Top 20 Wrestlers of 2021 (Part 2)
Description: 2021 was one of the strangest years in recent memory as far as Pro Wrestling is concerned. The pandemic era in general has seen a lot of changes and to a certain degree the business and the products produced in it have not completely gotten back to normal. If you had told me in 2019 we would have Bryan Danielson & CM Punk at the same company and a heel Roman Reigns would be one of the most over guys in the WWE, I would've argued it down, I wouldn't have been able to fathom it but here we are.
10. Cody Rhodes-As an Executive Vice President of AEW and also a wrestler, Cody Rhodes was always going to be a prominently featured member of the roster. He was already one of the biggest stars in the business before Dynamite launched though so that spot was earned, not given. Now in his mid-30's he's in the veteran position and can lend some of his credibility and knowledge to the up-and-comers in the business. The stories he's involved in would have you believe that he's a selfish, egotistical, gloryhog, bordering on a complete heel turn but I believe Cody has found a way to bring "kayfabe" back from the dead and help others in the process. Cody was the one who said "there are no heels or babyfaces in AEW". He seems to want there to be blurred lines between what are usually considered good actions and what actions are traditionally considered bad in Pro Wrestling. With each match he became more and more unglued, some times cheating, some times taking his anger out on the wrong people, but he maintains that he is the good guy and that he won't turn heel because of the fans. They cheered him when he began creating this alternative for them and for wrestlers alike and now they hate him because they think he wants all the credit or that he yearns for validation.
Cody's 2021 started off with a big tag team match with his wife against Shaquille O'Neal and Jade Cargill. Jade was new to the company, and nobody had really seen her work yet and Shaq was...well, Shaq. Although the match turned out better than anyone expected it to be and was the definite talk of that episode of Dynamite, it was the build-up to that show prior that the fans started to turn on the Rhodes couple. Cody's Nightmare Family stable at one time consisted of his real wrestling family (Himself, Dustin & Brandi), QT Marshall (his friend and Co-trainer in the Nightmare Factory) and his students (Aaron Solo, Nick Comoroto, Anthony Ogogo, Red Velvet, Brock Anderson & Big Shotty Lee). As fans started to feel that Cody was an over-the-top, Superman babyface that buries his opponents and needs to be the center of attention, he entered a feud with QT who had, had enough of it. When he defeated QT, the Nightmare Family split into two factions, the other being "The Factory". Shotty, Velvet and Brock stuck by Cody while Solo, Comoroto and Ogogo left with QT. Cody would go on to face off with Anthony Ogogo at Double or Nothing and I think this is where the tides turned completely. Cody would struggle to get positive reaction following this, because many fans felt he buried his opponent by beating him in his first ever match.
The high point of the year would come in the form of reclaiming the TNT Championship from newly crowned champion, Sammy Guevara after he used his power as an EVP to have Tony Khan make the match before anyone else could challenge for it. It was short lived though, because he ended up catching COVID-19 and being out for a week.
At this point, a lot of fans have become so exhausted with Cody that the idea that their feelings are being manipulated doesn't seem possible in their minds, but that's what made his role in all of these stories and angles great. Different people are going to get something different out of it. On one hand QT could be right about Cody and on another he could just be bitter that he's not as big a star or that the spotlight isn't on him. On one hand Cody could be burying Ogogo by beating him in his first match and on another he could be giving a guy he helped train the biggest match of his career. It's all left up to our perspective.
Today, we know that Cody made his way back to WWE so we will never know where his AEW stories were going and while that may not have been fun for Cody to have to fight the crowd in every arena I was anxious to see how he would come out of it. I guess the solution was returning home.
9. Big E-The Muscle of the New Day; like WALTER, should probably be higher on this list considering the year he had but as his reign came to a close I think we already realized that WWE was never fully invested in him as a World Champion. It more seems that he was a transitional champ or that they gave it to him as a "Thanks for staying loyal and holding it down", type of thing but they never intended to make him the face of any of their brands. Despite that, he still had one hell of a year considering that he's mainly spent the better part of his career in a tag team.
To start he was the Intercontinental Champion feuding with the likes of Apollo Crews & Sami Zayn after he was split up from the New Day in the draft. Until he won the WWE Championship, that was his biggest accomplishment as a singles competitor. He would drop the IC title to Crews @ WrestleMania 37 due to interference from Commander Azeez but in June he would defeat Crews to qualify for the Money in the Bank match, that he would go on to win. Securing the MITB contract would make him the first Black competitor in WWE history to achieve that honor. He briefly lost the briefcase to Baron Corbin but won it back at SummerSlam. By September, Big E would switch brands as he cashed in his contract to face Bobby Lashley for his WWE Championship.
E's Championship run didn't start off so bad. He was appearing on popular black outlets like "The Breakfast Club" which is rare for a Pro Wrestler. He appeared in promotional material for the Deontay Wilder & Tyson Fury where he announced both fighters and he and his New Day Brother's appeared in a Netflix interactive film called "Escape the Undertaker" with the WWE Legend.
