Pro Wrestling: Best Of 2020 (Part 1)

In this edition of The Wrestling Estate roundtable, we discuss the best of 2020 in pro wrestling.

Who was the best tag team of 2020?

Chad Gelfand: Street Profits.

Steven Jackson: The North. Ethan Page and Josh Alexander held the Impact Tag Team Titles for the majority of 2020. They also had the best tag team matches of 2020. Their variety of opponents and dominance, combined with their awesome promos, set them apart from everyone else.

John Corrigan: Kenny Omega and “Hangman” Adam Page. Their nearly eight-month reign as AEW Tag Team Champions produced some great matches (the best being against The Young Bucks at AEW Revolution) and funny vignettes, all while keeping you on the edge of your seat wondering when either man would betray the other.

Neal Wagner: The Young Bucks have performed through injury and finally took the titles they deserve.

Jack Goodwillie: This is a tricky question because of the chunk of time some performers and promotions missed out on due to the pandemic, but that’s going to be a norm with a lot of these answers. It’s all about who, or in this case what team, is atop the tag team mountain when the dust settles on 2020. For tag teams, we can safely rule out main roster WWE in what may have been the most underwhelming year for WWE tag teams ever. AEW has built an awesome division for itself, no question about it. But I’m going to pull from an unlikely source: The North (Ethan Page and Josh Alexander) have been absolute fire since Impact Wrestling resumed this summer and have done more than enough in a limited time to take down this award. If you haven’t already, you need to check out The North vs. Motor City Machine Guns from the 7/21 episode of Impact.

Who was the best commentator of 2020?

Gelfand: Tony Schiavone.

Jackson: Kevin Kelly. The Western Voice of New Japan, Kevin Kelly is the greatest commentator of our time. Radiating the drama and physicality right through the screen, there is nobody currently wearing a headset that can touch his ability.

Corrigan: Chris Jericho. After stepping up during the shutdown episodes of Dynamite, Le Champion has seemingly found his retirement gig.

Wagner: Kevin Kelly. The man worked from home nonstop for NJPW to get the English content out. So glad that we still got that this year when New Japan could have given up.

Goodwillie: Tony Schiavone. Two years ago, or even as recently as last year, nobody ever would have thought we’d be mentioning Tony among the best wrestling commentators again, just because it’d been so long since we’ve seen him as a week-in, week-out fixture of a pro wrestling commentary team. Well, AEW made this possible. I like the dynamic between Tony, Jim Ross and Excalibur. Hell, I’ve been very public that Good ‘Ole JR is still a massive asset to the AEW booth. But make no mistake, Tony is the glue that holds the three of them together, and it’s a much better three-man dynamic than anything you’re going to see in WWE at the moment.

What was the best feud of 2020?

Gelfand: Sasha Banks vs. Bayley.

Jackson: GCW vs. 440H. When Rickey Shane Page won the GCW World Championship in February, it was a moment which changed GCW forever. RSP and his motley crew 44OH were a legitimate threat to everyone on the GCW roster, and throughout 2020, their rivalry with the GCW faithful harkened back to the wrestling of old. A feud which is still going on heading into 2021, I am excited to see how it will conclude.

Corrigan: TJ Crawford vs. Kasey Catal. This is quite possibly the best story that Synergy Pro Wrestling has told in its three-year history. The feud arose out of the Cruiserweight Crown tourney, and even though it was put on hold due to the pandemic and Catal’s illness, it reached its violent, historic and oh so satisfying conclusion at Black Friday.

Wagner: The Hangman/Omega slow burn was amazing just waiting for someone to turn only for them to finally face off for a world title shot.

Goodwillie: It’s not going to be popular, but Edge vs. Randy Orton is the best wrestling feud of 2020. It would have been Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, but past dealings between the two dating back to earlier stints on the main roster tarnished it just a bit. Granted, people are going to read this and say, “kind of like how Edge vs. Orton at WrestleMania tarnished their feud?” To that I say, it depends on whether or not you believe their WrestleMania match to be bad. I believe that match to have not been without flaw, but still solid as far as matches go. The rematch, dubbed “The Greatest Wrestling Match Ever?” Well, it wasn’t, but it was still pretty damn good.

