Match of the Year is one of the biggest talking points in the industry. The Daily DDT staff took a crack at picking their favorite matches of 2020.
2020 was a wild year for wrestling, to say the least. We have had innovative methods to deal with wrestling being more or less sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic. And while the jump to the majority of wrestling shows having minimal crowds, if any at all, has been a jarring shift for many, there have been some standout performances and booking from the workers in the industry throughout the year.
And if wrestling fans are going to do anything, it’s to pick their favorite match of the year. From the most followed review blogs to the intimate friend groups, it just wouldn’t be wrestling if we didn’t look back to see what matches made our jaws drop in pure joy for them.
So, join me, Chris, Samantha, Patches & Bruce as we share our personal picks for what were our match of the year.
Samantha’s Pick
MOTY: Hangman Page and Kenny Omega vs. Young Bucks, AEW Revolution
It was really hard to choose a match, but I kept coming back to this one. I love tag team wrestling. I was spoiled by the fantastic bouts with the Hardy Boyz, Edge & Christian, and the Dudley Boyz. This match was one of the best tag matches I’ve ever seen, maybe the best.
Page & Omega had just won the tag team titles on the Jericho Cruise. There was a huge riff between Page and the Bucks. Fans were questioning if Omega could trust his partner in their biggest match to date. Omega shook hands with his Elite brethren before the match got underway. Omega made Page let him start and when Page was tagged in, he went full force. The tension spilled over into the match quickly.
This match took place in front of a raucous sold-out crowd, who went nuts when Page was tagged in. A roaring “Cowboy S–t” chant followed the pop. When Matt extended his hand, Page greeted him by spitting in his face. Matt quickly began going after Hangman to the point that Omega tried to pull Matt off of him and was shoved into the turnbuckle. Nick got involved by this point and went after Page hard.
This match turned personal for all four by then. It was no longer just for the tag team titles. There were many memorable spots, including Page and Matt trading suplexes up the ramp, Page stopping the Indietaker by putting Nick through a table, and the Bucks paying tribute to former foes, the Motor City Machine Guns.
Of course, there were some false finishes. None bigger than Page using Omega’s One-Winged Angel on Matt. Nick broke it up and that incensed Page. The crowd was electric throughout the match, but this sent them over the edge. To pay Nick back, Page hit him with his patented buckshot lariat on the ramp. He immediately followed up with the same move to Matt, pinning him to retain the tag team titles.
After the match, Omega wanted to shake hands with the Bucks. Page left the ring and motioned for Omega to join him. He sat on the ropes, waiting to see if his partner would join him. He eventually did and they walked up the ramp together, with Page stopping to drink a fan’s beer.
Page, Omega, and the Bucks more than delivered with the storytelling that led up to the feud and the story within the squared circle. This is a match that will stand the test of time.
Honorable Mention: Cody vs. Mr. Brodie Lee, Dog Collar Match, Dynamite
This match is a MOTY contender. There were so many great matches this year, but this one stands out. At the time, this was a fantastic match. Now knowing that it was Brodie Lee’s final match before his untimely death, it takes on a whole new meaning.
Five weeks prior, Lee surprised the wrestling world when he beat Cody for the TNT Championship. Lee challenged him to a dog collar match, the first one in AEW history. The match had a big fight feel, especially with Greg “The Hammer” Valentine in the crowd (this match took place in a socially distant crowd and Valentine was alone in a sea of empty seats). Valentine is synonymous with dog collar matches and having him there was important.
The Nightmare Family accompanied the challenger to the ring, while “The Exalted One” was flanked by John Silver and Anna Jay. Silver attached the collar to Lee’s neck and was a constant presence early on. Cody attacked Silver twice (once by hitting him with the chain & knocking him from the turnbuckle and later putting him through a chair). Lee made Silver leave.
As with all dog collar matches, this one was particularly brutal. Cody was on top of the turnbuckle when Lee yanked him down. He also hit a DDT on Cody on the chain. By this point, Cody was bleeding and Lee grated the chain across his forehead and eyes. To add insult to injury, Lee gouged the laceration.
Cody gets some revenge by yanking the chain between Lee’s legs before dropping him with a Russian Leg Sweep. The match escalated when Cody pulled Lee down into the apron before hitting him with a tope suicida as soon as Lee was on the outside. Cody was on the crowd side of the barricade when Lee decided to pull the chain to make Cody slam into the barricade. He followed that up by yanking Cody over said barricade and made him crash to the ground.
