Alberto Del Rio: First Year Review with the WWE

He may have lacked the gold of Kurt Angle or the impact of Goldberg, Brock Lesnar or Kane (in his first year of full-time wrestling as the Kane character), but Alberto Del Rio still had an exciting first year with WWE.

After becoming a champion in Mexico, Alberto Del Rio made his in-ring (he began appearing on WWE television by way of vignettes in June) debut in August 2010. He hit the ground running and has only slightly slowed down since.

Del Rio won his first match against fan favorite Rey Mysterio by forcing Mysterio to tap out to what has become his finishing submission move: the painful cross arm-breaker. Additionally, his kayfabe put Mysterio out of action for a while. Later Christian would "suffer" the same fate.

The submission hold is just one of the many moves Del Rio has in his arsenal. In terms of "wrestling" ability, there is no doubt Del Rio is more than capable of holding his own and putting on great matches.

He has had several decent feuds in the past year, most notably with Mysterio. To begin this year, he had another good feud with Edge, which culminated in his challenging Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania. He has also already feuded with guys like Kofi Kingston and the Big Show.

While he has only recently won the WWE Championship, Del Rio has his share of accomplishments for his first year. He won the 2011 "Royal Rumble" match, which for the first time had 40 men competing.

Many found the match to be lackluster though, since several top wrestlers were eliminated in relatively quick fashion. Also infuriating to many was that Del Rio last eliminated Santino Marella, who, despite his popularity, is not seen as an A-list wrestler. Nevertheless, it was still a big accomplishment for him.

Del Rio also won the 2011 Raw "Money in the Bank" match. He has become the eighth man to cash it in and win a world title.

As noted by others, his gimmick is simply that of a Mexican version of Ted DiBiase. DiBiase had Virgil and Del Rio has his own personal ring announcer, Ricardo Rodriguez, who on more than a few occasions has interfered on Del Rio's behalf.

Again though, many view his gimmick as unoriginal. That's okay. Given the volatile situation that has been for several years now in Mexico, I think the Del Rio character is somewhat refreshing. It is sifting away some of the negative reputation that is forming of Mexico.

I personally think it is somewhat comedic to have a rich Mexican who looks down on Americans in the mix. I can clearly see an argument, however, about how his character can be viewed as inappropriate.

As far as being over with the fans is concerned, he drew tremendous ire from fans in his first half, though he has recently lost some of that heel heat. He is great on the mic and his catchphrase—"My name is Alberto Del Riooooo, but you already know that"—is priceless. I think as a champion he will regain a lot of that heat.

When he was traded to Raw many believed it would be his death sentence, as Raw was/is already stacked with title contenders. I, however, thought it was a smart move. It gave existing feuds a chance to be wrapped up cleanly and gave Del Rio a chance to feud with other top stars.

I thought it was also a good thing that Del Rio did not win the championship when he was expected to. It would have been just too predictable.

Unfortunately, he did win the title in an expected manner. By winning the "Money in the Bank" briefcase we all knew he would cash it in at a time when his opponent was incapacitated. Del Rio's championship victory should have been like Kurt Angle's—in a one-on-one match against the company's top star with minimal cheating.

Again though, because he was "Mr. Money in the Bank," we all knew that it would happen in the manner it did, just not the exact way it happened.

For that, and because he has been losing heat, I can't give Del Rio's first year with WWE an "A." Instead, I give him a "B+."

Let's hope with his title run Del Rio can capitalize on a very good first year.