The WWE Slammy Awards are happening yet again on Monday Night Raw, where the WWE Universe will celebrate the best of the year in various categories ranging from Superstar of the Year and Best John Cena US Open Challenge to even Celebrity Moment of the Year. In the past, there have been some absolutely ridiculous awards, but WWE’s moved onto a more legitimate set of categories as of late—which is a good thing.
Still, there are some things that I feel should be honored that are missing from the lineup. While I would never expect WWE to go the route of the 2015 Smark Out Moment Awards that break down things more on a non-kayfabe level and also point out the worst things of the year, I do think that there’s room to add a couple extra categories. Not only would this be a means to let the fans voice their opinions, but also to let WWE’s creative team know what was enjoyed the most throughout the year.
In an attempt to keep things somewhat reasonable, I’ve narrowed it down to the top 7 awards that I would like to see added into future editions of the Slammy Awards. Let’s take a look.
1. Social Media Sensation of the Year
The wording of this award is deliberately vague to allow for some variety. We have an award for hashtags, but that’s particularly specific just to Twitter and just to hashtags. Something like the John Cena meme that happened this year or the Randy Orton “RKO Outta Nowhere” from before that are left in the dark with such a limitation, but should have a presence at the Slammys. It does nothing but good to remind fans of how these things have caught on and became part of the cultural zeitgeist. In fact, if anything, it might lead to a resurgence of them, which would put WWE back into the spotlight for marketing purposes.
Even if something doesn’t get swept into the public consciousness for the year, WWE could nominate people based on their social media presence. Effectively, this could be adapted to give credit to the person who has gained the most Twitter followers, the one with the highest liked post on Facebook, the most viewed Instagram photos, or anything of the sort.
Social media in itself is not going away any time soon, but something specific like Twitter hashtags may not age as well. For all we know, by mid-year in 2016, Twitter might be surpassed by another platform and WWE would look dated to try to reference it. Imagine if there was still a category of Tout of the Year, for instance. Keeping things more vague with a generalized social media award allows for flexibility in all regards.
As far as who would win this year, we all know the answer to that…..AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!!! (do do do doooo…)
2. Finisher of the Year
Right now, we have awards dedicated to moments that are one of a kind, such as a powerbomb through a ladder or a reversal of a curb stomp, but we don’t have anything to honor the repeated moments of a great finishing maneuver. We have to see these week in and week out for years at a time, so they need to be proven to be entertaining enough to withstand the test of time. Some of those who have passed the test in 2015 and remained fun to watch were Roman Reigns’ spear, Neville’s Red Arrow and Kevin Owens’ pop-up powerbomb.
Is it an absolute necessity to call out which signature maneuvers are better than which other ones? Of course not. An argument can even be made that it illustrates how poor some other moves are if they’re not nominated. For example, would anybody ever vote for whatever Adam Rose has for his finisher (if he even has one, since he loses all of his matches, thankfully) over something like Dean Ambrose’s Dirty Deeds? Still, maybe that would expose some flaws that WWE could work on in the next year if they see that a star is popular, but has a bad finisher—or, worse off, someone isn’t popular and doesn’t have a good finisher. I’m looking at you, Erick Rowan.
3. Catch Phrase of the Year
Similar to the finishers, another thing that we have to sit through time and time again are the catch phrases and various sayings that either catch on (hopefully) or don’t, but are pushed nonstop despite this. WWE is usually pretty good at noticing whether or not something is popular with the crowd, but they might have the wrong idea of what’s exactly popular about it. There’s been speculation over the years that Daniel Bryan himself wasn’t over, but his “yes!” catch phrase was doing the heavy lifting. Obviously, over time, it’s shown that both are insanely popular, as the chant has survived without the wrestler, but he would be welcomed with open arms.
The most recent example of a chant catching on and influencing the way storylines go is with The New Day. That group wasn’t working as babyfaces until the “New…Day sucks” chant began, which turned them around. Since then, variations have been all over the place and the stable’s been a marketing craze. On the opposite end of the spectrum, does anybody pop when Sheamus says “are you not entertained?” or does the crowd just sit there instead? Remember when people used to absolutely eat up Bad News Barrett’s catch phrase, compared to how nobody recites “all hail King Barrett”?
The Rock made a career out of being charismatic and having catch phrases that people enjoyed repeating. Stone Cold Steve Austin did the same thing. Wouldn’t it be nice to show WWE what recurring sayings are actually popular and which ones are just repeated because WWE thinks they are? Back in the day, “the champ is here” could have won while it might not even place in the five to be nominated this year. That kind of information would be invaluable and would let them know what’s in need of being changed up.
