I wanted to take the time to give some thoughts about the Declaration of Independents 2nd Annual Year End Awards to be announced shortly.

We will have the regular categories that we had from last year with a couple of new additions. We will also have some fun awards like The Drunk of the Year Award (The MiC), The Apartment From Hell Award (Marc Adler) and The Money Mark Promoter of the Year Award (Carmine), Ticket Seller of the Year Award (Josh Deely), Midget of the Year Award (ME!), The I have DRS PJ’s of the Year Award (ME!) and of course the X-Pac Heel Heat Award (E.C. Negro), Worst DOI Staff Member of the Year (You decide!) for just a few examples.

We would love for all the readers to send in your awards to Declaration_of_Independents@hotmail.com. It should be a lot of fun reading all your thoughts and creative awards for the year of 2003.

So who is the Indy Wrestler of the Year for 2003? There are so many worthy contenders. Guys like A.J. Styles who won the NWA World Heavyweight Title which is a monster accomplishment and he was one half of the Ring of Honor tag team champs along with Red. How about Raven? He hit the Indy scene and made MAJOR waves everywhere he went including winning the USA Pro Heavyweight Championship. Then you have Homicide who worked in a ton of feds having amazing match after amazing match. What about the impact that Danny Maff made in 2003? He started the year as one half of one of the greatest tag teams of all time with Monsta Mack in Da Hit Squad and flipped on his partner opting for a singles career. He defeated Homicide for the Jersey All Pro Heavyweight Title, made major moves in Ring of Honor amongst other feds. Then came a series of tragic events for Danny Maff. The passing of his father who was a tremendous part of his life and getting injured in a match against Low-Ki’ whom he considers to be family that quite possibly ended his career! Two MAJOR events that would have shaken the normal man down to his knees motivated Danny Maff. He returned to JAP to create La Familia and shocked the wrestling world when he sent “Mafia” home in what many consider to be the angle of the year.

What about the Tag Team of the Year Award? Well there was The Solution, The Dirty Rotten Scoundrelz, The Backseat Boys, The H-Effect, Dunn and Marcus, The S.A.T., The Christopher Street Connection, The Briscoes, The Shaolin Wrecking Crew, Los Lunatics, All Money is Legal and Mikey Whipwreck and Wayne. It should be an interesting debate for this years award.

Then you have the Declaration of Independents Lifetime Achievement Award. Last years award went to the father of the Doghouse Bobby Lombardi for everything he had done for all members of the Doghouse that he gave an opportunity to. This years award will be going to someone who has made a tremendous impact on the wrestling world for a very long time. I am sure this person is one that most people will agree deserves to be recognized for his tremendous contributions to the world of wrestling.

How about the Lightweight Wrestler of the Year Award? Last year the award was split between Red and Deranged. This year the field has a ton of candidates that include Sonjay Dutt and Grim Reefer who in 2003 both debuted in a number of feds making a major name for themselves. Deranged also was a big time player and had a number of 4 star matches with the likes of Low-Ki’ and Homicide.

Each year the DOI will hand out a Most Hated Wrestler of the Year Award. Last years winner was none other then Skinhead Ivan. Something tells me he has an excellent chance of repeating this year!

Female of the Year will be interesting to see how it turns out but I got to believe April Hunter has a stranglehold on the award right now. Ariel had a tremendous year too! We’ll have to wait and see how it turns out.

Match of the Year is one of the toughest to judge. Fortunately enough for us here at the DOI we get a chance to see just about EVERYTHING on the Northeast. There were some amazing matches this year with a few taking place on 1 card – the Ring of Honor 1 Year Anniversary Show including the Homicide/Corino match, the Briscoe match and the Low-Ki’/Paul London/A.J. Styles match. How about the April 12th match at JAP between Slyk Wagner Brown and Mafia? Awesome match! Then there was the Paul London/American Dragon match that was unreal too. Homicide/Deranged was awesome as well. There are too many to mention here but man oh man 2003 had its share of great matches!

The Promotion of the year will pretty much come down to a couple of feds. Ring of Honor, USA Pro, Combat Zone Wrestling, CyberSpace Wrestling Federation, New York Wrestling Connection, Jersey Championship Wrestling and Jersey All Pro Wrestling all had stellar years. JAP had a stretch of bad luck that may take them out of the running for the award this year. SSCW made a nice comeback when Carmine (The Mark Promoter-lol) brought in the Drunk of the Year Award Winner – Sean The MiC McCaffrey to run the show. Good job and it has shown in the last few months!

There are plenty of other awards to be handed out and we urge ALL OF YOU to please send in your ideas for our outrageous awards as well. Look for the Year End Awards to be handed out soon and look for the Year End Award Issue to hit the “news stands” at the end of December or early January!

Thank you for your time! Peace and Love!

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