My NXT Year End Award Picks

Tag Team Of The Year

Undisputed Era
War Raiders
Street Profits
Heavy Machinery
Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch
Moustache Mountain

Did we really need the Street Profits on there? Moustache Mountain had a great match in England and a really solid rematch in the States, but it wasn’t enough to make them the team of the year. Lorcan and Burch had a heck of a run but the lack of titles and longevity hold them back. Heavy Machinery is the same, though they were a lot of fun that I wasn’t expecting.

That leaves the War Raiders and the Undisputed Era, which is really just the case because I need two teams here. This is the Undisputed Era’s win by a mile, as they’ve dominated the Tag Team Title scene from the beginning of the year to this day in an absolute landslide. Maybe War Raiders will get there one day, but there’s no competition in this one and I think everyone knows it.

TakeOver Of The Year

Philadelphia
New Orleans
Chicago II
Brooklyn IV
WarGames II

Talk about a pick em. As usual there isn’t a bad one in the bunch but I’ll keep this a little more simple and go with New Orleans. Maybe it was me being in the arena for the show, but this was an incredible night with an amazing opener and an even better main event. I’ll go with this one, but holy flaming corndogs this could go to any of the options and I’m not going to try to point out flaws that don’t exist.

Match Of The Year

WarGames Match (TakeOver: WarGames)
Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas (NXT Championship Match, TakeOver: Philadelphia)
Moustache Mountain vs. Undisputed ERA (NXT Tag Team Championship Match, NXT TV, July 11, 2018)
Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa (Unsanctioned Match, TakeOver: New Orleans)
NXT North American Championship Ladder Match (TakeOver: New Orleans)
Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler (NXT Women’s Championship Match, TakeOver: Brooklyn IV)
Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream (TakeOver: Chicago)
Aleister Black vs. Tommaso Ciampa (NXT Championship Match, NXT TV, July 25)
Pete Dunne vs. Zack Gibson (WWE U.K. Championship Match, NXT TV, Aug. 22)
Aleister Black vs. Adam Cole (Extreme Rules Match, TakeOver: Philadelphia)
Pete Dunne vs. Kyle O’Reilly (WWE U.K. Championship Match, NXT TV, June 13)
Danny Burch & Oney Lorcan vs. Undisputed ERA (TakeOver: Chicago)
Nikki Cross vs. Bianca Belair (NXT TV, Sept. 12)
Ricochet vs. Pete Dunne (North American Champion vs. WWE U.K. Champion Match, NXT TV, Sept. 19)
Ricochet vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole (North American Championship Triple Threat Match, NXT TV, Oct. 10)

Well that’s quite the list and I’m not going to bother to try and break these things down. Instead I’ll go with the best options, which for me would be Gargano vs. Almas, Gargano vs. Ciampa I, the New Orleans ladder match and Black vs. Ciampa. The others are all great, but you can only have so many options here and you have to go with the best of the best for something like this.

Out of the shortened list, I have to go with Ciampa vs. Gargano from New Orleans. It had the build, it had the interest, it had the hype and it more than delivered in the top spot on the card. The ladder match was an incredible spot fest (a good thing in this case), Gargano vs. Almas was an incredible wrestling spectacle and Black vs. Ciampa was some incredible storytelling (though not as good as Black vs. Gargano in the cage, which should be on the list as well). Gargano vs. Ciampa was the story of the year though and for me, they never topped their first match.

Rivalry Of The Year

Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa
Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler
Aleister Black/Johnny Gargano/Tommaso Ciampa/Nikki Cross
Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas
Moustache Mountain vs. Undisputed ERA
Ember Moon vs. Shayna Baszler
Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream

….are they kidding? Moving on.

Continued on next page.

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