4. Fan Reaction of the Year
Speaking of seeing what the fans are into and what they aren’t, why hasn’t WWE brought back the Fan Reaction award? Granted, there might not have been as many things that stood out this year as much as Angry Miz Girl or the wide-eyed guy from the end of Undertaker’s streak, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t still some good moments.
Just recently, we had something that could justifiably be a top contender or winner of this category. At NXT TakeOver: London, the fans kept up their end of the bargain when it came to innovative Bayley chants. “Heeeey we want some Bayley” is catchy as hell on its own, but how amazing was it to hear the whole audience get together to sing “Heeeey Bayley (oooh, aaah) I wanna knoooow if you’ll be my girl” all in sync with one another?
Giving out an award like this every year would motivate fans to have more fun at these events, which in turn would make it so the events come across as more fun on screen to those sitting at home, prompting them to want to buy tickets to see it live and join in on that fun. Also, people always love to be rewarded for their efforts. Imagine how much excitement Angry Miz Girl and company got out of being something immortalized in WWE history forever. Wouldn’t you want to be one of those people?
5. Manager of the Year
Sometimes, the people made to support figureheads are just as important, if not more worthy of praise. Managers and other on-screen characters are utilized almost exclusively to help get a superstar over with the crowd in a way that they’re not able to do on their own. While I doubt people would consider Brock Lesnar to be a chump without Paul Heyman, isn’t he so much better as a packaged act rather than by himself? Rusev’s best time with the company for many was his original run with Lana and when they separated, it was clear that he struggled without her. Now that they’re paired back up, it seems like a more natural fit than Lana and Dolph Ziggler or Rusev and Summer Rae.
Managers get the shaft when it comes to recognition, but they deserve something to acknowledge how much work they’ve put into such a thankless job. This could even apply to people like The Authority, as they acted as managers despite not being the same type of on-screen character as people like Paul Heyman and Lana.
6. Broadcaster / Announcer of the Year
Talk about a thankless job, look at the amount of attention these people get! I wouldn’t expect WWE to ever do them all justice by having a separation between in-ring announcers, commentators, and backstage interviewers, but even if they combined them all into one award, it would be better than nothing.
Michael Cole, JBL, Byron Saxton, Booker T, Jerry Lawler, Rich Brennan, Corey Graves, Tom Phillips, and arguably my top choice for who would win, Renee Young, are just some of the names that are all left out in the cold as they don’t participate when it comes to in-ring action. With all of the focus on the WWE Network and the extraneous shows like Unfiltered and Stone Cold Podcast, wouldn’t it make sense to bring attention to how much work these people are doing and how great the majority of it is?
The commentary can make or break an event, so every match that is going on has to rely somewhat on those 2 to 3 people talking to us throughout the night. Pre-show panelists need to be at least somewhat entertaining or else we’ll just skip the Kickoff entirely. Would anybody care about Legends with JBL if he was an absolutely terrible host? Likewise, how much better was it when we had The Fink doing the announcements rather than some of these glorified interns that pop up here and there in NXT before finally being replaced by much better people like Greg Hamilton and Eden Stiles?
The broadcast team isn’t going to have merchandise or be anywhere near as popular as the wrestlers, but if they were frivolous, WWE would cut them out. Since they aren’t, let’s give them a pat on the back for a job well done.
7. Event of the Year
How is this not a category?! I don’t even think it needs much explanation, as it’s about as simple as you can get. If there are awards for the best original program (which makes perfect sense), then why is there not one for the best event?
Again, this is a way for WWE to look back on the positive moments from the past year, reminding the audience what they enjoyed so they can have a positive outlook heading into the Royal Rumble, which will get them excited. Likewise, it’s a way for WWE to gauge the interest of the fans to learn what direction they should go. If fans vote that they didn’t enjoy any events on the Road to WrestleMania from the previous year, then they can see what they did wrong in building up excitement and maybe go in a different direction.
If fans vote that their top 3 favorite events of the year are ones that were totally chaotic where tons of title changes happened and nobody knew what to expect, then maybe the next year won’t have as many shows that are boring and do nothing but set up the next episode of Monday Night Raw. If the audience ate up a special like Beast from the East, do more of them. If they still loved Money in the Bank and SummerSlam, you know the summer months are strong and don’t need as much tweaking on the schedule as much as something like September and October, which might have fallen a bit flat.
This is about as basic of an award as they can get, and I have no clue why it’s never added to the lineup. Maybe next year will be a different story.
So that’s my list, but I’m sure I’m leaving a lot of things out. What suggestions would you have for categories you’d like to see WWE do in the future? Are you up for them adding the 7 that I’ve mentioned, or do you perhaps even want there to be less categories than there currently are?
Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
