LadySports ::: 2008 PGWA WRESTLER OF THE YEAR

2008 PGWA WRESTLER OF THE YEAR

Canadian Star Josianne Wins

Congratulations to Josianne, who is the 2008 PGWA Wrestler of the Year, as voted by the fans at ProWrestlingDigest.com!

A mightily impressive 2,013 votes were cast for 33 different women, but there can be no denying who the winner was. Josianne managed to rally her fans both at home in Canada as well as abroad, and claimed an astounding 42% of the vote with 849 ballots! It's an incredible show of strength, and it says much about how the Quebec native impressed PGWA fans in her debut for the organization at "A Banner Night" in November.

Almost as surprising as it is impressive is the tally for the first runner-up, Mary Elizabeth Monroe. She also roused her fanbase, and was rewarded with no less than 538 votes. Although technically in Second Place, Ms. Monroe has decided to declare herself the AMERICAN winner of the poll. We could quibble that Canada is also part of America, but let's not split hairs!

The battle for third was a neck-and-neck race until the very end, when XTC managed to nose ahead with 92 votes to Tracy Taylor's 87. More on Ms. Taylor's placing later on in this article.

What's truly noteworthy is that the four biggest vote-getters are all relative newcomers to the PGWA. They easily out-distanced such PGWA mainstays as Nikki Roxx, Pippa L'Vinn, Christie Ricci and Tasha Simone. We'd like to think this validates the PGWA's longtime efforts to bring in and nurture new talent. Indeed, further developing the young talent pool is one of the prime goals of the PGWA's new Commissioner, Susan Green.

Of course, while most of us are impressed that the newcomers…in particular our new Champion, Tracy Taylor…did so well against the competition in this poll, that achievement is not shared by the Champ herself.

Even before the results had been officially announced, the PGWA office received a fax from Tracy's representatives, which proclaimed in part:

Ms. Taylor wishes to voice her strong disapproval of the results of this poll, owing to the obvious fact that the tallying had been clearly compromised, and the final numbers so skewed as to place her at a specific disadvantage. Independent monitoring of the poll on our own confirms our assertion that, in fact, Ms. Taylor received well over 1500 votes, putting her further ahead of the announced collective votes of Josianne, Monroe and XTC. However, due to tampering, the majority of her votes were distributed to the aforementioned three, thus relegating Tracy…the undeniable winner of the poll…to the humiliating position of fourth. It is unimportant who was behind this chicanery (although it is always worth reminding that Canadians are governed by few laws and thus feel free to commit fraud as they wish). All that matters is that this poll is clearly incorrect, and thus Ms. Taylor is instructing the PGWA to disregard the announced results, and to declare HER as the 2008 PGWA Wrestler of the Year.

As much as we might like to comply, however, the PGWA is unable to go along with Taylor's wishes/demands. A careful ongoing audit of the voting by authorities at Pro Wrestling Digest was done specifically to make certain that there was none of the sort of vote stealing that Tracy alleges. We are completely satisfied that each and every ballot counted in this poll is legitimate.

In our response to Ms. Taylor's missive, we suggested that a logical solution to this matter might be to have Tracy face each of the women who bested her in the poll in the ring. We received the following reply:

Ms. Taylor has an incredibly full schedule, and may not be able to fit in matches with Josianne, Mary Elizabeth Monroe, or XTC in the foreseeable future.

Regardless of Tracy's "full schedule," the PGWA is currently negotiating to book her in title matches with any one of the three women mentioned. We'll keep the fans informed of developments as they happen.

Until then, congratulations again to Josianne and all of the women who took part in our poll, thanks to ProWrestlingDigest.com, and special thanks to all of the fans who voted!