As we enter a new year, pro wrestling fans look forward to another Royal Rumble, another WrestleMania, another Double or Nothing, and another All Out. Those big shows for WWE and AEW, respectively, will surely see some new characters rising up the ranks. There are a ton of performers ready to have a world title run in 2020.
Here are four I’m thinking of…
Jon Moxley
The former Dean Ambrose is no stranger to holding a company’s top prize. He won the WWE Championship once while working for Vince McMahon. His reign was unspectacular, however. Even though he held the strap for almost three months, he only had one PPV main-event title defense (a triple threat match against his SHIELD brothers). He beat Dolph Ziggler in the midcard of SummerSlam and then lost the strap to AJ Styles. After that he mostly floated around the upper-midcard before finally leaving the company to be one of the top attractions in AEW.
Moxley is a superstar, there’s no doubt about it. While it made all the sense in the world to put the company’s inaugural world title around the waist of the living legend Chris Jericho, Moxley is a guy who can give AEW a decade of quality work. A world title reign is certainly coming for him; why not in 2020?
Moxley has the magic it-factor you look for in a champion. Putting the AEW title on him elevates not only the performer but the whole company under him. Jericho’s work getting the promotion and the belt over can’t be overstated, but as AEW moves to its first full year of TV work, they’re going to have to start diversifying their portfolio of champions.
Moxley should be on their shortlist of champs-to-be.
The Miz
Let’s be honest, the Miz’ first WWE Championship run was a disaster. Though he lived his dream of main-eventing WrestleMania as champion, he ended up playing third wheel to the guy he beat and to another guy who wasn’t even in the match until the match was over.
Granted, those two guys were John Cena and The Rock, but still…
I think all people remember about Miz’ run as champ was the bad ending to a bad WrestleMania 27, and that’s not really fair because the rest of his run sucked too. Miz held the title for 160 days and the only highlight was a TLC match on Raw against Jerry Lawler.
In the nine years since then, Miz has improved by leaps and bounds. As a wrestler he’s marginally better, but as a performer—as a heel—there are few working today who can stir up heat like he can. His on again, off again feud with Daniel Bryan has been one of the low-key best parts of the past several years and it deserves a WrestleMania payoff.
Why not WrestleMania 36?
Samoa Joe
*sigh*
SmoJo should already be a x-time WWE Champion. He’s got the look, the intensity, the charisma, the mic skills, the in-ring work; everything you could want in a champ, especially a heel champ, is right there. He’s been a TNA champ, a ROH champ, an NXT champ, but never a world champ on either of WWE’s two big shows. The closest he came was a six-minute match with Brock Lesnar at a show called Great Balls of Fire. That’s it.
That’s as close as he got.
Despite that, the entire buildup to the match was pitch-perfect. Even though he gave up a good four inches to the Beast, not to mention about -50% body fat, Joe looked like a man deranged and savage enough to beat Brock straight-up, something hitherto unseen since he returned to WWE (sans Goldberg). The problem with Joe has never been the buildup to his matches. The problem is always the finish. The finish never changes.
Joe never wins.
He’s currently tearing it up on Raw, working the mic as a commentator and promo-talent while healing an injured thumb. He will be entering the Rumble later this month and should fortune smile on him and he walk away the winner, there’s no doubt a rematch with Lesnar would be on the WrestleMania card.
Maybe this time he’ll get the win he’s deserved for so long now.
Kenny Omega
When Kenny Omega left New Japan Pro Wrestling and signed with AEW, wrestling fans everywhere sat up and took notice. Omega has been one of the hottest performers in the business for the past several years, having put on show-stopping matches against a variety of opponents. Coming to AEW was akin to AJ Styles coming to WWE (after his own brilliant run with NJPW). The only difference is, Styles came to WWE with only a handful of years of full time work left in the tank; very little of Styles’ work has lived up to the reputation he built up for himself in TNA, ROH, and NJPW. That’s despite how much WWE has invested in him. Don’t misunderstand; Styles is still great, but he’s a step slower than he used to be.
Kenny Omega, on the other hand, is in his prime.
Omega ought to be the top babyface superstar in AEW. He should be the flagship, the standard-bearer, the Steve Austin, circa 1998. For some reason I can’t fathom, he’s treated like a middle-card afterthought at worst and a special attraction at best. He’s far too good to be middle-card talent and he’s far too prime to be relegated to “special attraction” status. You don’t sideline stars. You put them front and center.
Kenny Omega is a star.
Coming soon is a cross-promotional match between AEW Champion Chris Jericho and NJPW superstar Hiroshi Tanahashi with an agreed-upon stipulation that says if the NJPW star beats the AEW champion, he will get an AEW world title match in return. Now, obviously, anyone who knows pro wrestling knows the likelihood that Jericho would lose two high-profile matches in a row is simply unfathomable. That being said, if you wanted to move the belt off of Jericho and onto Kenny Omega, using Hiroshi Tanahashi as the transition would be a great call. After all, it was Omega whom Tanahashi defeated for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship last January. What a payback that would be and what a way to establish Kenny Omega as the face of AEW going forward.
Those are four of my picks for guys who deserve a World Championship run in 2020. What say you? Who would you like to see hold the top title this year? Let us know in the comments below!
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