A Good Year for Bad Wrestlers

These days wrestling has evolved, fans are looking at match quality over anything else most of the time. But there have still been wrestlers who were not very good but could pull off good matches with the right guy. But there has been some wrestlers who everyone says is not a good wrestler and yet pull off a year full of great matches. To me three come to mind.

Batista in 2007
The year 2007 was a good year in terms of in ring action and for surprises. Batista, while one of the most over guys in WWE and always has been, was never the best in ring worker but in 2007 he had a great year. It started with a great match against Mr. Kennedy at the Royal Rumble, while the fans turned on Batista during the match it was still a great match. As the year progressed Batista would surprise everyone during his series with the Undertaker over the World title, even WWE's backstage guys have admitted that they weren't expecting the match they got at Wrestlemania 23. The two would repeat the quality in their Last Man Standing and Steel Cage match. Batista would then move on to Edge and had some great matches, although slightly messed up by Edge cheating and Theodore Long inserting himself and Edge never going over clean it was still a great series. While Batista would then have to deal with the Great Khali the year would end on a high note with his series with the Undertaker starting up again, this time with a Special Referee and Hell in a Cell match, and end with a Triple Threat match with Edge added in. Batista's match quality was truly great in 2007 and it was probably his best year as a wrestler.

John Cena in 2007
As I said 2007 was a good year. Everyone slams on Cena, I'm one of them, but we have to admit that 2007 was a damn fine year for Cena. It started with a outstanding Last Man Standing match with the late Umaga, a match that we wouldn't see these days with the PG rating. Cena would then be blessed with being put with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania, the two would put on 3 fantastic matches including a very rare 60 plus minute match on Raw. Edge and Randy Orton would be added to the mix to make a Fatal Four Way for Backlash, this was the beginning of the beautiful build up for Orton which I'll get to.
The wrestling fans then started to worry as Cena was put with the Great Khali, many saw this as the blind leading the blind. Boy were we surprised as Cena got 2 good matches out of Khali, a lot better than we were expecting. At Night of Champions Cena was thrown with a number of guys. In a 5 way match he faced off with Booker T, Mick Foley, Randy Orton and Bobby Lashley. It was a crazy chaotic match, which continued Orton's build and helped name the next challenger for Cena. Cena would be thrown with the "next big star" Bobby Lashley, Lashley was very similar to Cena very muscular and not very good in the ring. The two put on a great match which was a pleasant surprises to be sure.
We then came to Summerslam and it would be Orton vs. Cena for the WWE title for the first time, something that has been over done to death these days. The match was fantastic a true classic and possible match of the year for 2007. Now onto Orton's build I mentioned earlier. When Orton was involved in the multi man title matches during the year saw a similar occurrence, Orton would hit the RKO on Cena and someone would interrupt the pin. Even during their one on one match after Orton hit the RKO it took him a long time to start the cover on Cena. This was the first time that Cena looked defeatable and it looked like Orton would be the one to beat Cena. That probably would of been the case if Cena didn't get injured.
The year 2007 was probably the best Cena ever had and probably ever will, why we don't have 'this' Cena these days is beyond me and he could please all the wrestling fans out there.

Ultimate Warrior in 1990
Back in the late 80's/early 90's in ring work was not important and yet Warrior is still seen as a bad worker even then. But he did have a very good year at the start of the 90's. His face off with Hogan during the Royal Rumble match was one of the most memorable moments in rumble history and was the start of the build to their champion vs. champion match at Wrestlemania 6 (Hogan was WWF champion and Warrior was Intercontinental champion). Both Warrior and Hogan were not the best workers but at Mania 6 these two had a fantastic match, much better than any one expected. And in a true shocker Warrior would be the first guy to pin Hogan clean and become WWF champion. This started a very good run.
Warrior would be put against Ted DiBiase in his first program for the title, the thing I remember was the promo'sRude's face screams "I really don't want to be here with him".
Moving on to Survivor Series and a one off year gimmick for the show. The survivors of the previous elimination match would meet in another match in the main event. And to no one's surprise the Ultimate survivors of the show were Hogan and Warrior (the two came back and defeated a team of 5, they teamed with Tito Santana who was eliminated early). This was the beginning of the end for Warrior's title reign as when the Royal Rumble rolled around he would lose the title to Sgt. Slaughter, mainly to make the title match at Wrestlemania Hogan vs. Slaughter (America vs. Iraq). But this would be a blessing as Warrior would be put with his best opponent, the Macho Man Randy Savage. The series of promos were pretty great and the match itself was one of the best in Mania history. The match was a retirement match so we saw Randy Savage for the "Last time" however Warrior famously held up Vince McMahon for more money at Summerslam and was fired. That ended his relatively good year of in ring work.

It's rare for this to occur. If a wrestler is not very good at what he does it usually goes one of two ways, they say the way there are and never really improve or they learn and as time goes on get better and better. It's rare for a wrestler to be really good one year and then not so good after a certain amount of time. You can see how rare it is by the fact this list has only three people on it.