WWE/AEW: 5 best promos of 2019

Some of the best promos in wrestling were delivered by members of the WWE and AEW rosters in 2019. Here are some that stood out as the most memorable.

We all love the actual in-ring wrestling part of, well, wrestling, but wrestling (regardless of where you get it from, be it AEW, WWE or elsewhere) is at its best and most captivating when it highlights its characters with a good ole promo.

And the way these characters highlight themselves with a microphone in their hands not only helps sell marquee matches, but produces some stellar wrestling moments along the way. The year 2019 was no different.

The wrestling scope of the world saw several such moments take place before the year ran up. Now that 2019 is over and we have finally entered 2020, we can now look at 2019 in the bubble that it is and judge five of the best promos that came out of it.

Most of the best promos came out of WWE and AEW, so I’ll be focusing solely on those promotions, starting with the above one from All Elite Wrestling …

5. “Ooh! A little bit of the bubbly!”

Yes, yes, we’ve all seen this one as it has been meme’d to death ever since All Out, but between the jokes, I don’t think we ever appreciated just how great this promo was when it first aired in August.

First off, nevermind the fact that Chris Jericho is working entirely on his own here. No script, no bullet points other than to trash anything he sees while going through the back. Just 100% improv, which is impressive, but it’s also just another walk in the park for a verbal wordsmith like Chris Jericho.

What’s most interesting to me is that beneath the humor is a layer of bittersweetness that’s often overlooked. This man just became the first ever AEW World Heavyweight Champion. He doesn’t make his way backstage to a sea of claps. No one even offers to lift him up onto their shoulders in celebration.

Instead, he walks behind the curtain to groans and stunned silence.

All he wants is to be thanked. To be appreciated. To be congratulated. Does he even deserve it? The argument’s there. He did beat Hangman Page clean in the middle. Is he a little too brash in his approach? Sure, but despite being the King of the World, he winds up being the loneliness man in the world.

And Jericho hides his pain through verbal jabs against everyone in the roster. I always found that fascinating, beyond just the bubbly funniness (which Jericho was able to generate into some real bubbly, which is just as impressive in itself).

Also, let’s take a second to appreciate that Jericho screams “Scorpio Sky, you’ll never get a shot at this!” three months before Scorpio Sky got an AEW Championship shot against Jericho. Gotta love that foreshadowing.