Steve Cook finishes up his wrestling memories in 2020, a look back at one of the oddest years any of us have ever experienced.

I haven’t looked forward to the conclusion of my celebration of thirty years as a wrestling fan. We’ll certainly remember 2020, but mostly for not so great reasons. Let’s go ahead and count then down. 2020! Some of you had a decent year, but for most of us it was the WORST YEAR WE’VE EVER LIVED IN!

Let’s break it down.

5. Undertaker Gets His Ending

One of the most interesting productions of 2020 was The Last Ride, a WWE Network documentary chronicling the last few years of Undertaker’s career. Undertaker had always been careful about protecting his gimmick, this was the first time he really took fans behind the curtain. We saw a man looking to end his career with a good performance that kept having bad ones. It’s a story that many of us can identify with: the desire to go out on top, and the ability to know when you should go out.

Undertaker finally got that chance. The Boneyard Match with AJ Styles was easily one of the most entertaining matches of 2020 and the perfect note to go out on. He had a farewell at Survivor Series with a Paul Bearer hologram and rode off into the sunset. Sure, he could still come back because everybody comes back, but at the moment I’m writing this, it feels good.

4. Ratings

TV ratings talk has always been one of those things that I’ve loved and hated at the same time. I wish people would focus more on the content of the shows and which one is better from a critical perspective. At the same time, I look at the ratings when they come out just like everybody else does. I can’t help it.

I’m at least smart enough to know how fractured viewership habits are now compared to back in the day. Back when Raw & Nitro were facing off every Monday night, they were on two of seventy channels on my cable system. Which was a drastic upgrade from what kids my age ten years prior had to choose from, and kids my age ten years prior to that. The further we move along, the more choices we have.

There was a school of thought that mainstream wrestling could benefit off of a pandemic because more people would be home watching TV. That didn’t happen, at least not as much as some hoped. There’s a vast amount of content to consume, even during a pandemic where production on certain types of programming is limited.

It needs to be emphasized that Raw & SmackDown still do wonderful numbers compared to other options on cable & satellite systems in demos & viewership. In the case of Raw, historically down from its peak back in the 1990s, but compared to other options not named “Monday Night Football” in 2020, not bad. AEW Dynamite has been killing it in those prime demos that TV people look at. And as much as we knock NXT for being far behind AEW in those demos, they’re doing more than well enough to justify their existence.

As much as I’m not a fan of these metrics, there’s not much else we can use in 2020. Not like people are going to shows!

3. Death

I’m not really sure where to start with this one. Pro wrestling has seen some really bad years when it comes to death, but 2020 might have been the worst. I may even have missed some in the timeline here:

• January 9 – Pampero Firpo
• January 11 – La Parka II
• Janurary 15 – Rocky Johnson
• January 25 – Justice Pain
• March 5- Rip Oliver
• April 12 – Joe Pedicino
• April 16 – Howard Finkel
• May 17 – Shad Gaspard
• May 18 – Larry Csonka
• May 23 – Hana Kimura
• May 31- Danny Havoc
• June 4 – Chris Hyatte
• June 10 – Mr. Wrestling II
• June 30 – Tim Brooks
• July 31- Mark “Rollerball” Rocco
• August 9 – Kamala
• August 16 – Xavier
• August 27 – “Bullet” Bob Armstrong
• September 2- Casey Michael
• September 10 – Barry Scott
• September 22 – Road Warrior Animal
• October 15 – Karsten Beck
• October 28 – Tracy Smothers
• November 25 – Bob Ryder
• December 2 – Pat Patterson
• December 10 – Zeus
• December 21 – Kevin Greene
• December 24 – Danny Hodge
• December 26 – Brodie Lee

It’s an overwhelming list of names with so many people that had some sort of an effect on my wrestling fandom over the years. I don’t even know where to start talking about the accolades of these folks. We also lost some people that paved the way for people like me to write about wrestling on the Internet, including one of my closest associates over the past fifteen years or so. Larry was one of the few people I could always rely on to have my back through thick & thin. That list got shorter.

It’s part of the circle of life, of course. People you grew up watching will pass away. Some of your friends will leave before you do. Unfortunately, that circle started moving a little faster in 2020.

