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Well, that was an extraordinary year for AEW and the world.
AEW fans were looking forward to the first full year of All Elite Wrestling in 2020. 2019 was an impressive debut year with an amazing AEW Double or Nothing to start the company.
AEW built on that initial success with two more wonderful pay-per-views and the start of AEW Dynamite in October 2019. We were all sure that AEW had an amazing year planned in front of rowdy crowds worldwide, but 2020 had other plans for us all.
AEW got the year off to a great start with Bash at the Beach, the Jericho Cruise, and a wonderful AEW Revolution pay-per-view in front of a rowdy Chicago crowd.
Fans seemed poised for a big year on that night, with huge debuts and a Blood and Guts match. The COVID-19 virus had other plans though, as AEW spent the rest of the year at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida.
Despite this setback, they still were able to have surprising debuts, great matches, and even brought fans back into pro-wrestling arenas. Amazingly, the company had such success in 2020.
As we look at the first full year for All Elite Wrestling, let’s rank the five major shows in 2020:
#5 AEW Winter is Coming
This will be the only show on this list that isn’t an AEW pay-per-view. But, for a show that was billed as the “biggest AEW Dynamite in history,” it deserves a place on any list of major shows in 2020.
It was not the best pure wrestling show of the year in AEW, but you cannot deny it impacted the company. The fallout of that night will be felt well into 2021.
The first hour of the show is what likely kept it at the bottom of the list. The Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal wasn’t the best. A lot of the talent seemed randomly thrown out of the Battle Royal.
Miro was built as a monster in the match but was then quickly eliminated by the Inner Circle. The Inner Circle's problems continued in this match, which allowed an ignored Orange Cassidy to pick up the win. The rest of the first hour with Jericho-Kazarian and Baker-Hirsch were quite brief with average matches at best.
The second hour of the show provided some of the best AEW moments of the year. After a solid tag team match between Cody Rhodes and Darby Allin and Team Taz, a post-match assault occurred.
The lights went black, and after a cool looking winter montage, Sting arrived on the scene. You cannot deny the crowd's reaction to his arrival; it was the best of the Pandemic Era. The effect Sting will have on AEW is yet to be known.
The AEW World Championship match was the best of the show. It is a shame it ended with cheating as it was one of the stronger Dynamite matches of the year. But, the goal seemed to be making Kenny Omega the World Champion in nefarious fashion and begin an intriguing partnership with IMPACT Wrestling.
It wasn’t the best show for match quality, but its impact will surely be felt for a long time to come.
#4 AEW All Out
AEW All Out was certainly a strange night in September 2020. It is arguably the worst All Elite Wrestling pay-per-view since the company’s beginning. Especially for the first half of the show, it seemed like AEW All Out 2020 was a little cursed.
The short Big Swole vs. Britt Baker “Tooth and Nail Match” was one of the weakest cinematic matches of the year and not a fitting end to their long-term feud. The Young Bucks had a solid match with Jurassic Express, but it has absolutely no build going into All Out.
The Casino Battle Royal will be most famous for the incredibly scary looking botch by Matt Sydal. After this rough start, things only got a lot worse.
Matt Hardy vs. Sammy Guevara had a “Broken Rules” match. It was just getting started when the two decided to fall off a scissor lift with only a small table to break their fall.
The problem is Matt Hardy missed most of the table, and his head smacked hard on concrete. It was a strange few minutes as the match seemed to be stopped to see if Matt Hardy could continue the match.
He and Sammy climbed a high scaffolding, and Sammy quickly fell off to end the match. It was strange and led to a debate if Matt Hardy was healthy enough to actually continue.
The show did improve some after that point. Hikaru Shida and Thunder Rosa had one of the better AEW Women’s Championship matches of the year. We had a fun eight-man tag match between allies of Cody Rhodes and the Dark Order. The AEW World Tag Team Championship match was really long but still told a solid story as FTR won the titles.
The ending of the show was interesting, to say the least. Orange Cassidy defeated Chris Jericho in a Mimosa Mayhem Match. It was a silly end to their long feud, and seemed like the point was to drop Jericho into “Mimosa.”
It was not exactly a serious feud to put Orange Cassidy over. The main event for this very long show was MJF against Jon Moxley. It was a bloody affair but not among the best of Moxley’s many title changes this year.
With so many strange matches, Matt Hardy’s scare, and length, AEW All Out was the weakest actual pay-per-view of the year.
#3 AEW Double or Nothing
AEW Double or Nothing was the first AEW pay-per-view of the Pandemic Era. It is hard to say if there was a terrible match on the show, but it certainly had a few solid, entertaining matches. The Stadium Stampede Match will be the most remembered from the show for better or worse.
