NXT: Predicting the 2019 Year-End Award winners

Rhea Ripley WWE SmackDown
Rhea Ripley WWE SmackDown /
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Rivalry of the Year: Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano

If the voting were left to me, Shayna Baszler vs. Rhea Ripley would’ve comfortably won this award. In terms of narrative progression, nothing topped the story of Ripley coming from across the pond to confront the dominant NXT Women’s Champion.

Baszler had run through just about every female babyface available on the NXT roster before Ripley arrived, and booking Ripley as someone who was nonplussed by Baszler’s bullying tactics while slowly building her up as the one who could take the title from Baszler worked like a charm. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch that Baszler/Ripley match from a few weeks ago.

However, the Adam Cole/Johnny Gargano beef will probably score the win here since it produced three of the best matches in WWE history, let alone NXT’s.

Despite this feud being a backup plan after Tommaso Ciampa unexpectedly went down with a neck injury, Gargano and Cole – who never really interacted with one another in NXT prior to this – made chicken salad out of a chicken excrement situation.

Sure, the main crux of the feud — Cole claiming that Gargano was a lame imitation of him and Gargano, uh, saying the same — was pretty lame and some of the plot points – like Cole going to Gargano’s father’s pizzeria to sneak a picture of himself on the bulletin board – fell flat, but all of that didn’t matter once the matches started.

Once the bell rang, Cole and Gargano’s chemistry superseded any silly or hamfisted storyline decisions. The feud could’ve been better, but all fans will remember – at least the ones who will vote on this – are the fantastic matches that it produced.