Oh, the year of 2020. It got off to a hot start with a very good Royal Rumble and then it all went off the rails.
The COVID-19 pandemic had ramifications that were much more important than silly old wrestling but this is a wrestling list so that is what we are going to talk about.
No-fans wrestling sucks. That goes for all promotions but it really hurt WWE during the early months of the pandemic.
This year did not feature the same quality of matches as we had seen in years past because of the lack of fans but there was still a good number of great pay-per-view matches throughout this terrible year.
These are the 11 best WWE pay-per-view matches of 2020.
11. Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak – Elimination Chamber
After Daniel Bryan finished his rivalry with The Fiend, he didn’t have much to do before WrestleMania.
He found himself a dancing partner at Elimination Chamber for some friendly competition as Bryan took on fellow technical wizard, Drew Gulak.
Bryan and Gulak had a tremendous match. It wasn’t full of storyline angst and passion but rather just a test of who the better wrestler was.
You don’t always need an intricate story for a match to be great. Sometimes the story can simply be told bell to bell.
10. Drew McIntyre vs. Dolph Ziggler – Extreme Rules
It is not very often that the “wrestler gets to choose the stipulation” stipulation actually makes sense.
Why would you not simply pick a 10-second Iron Man match where you start with a 10 point advantage? Anyway, I digress. In this case, Dolph Ziggler did a good job of taking advantage of the stipulation.
Ziggler chose to make his match with Drew McIntyre Extreme Rules for only him and if McIntyre got DQed or counted out he would lose the WWE Championship.
This was a very simple story, told extraordinarily well by Drew and Dolph, making Drew look like a proper hero overcoming the odds.
9. Drew McIntyre vs. AJ Styles (vs. The Miz) – TLC
The second time in history someone has cashed-in Money in the Bank to make a title match a Triple Threat.
At TLC 2020, The Miz interrupted a very solid TLC match between Drew McIntyre and AJ Styles and didn’t mess anything up. The drama of a potential new champion added to the already good match.
It is surprising that we didn’t get more out of McIntyre’s rivalry with Styles but this was a very good way to cap off McIntyre’s year on top.
8. Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns – Survivor Series
Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns’ clash at Survivor Series 2020 meant a lot more than their previous match at WrestleMania 35.
Now both cemented as main event stars, this match between WWE Champion McIntyre and Universal Champion Reigns felt like a big deal.
The Raw vs. SmackDown narrative has been played out but this was a big match between the two hardest-pushed stars of the year.
Sure enough, they performed like it. Reigns’ new attitude gave the match a very different vibe from all of McIntyre’s matches in 2020 and variety is a very nice thing.
7. Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre – Hell in a Cell
Boy, Drew McIntyre really populates a lot of this list, doesn’t he? The next match of his to appear on this list is his climactic Hell in a Cell match against Randy Orton.
This was a frustrating rivalry because of WWE’s insistence on putting on the same match over and over again. This match still suffers from this problem, but it was the best match the two had in 2020.
McIntyre took a huge bump off the side of the cage which effectively took him out of the match. Orton was able to hit an RKO and capture the WWE Championship but it just made it all the more clear the title change should have come months earlier.
6. Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens – TLC
The 2020 TLC pay-per-view featured a pair of very good TLC matches. The first was detailed earlier while the second was held between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens.
They brought their energy from their 2016-2017 rivalry, now with Owens chasing Reigns for the Universal Championship.
This was still early in Jey Uso’s storyline with Roman Reigns and Uso costing Owens the match made a lot of sense given the progression of the story. There was plenty of crazy violence in this match, something that had been missing from many of the TLC matches in recent years.
5. Sami Zayn vs. AJ Styles vs. Jeff Hardy – Clash of Champions
It had been a while since we had seen Jeff Hardy go all out in a WWE ladder match. However, that is exactly what we got at Clash of Champions 2020.
With controversy surrounding the Intercontinental Championship, a ladder match was set to determine the true champion.
Hardy, Sami Zayn and AJ Styles all put their bodies on the line for the IC title and they pulled off a hell of a match.
Hardy’s Swanton Bomb through a ladder was reminiscent of his matches from two decades earlier.
Meanwhile, you had Styles working at a high level and Zayn playing the conniving role, handcuffing his opponents to ladders while he got the win.
This was as good and creative a ladder match as WWE has put on in recent years and one of the best pay-per-view battles for the Intercontinental title as well.
4. Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins – Money in the Bank
When Drew McIntyre won the WWE Championship the best opponent he could face was Seth Rollins.
Rollins was perhaps the best wrestler on the Raw brand at the time and sure enough, they battled over the title at Money in the Bank.
It truly is a shame that this match took place amidst utter silence but it was still tremendous. The work they put on was the best WWE pay-per-view match held during the Performance Center era.
While that may not sound like high praise, these two absolutely tore the house down. Hopefully, they can have a rematch in front of a crowd before all is said and done.
3. Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso – Clash of Champions
Roman Reigns’ return to WWE at SummerSlam 2020 was highlighted by his long-awaited heel turn.
He immediately won the Universal Championship and before long he was in a feud with Jey Uso. If ever there was a more perfect way to introduce fans to a new character, it was this storyline.
Reigns’ attitude in regards to his family had completely changed and that bled over into this match at Clash of Champions.
Roman talked trash throughout the entire match and hit a big low blow during a kickout.
This was a match that perfectly utilized the opportunity to have more talking with the Thunderdome setting and this was as important a moment in Reigns’ reintroduction as any.
2. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks – Hell in a Cell
It was a long time coming for the Sasha Banks vs. Bayley feud in 2020. The pair had been feuding on and off since 2017 with WWE never pulling the trigger on a match.
Finally, Bayley turned on Sasha leading to this Hell in a Cell match for the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
Some of the spots were a bit contrived but Sasha and Bayley put on a very creative Hell in a Cell match. This was a perfect way to finally blowoff their rivalry with Sasha getting a huge win on pay-per-view.
Typically she had not had success in these big title matches so getting the win was monumental for many reasons.
1. The Royal Rumble Match
There were many matches that could have taken this top spot but it only felt right to have it be the 2020 men’s Royal Rumble match.
Wrestling isn’t the same without fans and no match during the rest of 2020 ever matched the feeling of this one.
From Brock Lesnar’s run of dominance in the first half, to finally being stopped by Drew McIntyre, to Edge’s return from retirement, and eventually McIntyre eliminating Roman Reigns, this was a classic Rumble.
Several moments in this match were all-timers and in a year filled with depression and no-fans shows, this was a beacon of joy for WWE on pay-per-view.
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