10 Most Improved Wrestlers Of 2018

Velveteen Dream is the only wrestler to feature on this list and 2017's. Both inclusions were merited. If last year saw him go from Largo loop unknown to raw charisma bomb, 2018 brought his journey closer to transcendent developmental stardom, particularly towards the end.

The 23-year-old's performance versus Tommaso Ciampa was stunning. Dream shone in the biggest match of his career, proving himself one of the most effective crowd-pleasers in the business with fire and electricity. It was his career's finest hour thus far, though it came towards the end of a year filled with similar highlights, marking Dream as NXT's foremost please-don't-f*ck-him-up prospect.

How WWE handle the former Patrick Clark in 2019 will be interesting. No developmental wrestler is more charismatic or attention-grabbing, but there are still notable flaws in his ring work (even the Ciampa bout featured at least one botch). Dream needs another year or two to iron out said flaws. Though he has qualities that can't be taught, a premature main roster call-up would hamper his progress and potentially lower his ceiling, so let's hope he's allowed to remain in Triple H's NXT playground for the foreseeable future.