For 52 Sundays (plus one Monday for WrestleMania), Cageside Seats has asked you to tell us about your favorite performances in pro wrestling. In record numbers, you Cagesiders answered the call.
Ladies and germs, smarks and casuals, here's the full, final, official Smark Shoot Standings (S3) for 2016 - 2017:
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Wish I had time to do some fancy graphs like I used to back in the early days of this thing - if anyone wants to take a stab at analysis, let me know and I can email you the full spreadsheet I use to keep track of it week-to-week - but here are some quick thoughts upon closing the book on our fifth year...
11 on down
- A record setting number of performers received points, but you have to go further down the list than ever before to find someone who doesn't work for WWE. An increased number of voters meant more people's favorites were represented, but just like in ratings and other metrics - most people follow the biggest and easiest-to-keep-up-with company.
- That didn’t stop long-time Cagesiders and veteran S3 strategists like ReverendKain, Vidence & Rex Ivanovic from getting their indie guys some love... like Keith Lee’s dominant win in week 52.
- Every year, there's some who has an early run which keeps them in the top ten most of the year, but whose push fades and they end up not getting a lot of votes later. Call it the Damien Sandow award. This year, that happened to a perennial fave, as Cesaro actually hung with our winner for the first several weeks of his torrid start, and around the top ten for most of 2016, before falling off the pace.
- Personally, one of my favorite things about this is the weird, coincidental (?) ties which either make perfect or no sense. In the first instance, there’s Bray & Randy’s almost year-long program earning them the same number of points. For an example of the latter, I point you to the logjam in 38th place.
- “Women’s Evolution” is a real thing, at least in our corner of the internet. For a while, it looked like half the top ten might be female. It didn’t last, but 25% of the top 20 is pretty great, too.
10 - Chris Jericho
Resisting the urge to say “I told you so” is tough for this card-carrying Jericholic, when at this time last year he was still be lambasted with “dad” jokes AND being accused of “burying” someone un-bury-able at WrestleMania 32. Another break is probably coming at the right time, but the last 365 days constituted an all-time great run in what was already an amazing career. It’s certainly fitting he did... IT... and made our list.
9/8 - Seth Rollins/Roman Reigns
The Big Dog is the only person in the top ten who didn’t win a week, and honestly probably wouldn’t be here without diehard support from a handful of voters. Love him or hate him... you know the drill. His once-again buddy missed the first couple months of voting, came on strong and then mostly disappeared while WWE stalled on his big program. When he’s healthy and presented in a consistent fashion, the Architect will likely always be a legit threat to win it all.
7 - John Cena
If he was around more, the 16 time WWE champ would be, too. And it’s amazing that not only is he an internet darling, it’s been true for long enough it doesn’t even sound strange to say. Cena worked extended programs with the guys who finished 1 - 3, but he probably helped them as much as they him.
5/6 - Sasha Banks/Becky Lynch
Our favorite horsewomen. Sure, it helped they were babyfaces who stayed in their respective title pictures all year. But Cagesiders also just love their Boss and their Bex.
4 - Kevin Owens
Last year’s winner spent the bulk of the year holding the top prize on Raw, producing memorable, entertaining segments with a sure-fire Hall of Famer... and most of us probably think his “year” was a little disappointing. How his next twelve months unfold should be most interesting. But whatever 2017 - 18 holds for KO, I expect it to include another top ten finish in our Standings.
3 - Miz
The A-Lister came out of ‘Mania 32 doing alright, but the brand split did wonders for hims, as he got a chance to shine in his feud with Dolph Ziggler, flew up the Standings, and never looked back. If he’d had a few more weeks working with Cena, Miz almost certainly would have jumped into second.
2 - Dean Ambrose
Another guy SmackDown LIVE helped - he carried the World title onto the blue brand and cemented himself as one of WWE’s biggest stars. Smarks haven’t been as into his Intercontinental title feud with Baron Corbin as they were his work with Cena and AJ, but his track record in the S3 indicates the support will come back as soon as he moves back up to the main event.
1 - AJ Styles
There aren’t really words to describe his Phenomenal “year”. He finished in either 1st or 2nd place for twelve straight weeks after the 2016 Showcase of the Immortals on the way to the highest annual point total in our history, almost doubling up the Lunatic Fringe. Then he took a match most of us thought we didn’t want to see and “won” WrestleMania 33 with it.
It’s always impressed me the way our little system seems to arrive at the right choice for Performer of the Year, and that damn sure was the case in our fifth go ‘round.
For fun, use the poll below to make a prediction as to the 2017-18 winner. Last year, you weren't far off. Can AJ become our first repeat champ? Let us know what you think!
Any other questions, concerns, screams or cries? Use the comments for those, too!
See you on Sunday for Season Six of The S3!
Poll
Who will have the best year's worth of performances between WrestleMania 33 and WrestleMania 34?
This poll is closed
-
54%
AJ Styles
(272 votes) -
1%
Kevin Owens
(7 votes) -
4%
Roman Reigns
(23 votes) -
0%
Christopher Daniels
(1 vote) -
1%
Dean Ambrose
(10 votes) -
0%
Bayley
(3 votes) -
0%
Jeff Hardy
(4 votes) -
1%
Sasha Banks
(8 votes) -
15%
Shinsuke Nakamura
(76 votes) -
0%
Naomi
(2 votes) -
0%
Brock Lesnar
(1 vote) -
0%
Kazuchika Okada
(0 votes) -
0%
Matt Hardy
(5 votes) -
0%
Alexa Bliss
(4 votes) -
0%
John Cena
(2 votes) -
1%
Braun Strowman
(6 votes) -
0%
Charlotte Flair
(1 vote) -
0%
Bobby Lashley
(0 votes) -
0%
Cody Rhodes
(0 votes) -
0%
Asuka
(0 votes) -
0%
Bobby Roode
(1 vote) -
0%
Matt Riddle
(2 votes) -
0%
Keith Lee
(1 vote) -
1%
Kenny Omega
(6 votes) -
0%
Cesaro
(2 votes) -
3%
Miz
(20 votes) -
0%
Sami Zayn
(3 votes) -
0%
Neville
(2 votes) -
0%
Becky Lynch
(5 votes) -
0%
Samoa Joe
(3 votes) -
0%
Bray Wyatt
(4 votes) -
0%
Katsuyori Shibata
(1 vote) -
0%
Baron Corbin
(3 votes) -
0%
Austin Aries
(1 vote) -
0%
Tetsuya Naito
(1 vote) -
0%
Randy Orton
(2 votes) -
2%
Seth Rollins
(11 votes) -
0%
Kassius Ohno
(0 votes) -
0%
Braun Strowman
(5 votes) -
0%
Other (specify in comments)
(5 votes)