#jey in the same position both times but being treated so oppositely

[preciouspatriots]

immediately recognized this juxtaposition and haven’t known peace since

[cousinmarcustalkswrestling]

The Five WWE MVPs of 2020

5

Asuka

It feels like WWE views Asuka as a skilled utility player instead of one of the elite talents in their company. There’s a level where that’s disrespectful and indicative of their problems, but also with a company this size it’s not the worst idea to have an elite talent bounce around different positions. No matter what was going on, Asuka approached her role with the same quirky intensity and she was a joy to watch throughout the year. She gave Becky Lynch two great matches to further legitimize her year long title reign, then had one of the best moments of the year when Becky announced her pregnancy and relinquished the title to her. She became the main opposition to the Golden Role Models in the summertime and had great matches with both Bayley and Sasha. She even gave a lot to a motivated Zelina Vega in their Clash of Champions match. Very few people are ready for Asuka.

4 

Drew McIntyre

Talk about bad timing. Imagine the biggest moment of your professional career happening at the biggest show of the year without any fans there. McIntyre had probably the biggest starmaking moment of the year when he eliminated Brock at the Royal Rumble. But instead of the epic showdown they should’ve had at Raymond James Stadium, they had a 4 minute finisher fest in front of no fans. Ay it is what it is. But even with the up and down quality of Raw throughout the year, not an iota of blame can be placed on Drew. His charisma and strong talking was on display nearly every week and he never really had a misstep the entire year. He had a great match against Seth Rollins at Money in the Bank and an underappreciated brawl against Bobby Lashley at Backlash. His Orton feud suffered from Orton problems and a stupid title switch, but their Ambulance match was great. His epic clash against Roman Reigns was one of the best matches of the year and he ended the year with a great TLC match against AJ Styles. Great job, Drew!

3

Bayley

DING DONG!! WHAT A YEAR!! Bayley really didn’t have a lot of quality opposition for her Smackdown title all year. Lacey Evans just isn’t at that level and booking didn’t put enough effort behind her feuds with Naomi and Nikki Cross. But it didn’t matter because Bayley (with Sasha) was a one woman army of entertainment this year. She was brash, enthusiastic, and almost maniacal in her heeldom. Honestly, she didn’t even need a murderers row of talent and great matches to get her over, just put a microphone in front of her and let her go. Once her and Sasha won the tag titles, they were given free reign to go to all three shows and they were the clear highlight of the company in the Summer. Her match against Asuka on the July 5 Raw is one of the best TV matches of the year and shows how refined her heel game has become in contrast to her being one of the best pure babyfaces in history. Her attack on Sasha added a brutal edge to her character and it resulted in two of the best matches of the year. Her booking post Sasha has been a little so-so, but she’s begun a fun feud with Bianca Belair to carry over into the new year. Great job, Bayley!

2

Roman Reigns

Forget everything that happened before Summerslam. He was in a terrible feud with Corbin and then he was set to face fucking Goldberg at Wrestlemania before he went on his COVID vacation. He returned at Summerslam looking super jacked and super mean. On the Smackdown between Summerslam and Payback, Roman revealed his partnership with Paul Heyman and I knew we would be getting something special from there. Roman’s cousin, Jey Uso, becoming #1 Contender for the Universal Title unleashed the Tribal Chief and he’s been a blast to watch ever since that moment. He’s a brutal dictator driven by the survival of his family which is completely dependent on his success and his reign as Universal Champion. He and Jey had two of the best matches of the year that were driven by Roman’s determination in Jey acknowledging him as the Tribal Chief of the family.

Roman really deserved this character. For the years and years that he was treated with inexplicable scorn from “fans”, he deserved to have a character arc that is treated with tremendous care and precision. Every segment involving him shows perfect characterization in how he reacts to whats going on in his world like members of Jey Uso’s survivor series team not respecting him or Kevin Owens having the unmitigated gall to have no fear in challenging him. In the ring, Roman is a brilliant blend of the vicious Shield Roman and the more dynamic Big Dog Roman. He’s brutal and mawling, but he’s still a tremendous seller and never looks unstoppable. His interpromotional match against Drew McIntyre was one of the best matches of the year and just a great display of two great modern talents locking horns and his TLC match against Kevin Owens is one of the best one on one TLC matches we’ve seen. He’s on the run of his career and we should be grateful. I acknowledge you, Roman, I acknowledge you.

1

Sasha Banks

The year started very weird for Ms. Banks. She didn’t participate in the Women’s Royal Rumble and she was absent from the Elimination Chamber card. She was just kinda floating along being Bayley’s primary support until it felt like creative actually flipped the switch and decided to A) give them more time to be the hilarious obnoxious tag team of the year and B) subtly show Sasha constantly saving and sacrificing for the team to build to an inevitable break up and feud. This rub really breathed life back into Sasha’s career which wasn’t dead at all, but was too stagnant for a talent of her caliber. They captured the tag team titles and spread their ridiculous heel joy all over the company, even returning to NXT where Sasha showed some instant electric chemistry with a future star in Shotzi Blackheart.

 The moment everything changed was the Monday Night Raw where Sasha issued a challenge….to Raw Women’s Champion Asuka. It instantly became one of the most highly anticipated matches of the year and it was Sasha’s first solo PPV match of the year. On the way to that, she returned to NXT and had a banger with the NXT’s top dog Io Shirai. They main evented that night and to date is one of only nine nights where NXT defeated AEW in total viewers. Despite the terribly booked finish, her Extreme Rules match against Asuka was one of the E’s best straight up wrestling matches of the year and ended with her as Two Belt Bankz. Her world came crashing down as she was once again unable to successfully defend the title and lost it right back to Asuka. The Golden Role Models also lost the women’s tag titles and after an unsuccessful rematch, it finally happened; Bayley snapped and assaulted her best friend, attempting to break her neck and end her career.

 Their split instantly made Sasha the biggest babyface in the company and everything from that point seemed like good old fashioned catharsis from being held back and misused through the years. She ended Bayley’s year plus reign as Smackdown Women’s Champion in one of the best Hell in a Cell matches in history. For the first time in her main roster career, she successfully defended her title and defeated Bayley in one of the best TV matches of the year. At Survivor Series, she finally cleanly defeated Asuka in a great champion vs champion match and she ended the year by having Carmella’s best match ever at TLC. This final quarter of the year was just all around tremendous for her as she had classic matches, exorcised some of her booking demons, displayed her aptitude for making anybody look great in the ring and even outside of the subjective realm of wrestling, becoming one of the primary reasons for Smackdown’s ratings surge and arguably the face of the company. This was the year of the boss, where the E finally realized the star that they had and put the power of the machine behind her. The sky is truly the limit.