AJ Lee, Brooke Tessmacher and Jazz Lead Diva Dirt Fan Awards 2012
WWE’s AJ Lee, TNA’s Brooke Tessmacher and SHINE’s Jazz led the fifth annual Diva Dirt Fan Awards, which saw over 30,000 votes cast.
The Diva Dirt readers had the opportunity to crown their top women, matches, moments and news stories of 2012, with AJ Lee taking Diva of the Year, as well as slew of other awards including Best Breakthrough, Best Babyface and Best Gimmick. Meanwhile, former TNA Knockouts Champion Brooke Tessmacher was named Knockout of the Year, beating the Writers’ Choice pick for the award, Gail Kim. Diva Dirt readers matched the writers, however, in selecting Jazz, who headlined five consecutive SHINE events last year, as Independent Wrestler of the Year.
Full Diva Dirt Fan Awards 2012 results
NXT Diva Paige made an impression on fans, too, winning NXT Diva of the Year and the One to Watch in 2013 awards.
Recently retired WWE star Beth Phoenix received a Match of the Year nod on her way out, as she, along with Natalya, picked up the award for their match on SmackDown in September 2012.
Full Diva Dirt Writers’ Choice Awards 2012 results
The first ever SHINE Wrestling main event in July between Jazz and Sara Del Rey, who left the independents to become a WWE developmental trainer after the match, was voted Independent Match of the Year.
WWE’s Monday Night Raw regained the Television Show of the Year award after four years (Impact won in 2011 and 2011, SmackDown won in 2009), while SHIMMER retained its Independent Promotion of the Year title.
Lita-Sault-666
January 4, 2013 at 10:08 pm
Beth Phoenix vs Natalya was okay for the length, but you’d have to be kidding yours to vote it match of the year. Reach it, its not that spectacular. Its only for the fact of who it is and that they’ve never faced one another before.
Happy with all the other winners though! :D.
JD Sensations
January 4, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Isn’t that the only reason Lita vs Heath Slater was runner up in OMG moment of the year??
WweLitafan4ever
January 4, 2013 at 10:19 pm
That’s different. Lita/Slater wasn’t nominated for match of the year,but Lita’s return/being slater’s opponent is OMG because it was really surprising.Who even thought of Lita being Slater’s opponent?
JD Sensations
January 4, 2013 at 10:57 pm
So if it was someone like Jacqueline, Nidia or Molly, would it have been nominated?
WweLitafan4ever
January 4, 2013 at 11:08 pm
Probably,because if they faced Slater,it too would be surprising.
Lita’s popularity isnt the reason why her return was a runner up,it was legit surprising.Most fans assumed it was going to be Austin,so when Lita came out,it was an OMG it’s Lita moment…it was unexpected and Im sure it would still be unexpected had another diva faced Slater.
Flawless
January 5, 2013 at 1:42 am
I agree but i’m certain that If they had 10+ minutes on a PPV with a full blown out feud, it could very well have been the televised match of the year, and the best match in years! Imagine a hardcore match with weapons, that would be so awesome.
Piggie James
January 5, 2013 at 3:34 am
Yes I agree too. I don’t think the Beth Phoenix vs Natalya match was long enough to even be a MOTY nomination. Technically there were some nice spots in it, but overall there was nothing spectacular about it, and there wasn’t really much of a story being told. I think it meant a lot to us women wrestling fans though who have followed their careers, and of course is a ‘dream match’. We should be grateful that we got it at all, but if they had have been given more time, then it would have credibly been a MOTY contender.
About Lita’s return, well that was granted since it was the ‘moment’, not so much the match itself (although I think it was taken away a little by Lita having to be ‘helped’ to win, when she had already been portrayed as a legitimate contender to the men during her career).
puppies
January 5, 2013 at 3:41 am
I think Lita needing help was because of WWE’s new thing about intergender matches not being allowed, so they tried to make Lita and Heath have as little contact as possible while still having Lita win in a way that doesn’t completely emasculate Heath.
Piggie James
January 5, 2013 at 3:49 am
Fair enough if they’ve changed policies. I mean, I do get that they wanted all the legends come down to beat up Slater, so had to get them in. But of course as a women’s wrestling fan, I would have loved to see Lita win on her own.
I mean, she used to be a pretty big deal in the day, so it wouldn’t have damaged Slater anymore than him losing to a lot of those ‘grandpa’ legends, and well, given the way WWE uses Slater, would actually have been good for his character. But I guess it’s the whole PG vs TV-14 thing again.