The Casino Ladder match was an interesting albeit long opening to Double or Nothing. If you want to see Darby Allin take some stupid bumps and Brian Cage make an impressive debut, then this is the match for you.
MJF vs. Jungle Boy followed it. This is one of the best and underrated gems of 2020. You can tell both young competitors are the future of AEW.
The middle part of the show was a mixed bag. Cody defeated Lance Archer in a decent TNT Championship match, but Archer hasn’t really regained his momentum after the loss.
Kris Statlander defeated Penelope Ford in a brief, average match. And the less said about the “comedy” match between Shawn Spears and Dustin Rhodes, the better.
The semi-main events worked well. Hikaru Shida defeated Nyla Rose in a brutal No Disqualification match. It was the true start of a strong year for Shida.
The AEW World Championship match was possibly Jon Moxley’s best in 2020. It was a fast-paced and physical battle between Moxley and the late, great Brodie Lee. It is a shame we will never get to see more matches between the two again.
The main event was the Stadium Stampede Match. It was likely the best cinematic match of AEW's year. Your opinion on that match depends on your love of comedy.
The match had a lot of comedy. We had many football jokes, a bar fight, and a questionably timed “drowning” of Matt Hardy. Kenny Omega doing a One-Winged Angel on Sammy Guevara from about 20 feet up was an incredible finish.
It was a purely fun main event when we needed some good humor to end a solid pay-per-view.
#2 AEW Revolution
It is weird to think an AEW pay-per-view in 2020 actually had a big, loud crowd in Chicago. It seems like a lifetime ago.
AEW Revolution, certainly benefiting from a crowd, was an excellent show. It started with a fun opener between Dustin Rhodes and Jake Hager that had many appearances from the latter's wife.
It was weird, and was then followed by a brief match between Sammy Guevara vs. Darby Allin that had an incredible table spot. AEW Revolution was off to a good start.
The next match was the AEW World Tag Team Championship match between Kenny Omega and Hangman Page and the Young Bucks. It is arguably the best match of the year in AEW and a strong candidate for the best AEW match ever.
It was an incredible 30 minutes of storytelling with so many impressive near-falls and non-stop action in the second half. This match is also proof of how much we miss crowds. They were invested in the entire incredible tag match.
The show naturally had a slight letdown after the tag match. Nyla Rose vs. Kris Statlander was sadly filled with a lot of mistakes. MJF and Cody had a pretty emotional match that surprisingly had Cody losing yet again.
The semi-main event was Orange Cassidy actually trying in a losing effort against Pac. It was the first time fans saw Cassidy really try, and you could tell the crowd was really behind the laziest man in wrestling. It was the start of great things for him in 2020.
The main event was a perfect payoff to the Jon Moxley versus Chris Jericho feud. It was a great moment when Jon Moxley showed he was faking his eye injury. Moxley won the AEW World Championship with a great crowd reaction to celebrate the moment.
AEW Revolution was a great show and makes us long for a huge AEW crowd yet again.
#1 AEW Full Gear
AEW Full Gear, from top to bottom, was the best AEW show of the year and arguably the best of the entire Pandemic Era. It had at least three truly great matches on the card, and AEW should receive a lot of credit for putting on such exciting shows throughout 2020.
Full Gear started with arguably the best opener of the year with Hangman Page versus Kenny Omega. It was 16 minutes of fast-paced action and incredible near falls. It was the start of Kenny Omega’s great singles push and another bitter disappointment for Hangman Page.
Orange Cassidy and John Silver had a solid and comedy-filled match, before Darby Allin finally defeated Cody Rhodes to win the TNT Championship in a perfect match. It was a well overdue victory that finally pushed the talented Darby Allin into a major title reign.
The AEW Women’s title match was another solid contest between Hikaru Shida and Nyla Rose, but we saw better earlier in 2020. It was followed by the best match on the card, FTR versus the Young Bucks.
The dream match didn’t disappoint and was a loving tribute to tag team wrestling. It is amazing to think the Young Bucks were involved in arguably the two best matches of the AEW calendar year.
The Elite Deletion Match between “Broken” Matt Hardy and Sammy Guevara was a lot of crazy fun. It was the closest you would get to the “Broken” character of IMPACT Wrestling days. I mean, who would have seen a fight between the Hurricane and Gangrel in 2020? Chris Jericho and MJF then had a decent match that worked well for storyline purposes.
The main event was a brutal “I Quit” match between Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. It was the best AEW main event of the pay-per-view year. It was filled with chair shots, thumbtacks, barb wire, and a lot of blood. The finish saw Moxley doing a Bulldog Choke while using barb wire, and was a memorable way to end Full Gear.
AEW Full Gear had three great matches and a lot of other entertaining moments. It was clearly the best in 2020.