A frustrated champion grabbed the time keeper’s table and placed it next to the ring. Before he could put him through the table, Lee found himself on the receiving end of a Cody Cutter on the outside. The pair dueled inside the ring for a bit before Lee went up top. That ended up being a mistake as “The American Nightmare” kicked him down to the apron before nailing a package piledriver onto the table.
The match got more and more intense and more aggressive the longer it went. Both men used the chain to their advantage, but never quite sealing the deal. Cody reversed a discus lariat, which caused both men to get caught in the chain. Cody wrapped the chain around Brodie’s face before hitting the Crossrhodes for the win and to become the TNT Champion.
Even knowing the result, I found myself mad about Lee losing all over again. I suspect I was more mad that it was his final match and he doesn’t get anymore title reigns. In his short seven months with AEW, Mr. Brodie Lee made a hell of an impression. This match would have always been looked back on as one of the best in Dynamite history. Knowing it was his last match ever makes it one of the most special.
Bruce Lee Haywood’s Pick
MOTY: Roman Reigns Vs Jey Uso, WWE Clash Of Champions
Determining Match of the Year is a very subjective undertaking, regardless of one’s attempts at being objective. Art is interpreted differently by everyone, after all. In choosing MOTY, it is important to ask exactly what it is you look for in a match.
If you’re about old-school, technical, no-nonsense wrestling, then you’d probably select something from the Ring of Honor Pure Championship Tournament or a Timothy Thatcher match. If you’re about having the two best meet each other, you might select Adam Page & Kenny Omega vs. The Young Bucks from Revolution. If you’re all about high spots and fast action, maybe something like The Young Bucks vs. Top Flight or something from 205 Live (hi Dina!).
For me, I like a combo of macro and micro storytelling, above-average action, and really above all else, emotional investment. This is why my choice for Match of the Year is Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso I at Clash of Champions.
The macro storytelling leading up to the match was truly engaging. Reigns, after returning with Paul Heyman in tow, used his newfound persona as the “Tribal Chief” to impart upon his cousin, his family, that Uso needs Reigns, that Uso will never be Reigns. As a viewer, I wanted nothing more than for Uso to kick Reigns’ head off, an unlikely outcome indeed.
The micro storytelling during the match was superb. Every bit of fight from Uso, every taunt from Reigns, the finish: it all added up to one of the more gripping matches I can remember WWE having in some time. As we’ve seen in the months after, including their awesome Hell in a Cell match, their Clash of Champions match was just a taste of the greatness that has carried Smackdown.
Honorable Mention: Pretty much anything involving Trish Adora.
Patches Chance’s Pick
MOTY: Sasha Banks Vs Bayley, Hell In A Cell
Despite one of the most unorthodox and unpredictable years in wrestling history, for good reason, Sasha Banks and Bayley have remained two of the most consistent performers in 2020. While many, myself included, had hoped to see the implosion of The Boss ‘n’ Hug Connection or The Golden Role Models come to fruition in the build to a moment like Sasha Banks headlining SummerSlam in Boston, that isn’t how 2020 worked out.
However, The Boss and The Role Model didn’t allow their unconventional environment to hold back a heartbreaking turn as Bayley turned on Sasha Banks and finally sent their team spiraling. After being one of the most refreshing heel pairings all year and continuously delivering must-see moments whether they were on Raw, NXT, or SmackDown, things finally broke down after they’d lost the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles and were in the build to WWE Hell in a Cell.
Finally, the stage was set for the most anticipated NXT rematch of all time. While we’d seen Sasha Banks and Bayley square off in singles action a few times on WWE Raw or SmackDown over the last few years, including a quick match that ended in disqualification a few weeks before WWE Hell in a Cell, this was the first true pay-per-view collision on the main roster from the pair that arguably gave us the greatest NXT match of all-time at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn in 2015.
By the time the bell rang, they’d already been laying seeds for years and even more so in the months, they spent as WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions during 2020. Once the true main event of WWE Hell in a Cell 2020 was underway, we saw Banks and Bayley pull out all the stops and deliver one of the most captivating and unique Hell in a Cell match in recent memory.
From start to finish, there were little callbacks to moments in their storied rivalry and even the clash at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn half a decade ago. They kept finding creative ways to utilize weapons that we’d never seen before, but they also made each glimpse of brutality hit harder thanks to the nuances of their own performances.