WweLitafan4ever
January 5, 2013 at 6:21 am
There was no point of the “help” because they didn’t really do anything. All the past opponents stood at ringside and Bradshaw did the clothesline after Lita hit the twist of fate.The past legends could have came out AFTER Lita won the match to celebrate.But whatever,it was still great and she is the only woman they used,so that was pretty cool.
hado
January 5, 2013 at 12:40 pm
I do have to agree with Lita-Sault-666. To be honest with you all, Eve and Layla on Superstars which was on the same week as Beth/Nattie, was really in fact if not better, just as good as Beth/Nattie, but was overlloked.. Alicia/Paige’s first match on NXT was another well wrestled match that I felt was overlooked too
Eric Gall
January 4, 2013 at 10:36 pm
As has been mentioned by others, the voting seemed to be very heavily slanted towards the more prominently displayed women who appear for WWE and Impact, with the independent women getting the short shrift. I see two solutions for this next time around.
1. Have an independent division for each award. If a lot of people are just voting for matches and wrestlers they’ve seen on Monday, Thursday and Friday nights, then let them vote for the Diva MOTY or the Knockout MOTY. This way, the indy voters can have their say, without the higher number of big company fans voting from a more limited exposure base.
2. Include with each nominee a video package of her best work for the year. I know this might be work-intensive, but it could be as simple as a link to a promo or two, plus a match that can be found on YouTube. Just as the site tries to prevent people from voting more than once, it should prohibit anyone from voting who hasn’t first clicked on all the links for all the nominees. This would encourage a greater knowledge and appreciation for ALL of women’s wrestling, plus make the voting more informed, and thus, more rewarding for all involved.
pumped up kicks
January 4, 2013 at 11:22 pm
I like your ideas that would be so great of DD to do!
Fox-hunter
January 5, 2013 at 1:44 am
How about we create a degree in women’s wrestling and only those that pass with first class honours should be able to vote. Then we will have truly assessed who is a true fan of women’s wrestling and thus worthy to contribute their opinion on something that is, albeit a very nice gesture, will have little effect on anything.
k2evecrew
January 5, 2013 at 2:11 am
Just because some people don’t want to watch everything that has to do with women’s wrestling doesn’t mean we aren’t real fans. Some ppl are only interested in certain promotions that’s like saying oh u drink Pepsi but u don’t drink coke products u don’t like soda.
Piggie James
January 5, 2013 at 3:44 am
Well at the end of the day it’s just a fun ‘popularity’ contest in my opinion, and shouldn’t be treated as anything more credible. Unless Diva Dirt significantly dropped their emphasis on Diva and Knockout coverage, I don’t think the demographics of this site are ever going to change to see the indendent wrestlers consistantly beating out the mainstream ones.
The one thing I definitely agree on is that they should split a lot of the categories into mainstream (or televised) and independent. That would at least alleviate some of the problems with the current awards process (i.e. independent work being largely ignored whenever there is something mainstream in the same category).
Yes, there’ll probably be 50%+ more polls and winners, but if you conduct say ‘Best Babyface’ with two different polls for mainstream/independent but next to each other, it wouldn’t really be that hard to do. And then when you announce the winners, you announce the mainstream/independent winners together (sorry if I sound confusing).
I think this way, you’d keep both the mainstream and independent fans both largely happy (although the Knockouts will likely still lose quite a few categories ‘unfairly’ to the Divas).
hado
January 5, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Awesome to see Jazz winning awards. I was always a fan of hers when she came to WWF/WWE. I still wished she actually stayed with WWE and was not released in 2004, and I was extremely happy when she was re-signed for WWE’s version of ECW, but I was extremely upset when she only wrestled one quick match against Mickie on Raw, which really was a good match.
AJ winning is really predictable, I would have preferred Eve to actually win some awards that AJ actually won, like diva of the year and her people power gimmick award.
I don’t really watch iMPACT, but there is no doubt that Brooke Adams has came a long way, and she deserves everything that she has achieved.
miickeyzreal
January 7, 2013 at 1:12 am
I’m ok with all the winners but Match Of The Year. There are a lot of great matches in WWE and TNA in this year to name that match the best of 2012. Maybe its because is Beth vs Natalya but the match was just ok compared to others matches that happened this year like Gail vs Tara, Tessmacher vs Gail, Tessmacher vs Tara, Eve vs Naomi, etc… there are so much matches that I can’t even name!
therightone
January 7, 2013 at 7:13 pm
AJ is just Jay Lethal old jump off. Jazz is a forgotten goddess of the ring. (all the credit goes to Lita and Trish not the woman who made them) And Tessmacher is just a pretty face the WWE fired and then didn’t wrestle until Spike forced TNA to hire her to sell Hooters Pagents that are now on FX. Diva Dirt is a joke.