Worst year for wrestling?

What is it?

It seems like since 2008 things have been weak in general. 2009, though, had great output from WWE tv and 2010(i think) had all that IWRG. 2011 and 2012 seem to be high in the running.

1998 and 1999 seem sparse, how do they compare to recent years? Was 2001 really any good?

I can't think of a single great match from 2008.

I'd say the following matches from '08 are great:

Blue Panther vs. Villano V (CMLL - 9/19)
Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka/Munenori Sawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda/Super Tiger II (BattlArts - 7/26)
Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco (BattlArts - 6/9)
Jimmy Jacobs vs. B.J. Whitmer (IWA Mid South - 3/1)
Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Takeshi Morishima (NOAH - 3/2)

How much from 1999 stands the test of time? Maybe just a few shoot style matches?

I think the Untouchables vs Burning series hold up pretty well, amongst others.

1999 is a pretty good answer, but I think it still had it's share of good matches scattered around. Just not an awful lot of great or anything that'd be considered a MOTDC for any of the main promotions.

2012 would probably be my pick. There was some great lucha at the start, but that seems to have faded out into obscurity once again. TNA has been better than it has been since 2006, but WWE has also been the most painfully average is has been in a while despite knocking out a few stronger MOTYCs than it has done in recent years. 2012 Puro and Indy wrestling are a dive as well.

2012 isn't even over yet and it's already produced a variety of great matches. Sure it's fallen off the cliff a little bit, but stuff is still getting nominated.

Yeah, for me it's down to 1999 or 2012, with the caveat or I'm not really sure what was going on in 2001 in Japan or Mexico.

Sure, 2012 has had real good matches, it would be an especially sad state of affairs if we were talking about a year with NO great matches. But there doesn't seem to be any scene churning out consistent quality, and the highs seem lower. 2011 was similar but at least had Punk/Cena and Mark Henry.

Someone make a case for 98 or 99 being better than the last couple of years.

I might already take the best of 2012 over the best of 2011, and to reiterate, the year isn't over yet. But I don't think anyone can make a case for 98 and 99 being better than these past couple of years. I don't think you can even give away a 1999 comp.

Was ARSION any good in '99? I somehow doubt Mariko Yoshida's spotty matwork holds up but surely Aja Kong would've had a few good/great matches there?

Aja was crap in ARSION. She had some strong matches in GAEA that year.

Wrestling shows on national TV and syndication that do not make me hate wrestling after they end.

Mid carders and lower card wrestlers actually getting used well. I will take 98 and 99 ECW (warts and all) over what WWE and TNA have produced the last few years.

I'm not really concerned with great matches. To me it comes down to the dusty middle innings and with WWE those have been very bad.

Hard to argue that Japan is better in 2012 than it was in '99. You still had a pre-split All Japan putting on good-great matches (if getting a bit stale), New Japan much better off than it is today, prime BattlARTS and M-Pro, the often fun sleaze of FMW, and Dragon Gate that was very watchable. Fucking RINGS was still happening in '99.

I don't know enough about '98-'99 lucha. Tough call in that the Youtube boom is now giving us so many house shows, but CMLL's '99 roster was phenomenal.

If we say WCW is analogous to TNA, I'd pick WCW overall with the understanding that TNA might have better TV right now. '99 WCW has a far better roster, and used it to put on some awful Nitro/Thunder shit and some pretty fun PPVs. TNA still has terrible stuff, but they've managed to lower the bar so much that people now sing their praises for going above the bare minimum.

WWE is a tough call in that on paper a lot of 1999 looks horrible, but when you go back and compare it to what's going on week-to-week right now, it fares surprisingly well. Some of the PPVs are really bad, and stuff like Bossman getting hanged in Hell in a Cell was pathetic, but certain matches have surprised me. I've talked about it before, but Taker/Big Show vs. X-Pac/Kane from Summerslam is so much better than it should be. Same with the HHH/Rock strap match from Fully Loaded. People we think of as mediocre were having better matches in '99 than today's best workers, if only because the current WWE format is so awful. In general things seem to get better w/ Russo's departure.

Week-to-week, even with a much worse roster, I'd rather watch '99 ECW than what WWE is currently doing. It's bizarre to think that I would rather see shows headlined by Credible, Storm, Rhino, Dreamer, Van Dam, and Jerry Lynn than those starring Cena, Danielson, Punk, Lesnar, Ziggler, and Mysterio, but there you go. Much more fun and lively overall. Even the garbage spotfests have a lot more charm.

And there is no one in wrestling right now excelling at the level that Tajiri was in '99. Probably unfair to credit the whole year with what may have been one of the year's best workers, but it's pretty amazing to watch him come into his own and have really good matches with the likes of Taz.

My first instinct would have been to say that '99 was far worse than 2012, but when measuring it all up I'd now say otherwise. It feels like unfair hysterics to say that this is the all-time low point of the TV era, but it might be simply due to lack of competition, apathetic creative, and not much excitement overseas.

In 99 the only U.S. promotion I would call good would be ECW. That was there best year. Actually wait was Omega in 99? Seems like they were going from memory. So that's two. But I really thought second half of the year WCW was bad and WWF was awful. Japan had BatBat, some AJPW matches that I never rated as highly as others and...uh...well..hmm. I'm totally ignorant on Lucha.

This year has been very hit or miss, but as much as I hate to admit it TNA has produced more really good matches this year than WWF did in 99 and arguably as many as WCW did. The Finlay world tour was awesome. Early in the year there was a shit load of really great Lucha that popped up. WWE is easily better than it was in 99 or WCW and that's even as I admit that it has not been that great. Hell Del Rio v Cena from last weeks Raw was just a throwaway tv main event and would have been the WWE match of the year in 99.

Maybe if I went back and watched 99 Japan - something I don't really want to do - I would feel differently

I seem to remember watching some quality lucha from '98 but I got nothing for '99. Maybe someone else might post some choice recommendations from that year but that's a pretty big omission considering how weak Japan and America were.

WWE is definitely better now than in 99, but 99 ECW probably evens it out for 2012 vs. 99 fpr the US, then the question is Japan. Wasn't there a good bit of MPro and BattlARTS coming out of Japan in 99? I haven't watched much 99 wrestling so I'm sort of going on hypothesis, but as Parites mentioned it seems like thanks to indies Japan was a LOT more exciting.

I have a hard time believing if we lived in an era of super extensive footage availability in 99 like we do now, that it wouldn't be a more enjoyable time to be a wrestling fan.

What about OMEGA? I've always heard surprisingly good things about that promotion.

And I haven't seen enough to judge, but I watched the Sasuke vs. Magnum Tokyo from 99 a while ago and it might've been the best Dragon System match ever, for whatever that's worth.