We would like to announce the nominees for the 2016 Paul T. Memorial Award for Most Outstanding Wrestler in Southern California. The Most Outstanding Wrestler award has been given out annually since 2006 when El Generico (Sami Zayn) was the inaugural winner. After his passing in 2013 the award was renamed to honor the memory of Paul Tokunaga, who was better known to the Southern California wrestling community as Paul T.
Paul T. started out in wrestling working for Inoki, became known to Southern California wrestling fans as the manager for Tokyo Gurentai in Revolution Pro and XPW and later as the first Pro Wrestling Guerrilla commissioner. He was very instrumental behind the scenes in bringing Japanese talent to Southern California, such as NOSAWA, Kikutaro, and a tour by the Joshi promotion ARSION. He also helped numerous Southern California wrestlers get booked in Japanese wrestling promotions. Paul was a huge supporter of SoCalUncensored.com and was a frequenter poster on our message boards and occasional columnist. More than anything (well, aside from surfing and Japanese women) he also liked good wrestling and it was felt to be a fitting tribute to name this award in his honor.
This award is based solely on a wrestler’s in-ring work and match quality. With that said, here are the nominees for the 2016 Paul T. Memorial Award for Most Outstanding Wrestler:
- Adrian Quest
- B-Boy
- Brian Cage
- Chris Hero
- Douglas James
- Eli Everfly
- Jeff Cobb / Matanza Cueto
- Max X
- Rey Fenix
- Ricochet / Prince Puma
- Scorpio Sky
- Willie Mack
The Southern California Year End Awards started in 1999 on SoCal-Wrestling.com and were taken over by SoCalUncensored.com starting in 2001. The awards are largely recognized as one of the most prestigious awards in indy wrestling and have been referenced in national and international media. The voting for the awards consists of two parts; a public webpoll worth 35% of the total vote and balloting by a committee of voters that is worth 65% of the total.
The webpoll voting for the 2016 Southern California Paul T. Memorial Award for Most Outstanding Wrestler will begin on January 4, 2017 and will last until January 18, 2017. All 2016 award winners will be announced on January 26, 2017. The nominations for promotion of the year, women’s wrestler of the year, and tag-team of the year have previously been announced. The nominees in the other categories will be announced at a later time.
