Throughout the weekend ahead of our live Great American Bash coverage on Sunday night, we’re posting our half-year awards, looking at the best and the worst of WWE in the first half of 2008.

So far on we’ve posted our awards for the following (click links to view our picks and reasons for them):

- Worst in-ring performer in the WWE
- Least improved wrestler of the year so far
- Worst WWE PPV of the year so far
- Worst announcer in the WWE (aka The Adamle Award)
- Worst feud/storyline in the WWE in 2008 so far
- Worst match in the WWE
- Worst on-screen character in the WWE
- Most improved wrestler of the year so far
- Best WWE PPV of the year so far
- Best WWE TV show
- Best announcer in the WWE

Our next award is for the Best feud/storyline in the WWE, plus later on today ahead of our live PPV coverage, we’ve got the awards for:

- Best match in the WWE
- Best on-screen character in the WWE
- Best in-ring performer in the WWE

We’ll be posting the results of these from 2pm EST (7pm UK) up until 7pm EST (12midnight), plus we’ll also have a preview of tonight’s PPV and notes from backstage ahead of our live coverage which kicks off at 8pm EST/1am UK time!

Best feud/storyline in the WWE

Phil Lowe: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho. It took me a while to get into this but as soon as the killer promos were introduced, this was the main reason to watch Raw, in my opinion. They meet at the Bash on Sunday night and I’m expecting a classic. Even though they’ve squared off a couple of times already this year, there is no reason they can’t get some more mileage out of this while its such a hot storyline. Jericho vs. Michaels at Summerslam as well please to lead into Michaels vs. Lance Cade, which if done rightly will also make a new star in Cade.

Mark Bright: I’m going to go right back to the beginning of the year for this choice, as my pick for feud of the half-year is one that ended at the Royal Rumble in January, that being Randy Orton v. Jeff Hardy.

For as much as Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho have cut great promos that have carried bad Raw’s for a few months now, and for as much as Edge and The Undertaker have delivered good matches to make up for bad TV writing, there was something different - something special - about Orton/Hardy.

Jeff has been a midcarder for the majority of his WWE career, but in a few short weeks working with WWE champion Orton, Hardy got people behind him and Orton sold him as enough of a threat that people were begging for Jeff to take the title come the Rumble.

Of course that didn’t happen and then Jeff fucked things up by failing Wellness and Orton got stuck in a never-ending feud with Triple H, but those three or four weeks leading up to the Rumble were fantastic.

Michael Campbell: Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels. Raw has had it’s dull moments over the past few months, especially with Mr Stale, John Cena on the scene, and Turd-in-the-bag Randall being absent.

But it’s been kept afloat at times purely by this feud. Simply astonishing, this one has built epically and slowly, drawing viewers in with it’s devious twists and turns, moving along less predictably than Stephanie McMahon’s hips. We’ve seen involvement from Batista, Ric Flair, and Lance Cade, but it always boils down to these two, and to Jericho’s self pitying contempt versus Shawn Michaels’ more reserved contentment. Fantastic.

Martin Smith: Ric Flair’s retirement. Granted, I think it could’ve been booked slightly better. However, this was by far the best storyline in the WWE this year so far and was a fitting tribute to a legendary figure.

Steve McLaren: The Shawn Michaels/Batista/Chris Jericho feud. The whole feud started off with an intense stare from Big Dave; that alone was awesome. The whole fake injury saga was a fine way to get Jericho involved. Fun matches ensued throughout the entire feud, which is key to a feud being good or not.

I loved Batista’s line of - “I’m not sorry. And I don’t love you”. That harkened back to the Shawn/Flair stuff, which their (Shawn & Batista) feud started off.

The Jericho heel stuff has been fun too.

James Mustoe: The whole Shawn Michaels vs. Batista feud, which then naturally segued into HBK vs. Chris Jericho. Itself an off shoot of Michaels vs. Flair, Batista vs. HBK provided us with a feud where you could reasonably root for either protagonist. Both had reasonable motivations, and Jericho’s initial involvement added an interesting wild card. As I stated earlier, Jericho vs. Michaels continues to be the best thing on Raw and shows no sign of losing momentum. Nothing else comes close.

RESULTS:

Shawn Michaels/Chris Jericho/Batista (5 - we combined the two feuds since the outcome made no real difference to the vote and they were inter-linked anyway)
Randy Orton vs. Jeff Hardy (1)