Happy New Year everyone! With another year over, it is time to look back at the year that was and pick what was the best of 2011. For professional wrestling, 2011 was an improvement over a lackluster 2010, but it was an up-and-down year nonetheless. 2011 started with a lot of quality wrestling leading into WrestleMania then things seemed to level off until WWE started the Punk Leaving angle during the summer then things leveled off again in September and that lasted for the rest of the year. Since I started this blog last January I had my Silverdome Match of the Week articles highlighting the best match of the week. With 2011 over, it is time to give out the Silverdome Match of the Year award to the best match of 2011. As with every year, there is a lot of stiff competition, but only one match will come out on top. The nominees are Austin Aries vs. Zema Ion vs. Jack Evans vs. Low Ki from Destination X, Christian vs. Alberto Del Rio in a Ladder Match from Extreme Rules, the 40-Man Royal Rumble Match from Royal Rumble, the Smackdown Elimination Chamber Match from Elimination Chamber and CM Punk vs. John Cena from Money in the Bank. And the winner of the 2011 Silverdome Match of the Year is… CM Punk vs. John Cena for the WWE Championship at Money in the Bank!! To celebrate this match, let us take a trip back in time and look back at this phenomenal match.
After a full month of build, the match every fan eagerly anticipated happened July 17th at Money in the Bank in Chicago. The crowd in Chicago was on their feet as their hometown hero; CM Punk battled the defending WWE Champion, John Cena for the illustrious title. The atmosphere in the Allstate Arena was just electric as the crowd was completely engrossed in this match. The match started out quite slow with both Punk and Cena trying to get a feel for one another. These early moments of the match consisted of quite a few holds and lock-ups and many series of reversals between Punk and Cena. About halfway through the match things started to pick up when Punk and Cena started to pull out their big hitters. CM Punk and John Cena started throwing everything and the kitchen sink at each other. Punk hit not one, but two stiff knees while Cena was leaning against the ring ropes before hitting his signature knee into a bulldog combination. That was later followed by Cena pulling out his top rope leg drop on two separate attempts, which he connected on the second attempt. We got some excellent back-and-forth action that kept everyone in the audience and at home on the edge of their seats. CM Punk would later get Cena back by hitting the GTS. Unfortunately for Punk, his knee connected with Cena’s ribs instead of his head, which caused Cena to fall out of the ring. Trying to get the win, CM Punk would try to connect with the GTS yet again. This time Cena would reverse the move into the STF. With the Chicago crowd cheering him on, Punk used every ounce of strength in his body to pull himself towards the bottom rope. Cena would thwart Punk’s attempt to break the hold by dragging the Straight-Edge Superstar to the middle of the ring and locking in the STF again. When it looked like Punk ran out of luck, he reversed the STF into the Anacoda Vice, but Cena would escape the hold. Eventually Cena hit Punk with the Attitude Adjustment that caused the Punk fans around the world to cringe. As the refs hand went down for the three count, Punk’s arm shot up and with that the Punk faithful in Chicago cheered at the top of their lungs. The loudest cheers I have personally heard since Shawn Michaels kicked out of that thunderous Tombstone back at WrestleMania 25 (when J.R. had his out-of-body experience). In an effort to put Punk away, Cena hit a second AA on a tired CM Punk and again Punk would kick out. After about 30 exhausting minutes, Mr. McMahon and John Laurinaitis made their way down the ramp. As soon as John Cena locked in the STF, Vince called for the WWE belt and the bell to be rung. He sent Laurinaitis to make sure of it. Laurinaitis was making the turn around the ring when John Cena intercepted the Vice President of Talent Relations with a thunderous clothesline. Before getting back in the ring, Cena gave one disappointing glance McMahon’s way. Once Cena made it back into the ring, CM Punk was there to hit a glorious GTS to put an end to this classic. With a CM Punk win and a chaotic ending along with some excellent wrestling and storytelling, CM Punk vs. John Cena will always be remembered as the best match of 2011 and one of the best moments of the decade. It capped off on incredible Money in the Bank PPV event, which personally is my PPV of the Year, and showed why we all love wrestling. In the last 365 days there was not another match with this much great wrestling, storytelling and emotion, John Cena vs. CM Punk is no doubt the 2011 Match of the Year.
Well it has been a fun 2011. I like to thank everybody who has supported the Silverdome over the past year. I have been busy as of late with work and my video game blog so I have not been able to been able to give my full attention to the Silverdome. When everything settles down, I hope I can really start putting together some big posts considering my favourite season of the year is coming up very very soon. So hope everybody had a happy and safe New Year and let us have a fun 2012 together.
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