Ahh the end of the year, means we have a Match of the Year pool to finalize and then breakdown to a Top 5! Obviously, some matches that make personal lists won’t be here because of how this pool was created. Certain months were loaded and the beginning of quarantine was, well let’s say, awkward.

Without further ado, let’s get to the Final 12, and whittle it down to a Top 5!

• January – Wrestle Kingdom 14: Double Gold Match: Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito
• February – AEW Revolution: AEW World Tag Team Championship: Hangman Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs The Young Bucks
• March – AEW Dynamite: AAA Mega Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs Sammy Guevara
• April – WrestleMania 36: NXT Women’s Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) vs Charlotte Flair
• May – NXT: Pit Fight: Matt Riddle vs Tim Thatcher
• June – NXT In Your House: NXT Women’s Champion Triple Threat: Io Shirai vs Charlotte Flair (c) vs Rhea Ripley
• July – NJPW Dominion: NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs SHO
• August – NOAH the Chronicle Vol 3: GHC National Openweight & GHC Heavyweight Championship Double Title Match: Kenoh (c) vs Go Shiozaki (c)
• September – AEW Dynamite: Parking Lot Fight: Santana & Ortiz vs Best Friends
• October – NXT UK: United Kingdom Championship: Walter (c) vs Ilja Dragunov
• November – NJPW BOSJ 27: Robbie Eagles vs Hiromu Takahashi
• December – NOAH Final Chronicle: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Takashi Sugiura

Here we are! 3 AEW matches, 2 from Pro Wrestling NOAH, 3 from NJPW and 4 under the WWE umbrella. That’s not a terrible spread all things considered. Now let’s work things out for to turn 12 into 5.

– NXT In Your House: NXT Women’s Champion Triple Threat: Io Shirai vs Charlotte Flair (c) vs Rhea Ripley

Air Date June 7th

This was a beautiful transition to help Io get over the hump and differentiate herself from being just “another Japanese female champion”. Charlotte was doing some of the best work of her career earlier in the year and Rhea worked hard to get out from under both Toni Storm and Charlotte’s shadows, to become something special.

Instead of being crowned the top of the mountain, Rhea was kept in check, but never destroyed. This started a great story of building herself back up and raising the quality of a women’s division that was seen to be inferior to previous incarnations. Io’s championship run mixed with Rhea’s ability to get a great match out of everyone was ignited here. Great match, fun spots, fun use of an old PPV name and lead to a lot of great things.

– NOAH the Chronicle Vol 3: GHC National Openweight & GHC Heavyweight Championship Double Title Match: Kenoh (c) vs Go Shiozaki (c)

Air Date 8.10.2020

In a world where everyone and their brother were crowning double champions, NOAH decided to take a stab at a match where the winner would be a double champion. Go Shiozaki has established himself as a great fighting champion, embodying the heartbeat of what Pro Wrestling NOAH was back in the Golden Era and helping to restore the belief in the product. Kenoh however is no slouch and trying to establish the National Championship and of course, ruining Shiozaki’s story would be great.

Kenoh tends to always play the Vegeta role, but that’s because he’s not the largest wrestler, very brash and always angry or yelling. This was his chance to ruin the man who’s been touting “I Am NOAH, We Are NOAH” all year, and maybe finally get the respect he feels he doesn’t have yet.

Fantastically paced match, great strikes, great action and it ended with a Time Limit Draw. So they avoided falling into the 2020 trope of double championship holders, while playing with it enough to draw in some inquiring eyes. Both champions looked great, made both belts feel equal and it was just a great spectacle.

– NJPW Dominion: NEVER Openweight Championship: Shingo Takagi (c) vs SHO

Air Date 7.12.2020

This was SHO’s coming out party. YOH picking up an injury caused Roppongi 3k to have to vacate the Junior Tag Titles and SHO was trying to find where he fit in the current landscape. So SHO got a win over Shingo in the New Japan Cup which allowed them to play on a storyline from last year. When Shingo was still in the Junior Division he overpowered everyone and saw a bit of himself in SHO.

With the big brother/little brother dynamic, SHO finally got a win, which allowed him the chance to challenge for a singles title. Shingo was put on the back foot for the first time in this rivalry, and there were plenty of times when SHO had moments to pull out victory. The first really great New Japan after they returned from quarantine, still holds up through the entire year.

– NXT UK: United Kingdom Championship: Walter (c) vs Ilja Dragunov

Air Date 10.29.2020

Now you know the match is special when Cornette, Meltzer and most of the IWC agree that this was a fantastic match. Ilja had some momentum before quarantine coming off of great matches with Finn Balor, Cesaro and winning a Battle Royale. Walter on the other hand, has been a dominant force and even the previous champions like Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate looked out of their depth a little.

So the unproven Ilja (as far as NXT UK goes), looks to take out the monster who’s beaten people “better” than he is. Ilja came out energetic, fast, violent and made it look like a fight instead of a skit. Walter tried he usual offense, mauling Ilja with the big bear paws, Powerbombs, the big boy Splash, and Ilja wouldn’t die.

The fact that Walter had to choke the life out of Ilja, and he didn’t tap, sends a huge message. Afterwards Walter was impressed, and Ilja was a made man. That was such an old school violent match, it felt fresh and beautiful.

– NOAH Final Chronicle: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Takashi Sugiura

Air Date 12.6.2020

Now I already discussed the year that Shiozaki has had, and gushed a bit in the previous article. Between the samurai 30 minute stare down into the brawl all over the building with Kazuyuki Fujita, the bittersweet history between he and Akitoshi Saito, the establishing match with Naomichi Marufuji (establishing because Shiozaki hasn’t had much singles success over Marufuji and doing the I AM NOAH catch phrase means you have to go through Marufuji who’s been the icon and the genius of NOAH), Time Limit Draw with a great champion in Kenoh, getting revenge over the betrayal of his best friend Katsuhiko Nakajima and this match against Suguira.

This match was the culmination of the entire year. Sugiura being one of the last original 20 members NOAH means the I AM NOAH train has to go through him as well. Sugiura also has history of being the road block in Shiozaki championship runs. Just a fantastic match where the more knowledge you have of everything, the more threads that got pulled on. Fantastic work in NOAH, most notable Go Shiozaki.

Thoughts:

Of course some of these matches are a little weaker than others, but such is the way that 2020 went. I think most of wrestling adjusted fairly well all things considered, and since Japan got their act together more quickly than the west, it’s definitely nice to see mostly normal matches by the end of the year.

However, this is a vote, so pick your Top 5 out of these Final 12! This year was interesting with the companies that fell off a bit, some were exposed and others embraced the challenge and flourished (here’s looking at you NOAH).

So place your votes and let’s get to some highlights of this awkward year!