2013 Slammy Awards: Superstar of the Year and Diva of the Year Nominees Announced

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

WWE has confirmed the nominees for Superstar of the Year and Diva of the Year on their official website for next week's Slammy Awards. Here, I will list all of them and give my analysis on each one of them.


Superstar of the Year (presented by Shawn Michaels)

• John Cena: Having won the WWE and World title, the Royal Rumble match and defeating The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania 29, Cena is a big candidate to win the Slammy. 2012 was one of his worst years ever and he still won the award, so don't count him out winning this year as well.
  

• Randy Orton: He won the WWE Championship twice, won the Money in the Bank Ladder match and turned heel, but what did he ever accomplish in the first half of the year? He had a medicore babyface run, so that doesn't make up for his second half of 2013. I wouldn't mind him winning, but he is certainly a lot less deserving than most of the other candidates.
  

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• CM Punk: As deserving as he was to win the Superstar of the Year award last year after reigning as WWE Championship for the entire calendar year, Punk came up short to John Cena for some strange reason. A year later, Punk isn't as deserving, unfortunately. He dropped the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble and hasn't had much success since. He lost at Elimination Chamber and WrestleMania 30 to The Rock and Undertaker, respectively, before taking a leave of absence. He had a successful return match against Chris Jericho at Payback, but he went on to lose his next three pay-per-view matches. He has had a measure of success in recent months, but it isn't enough to win him the Superstar of the Year award.

• Daniel Bryan: This is my personal pick to win the award. From the start of 2013, it was blatantly obvious that Bryan was bound to become a breakout star at some point, despite having already won a world championship in 2011. He reigned WWE Tag Team champion for five months before embarking on a highly entertaining run in the main event, knocking off John Cena in the main event of SummerSlam and going on to win two WWE Championships. He has been the Superstar of the Year in 2013 and I surely hope he wins the award, if only so he and Shawn Michaels can have another confrontation.

• Big Show: What in the heck has he done all year? He lost his world title in the first few weeks of 2013, and has yet to win a match on pay-per-view. How pathetic is that? Sure, he was in the main event for all of two months this fall, but that was about it. He was out of action several times this year and didn't do anything noteworthy aside from knocking out beloved legends and Superstars. If Show wins the award, I just might cry.

• Brock Lesnar: Although I am a huge Lesnar fan, he wasn't on television enough this year for him to win this award. He lost to Triple H at WrestleMania 29, and although he won at Extreme Rules and at SummerSlam in two great matches, he has been absent from WWE TV for the most part. Even if he did win, does anyone even expect him to show up to accept the award? I didn't think so, either.

Diva of the Year (presented by Eve)

• AJ Lee: This is a no-brainer. AJ wasn't doing anything note for the first half of the year as Dolph Ziggler's valet, but she really broke out on her own when she captured her first Divas Championship at Payback in June. She has been the reigning champ ever since. She had a fun feud with Ziggler over the summer and has been the face of the division for months now. Expect AJ to win the award for the second consecutive year on Monday.

• The Bella Twins: I have never been a fan of The Bella Twins, but they improved quite a bit since turning face (if you could even call it that) a few months ago. They are basically the faces of the Total Divas show, but neither has had much success in ring since coming back to the company earlier this year. They had their match cut from WrestleMania, lost at SummerSlam, and failed to win the Divas Championship. They are both dating top WWE stars at the moment, sure, but that is no reason for them to win the award.

• The Funkadactyls: The fact they are still with Tons of Funk will prevent them from winning the award. They had their match cut from WrestleMania and haven't done anything of note on WWE TV since the start of 2013. They are both improving in the ring and are fun to watch on Total Divas, but they really need to break off on their own if they hope to have any measure of success in 2014.
  
  
• Natalya: She is well on her way to winning back the Divas Championship, but Natalya wasn't anything more than an afterthought before the premiere of Total Divas. She won at SummerSlam and Survivor Series, but failing to win the Divas title thus far has kept her from winning this award.

• Kaitlyn: Kaitlyn has improved leaps and bound since her WWE debut three years ago. Her winning her first Divas Championship in hometown of Houston on the 20th anniversary of Raw in January made for a great moment, but she failed to maintain that strong momentum in the months that followed. She had only one successful title defense before dropping the strap to AJ in June. Yes, Kaitlyn defended the title only once in the six months she held it, and wasn't even featured on TV most of the time. Even now, she has since disappeared from programming. She is a good candidate to win the award, but not strong enough.

• Eva Marie: Seriously? She has been on the main roster for six months and has wrestled only four matches or so. The fact she is even a nominee is a joke in and of itself. Hell, even Aksana or even Alicia Fox are better candidates for the award than Eva. The only reason she is even in this position (insert sex joke here) is because of her looks, but I am sure everyone already knew that.