However, these matches served as merely the outline for the feud. Both legends colored the feud in with some of the best promos of the year, and everything both men said made perfect sense from Edge’s motivations to return, to Orton’s reasons for him not to, to Orton’s ruthless attack on Beth Phoenix to Edge’s reasoning for wanting to show he could outwrestle Orton. That last point is sort of what made it so great. It was unorthodox in how it worked backwards to tell the story. Typically, violence crescendos up to the climax of a feud, but violence wise, Edge vs. Orton peaked at WrestleMania. It was an unlikely, unorthodox feud in an unorthodox year.

Who cut the best promos of 2020?

Gelfand: Jon Moxley.

Jackson: MJF. Maxwell Jacob Friedman’s mic skills are totally unique. His articulation is the stuff of legend. Nobody has touched MJF’s promos this year, and I expect that to be the case in years to come.

Corrigan: Eddie Kingston talked himself not only into a contract this year, but a world title shot in the main event of a pay-per-view. There’s a lot of comedy on Dynamite, but the grizzled veteran is the reality check. He’s gruff, unpredictable, unadulterated. He’s the edge the company has desperately needed. You believe every word that comes out of his mouth. It’s remarkable that Eddie Kingston was going to retire last year. Thankfully, he kept grinding and the industry is better off for it. Even before signing with AEW, he was spitting hot fire in the NWA and on the indie scene. Check out his airing of grievances from PROGRESS in February.

Wagner: The courtship of Jericho and MJF has been awesome. Such great chemistry together.

Goodwillie: There are a lot of great talkers in wrestling these days. Edge, Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, Paul Heyman, MJF, Kevin Owens, Cody and even the Shell of Jericho cut some of my favorite promos this year. However, my favorite promo of the year has to go to Pat McAfee. Everyone knows Pat to be a charismatic guy, but to cut the promo he cut on Adam Cole as a non-wrestler is something I don’t think anybody saw coming. Of course, we can’t really call him a non-wrestler anymore now, can we? One promo and one match was all it took to put the entire locker room on notice, and his follow-up promo ahead of War Games was phenomenal, too. It makes you forget this guy is a former NFL punter with a podcast and NOT a full-time professional wrestler.

What was the biggest wrestling story of 2020?

Gelfand: COVID-19’s impact on the industry.

Jackson: The #SpeakingOut movement really affected me as a lifelong wrestling fan. Combined with the pressures of COVID-19 and my personal life, I really didn’t want to have anything to do with wrestling. The repercussions following the #SpeakingOut movement have opened many people’s eyes to stuff going on behind the curtain. It changed my perception of wrestling and the performers within it, and what standards/protocols need to be met by all wrestling promoters everywhere.

Corrigan: The #SpeakingOut movement killed the careers of Joey Ryan, David Starr and many more, and even took down a promotion.

Wagner: NXT goes to Tuesdays for two weeks and has its biggest numbers to date, and yet we still have a Wednesday Night War it can’t win.

Goodwillie: There are two schools of thought here and I’m going to shed light on both. There’s inside the ring and outside the ring. Outside the ring, the biggest story without a doubt has been #SpeakingOut. The way it ended the careers of charlatan con-artists like Joey Ryan and David Starr was masterful, but more than that, these stories coming to light will make for a much stronger, united and safer professional wrestling industry. It’s not even an issue of the old way of doing things vs. the new way. Everybody should be made to feel safe every time they step foot into a new locker room and my only hope is that nobody is made to feel the way many of the women were made to feel ever again. Of course, for every Joey Ryan and David Starr, there is a Jim Cornette who had unpalatable, but totally legal details of his personal life revealed as a result of baseless accusations. It was a wild two weeks.

Then when you look at some of the in-ring stories that stood out, none hits home quite the way Edge’s return to the ring does. Modern medicine advancements aside, this is a man who overcame a career-ending diagnosis of cervical spinal stenosis almost a decade removed and did not miss a beat. People can say what they want about his match with Randy Orton at WrestleMania or the way he defended it after the fact, but the fact remains that this may have been the feel-good story of the year. Even though we kind of knew we’d be seeing Edge at the Royal Rumble that night, I had a tear in my eye watching him come out to Metalingus one more time, in the best shape of his life no less.