Author: thestrongstylesmarks

It’s December! Christmas is fast approaching and it’s almost time to buy a new calendar, so you know what that means. It’s time to summarise the year! IN LIST FORM!

Truth be told, I had originally planned for this list to encompass all non-WWE wrestling, but as much as I love New Japan, I just never bothered to watch any of their major shows this year, and nothing else from the western wrestling world struck my fancy. So an AEW-dedicated list it is!

With almost two years as an entity in the wrestling world, AEW has shown that the modern wrestling landscape is more than ready to welcome a WWE alternative with open arms, and they have produced some incredible shows this year. So many incredible shows, in fact, that I couldn’t narrow this list down to the standard ten entries, so here are my twelve favourite matches that happened in an AEW ring in 2020!

11 – Jon Moxley(c) vs Eddie Kingston – Full Gear
(AEW World Championship)
(I Quit)

At Full Gear 2019, Moxley & Omega had a hardcore match that divided opinion across the fanbase. While I enjoyed the match, I can see the argument that it felt a lot like uber-violence just for the sake of uber-violence, and the story didn’t necessarily warrant it. So, at Full Gear 2020, Moxley featured in another hardcore match, but this time, the uber-violence was all part of the story, and it made things so much better.

The sense of desperation that came from Eddie Kingston’s character going into this match manifested itself in his actions. Almost every weapon was brought into the match by Kingston and I could really feel the vicious impact behind each strike. The way Kingston cringed in pain as he wrapped the barbed wire around his own hand showed how dark of a place he’d gone to, and how he was willing to give up sacrifice just about anything to put Moxley away.

Moxley meanwhile gave it his all and met everything Kingston hit him with by hitting him right back. The story emphasised the past relationship between the two men, and Moxley’s performance definitely brought that to the forefront. What I like is that, despite clearly caring for Kingston, he didn’t hold himself back, he still got dirty and hurt Kingston as much as he could, because beating him this badly would be the only way to get him to stop.

There’s so much in that final image of Moxley choking Kingston out with his arm wrapped in barbed wire. It was violence for the sake of the story, which will always be better than violence for the sake of violence.

10 – The Elite & Matt Hardy vs The Inner Circle – Double or Nothing
(Stadium Stampede)

At Wrestlemania, WWE put their cards on the table and laid claim to being really good at the pre-recorded segments. I’ll talk about those segments in a couple of weeks, but after that show, all eyes were on AEW to see what they could come up with in response. While I prefer WWE’s matches to this one, it’s still bloody brilliant to watch.

Thanks to the sheer volume of people involved in the match, this ended up being extremely well-paced. They gave themselves a whole stadium to play with and then sent the characters out into it to do just about anything they can think of. We got a comical charge across the field to start the action, and some stuff in the world’s most pointless ring, but the real fun stuff was once the gang split up to look for clues.

I know the meme was of Sammy Guevara getting chased by a golf-cart, but I think that pales in comparison to Hangman Page charging across the football field on horseback to hunt Sammy down. That particular thread led us to the brawl in the bar, which had some surprisingly impressive action with Omega kicking the shit out of everyone in sight. Elsewhere in the arena, Matt Hardy was being his brilliantly comedic self while fending off Santana & Ortiz. Seeing Matt transform into all of his different gimmicks mid-match is one of those moments that just has to happen in a comedy match like this one.

The whole final segment down on the field was jam-packed with brilliance too. The Young Bucks doing dives off of every tall thing they can find is always a spectacle, along with the world longest Northern-Lights suplex segment across the entire field. Then we get stuff like Jericho challenging the referee’s call and you’re left with something you just can’t help but laugh at. Yes, the goofiness might be a bit much in some places, but it’s ok because the match never tried to take itself seriously. It may not be anything world-breaking, but it’s endlessly rewatchable and untouchably entertaining.

9 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Adam Page(c) vs FTR – All Out
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

One of the main mission statements of AEW has been about making tag team wrestling the main-event level attraction we all know it could be. Throughout 2019, we didn’t see much of that, but in 2020, AEW’s tag division blew me away every single month. Trust me, we’ll be seeing both of these teams again later on the list.

This match was able to tell two main stories. One, Omega & Page are falling apart as a duo, and two, FTR is a solid unit who can divide and conquer better than anyone else. What I think made this story so special is how well Omega & Page were able to show their broken bond in the match. It wasn’t just through violent tags or ‘miscommunications’, although there was some of that, it actually felt like they were wrestling as two individuals rather than a team. We’d already seen the two of them wrestle as a near-flawless team earlier in the year (more on that later) and here they very clearly changed their styles to show how little they were relying on each other as partners.

