Donaze's Year End Awards 2023

Eric Goldstein
Dec 26, 2023
7 min read

This year has been filled with a lot of heartfelt storytelling as well as A LOT of amazing wrestling. But as always, with all ups also come downs and here we breakdown all of our year end awards and why we made the choices we did.

Best Match/ Fight

Shelley vs Alexander- Bound for Glory 2023 - Impact World Championship

This match was the epitome of no wrong winner in the scenario. It also looks into the different generations within one promotion. Josh represented the current generation, whereas Alex represented the men and women that started TNA. Some reason it went even deeper, with Shelley’s descent into madness Out of jealousy, and the thought of only being a placeholder world champion. Unlike a lot of main events this year this one didn’t have an obvious ending.

Best Combat Sports PPV/ PLE & Best Booked show (PPV)

Money in the Bank 2023

What is there that hasn’t already been said about the show? Pending on how Damien cashes in and the aftermath, the briefcases finally feel like they’re doing what they were originally intended to do. Which elevates an individual from the undercard into the main event picture. The main event tag match made Roman humanized again with that first loss and 3 1/2 years to his own cousins ( followed up by one of the worst matches of the year). I think the only negative I had was Brock and Cody and the lack of championship matches. Other than that I had no issues with the show.

Televised Rookie Of The Year

Billie Starkz

The reason I wanted to specify televised, entering debut was to specifically highlight someone like Billie. I understand that she’s been wrestling for three or four years on the independent scene, but it is a totally different environment with the red light on. Everything Athena said in the promo after their first loss recently was true. I feel if she would’ve gone straight to AEW.

Comeback of the year & Craziest moment of the year

Survivor Series - CM Punk and Randy Orton

This may have been one of the most recent moments, but definitely one of the best pay-per-view endings of 2023. Everyone knew going into it when Randy Orton was going to return, but no one knew how. The stereotypical cash-in fake out spot near the end of wargames was nearly done to perfection as you could tell they were stalling, instead of immediately ringing the bell for the cash-in, instead of just the War Games match. The RKO to Lord Farquad (JD McDonagh) as a prelude to the end of the match was a bit much, but it all felt worth it for the sound of that static and Living Color hitting the Now Arena for the first time in nearly 10 years under a WWE banner. Crazy thing is everyone wrote it off and nobody knew until 48 hours before. Those involved in War Games didn’t know until right before they went out there.

Worst Booked Company of the year

Stardom

know this shocked Eric, when he read it on air during our season finale, but it can’t be understated how bad this fall was from the heightshieved in the first four months this year to where there was a house show recently with about 150 people. For reference when they did Mercedes Monè vs Mayu Iwutani and Tam Nakano vs Giulia At All Star Grand Queendom. The tag division had top teams in it, but the champions never were a team that the fans would get behind. Between the New Eras bland, personality, and 7Upp being Of another invading faction It just felt hollow at the top. The injury bug was another major factor, especially around the five star Grand Prix, when you lost several top names for a two month round robin tournament. Now for the foreseeable future, the top merch sellers are both injured.

Worst Booked Show (PPV) of the year

Death Before Dishonor

This is the show that gave us our most listened to preview episode in 2023. And it wasn’t for anything positive on the show. Prior to when you recorded the episode the only match that was confirmed and had a decent build. Was Willow versus Athena for the ROH women’s world championship. The world championship didn’t even have a story until another company's flagship show, Dynamite, 48 hours prior

Worst Booked show (Weekly) of the year

AEW Collision

With or without CM Punk, the man with whom the show was originally made for, Collision just feels like a lesser Rampage in a worse time slot. I don’t know if it’s the downsizing of the number of shows or the roster numbers to make a lot of things flow better, for the entire fan to understand, but it just doesn’t help AEW to stretch storylines for more than two different shows a week. I do agree with my partner’s opinions that Rampage is bad because the enhancement matches, but this show makes it worse when you’ve had to hire more commentary personnel to fit a two hour time slot and for most of the time sounds better than the main show.

Best Booked Company & Best Booked show (Weekly) of the year

Impact Wrestling (TNA)

Besides booking Post-Honor no More, they’ve had some really consistent and logical booking. Granted, injuries hit the company in 2023 especially when the challengers for both the world and knockout titles had to vacate due to injury and Bound for Glory was their rematch. The only negatives I see from the company is the knockouts getting out of that reliance on Deonna, Jordynne and Mickie going for or as champion. Also the hot potato around both tag titles (will never be a fan of that regardless of promotion).

