Andrew’s Top 5 Match of the Year 2020 Finalists & Company Scores

The 12 have been whittled down to 5, and now we get to see what our final pool is for 2020! Get your vote in out of the Final 5!

Let’s take a look at the previous match winners since the first year of The Chairshot.

Previous Match of the Year Winners:

• 2019 – NJPW BOSJ 26 Finals Day: BOSJ 26 Finals: Shingo Takagi vs Will Ospreay
• 2018 – NXT TakeOver WarGames II: NXT Championship: Tommaso Ciampa (c) vs Velveteen Dream
• 2017 – NJPW Dominion: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs Kenny Omega

Now 2020’s Top 5:

January – Wrestle Kingdom 14: Double Gold Match: Kazuchika Okada vs Tetsuya Naito

February – AEW Revolution: AEW World Tag Team Championship: Hangman Page & Kenny Omega (c) vs The Young Bucks

June – NXT In Your House: NXT Women’s Champion Triple Threat: Io Shirai vs Charlotte Flair (c) vs Rhea Ripley

October – NXT UK: United Kingdom Championship: Walter (c) vs Ilja Dragunov

December – NOAH Final Chronicle: GHC Heavyweight Championship: Go Shiozaki (c) vs Takashi Sugiura

As a reminder, Company Scores are based off of my event grades, but my personal caveat is I need to have seen at least 5 tournaments/big events to develop a fair opinion.

Company Scores:

1st – Pro Wrestling NOAH: 8.15 (2019- 4th // 2018 – 3rd)

• Best Event: Global Jr League Finals – 8.75/10
• Worst Event: NOAH: The Reboot – 7/10

2nd – NXT: 7.80 (2019 – 3rd // 2018 – 1st)

• Best Event: War Games – 8.75/10
• Worst Event: Great American Bash Night 2 – 6/10

3rd – New Japan Pro Wrestling: 7.60 ( 2019 – 2nd // 2018 -4th)

• Best Event: Wrestle Kingdom Day 2 – 8.5/10
• Worst Event: New Japan Road Day 2 – 6.25/10

4th – All Japan Pro Wrestling: 7.50 (2019 – 1st // 2018 – 2nd)

• Best Event: New Year War Night 2 – 8/10
• Worst Event: New Year Wars Night 1 – 6/10

5th – Impact Wrestling: 7.20 (2019 – 7th // 2018 – 5th)

• Best Event: Slammiversary – 8.5/10
• Worst Event: Sacrifice – 6/10

6th – Stardom: 7.05 (2019 – N/A)

• Best Event: No People Gate – 7.75/10
• Worst Event: Nagoya Rainbow Fight – 5.75/10

7th – WWE: 6.50 (2019 – 6th // 2018 – 6th) 

• Best Event: Hell in a Cell – 8/10
• Worst Event: Backlash – 4.5/10

8th – Ice Ribbon: 6.20 (2019 – N/A)

• Best Event: RE:Born – 6.75/10
• Worst Event: Ice in Wonderland 2020 – 5/10

9th – AEW: 5.75 (2019 – 5th // 2018 – N/A)

• Best Event: Revolution – 8.25/10
• Worst Event: Fight for the Fallen – 2/10

Thoughts:

So as I usually do, there’s no need to discuss the Final 5 matches again, since they’ve been discussed a few times in the last few weeks. When it comes down to AEW, I know some people’s head’s may explode, but Fyter Fest, Fight of the Fallen and Double or Nothing really were not objectively high scoring. Revolution was in my Top 10 big events of the year, but there was just too much of a spread of quality to make the overall score respectable. I expect them to figure it out a little more next year, the quarantine adjustments just made things awkward for many companies.

I decided to add the previous score positions from 2018 and 2019 since I know some people enjoy watching movement in opinion. I expect this vote to be pretty close, but my vote will go to Go Shiozaki vs Takashi Sugiura. NOAH made a big push this year in match quality and story telling, so I’m really looking forward to 2021 with them.

Now let’s see if Kazuchika Okada or Kenny Omega will be the first wrestlers to hold multiple Chairshot Match of the Years!