When it was time to build E's rivalries and make something of his reign, that's where he kind of stagnated. He didn't have a single heated feud the entire time he was champion. Outside of Dolph Ziggler, he didn't really have any chemistry or history with many of his opponents. It all felt like WWE had no plan for what this title run would be.
What they can't take away from E though is the fact that he is one of two World Champions in the New Day. How many 3-man tag teams or trios have ever had that. They may have done this individually when they broke up or turned on each other but New Day has had so much success and they're still together. E lost his title to Brock who was actually supposed to face Roman Reigns at Day 1 so maybe this reign would have been a little longer, but who knows. All we know is when it's all said in done New Day will arguably be the greatest tag team WWE ever produced.
8. Tetsuya Naito-Although Los Ingobernables de Japón is a heel stable, Tetsuya Naito started becoming this beloved underdog in the late 2010's. Unable to best the previous Ace (Hiroshi Tanahashi) and discarded by the fanbase years ago, Tetsuya Naito returned to Japan from Mexico to try and claim everything he was denied in his first run but he continuously came up short. The rise of Young Lions like Kazuchika Okada & Kota Ibushi just added insult to injury as they were and continue to be a constant reminder of what the “Stardust Genius” could not achieve.
By 2018 things were falling into place for Naito. He was scoring major victories; he had won over the fanbase in both Japan and in the West and his LIJ stable was getting more and more over with the fans. The main event of Wrestle Kingdom 12 was bittersweet for him because he was supposed to main event against Okada in 2014 @ Wrestle Kingdom 8 but the fans actually voted him out and the match was replaced with the IWGP Intercontinental Title Match between New Japan Musketeer, Shinsuke Nakamura and Hiroshi Tanahashi who were more popular at the time.
Closing in on 40 yrs old, it was time for Tetsuya Naito to cement his legacy in New Japan Pro Wrestling and he started by defeating Switchblade, Jay White at Night 1 of Wrestle Kingdom 14 & then Okada the following night, making him the first person to hold both the IWGP Heavyweight & Intercontinental Championships at the same time. Those titles are very difficult to win alone, sometimes you have to win a whole tournament to even get a chance to challenge for the title and the champions are usually so dominant that most challengers go home empty handed for long periods of time. Being able to capture the two top titles in the company at the same event isn’t just history but it’s a feat that really belongs to only Naito. While he would go on to lose both titles to EVIL, I think he at this point in his career has embedded himself in the identity of NJPW
in this era. His 2021 wasn’t as eventful as his 2020 but he remained in the mix in deepest talent pool in Pro Wrestling today.
7. Hangman Adam Page-It was clear from the time AEW launched that they had big plans for Hangman Page. He was the first challenger for the Heavyweight Championship and he was one of the few talents to win gold early on, becoming tag champion with Kenny Omega. As a member of The Elite and one half of the tag team champions Hangman began to make it clear that he wanted to go out on his own, teams and stables weren't for him. He wanted to accomplish bigger and better things and he didn't need any help doing it but early in 2021 after the passing of their leader, Brodie Lee...the Dark Order became enamored with Hangman Page. By this time Kenny Omega had moved on from the tag division and on to the Heavyweight Championship and would also conquer AAA and Impact for their top titles.
Hangman would work with the Dark Order for a while, but he would also embark on a downward spiral which involved excessive drinking. He began to lose confidence that he could win the big one and that was made even worse when he lost his ability to challenge Kenny for the title again as a stipulation of their match at AEW Homecoming. He would take paternity leave at this time and in his absence, there was influx of talent including main eventers like CM Punk, Adam Cole & Bryan Danielson which led many to believe this was the last we had seen of Hangman's chase of the main title.
Since Hangman couldn't challenge for the title upon his return, he won the Casino Battle Royal at Dynamite's 2nd Anniversary show which gifted him a shot at Omega once more. At Full Gear he defeated him to become the 4th AEW Heavyweight Champion. Proceeding his victory, he would take on one of the major AEW signings that fans claimed would prevent him from becoming the champion (Bryan Danielson) and actually defeated him, proving that Tony Khan's faith in him as maybe the ace of the company hadn't subsided.
6. Kazuchika Okada-Following the departure of his biggest rival, Kenny Omega and the decline of his stable Bullet Club, the new Ace of NJPW has struggled to maintain his buzz outside of Japan and he's taken a backseat; in terms of interest, to guys like Shingo Takagi, Kota Ibushi & his former right hand, Will Ospreay as they have begun to ascend to the top within the company. When the brand new IWGP World Heavyweight Championship was relinquished by Will Ospreay due to a neck injury, it would be Shingo to claim the top spot by besting Okada @ Dominion.
Okada wouldn't return to prominence again until 2022 @ Wrestle Kingdom where he got his win back from Shingo but before then he would dominate the G1 Climax tournament winning for the third time and instead of carrying the briefcase he carried the original IWGP Heavyweight Title one last time; a title that for many NJPW fans of this era has become something you associate with Okada on sight. Whenever I picture that title, I picture it around his waist much like I used to with the Intercontinental Championship and Shinsuke Nakamura. This may not have been the best year for Okada but he's still firmly holding on to his spot as the ace. He's still the man the others will have to surpass to be viewed as the one carrying the flag for the company.
