Diva Dirt presents its third annual Writers’ Choice Awards, the awards that celebrate the year in women’s wrestling, as decided by the editors and contributors of Diva Dirt. The Diva Dirt team has watched hundreds of episode of wrestling television this year, followed a countless number of wrestlers and reviewed tons of matches. Now, as we come to the end of 2013, we have picked the best of the best to be awarded our Writers’ Choice trophies.
Best Tag Team/Group: Valkyrie
Consisting of Allysin Kay, April Hunter, Ivelisse Velez, Rain and Taylor Made, Valkyrie has been the force to be reckoned with in women’s wrestling this year, absolutely dominating SHINE since the group’s birth at SHINE 6 on January 11th.
Valkyrie clocked up wins at SHINE 7 and SHINE 8, not losing a match until Ivelisse fell to Jazz at SHINE 9. This was supposed to knock her out of the SHINE Championship tournament, but Jazz was soon forced to bow out for personal reasons, giving Ivelisse a ticket back in. SHINE 10 saw Ivelisse and Rain pave their ways forward in the tournament, but at the loss of Allysin Kay. Allysin’s interference in SHINE 10’s main event saw her suspended from SHINE for 90 days. She would return at SHINE 13, eventually proving her loyalty to Valkyrie at the cost of her friendship with Jessicka Havok.
In the meantime, Rain made history, winning the tournament becoming the first SHINE Champion at SHINE 11 thanks to plenty of outside interference. Tensions started to grow between Ivelisse and Rain, but it didn’t slow Valkyrie’s dominance. Over the next few months, they lied, cheated and stole her way to victories for Rain, allowing her to retain the SHINE Championship against Jessicka Havok at SHINE 12, Angelina Love at SHINE 13, Hiroyo Matsumoto at SHINE 14 and Amazing Kong at SHINE 15.
The biggest shock of all? Rain’s long-expected retirement at the end of the year never took place. Many expected her reign to end at SHINE 15 in conjunction with her retirement, but after defeating Kong, she took to the mic to inform fans that she’s not going anywhere. Thus, Valkyrie’s not going anywhere.
Rain’s next title defense might push the group to the breaking point, though, as she’s set to put the SHINE Title on the line against Ivelisse, who already has some deep-seated resentment against the group’s figurehead. Will Valkyrie survive that test to dominate for another year? With their history of pulling rabbits out of their hats, it wouldn’t surprise us.
Stay tuned for more Writers’ Choice Award reveals over the next few days.