Overall and best Male Combat sports athlete

Jey Uso

YEET! Everything he did in 2023 was for the betterment of the WWE. Jey played in several different capacities throughout the year. January he was a conflicted heel that only did things to the family despite his friendship with Sami Zayn. The moment he kicked Roman in the face, was one of the most cathartic moments of the entire calendar year, and it was on a random Smackdown.

Best Combat sports athlete (Female)

Giulia

The former World of Stardom Champion has had an up-and-down year in 2023. It started with one of my least favorite booking decisions and made her the shortest reigning world champion companies, history, especially when Japanese wrestling between New Japan and Stardom is wanting to expand internationally. I don’t think there’s a character besides Mercedes Monè that brought more eyes to the product of charisma, in a short time. On top of that championship run, she is currently the New Japan Strong Women’s Champion and 1/3 of the current reigning Artist of Stardom Trios Champions.

Best/ most anticipated fighting game of the year

Tekken 8

For those that know Donaze, Tekken holds a special place in his heart and that’s only part of the reason why we say it’s the best fighting game and all we’ve gotten in 2023 is the demo. What turned us off on Street Fighter 6 and somewhat Mortal Kombat 1 are the excessive reliance on micro transactions. At this point, Street Fighter 6 reminds us of why everybody hated DOA 6, not because of gameplay, but because of the amount of skins that honestly will charge you right now if you were to get all of them about four times as much as the original premium edition of the game day one.

Best Storyline of the year

Minions In Training

It’s weird that we said this before Final Battle, because they jumped the shark instead of going with the perfect ending. However, we think the storyline had everything from a corrupted mentor that was willing to do anything to keep her world championship to a rising star with unlimited potential just trying to find a place in this industry. we admit it started as an enemy of my enemy situation, but between Athena, Billie and Lexi It was a mix of drama, comedy, and evolution of characters. Lexi was obviously the teacher's pet. Billie was just trying to do anything she could prove she belonged regardless of her morality. Athena was the type of mentor someone as long as she had used to them. All three of those character dynamics work as long as you know when to end it. Yes, we saw an ending to that conflict between Athena and Billie of wanting to belong, but I don’t know where we go from here.

For those that ask, why didn’t you pick The Bloodline or Damage CTRL storylines,it’s simple. The Bloodline Storyline has been brewing for this year since summer slam 2020 and Roman’s return that night. Damage CTRL’s storyline has roots that are almost a decade old. Without Mercedes Monè being signed to WWE, I don’t know how much they can show, but Askua, Iyo and KAIRI’s resentment toward Bayley comes from summer 2020 and the Golden Model’s Era. WWE cut around it, but the timing of when Bayley put Kairi down at the end of our first contract was during a title match between Askua and Sasha Banks. That same summer, Sasha and Bayley try to screw over Iyo during her NXT women’s championship reign.

The booking decision that made you question everything

Tam Nakano Double Champion

We understand why they did it, but we still think it was one of the worst decisions in the last decade for women’s wrestling. Domestically, Meltear and Cosmic Angels are their best sellers; however, we will always be one that is for a story, but more than a champion winning a championship just because they’re over.

As mentioned, Giulia literally had the title for about four months and lost it to a reignited feud over a haircut. Cosmic Angels and Donna Del Mundo will never get along within the promotion, but to randomly have the feud reignited over what they did is crazy. We personally went into the title match thinking Giulia is going to win and shave her head to spite Tam but no, they just beat her. That specific title reign took it backseat and ended due to injury.

The other happened maybe a month after that match. Mina had finally completed her comeback from a broken jaw the last time She competed for the Wonder of Stardom championship, and won it after forming an international faction in Stardom, “Club Venus” and fully separated from Tam and Cosmic Angles. However, they booked the match out of I’m still better than you a month after she became champion, and Tam beat her clean in front of her father. What’s worse, Tam lost that title in our first defense.

Craziest Predictions for 2024

Roxanne challenging Cora for the NXT Women’s championship

Punk beats Seth

AJ Lee returns

2024 Royal Rumble winner

/ Mania title match predictions

-Men’s: Cody

Rollins vs Punk

Reigns vs Rhodes II

-Women’s: Bayley

Iyo vs Bayley

Becky or Liv vs Rhea