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

Our eighth award is for the Most improved wrestler of the year so far:

Phil Lowe: The Miz, with an honourable mention to Chuck Palumbo who has been awesome in the Smackdown midcard this year. Unfortunately, Custom Chuckie P hasn’t been seen since the draft, which isn’t a good sign.

Over the past year, we’ve seen Miz go from being a useless heel who looked out of place opening up ECW on a Tuesday night to holding his own as part of a tag team with John Morrison. I’d change the channel a year ago if he came on, but he’s improved by the week.

I still have some concerns as to how his development will progress when he and Morrison eventually split. But that has to happen as Morrison is potentially a main event star, in my opinion. How far Miz can progress remains to be seen, but if the second half of 2008 is as good as the first in terms of his improvement, he’ll have a job with WWE for a long, long time.

Mark Bright: Randy Orton is my choice here, for just how well he grew into his role as a heel WWE Champion who can deliver in his matches as well.

I’ve always been an Orton fan, and thought he was good in the ring with a decent character, but now I think he’s excellent in the ring and learned to play his character just about perfectly. I think the WWE made some mistakes in their booking of him, particularly as it pertains to HHH, but that’s not a knock on Orton’s performances in any way, because he still delivered greatly.

He’s one of the best performers in the business, and I never thought he’d be this good. Another person I’d consider for this would be The Miz, who I think has grown perfectly into his role as heel tag champion that you almost forget that he used to be looked at as a joke who shouldn’t even be in the business.

Michael Campbell: Matt Hardy. I found this to be a tough one. If William Regal and Jeff Hardy hadn’t got themselves suspended, they may have been in this boat, thanks to their success in stepping up. But in most jobs, breaking company policy doesn’t suggest “improvement”. Batista was a very strong contender, but I feel most of his improvement came last year, and besides, he’s still have stinkers when he doesn’t feel like it.

Matt’s improvement lies in how he carries himself, In how he comes to the ring, and how he connects with fans. He’s working better than ever with blank canvases like Chavo, and become a genuine mid-card attraction . Here’s hoping he gets a shot at dominating the ECW brand. Kofi Kingston and CM Punk deserve credit in this regard too.

Martin Smith: CM Punk. He’s slowly turned into a credible main event star in the WWE. He looked out of his depth at times last year but has certainly improved his work rate and deserves the monster push he is going through at the minute. Hopefully it will continue.

Steve McLaren: The Miz. There was a match post ‘Mania between Miz and Punk were Miz looked really good in the ring. In fact it was probably one of the best ECW matches this year. He looks so much more confident in the ring than say 9 or 12 months ago.

James Mustoe: Chris Jericho. He’s gone from a rusty, move-blowing, not-over, top-card failure babyface, to a heel character that is the antithesis of this.

RESULTS:

The Miz (2)
Randy Orton (1)
Matt Hardy (1)
CM Punk (1)
Chris Jericho (1)