Welcome back to Part Twelve of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2020! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2020. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this… 1st – 5
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Asuka – My eternal love and respect for Grace and Shirai aside, this is pretty easily a two-horse race. Bayley and Asuka were dominant for long stretches of 2020. Asuka really shined at the start of the no-crowd era where he incessant yelling and taunting made her stand out against so many people just going through the motions. Bayley was the must-see heel that WWE thought Charlotte would be post-Mania; her work was so obnoxious, and she seemed to be
Welcome back to Part Eleven of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2020! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2020. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this… 1st – 5
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Taiji Ishimori – I frelling loved this year’s Best of the Super Junior tournaments. Collectively, they were some of my favorite matches to watch this year. I feel like this year’s tournament was a real breakout year for El Desperado especially, but honestly, I’m somewhat turned off by the lack of praise and attention that Taiji Ishimori, you know the frelling IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, is getting. Ishimori’s matches were some of my favo
Welcome back to Part Eight of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2020! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2020. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this… 1st – 5
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NXT – NXT had a wild year. A strong start, kind of a lull in the middle in the “Here Comes Karrion Kross” era, and then it finished about as high as it has ever been. And man, with AEW and NXT pushing each other, both shows were fantastic all year. Honestly, we are all winners as long as they keep competing and that means NXT gives us stuff like Halloween Havoc and Great American Bash and hour long 4 man iron man matches on weekly TV. But for me? I
Welcome back to Part Seven of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2020! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2020. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this… 1st – 5
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Finn Balor – For the record, Pentagon and PAC would both be in the top 5 if they hadn’t missed so much time in AEW due to travel restrictions during the pandemic. Love both of those guys. But for me, Finn’s year felt like Johnny Gargano’s from a year or two ago. He just put on match after match after match. I never cared about Damien Priest… until Finn pulled a great encounter out of him. Never had an affinity for Timothy Thatcher… until he a
Welcome back to Part Six of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2020! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2020. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this… 1st – 5
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WWE – I know, I know. I am unapologetically a WWE fan, especially when that promotion includes NXT, which demo be damned is still my favorite wrestling on the planet. Raw and Smackdown are what they are, but NXT and the PPV shows were generally pretty great this year (even with NXT having a bit of a blip mid-year). I enjoy Impact’s Women’s Division (and the general whackiness of some of their stuff) and AEW’s tag team scene, but for me? Yeah, I sti