Best Of 2020: Feud Of The Year
This is another one of the more important ones as you need a good feud to make people care about what they are going to be seeing. If you can find a hot rivalry, it can carry the entire promotion on its back, which is one of the more important as well as difficult things to do. There were some good ones to pick from in 2020 so let’s get to it.
As usual, in no order until the winner at the end.
Kenny Omega vs. Hangman Page
This is a rather simple concept turned up to eleven, which is where AEW can shine. They were partners, then Page started going nuts with paranoia over not being elite and they dropped the Tag Team Titles. Page lost to Omega in the finals of the #1 contenders tournament, but it seems that this is going to be revisited later. This was all about the deep storytelling and drama between the two of them, which made for some great moments week to week between the two of them.
Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso
I had to decide between this one or Reigns vs. Owens, because Reigns was good enough to be on the list twice. There was one difference though: the Owens feud was always going to be good because you know what Owens can do. This was Jey Uso having a crazy good pair of World Title matches on pay per view. Just the surprise of seeing something like that made the feud that much better and it’s enough to get the win here.
Eddie Kingston vs. Jon Moxley
This one was built almost entirely on the promos but then the match was good enough to carry its own weight. There wasn’t a ton of drama about Kingston becoming champion, but that is not always a bad thing. It was about the journey instead of the conclusion, and Kingston’s promo work was among the best, if not the very best, of the year. Moxley did his thing too, but this was the Kingston show.
Randy Orton vs. Edge
This is another one where I had to pick one over the other, as Drew McIntyre and Orton had a rather long feud of their own. I liked this one better than, if nothing else because it didn’t drag on as long. Throw in that I was one of the few who liked the Last Man Standing match and it was a heck of a way to bring Edge back. Granted I hope they don’t relaunch it again when he is healed up, but it worked out well here.
Team McAfee vs. Undisputed Era
Earlier on I said that you were going to see McAfee’s name in this a lot and that is going to be the case here again. What was originally going to be Ridge Holland turned into Pete Dunne (at least that seems to be the case) and Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch with McAfee as the mouthpiece against the best faction NXT has ever seen. They had a great singles match and then a great WarGames match with the promos being even better. It came and went in a hurry, but what we got was great.
However, there was one thing that was built up and then paid off very well too.
Bayley vs. Sasha Banks
These two have been joined at the hip for years and that is likely going to be the case for a very long time to come. They spent most of the year as friends, dominated the title scene, and then Bayley turned on her before Banks could do it, which is a rather brilliant way to go. The matches were very good but the story was better, because the history was there. That’s what makes a great feud exceptional, and that’s what they did here.
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