2008 Rookie of the Year

This award goes to the wrestler that made the biggest impact in their first full year working for a major promotion. Just like Major League Baseball allows a ballplayer to be nominated if they were in the major's part of the previous year, the same rule applies here. As long as a wrestler didn't wrestle full-time in a TNA or WWE ring prior to SummerSlam 2007, they are eligible for this award.

Runner-Up: Vladimir Kozlov
Vladimir first appeared on WWE television in January 2007 as a fan that loved Double Double E. Before appearing in a televised match, he was sent back down to Ohio Valley Wrestling. He finally appeared in a televised WWE match this April and has yet to be pinned. For the first few months of his WWE career, he squashed jobbers until he demanded more competition. Vladimir quickly made the jump for fighting bottom of the card wrestlers to fighting the main event stars. In his PPV debut at the Survivor Series, he became the first wrestler to fight for the WWE Championship in his PPV debut. While the future seemed bright for Vladimir, his battle with Triple H was arguably the worst WWE title match in PPV history until Edge and Jeff Hardy got involved at the very end. How that match will impact his future in the company will be one of the things to watch for in 2009.

Winner: Kofi Kingston
Vignettes for the "first Jamaican WWE Superstar" (he is really from Ghana), first appeared on ECW on Sci-Fi last December. He started wrestling on television in January and wasn't pinned until May when he lost a match to Shelton Benjamin. In June he was drafted to RAW. Within days of being drafted, he won the Intercontinental Championship from Chris Jericho. At SummerSlam, he lost that title in a tag team match. His luck in tag team wrestling would improve as he went on to win the World Tag Team Championship with CM Punk from the team of Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase.

_{Photo of Kofi Kingston battling Chuck Palumbo: Gaye Gerard/Getty Images}