WWE NXT Year-End Awards Review: January 1, 2020

WWE NXT Year-End Awards Review: January 1, 2020 by Felix Pichler

In this week’s episode of NXT, they gave away the NXT Year-End Awards. The fans had the chance to vote in every category and they got announced in this episode. The winners then walked out in the empty Full Sail Arena and received their award in the ring by William Regal. We’ll now shortly go through the nominees and the winners as it is interesting to see for who the people voted.

Tag Team of the Year

Nominees: Street Profits, Grizzled Young Veterans, Viking Raiders, Mark Andrews and Flash Morgan Webster & Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly)

Winners: Undisputed Era

Opinion: Right choice in my eyes as they were clearly the most dominant force in all of NXT and even WWE in this year. The Viking Raiders also had a good year, but the way they get booked on Raw is way worse than the UE on NXT.

Male Competitor of the Year

Nominees: Adam Cole, Walter, Jonny Gargano, Velveteen Dream, Tyler Bate & Tommaso Ciampa

Winners: Adam Cole

Opinion: Well deserved as this man performed so many outstanding matches this year and especially within the last 3 months than no other superstar in the WWE.

Female Competitor of the Year

Nominees: Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Toni Storm, Kay Lee Ray, Bianca Belair & Rhea Ripley

Winners: Shayna Baszler

Opinion: It was clear that either she or Rhea Ripley would be able to win this award. However, it makes sense that she wins it as she was over the full year the face of the women’s division on NXT.

Rivalry of the Year

Winners: Adam Cole vs. Jonny Gargano

Opinion: We had several interesting feuds this year like, for example, Baszler vs. Ripley which is still alive, but this one was truly the best as they showed us numerous unbelievable matches.

Future Stars of the Year

Nominees: Kushida, Xia Li, Bronson Reed, Tegan Nox, Dakota Kai, Ilja Dragunov, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott, Taynara & Cameron Grimes

Winners: Dakota Kai

Opinion: Totally the right choice as she received the biggest push of all these wrestlers and there is surely so much more to come in 2020.

TakeOver of the Year

Winner: TakeOver: WarGames

Opinion: It was pretty clear that this TakeOver would win since we had two outstanding WarGames matches, Finn Bálor vs. Matt Riddle and Killian Dain vs. Damien Priest vs. Pete Dunne. All four matches were outstanding and due to that, this TakeOver was really the best one.

Breakout Star of the Year

Nominees: Damien Priest, Dominik Dijakovic, Angel Garza, Joe Coffey, Keith Lee, Candice LeRae, Matt Riddle & Rhea Ripley

Winner: Keith Lee

Opinion: This is absolutely no surprise and was clear before even the nominees were announced. Lee had a hell of a last few months and became one of the faces of NXT. Besides, he almost bet Roman Reigns at WWE’s Survivor Series and ahead of that had an incredible rivalry with Dominik Dijakovic.

Match of the Year

Winners:

• #3 Four Way Ladder Match for the NXT Tag Team Championships at TakeOver: Bridgeport
• #2 Women’s WarGames Match at TakeOver: WarGames
• #1 Jonny Gargano vs. Adam Cole for the NXT Championship at TakeOver: New York

Opinion: Fully deserved. As I already mentioned these two competitors showed us several great matches while this one was really one to remember.

Overall Competitor of the Year

Nominees: Adam Cole & Shayna Baszler

Winner: Adam Cole

Opinion: This was the year of Adam Cole. There is nothing more to say about it.

Summary

At the end of this episode of NXT, the four members of the Undisputed Era had combined six awards while Adam Cole alone had four. This is a clear statement and proves that this stable is currently the one which carries NXT. It will be interesting to watch how this will develop in the year 2020.