This made FTR the perfect team to rip them apart. Their classic wrestling style already works great for keeping teams apart from each other, but when they’re going up against a team who don’t trust each other already, it’s easy pickings. In reality, it leads to both Omega & Page fighting the match 2-on-1 because they never had each other’s backs, which made the line of FTR virtually impenetrable. They still produced some amazing action and came close to victory, purely by virtual of their relative skills as wrestlers, but the lack of cohesion eventually got the better of them and FTR walked away from the worthy victors.

It was a fun match to watch that also served as the closure on Act 1 of Omega & Page’s story.

8 – Jon Moxley(c) vs MJF – All Out
(AEW World Championship)

I’ll talk about it a bit more later on, but Moxley’s reign as champion has been one of the best parts of AEW this year. What’s interesting about that is the fact that only once have I ever actually believed he might lose it, which is this match here. MJF has been on the roll of all rolls in 2020. I think we all knew he was marked for stardom as soon as AEW was founded, but this was the year where we saw that he was absolutely up to the task of carrying a huge company like AEW. So, when he came to challenge for the title, I honestly thought we were about to see the coronation.

What’s great about this match is that it was able to make both men look vulnerable in places, but in ways that were always true to their character. MJF is the kind of heel that can take a beating and always have it roll right off his back with an arrogant promo, but here it felt almost as if he was controlling the action, which isn’t what you’d expect against Moxley. It’s simple tactics that are highly effective when executed well, in this case, it’s MJF understand who Moxley is as a wrestler and doing everything he can to exploit those weaknesses. It made MJF feel like a guy who could hang with the best of the best while setting out the story for Moxley to look all the better when he came out the victor.

Outside of the story, the action was incredibly compelling. Ever since Moxley has been allowed to spread his wings he seems to be able to create magic in the ring like never before, and it really makes you wonder how WWE management never saw this guy as a potential face of the company. MJF meanwhile impresses every time he comes out to the ring, not by doing anything new, but by working with what we already have and bringing them as close to perfection as he can.

This match achieved the primary goal of any feud in pro-wrestling, it told a compelling story, that led to a really good match and both men looked better coming out of it.

7 – PAC vs Orange Cassidy – Revolution

2020 is the year where everyone realised what a star Orange Cassidy could be. As such, I had to put one of his matches from this year on this list, and this was definitely the best. The grumpy ‘old-school’ critics can moan about the comedy all they want, but Cassidy is a future top-guy in AEW and there’s no denying him.

Orange Cassidy does comedy in pro-wrestling like never before. The idea of a wrestler simply not giving a shit about anything he does is something that I wouldn’t think would work at first thought, but Cassidy was the perfect man to bring it to life. His look is one of a chill guy who just hangs around at the beach every day or his life or something like that, and the way in which he can so easily put anyone down with just a few small actions is brilliant. What’s extra amazing about it is that it isn’t just limited to his promos, he’s able to inject this feeling into the match as well, and it just works, even against someone incredibly serious, like PAC.

PAC was sadly sidelined for most of the year thanks to COVID travel restrictions, but in the brief few months we got of him, he blew the roof off of AEW. He has an insane amount of intensity to him while still feeling somewhat self-aware of how ridiculous it can seem from time to time. He can bring a laugh here and there, while still talking with such an insane amount of venom in his voice that I feel a little scared when he talks. So how does this kind of character react to someone as ridiculous as Orange Cassidy? He sinks to Cassidy’s level, of course.

The sight of Cassidy and PAC gently tapping each other’s shins while the crowd reacts like they’re murdering each other is an utterly hilarious visual that encapsulates everything wonderfully revolutionary about Cassidy’s character. Then PAC puts the topper on it by sweeping Cassidy’s legs for real and the crowd shitting all over him for it. From there, Cassidy showed the other side to his character, the side that can wrestle like you wouldn’t believe and it created a match that, despite only being twelve minutes long, got me out of my seat and popping for almost every move.

6 – Kenny Omega vs Hangman Adam Page – Full Gear
(Winner becomes #1 contender for the AEW World Championship)

As I said in my Full Gear review, what makes this match so special, is how both men clearly understood this wasn’t the end of the story, it was the middle, so they put on a match that, while still amazing, didn’t quite tie up all the loose ends just yet.

The main story this match told is how well both men know each other in the ring. Page was able to slip out of almost everything Omega threw his way while trying some new stuff to catch Omega off guard. Page also put a lot of extra force behind a lot of his moves, which is the kind of small touch needed to add intensity to the encounter. Omega played a largely reactionary role in the match that slowly grew more and more proactive as it wore on and Page slowed down. Then, by the time the ending came and Omega got the win, you get the feeling that Omega’s experience is what won it for him. He’s wrestled matches over an hour-long with Okada and won it, while Page doesn’t have that kind of stamina. You can even see it as Omega has Page on his shoulders for the one-winged angels. Page is still trying to slip out of it, but just doesn’t quite have the power left in the tank.

