Adam Blampied’s Favourite Wrestling Matches Of 2020

7. Broserweights vs Undisputed Era – TakeOver Portland

And so ends the Kyle O’Reilly Does The Best Wrestling in 2020 trilogy. Well done Kyle. You get to take anything you want from the sweetie jar.

The match had Pete Dunne, Matt Riddle and Red f**king Dragon. Just so many excellent kicks. Frankly if this hadn’t been match of the night, the universe would have performed an illegal operation and would have been shut down.

At TakeOver Portland, Fish and O’Reilly defended their straps against Pete Dunne and Matt Riddle, the Broserweights, though I still contend that a tag team consisting of a stoner and a Brit should have been called High Society.

Dunne and Riddle surprised the wrestling world with their comedic chemistry, and their fluidity as a technically savage unit. However, what really makes the match sing is the persistent doubt that hung over the result.

A lot of people thought that Broserweights were only put together so they could break up and feud, and the match toys with that expectation brilliantly.

There are so many amazingly executed false finishes where the Broserweights accidentally collide and UE nearly puts them away over and over, it’s just a breathless chase to an explosive finish.

This match also proved to be something of a last hurrah for the NXT tag titles, which have for some reason, not been defended on TakeOver since.

A great shame, because tag team wrestling used to be one of NXT’s strongest assets, due in no small part to UE, possibly the greatest wrestling faction of all time?

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6. Jey Uso vs Roman Reigns – Clash of Champions

God bless heel Roman Reigns. For years fans have been begging for the Big Dog to turn, and at SummerSlam the unthinkable finally happened.

And we can all feel very pleased with ourselves because yup, heel Roman is going to be the biggest star in the whole industry. Told ya

No but seriously, Reigns is doing the work of his life right now, bringing unironic villainy and earnest emotion back to the forefront of mainstream wrestling.

We’ve had wrestling matches, cinematic matches, but Reigns seems to be mastering the cinematic wrestling match, a style of minimum graps, maximum feels that actually flourishes without fans.

Yes, this style of wrestling can feel very very scripted, but so far Reigns has had the sheer charisma to pull it off, helped in no small part by a genius singles promotion of Jey Uso.

Their match at Hell In A Cell was really good, but their best work was undoubtedly Clash of Champions. Reigns’ first proper match as cemented top heel, Jey Uso an unknown quantity as a main eventer, one of the most interesting and organic backstories going into a title match in recent memory, hype was off the charts for it, and they matched it.

For those of you who prefer your wrasslin festooned with kickouts, I can see why you might not like it. But for those of us who like our wrestling Shakespearean as f**k, it was the best surprise of the year.

The Big Dog is dead. Long live the tribal chief.

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5. Sasha Banks vs Bayley – Hell In A Cell

Goodness it’s been a good year for women’s cage matches.

While the payoff to the months-long build of Sasha and Bayley as the world’s sussest best friends may have felt a little rushed – 6 months of tease to 1 month of feud feels a little lopsided – but hey, if this is the only pay-per-view match these two are going to get, they did it good.

Sasha Banks is one of the best sellers of her generation and that was on full display in a carnival of inventive violence that just managed to keep topping itself, and kept pushing Sasha’s poor spine to its breaking point.

Sasha and Bayley not only have amazing physical chemistry, but have revolved around each other for years, building a friendship steeped in itself, so much so that whenever they get together there’s always so much rich narrative texture.

Not only did they play off their run as the Golden Role Models but there were call-backs as far as their iconic clash at TakeOver Brooklyn.

Between this and her match against Becky Lynch at last year’s Hell In A Cell, Sasha Banks might just be the MVP of PG-rated cell matches. Also Bayley is one of wrestling’s greatest characters right now.

Put together, they made magic. Just a shame that WWE seems to have gotten bored of Bayley almost immediately afterwards.

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