When the dust settled, Sasha Banks took the very chair Bayley had used to turn on her and made it part of the Banks Statement that forced Bayley to tap out and lose the SmackDown Women’s Championship she’d held for a record-shattering 380 days. Bayley had spray-painted “1-0” on the chair as a pre-emptive measure to indicate she’d be “1-0” inside Hell in a Cell when the night was over.
In those final moments, the chair had been turned and instead read “0-1” as Bayley gave up and failed to defeat “The Boss” Sasha Banks. It was the icing on top of my Match of the Year, and surely one of the best Hell in a Cell match we’ve seen in the last decade.
Honorable Mentions: Dark Sheik Vs Still Life With Apricots & Pears, Effy’s Big Gay Brunch
Even in a year like 2020, it can be difficult for things to break through the pack and garner a Match of the Year status. There wasn’t nearly as much independent wrestling as we normally see in a full year, thanks to the ongoing global pandemic, but GCW’s The Collective found a way to come to fruition months after it was initially scheduled.
One of that weekend’s most highly anticipated events was EFFY’s Big Gay Brunch, which looked to put the spotlight on LGBTQ+ talent in a way that professional wrestling rarely does. Flipping the script on an industry that can often just toss in a token queer wrestler to appease others, EFFY’s Big Gay Brunch was all about the queer talent from the top to the bottom of the card.
The night’s main event saw AEW’s own Sonny Kiss take on wrestling legend Cassandro in an instant classic where you could barely believe Cassandro was every bit of 50 years old. There were several other great moments, but the match that ultimately stole the show and gets a much-deserving Honorable Mention for 2020 Match of the Year happened when Dark Sheik took on Still Life With Apricots and Pears.
The tone of the moment was set from the second Still Life entered the arena and a fan could be seen behind them holding a non-binary flag which Still Life acknowledged during her entrance. Still, Life was pitted against a true trailblazer in this industry in Dark Sheik, and these two queer pioneers were ready to tear the house down.
On top of all of the obvious signs that came with the match due to their careers, what Dark Sheik meant to Still Life in their career, this was also two technical masters putting on an absolute clinic. Whether you were one of the few who got to attend in the socially-distanced crowd or watching from home, you could feel the history being made which almost faded into the background behind the pure wrestling match they put together that more than earns an Honorable Mention for 2020 Match of the Year.
Chris Jeter’s Pick
MOTY- Finn Balor vs. Kyle O’Reilly, NXT TakeOver 31:
WWE gives fans (at least the ones who don’t have a tattoo with the company’s name across their chest) plenty of things to criticize them for, be it their unethical business practices or their quotidian struggles to present a compelling television product across their many hours of content.
One of the main gripes about their on-screen presentation rests with the homogenized wrestling format that most of the roster members adhere to. Yes, the collection of top-level talent makes the monotonous format easier to digest, but restricting most of the wrestlers to this rigid “babyface shine-heel heat-comeback” format is a disservice to their in-ring abilities and the art form of the genre as a simulated sport.
NXT, in many ways, purports to be the “alternative” to this repetition; a Sprite to the main roster’s flat Coca-Cola of a product, and nothing better exemplified that than Kyle O’Reilly and Finn Balor’s main event tussle over the NXT Championship at NXT TakeOver 31.
Unlike most matches in WWE, this match felt more like an exhibition of the respective in-ring styles that make O’Reilly and Balor come across as the stars many people believe them to be — Balor’s tactical aggression and O’Reilly’s pristine mat acumen — as opposed to them hitting notable moves while following the same old script (much of that could be attributed to neither occupying traditional babyface nor heel roles going in, though this match firmly established O’Reilly as a clear protagonist by the end).
Watching this match, you got the sense that there were two elite athletes that had strong plan A’s going in (both men worked over the other’s arm to start; O’Reilly to set up his armbar, Balor to inhibit O’Reilly’s offense) and possessed the cunning to move to a secondary course of action if a new opening presented itself (like when Balor targeted O’Reilly’s midsection halfway through the contest) and that vibe carried through until Balor finished the proceedings with a Coup de Grace and a clean pin.
The boom we’ve seen in indy promotions and other companies over the last few years has shown that wrestling doesn’t need to be presented one way in order to be successful and O’Reilly vs. Balor further proved that to be true, even in a company as uniform as WWE.
Honorable Mention- Tetsuya Naito vs. Kazuchika Okada, Wrestle Kingdom 14:
The baseball line score showing two runs being scored in the bottom of the ninth that adorns Tetsuya Naito’s video wall wasn’t just representative of The Ungovernable One’s love for baseball or his chance to leave Wrestle Kingdom 14 with the IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental Championships. It also represented what was potentially his final chance to claim the moment he and his many fans have clamored for since his return to New Japan in 2015. And all he had to do to get it was out-wrestle arguably the greatest wrestler of this generation.