Story aside, the action was brilliant. The pace was near-perfect and the back-and-forth style worked wonders for the story. With Omega being in the tag division for most of the year, it’s been easy to forget how brilliantly he can control himself in the ring to put together a match that flows so smoothly you just can’t look away. Page, meanwhile, continued to show how he improves every time he steps in the ring. He was already a top-level talent, however, singles matches like this let us see that he really is on the level of the best in the world like Omega, Moxley and even people like Styles or Bryan.

5 – Nyla Rose(c) vs Hikaru Shida – Double or Nothing
(AEW Women’s World Championship)
(No Holds Barred)

For many years I’ve been heavily biased against hardcore/weapons matches. This is because they tend to be slower and more reliant on the spectacle of the big spots, which is not the kind of wrestling I like to watch. However, over this year, my stance on this has softened significantly, and it’s matches like this that I have to thank for that.

What this match had that so many of my most hated weapons matches lack is substance in every single move. So often, especially in WWE, any move that doesn’t involve a weapon in these kinds of matches is utterly meaningless, and sometimes they don’t even bother doing any, but this match understood that just using the hardcore stuff wasn’t how a compelling story is told. Instead, it blended the two styles of matches nad made as tory out of the hardcore elements.

Most notably here is the kendo stick which came in and out of the match at several points but always made an impact when it did. The way the two women wrestled for control over the weapon early on, only to eventually throw it to one side until they needed it later was some brilliant ‘Chekov’s gun’ style storytelling that is done often in weapons matches, but never to this effect. The weapons spots were bridged with a lot of regular wrestling action, but everything had an extra sting of brutality to it. Shida did the impressive kind of technical moves but put a more hard-hitting edge onto them, this meant that the weapon spots felt more natural, and had purpose, rather than just happening to pop the crowd.

While the ‘toppling the giant’ story gets less effective every time Nyla is toppled, it worked perfectly here, because despite being the underdog, there was definitely the feeling that Shida was tough enough to pull it off. We see her strategy play out in the match for how to take Nyla down, and more importantly, we saw her adapt to when the situation stopped going her way. Storytelling like that is what makes a compelling champion. It’s just a shame AEW can’t seem to book their women’s division to save their lives.

4 – Cody Rhodes(c) vs Darby Allin – Full Gear
(TNT Championship)

This made some of Cody’s more questionable wins with the TNT title totally worth it.

Cody has such a wonderful grasp of what perspective his character should take in every story that I honestly think he’s one of the best storytellers in the business right now. When he’s facing a guy like Brodie Lee, he needs to be the pure-underdog babyface, when he’s facing a guy like Chris Jericho he needs to be the hungry challenger willing to put it all on the line, but when he’s facing a guy like Darby Allin, he needs to tell a very different story.

Cody’s character has always had an ego because, to be fair, he did found AEW and has held one of its major championships for almost the entirety of its current lifespan. It’s cost him big a few times, like when he allowed MJF into his inner circle (no pun intended) or fell out with Kenny over the Bullet Club, but this feud was where it manifested and clearly became his one true weakness that his opponents can exploit. Darby Allin is the eternal underdog, he always will be, not only because of his size but because his character is built around the idea of being an outcast who never conforms, who better to rally behind?

This is where the complexity AEW allows in its stories comes into play, because despite both being faces, Cody and Allin are about as close to diametrically opposed as you can get. One wear suits and run a business, the other lives on the streets and does what he wants, of course, we’re going to root for the free spirit over the corporate lifestyle, and AEW knew that and adapted their story to it. It’s the kind of three-dimensional character work that WWE so often forgets with their stories and you can see beneficial it was here.

Everything that happened in the match was in service of the story, Cody’s dominance and his growing cockiness. The moment where he started showboating only to be scolded by Arn Anderson was such a small, but powerful moment. Even the finish, which was a rollup, enhanced the story because it exploited Cody’s ego and caught him off-guard to lose the title. They’re clearly not going for the rematch straight away, but the door is open for it down the line, and I’m really excited to see what angle they take for the next chapter.

3 – Chris Jericho(c) vs Jon Moxley – Revolution
(AEW World Championship)

When Jericho won the title in 2019, I honestly thought we were going to see him hold onto it for a LONG time, it really seemed like AEW were putting all their eggs in the Jericho basket, so I genuinely wasn’t expecting Moxley to win this match, which I think goes a long way as to why I enjoyed it so much.

I’ve touched on it a bit already but Moxley has been absolutely incredible throughout 2020 as AEW Champion. Even now his reign has ended, his run with the title this year has been a huge factor of what has made AEW so entertaining to watch week to week and absolutely put all the naysayers following his WWE exit to shame. The way Moxley carried himself as champion along with the way he’s approached every single one of his feuds is such a massive part of what has made AEW feel like a true equal to WWE this year, and even superior in terms of consistent quality.