2. #SpeakingOut

It was something many years in the making that needed to be done long ago. We can’t fault people for being afraid to come out. We live in a patriarchal society where women are afraid to speak their truth for fear of a backlash from the non-believers. Especially in pro wrestling, where women’s wrestling only got taken seriously (outside of Japan) in the last couple of years or so. Believe me, as a long time supporter of women’s wrestling I was a minority voice in the IWC for many years. Most people within the wrestling business were men that did not take women seriously.

It started with somebody calling out independent wrestling star David Starr. Starr denied it, but he pretty much got drummed out of the business right away, since apparently nobody believed him. Further accusations would follow, many involving wrestlers based in the United Kingdom but some in other areas of the world.

The UK took the brunt of it though. Jimmy Havoc was finally starting to get over in AEW when he got accused, and those issues along with other issues he had with substances led to his dismissal. Audio surfaced from years earlier of Sammy Guevara joking about how he wanted to rape Sasha Banks, which led to productive discussion, an apology and Sammy being sidelined for a minute while completing training. Sasha got a lot of respect for how she accepted Sammy’s shortcomings at that time & worked with him through the issue. Most folks wouldn’t have been as generous as Sasha was. Justin Roberts got accused of things too, he’s still around even though everybody that filled in for him was better at the job.

CHIKARA was seen as a viable alternative where women were treated as equal to men. As it turned out, we learned of multiple cases of sexual harassment & abuse, which hurt CHIKARA more than most promotions since they had a better reputation than most feds. CZW could survive such allegations because people expect less from them, CHIKARA couldn’t. Mike Quackenbush was initially very apologetic, then later on tried to put himself over in order to keep running shows. As much as I’m a mark for Quack’s in-ring work and found him to be a decent person in previous years, I, and most people, saw through his attempts of spinning the narrative.

David Lagana got drummed out of NWA. Marty Scrull isn’t involved with ROH or anybody else anymore. Joey Ryan got cancelled from Impact Wrestling and everywhere else, which didn’t surprise anybody because his character was that of a ridiculous pervert. Impact also got rid of Michael Elgin & Dave Crist after previous allegations surrounding them resurfaced. Will Ospreay got accused of blacklisting people to protect perverts he was friends with, but his employers protected him. WWE protected Matt Riddle & some other NXT UK folks that denied allegations. They did fire Jack Gallagher after he admitted to allegations. As long as WWE independent contractors denied allegations, WWE was happy to defend & push them. Velveteen Dream continues to be a featured act in NXT and a reason why I don’t watch the full show. What can I say, I try not to watch known sex perverts.

It might be impossible to get rid of all the sex perverts in the wrestling business. At least the #SpeakingOut Movement got rid of a good chunk of them.

1. COVID-19

Pro wrestling as a whole seemed to be in a good place heading into 2020. WWE was doing their thing. AEW was solidifying itself as a competitor on some level with widespread availability. New Japan was making noise about expanding their reach. Perhaps more importantly than all that, the independent wrestling scene was looking very healthy. Multiple feds were getting buzz. It was easier to access various brands of pro wrestling than it ever had been. For the first time in a long time, being a talented independent wrestler could provide a solid living if you knew how to work it.

Then, a global pandemic happened. Everything shut down, including most of pro wrestling. Non-American talent have a tough time getting here now. Non-Japanese talent has a tough time getting to Japan. WWE & AEW took their shows into empty facilities. Impact followed course not too long after. Feds like CMLL & ROH would do so later on. GCW & some other indy feds would run some socially distanced events with varying levels of success, but the demand for tickets isn’t what it was 12 months ago. Mexico had tons of lucha promotions running shows, now they don’t. Rinse & repeat for other countries.

We can talk about WWE’s product this year. We can talk about what AEW’s been doing. There’s so much that hasn’t been able to happen this year due to the coronavirus. It’s a minor concern compared to the deaths and possible future health problems we’ll be facing, but since we’re talking about wrestling it’s what we’re addressing here. We can hope that people will be in the right place at the right time to capitalize once we get to a point where we can have large attendances for wrestling shows again.

The game changed in 2020. All we can hope is that it hasn’t changed for too long, because it’s a game that many of us are losing. Hopefully we can make it a win in 2021.