Ranking Who Was Really The Man In Wrestling Every Year 1990-2020

1. 2020 - Kenny Omega

Austin Jericho
AEW

In 2020, Kenny Omega wrestled the best tag team match of all time - an intoxicating, exhilarating match layered, seamlessly and with no hokey melodrama, with years of emotive storytelling.

His legacy of raising the profile of DDT's madcap, hugely innovative genre of the absurd in the west came full circle in the Double Or Nothing Stadium Stampede main event. It was a spectacle so wonderful and actually essential in its levity that it made everything OK for 30 life-affirming minutes.

Both matches drew 100,000 buys to a medium thought dead in the pro wrestling sphere six years prior.

Omega, the man who can't do U.S. TV, crafted the greatest episodic storyline of the year - years - decades - through the medium of weekly tag team TV classics.

But he's still not a star because tag team wrestling apparently does not count and he doesn't cut 15 minute promos.

Don't consider the singles Iron Man classic with PAC, a rare ratings success for a match genre that typically repels the TV audience.

That would be in dreaded good faith.

Watch Next


Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!