re-branding and pairing with Paul Heyman can be nothing short of positive, giving the former Michael McGillicutty one hell of a boost.
3) The Shield: The Shield train keeps on going with nothing slowing down its momentum.
4) Mickie James
5) AJ Styles

Tony Acero
1) Daniel Bryan
I felt this week in wrestling (at least within the WWE) was pretty lackluster with the exception of ol DB. He had a good – albeit short – showing with Swagger on Smackdown, and he was part of one of the best six man tags ever over on RAW. He’s showing signs of a slow mental decline into insanity, and who doesn’t love that? For my money (and it was a week of free TV, so that means shit), Bryan was my wrestler of the week.

2) The Shield: Last week, I gave Ambrose the edge over The Shield as a unit partly to skew numbers, and partly because I felt he stood above the rest. This week, all three men were on and both played – and developed – their roles as members of a team. It was a solid match, and extremely exciting.
3) Kofi Kingston: Kofi is so awkwardly used, and has been for like ever, but this week has shown an interesting trust in the dude. I don’t know if it will lead to anything, but his involvement with The Shield has seemed to elevate him AND the US Title, and this week he was involved in some great six man tags alongside main eventers.
4) AJ Lee
5) Curtis Axel

THE WINNERS~!

And 411’s Wrestler of the Week is…

Ricochet – 26 Votes

Won the big KING OF GATE tournament for Dragon Gate, and is becoming quite a big deal…

Year-End Standings~!
And here are the standings after week SEVEN…

Dean Ambrose – 63pts.

Seth Rollins – 51pts
Roman Reigns – 51pts

Brock Lesnar – 18pts

Ryback – 17pts

Dolph Ziggler – 15pts.
Kofi Kingston – 15pts.
Kenta Kobashi – 15pts.
Ricochet – 15pts

Curtis Axel – 12pts.
Mark Henry – 12pts.
Bully Ray – 12pts.

Big E. Langston – 9pts.
Abyss – 9pts.
Wade Barrett – 9pts.
The Undertaker – 9pts
Jun Akiyama – 9pts.

AJ Styles – 6pts.
Fandango – 6pts.
KENTA – 6pts.
Yoshihiro Takayama – 6pts.
Kazuchika Okada – 6pts.
Jigsaw – 6pts.
The Shard – 6pts.

Mickie James – 4pts.

John Morrison – 3pts.
Jack Swagger – 3pts.
Sting – 3pts.
Hernandez – 3pts.
Chavo Guerrero – 3pts.
Seita Sanada – 3pts.

CIMA – 1pt
Ethan Page – 1pt
Alberto Del Rio – 1pt
Mikey Nicholls- 1pt
Shane Haste – 1pt
Eddie Kingston – 1pt.

Year-End Rankings Key:

WWE 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.

Other International 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 Year Six Winner: The Miz Year Seven Winner: CM Punk Year Eight Winner: CM Punk