10 Academy Awards (For Pro Westling)
6. Best Actor - Kenny Omega
What is incredible about Kenny Omega's performances throughout 2017 - other than the absolutely f*cking phenomenal wrestling matches - is that you can make retroactive sense of his more... exaggerated moments. The wild-eyed gurning and head-nodding was off-putting for some, who considered Omega a bit too cartoonish - but, as it has transpired, Omega's attempts to don the badass facade were just that. He was posturing, overcompensating at the residual heartbreak from his career-defining association with Golden Lover Kota Ibushi.
His recent work alongside Ibushi captures Omega at his naturalistic best; Omega operates best with his heart on his sleeve, vulnerable, as he did at the climax of his seminal war with Kazuchika Okada at NJPW Dominion in June. Avoiding the Rainmaker through the luck of exhaustion, Omega made psychological sense of the epic, intense match that has come to define the modern era. Some critics thought Omega crammed too much sh*t in at Wrestle Kingdom 11. This was the perfect response.
Honourable Nominee Mention: Johnny Gargano deserves the highest level of praise for engineering genuine, rare babyface sympathy at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia in his all-time classic opposite Andrade 'Cien' Almas. Catatonic and black-lipped, Gargano really pulled a usually detached audience into the action.