Message-ID: 

Best Babyface                           

Award Description:

To be given to the person who best portrayed the hero this past year. This
person should get lots of fan support. Match quality is not paramount
here; this award should be based primarily on how over the wrestler was in
the past year.

Previous Winners:

  1990: Hulk Hogan
  1991: Brian Pillman
  1992: Sting
  1993: Bret Hart
  1994: Bret Hart
  1995: Shawn Michaels
  1996: Shawn Michaels
  1997: Steve Austin
  1998: Stone Cold Steve Austin
  1999: The Rock
  2000: The Rock
  2001: The Rock
  2002: Booker T

**2003**: Kurt Angle

133 first place votes
129 second place votes
128 third place votes

 28  7 10  181   Kurt Angle
 20 19 11  179   Eddie Guerrero
 16 14 10  142   Booker T
  7 16 13  109   Shawn Michaels
  7 15 10  100   Rey Mysterio
  6 12 12   90   Rob van Dam
  9  7  8   82   Steve Austin
  8  4  5   62   Goldberg
  7  5  5   60   Raven
  3  4 10   47   Trish Stratus
  2  3  9   37   Hurricane
  3  2  6   33   Spanky
  2  4  2   26   Chris Benoit
  2  2  0   16   Paul London
  1  1  4   16   Hulk Hogan
  2  0  0   10   Hijo del Santo
  0  2  1    8   Goldust
  1  0  1    7   Brock Lesnar
  0  2  0    6   Maven
  0  2  0    6   Kory Twist
  0  0  3    6   Super Porky
  1  0  0    5   Shocker
  1  0  0    5   Nate Webb
  1  0  0    5   Mammoth Sasaki
  1  0  0    5   Kenta Kobashi
  1  0  0    5   Kenny Campbell
  1  0  0    5   John Cena
  1  0  0    5   Jeremy Lightfoot
  1  0  0    5   Hiroshi Tanahashi
  1  0  0    5   Gail Kim
  0  1  1    5   Rock
  0  1  0    3   Shinsuke Nakamura
  0  1  0    3   Satanico
  0  1  0    3   Onryo
  0  1  0    3   Norman Smiley
  0  1  0    3   Masahiro Chono
  0  1  0    3   Lita
  0  1  0    3   Edge
  0  0  1    2   Yutaka Yoshie
  0  0  1    2   Shane McMahon
  0  0  1    2   Rikishi
  0  0  1    2   Matt Sydal
  0  0  1    2   Jerry Lynn
  0  0  1    2   Dragon Kid
  0  0  1    2   AJ Styles

C FRARACCI: Trish Stratus as I said before is the MVP of RAW, she makes
the show.  It's not just her looks, but her athletism, her personality and
just the way she acts. She's come a long way from T&A to star of RAW (how
long till she gets attack by Triple H). Eddie Guerrero is just amazing,
I've been a fan of his since his WCW days. The man knows how to play the
crowd and puts on a helluva match every week. Why he had to drop both
belts to poor athletes like Show and Basham is just sad. Hurricane is just
to funny, from the facial expressions, the Hurrisense, etc. His matches
are great and hell he made Rosey entertaining, who knew?

PAUL ZOROVICH: Eddy 'n' Kurt make their second appearance on my ballot.  
Booker T is the only face on the RAW roster that I find credible recently.

JON RICHARDSON: Booker T as best babyface?  Why Not?  He was a face all
year, the crowd absolutely loved him and he gave them exactly what they
wanted to see.  He didn't act heelish, he didn't act wacky, he just went
out and entertained the crowd.  Steve Austin is #2 because nobody can pop
a crowd like he does, Eddie Guerrero gets #3 for being so insanely over
the the WWE had to keep turning him face, despite their best efforts to
make him a heel.

CRIMEFIGHTER:  Spanky really made you root for the underdog.  Everyone
wants to see the spineroonie.  And everyone goes R-V-D.

MICHAEL: Eddie Guerrero.  Yes, I also put him in the Best Heel category.  
He just brings a great presence and ability in whatever role he¹s cast in.
3rd:  Super Porky.  I'm telling you, put The Big Show in the same outfit,
have him come out to the same music and do the same dance and it's money
in the bank, baby!

YNAE316: I'm going with Booker T for top face this year.  He consistently
performed as a Top Babyface this year and in my opinion should have gotten
a stronger push than the half-ass push he got going into Mania.  Yes, he
should have gone over Triple H.  I give Angle second place only because he
worked heel for the first half of the year, otherwise he was the
no-brainer pick for best face.  I give Van Dam third place for much the
same reasons as Booker.  He's another buried star who COULD have done sooo
much more (but was made Kane's bitch instead).

SCOTT CHRIST: I actually thought kind of hard about this, and I went with
Raven, with my reasoning being that I think he could walk into Nashville
and fart and 500 people would chant his name. For as much ridiculously
lame garbage as Raven came up with this year (Clockwork Orange House of
Fun? Dream Blood Gallows of Retribution?), the TNA fans just went with
him. Even the Shane Douglas feud, which was absolutely awful, was easy to
accept because the two had so much heat on it. I might have gone with
Shawn Michaels, who is my #2, if the Survivor Series '03 match had been in
the timeframe. Michaels is incredible as a neo-traditional babyface. Kurt
Angle third.

STEFAN TORNGREN: Eddie certainly isn’t the traditional babyface, but he
really got the crowd behind with his lie, cheat and steal persona, and
when they tried to turn him, they wouldn’t have it.

RICK SCAIA: An interesting dilemma this year.  Guys like Austin, Hogan,
and Angle did not work full slates, although they probably are the three
who get the most reaction by doing the least.  So I'm going to do
something odd and give Shawn Michaels my #1 Babyface vote.  He did it all
year long, and was probably RAW's only really bankable babyface in that
span.  Also, due to the vagaries of the voting year, he was a babyface
World Champ during the year. I think the case for HBK is strong.  Of the
"all year long" performers on SD!, I'm going with Eddie Guerrero for #2;
his face turn pretty much coincided with the start of the voting year, and
he was so popular that fans would not let him turn heel.  And of the
partial qualifiers, I'm pulling out Steve Austin for the #3 slot.  
Because even if he was an active wrestler for only 3 months of the year,
the fact is that he was a weekly performer, and ALWAYS did a great job
firing up the audiences.  If I could vote for Heyman as a top heel last
year, I don't feel bad at all about voting for Austin as a top babyface
this year.

RYAN FAULCONER: How can you boo someone like Spanky?  You can't.  He gets
first place. Paul London was a great underdog in ROH and gets second.  
WWE crowds will dig him soon enough. Its hard to not get behind Dragon Kid
whenever he wrestles so he gets third.

--
Christopher Robin Zimmerman   |    moderator, rec.sport.pro-wrestling.info
WWW: CRZ.net | AIM: SeeOurZed | co-moderator, rec.sport.pro-wrestling.moderated
--
©2003 CRZ[tm]


--- Internet Rex 2.29