This match was where it all began, and looking at the rest of Moxley’s title run, it was the perfect way to start it. The AEW crowd were hot for Moxley from the moment he turned up and this match capitalized on it in the best way, the fact that the two men already had experience working together in WWE probably helped them put together such a compelling match, but whatever the reason, I loved it.

The action was a lot more hard-hitting that I’d expect from a Jericho match, but it worked so well with the intensity of the feud. Moxley’s eyepatch created a classic exploitable weak spot that paid off in a spot at the end of the match that was so corny, but utterly brilliant. The action was compelling from bell-to-bell and both men really felt like they were wrestling at their best, which elevated the story and made the belt feel like a huge deal. On top of that we had all the shenanigans with The Inner Circle around the ring, and probably the best ringside ejection I’ve ever seen.

For the first world title change in AEW history, it was built in such a way to feel like a landmark moment. They littered beats throughout the match to pop the crowd bigger and bigger until Moxley won the title in what was genuinely a wonderful surprise to me.

2 – FTR(c) vs The Young Bucks – Full Gear
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

One of the key mission statements since AEW’s announcements has been their desire to change the perception of tag team wrestling as a side attraction and turn it into the main event. If these top two matches are anything to go by, I think that the main event future for tag team wrestling is going to come about sooner rather than later.

Many were disappointed by the build to this match, and I can’t say I disagree with them, but it’s a scenario where all of that is completely erased by the fact that the match itself was incredible. It was so densely packed with story beats and homages to, not just tag team history as a whole, but both team’s specific history and yet it didn’t feel overbooked for a second.

FTR’s methods of divide & conquer were on full display here, and the Bucks played off it to perfection. It created this burning desperation as I watched to see the big tags get made, and I don’t just mean one big hot-tag, I mean EVERY tag, which is an almost unbelievable thing to accomplish. These teams have almost complete opposite philosophies when it comes to their tag team styles and yet they understood the perfect way to make it mesh. We got limb targetting, we got attacking the illegal man, we got everything both teams have done to make their careers so successful.

We also got a look into how each team views tag team wrestling as a whole with all of their homages. I’ve no idea if it was intensional, but I loved the touch of the Bucks using old moves from the greatest tag teams – the Dudley Death Drop, the Twist of Fate/Swanton combo – while FTR used old moves from their greatest rivals. I honestly don’t think I marked out harder at any point this year than when FTR did #DIY’s finisher, it blew me away.

It was the kind of match, where when it was said and done, I was virtually speechless, and even now, all I can think of to say in summary is that I want more.

1 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Page(c) vs The Young Bucks – Revolution
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

This was not only my favourite AEW match of the year, it was my favourite wrestling match of the year AND may very well be my favourite tag team match of all time, but I’m going to have to rewatch #DIY vs The Revival 2 out of 3 falls to know for sure.

I mean, what can I even say to describe the action in this match? I feel like no words I could produce could do it justice because it really was the best of the best. When you get four guys who have known each other for so long and have been so close as The Elite have and you put them all in the ring together, it’s pretty much a guarantee that they’re going to make magic, but I’m not sure even they expected to put on a match this good.

It understood exactly the story it was telling. Yes, they were friends competing against each other, but the storytelling up until that point had given us a few more layers of complexity. This is where Page started drinking heavily and having those slightly uncomfortable interviews, while the Bucks let their hunger for tag gold get the better of them and were being overly aggressive/confrontational to the champs. The match used all of those elements to create a story that didn’t take centre-stage for the match but instead used it to inform the real star of the show, which was the wrestling action.

The action itself was paced to perfection. It created that ideal graph of a perfectly smooth rising curve in excitement & intensity levels, and the crowd came with them every step away. In a year where the absence of crowds has detracted from many matches, this is one that benefitted from a live audience to it’s fullest. The ‘feeling out’ process lasted quite a while, but it was littered with a bunch of cool moments and speedy action. There was never a slow moment in this match and it helped create that feeling of desperation that both teams had to end it from the very beginning.

As always in tag matches, when things broke down and chaos began to reign is where things reached a fever-pitch unequalled by anything else I saw in wrestling this year. The action was fast and brutal, with every man in the perfect place at the perfect time to do the perfect move. It’s the holy grail of matches where everything just worked and that’s all there is to it. I could sit here listing off all the cool spots, but that wouldn’t do it justice and why would I when you can just go and watch it again right now?

I’ve always loved tag team wrestling, but a match like this feels like the true realisation of just how brilliant it can be and it gives us an all-time classic in the process.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what you thought were AEW’s best matches were in 2020, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time next week, where I’ll be running down my favourite old games that I played for the first time in 2020!