This match with Kazuchika Okada basically equaled their efforts from two years prior at Wrestle Kingdom 12, but the added stakes of both titles hanging in the balance and this being possibly Naito’s last go-round in the main event picture (he was 37 at the time and quite banged up physically) made the already pulse-pounding near falls even more cardiac arrest-inducing, including a tremendous near-count out spot after Okada worked over Naito’s injured knee outside the ring at around the 20-minute mark.
The two wisely built this match around Naito fighting underneath early and often, with Okada having an answer for everything Naito tried (the announcers hammered home the point that Naito showed more trepidation than Okada when going for offense), but, eventually, the action picked up and we got the back-and-forth drama that fans come to expect from New Japan main events. This time, however, Naito would come through with the ultimate walkoff win, hitting the Stardust Press (a great callback to WK 12) before finishing the heavyweight champ with Destino for the historic pinfall. Tremendous stuff.
Maria Fanning’s Pick
MOTY: The Pure Tournament, Ring Of Honor
Alright, it’s not technically a match. But for a self-contained event that breathed new life into a declining major promotion, Ring of Honor could not have asked for a better opportunity than the revival of the Pure Title. And more exactly, the Pure Tournament to crown its revitalized champion.
Tournament arcs in wrestling often feel thrown together for a hastily, unearned sense of tension and build to a title match. The Pure Tournament solves this by having a well-produced and edited pre-match interview with each wrestler before the respective two wrestler’s round. When you watch these interviews, you immediately are filled in with the character’s motivation going in and how they plan to achieve that through their skill and technique.
This brings me to the true highlight: Pure Rules allow a new (or rather, resurrection) of storytelling in wrestling. Through the use of limiting normalized rules in wrestling, it’s as if you are brought into a new world of wrestling. The usage of strategy within each match, the building tension of each rope break out of the wrestlers allotted three being used up and the impact that a punch can truly hold when the performers are given a “one-per match” limit to it. By limiting and refining rules, they expand the versatility of what can be done in the ring.
And what it also unveiled was talent, both known and unknown, on a stage truly fitting for their skill. Tony Deppen, who’s chaotic style in-ring earned him a meteoric rise through ROH. Fred Yehi, who went over the established veteran Silas Young in the first round. And that’s not even saying how it reinvigorated current ROH roster members such as Josh Woods.
But what this event will ultimately and justifiably be remembered for is the beginning of Jonathan Gresham’s Pure Wrestling crusade. Fighting through each round with determination and obedience to the Pure Rules, Gresham ended the tournament with two things: The Pure Wrestling Title. And the forming of his own faction in The Foundation. Cutting a blistering promo about how Rush had not upheld was Ring of Honor “stood for”, Jonathan Gresham made clear what this tournament represented.
It represented the ROH would not be what it became anymore. It would take what made it amazing in the past but also the learning of the present in going towards the future. A resurrection of not only the Pure Title. But of the spirit of Ring of Honor itself.
A fine match can breathe new life into a career. A fine show can breathe new life into fans of the show. But it takes something truly special to breathe new life into a promotion itself.
And the Pure Tournament did just that.
Honorable Mention: Calvin Tankman Vs O’Shay Edwards, For The Culture:
Big men often get a bad rep as “slow” and “uninteresting” performers in pro wrestling. Those people don’t know jack, otherwise, there wouldn’t have been a match like Calvin Tankman Vs O’Shay Edwards that showcased just what big wrestlers can do.
Taking place at easily the best show of The Collective, For The Culture, this bout brought it for its short runtime, making use of each second within. While it would be easy to see Tankman and O’Shay as both powerhouses. And there is no denying they are both phenomenal in that role. But when you put two hybrids of different varieties in the air-defying Calvin Tankman and the stiff striker O’Shay Edwards, you just see how so much can be done with so little time.
If I had to use a single word to describe this match and how it made me feel, it would be “invigorating”. From the high-intensity selling such as the goliath O’Shay Edwards flinging himself across the ring after a pounce. Chop exchanges from both men that would make even WALTER wince. Or the never-gets-old aerial ability of Tankman being nearly matched by the even more surprising agility of O’Shay, that match grabbed your attention for the ten minutes it occurred and makes you wish it went on an hour more.