V2 WWC 2012 Round 2 Group 2

Yesterday was the first group match of round 2 and squaring off was the current WWE US champion and three former world champions all looking for knockout stage qualification. By the close of play Kane took first place with Samoa Joe qualifying as the runner up

Next up group 2

Pease vote for the wrestler you believe has generated the best work in the last 12 months


As always please leave a comment as to why you voted

The top two will progress into the knockout stages

This is quite a tough group to decide on as you have got 4 of the best upper midcarders in the business and Finlay who has apparently had a good year as well.

I'm a fan of Cody but he has gone down a bit since wrestlemania and is the Jannetty of team Rhodes Scholars as Sandow is a breath of fresh air. Kingston has also done well this year to try and make the tag titles relevant by putting on solid matches at PPV, hopefully he may get a push to the WHC as his hard work has made him a well known wrestler in the WWE. AJ Styles is a great technical wrestlers but stupid storylines have held him back, his team with angle has helped to build him up recently.

My vote is probably not based on the last year exactly but someone who I think will be very highly rated next year and that is Wade Barrett. His character makes him look like a bit of a badass and is actually a heel who likes to fight like the big show. He puts on solid matches for a big guy and is a good talker which is quite rare nowadays in the WWE.

I'll echo TotC's comments as this is a group of people who have had decent but distinctly mid-card years.

I'll rule out Rhodes and Barrett right from the start, Rhodes' career as I've probably said before, has fallen off the edge of a cliff since Wrestlemania onwards, certainally nothing like the upward mobility he had last year, his team with Sandow has shown a lot of promise and is part of a re-vitalised tag divison but they haven't had a lot of time to re-establish Rhodes as a true player.

Barrett on the other hand, well firstly and perhaps contraversially, I think he's overrated, he's decent enough but I don't think he'd get the love he does on these boards were it not for his nationality, and secondly like Rhodes his year has been truncated, though by injury rather than mis-management, this year covers the tail end of Barrett's feud with Orton up until he was injured which was decent enough and since he's returned he hasn't exactly set the world alight, a few comments about being open for buisiness and some fair matches with Sheamus but not really enough to vote for someone on

Finlay as I said previously, has had a decent year under the rader, turning in some star building, old school performances against younger stars in the indies, with his matches against Callihan in Evolve and Elgin in ROH being particular highlights, that said his output this year hasn't been as high this year as others (at least not that I've witnessed) and he's not had a defined feud for an extended period of time, which admitttedly due to the promotion hopping nature of his indie career is hardly surprising.

This brings me on to who I think are the two main contenders for this group and in ways guys who have had similar years, long term tag teams, with daliances in the singles ranks, Kofi Kingston and AJ Styles.

AJ's year started with a couple of challanges to Roode's world title, in decent enough matches, but personally I thought it was clearly a warm up feud for Roode and took some of the edge of, we then moved on to the feud that defined AJ's year vs Kazaniels, the matches, wheather singles or in tags with Angle or Anderson were generally of a high standard, as you would expect from workers of that stature, save for the naff leathel lockdown match back at Lockdown, but unfortunatly the basis of the feud was bad, really, really, really bad, and 'as a fellow man' I hope we never witness a repeat, I want to say AJ's year ended on a high but his match at BFG was dissapointing, probably more because many had it pegged as a MOTN contnder but it turned out to be mearly fine.

Kingston on the other hand, opposite to AJ started off in tags briefly with Bourne at the start of the year and more so with Truth, these tags featured tag team gold, and some decent defences but were hardly spectacular it has to be said, actually where I felt Kingston has done his best work this year has been opposite the Miz over the IC title, those matches have been very good, particuarly the one on Main Event which was outstanding, if Kingston can keep wrestling to that standard (and steer clear of any more toe-curlingling awful 'wildcat' promos) he could be a bastian of the WWE midcard for years to come.

So as I already said I'm looking between Styles and Kingston and I think I'm going to plump for AJ, despite this hardly being a vintage year for him and being involved in what was storyline wise one of the worst feuds in TNA history, AJ just brings that X Factor to the ring, more so IMO than Kingston, and hopefully after last year he'll use that as a springboard to bigger and better things.

I love when people say 'the Jannetty of the team'

If anyone that's been said about since 1992 were half as talented as Marty Jannetty the Wrestling biz would be in a much better nick

AJ for me

This is a tough group, for all the wrong reasons. None of the guys have really shone in 2012.

Rhodes has fallen from grace somewhat, Barrett has been injured for the most part, Styles was in argueably the worst story of the year with Clare Lynch, and Finley is only through as a joke.

Had to vote for Kofi. Tag champ for most of the year, fueded with the IC champ, now looks a bit close to a push.

Wade Barrett is my Favorite wrestler out of all of them

However over the last 12 months, Kofi has been the best IMO

Always puts on decent matches and has a decent feud recently with the miz.