Your Main Roster And NXT WOTY

NXT-Kyle O Rilley

WWE-Jey Uso


This is based just on in ring work,promo wise would be Pat McAfee & Roman Reigns.

Has to be Drew for main roster.

Damian Priest sticks out for NXT for me too. Kyle and Finn are also good shouts.

NXT: I've got to give it to Io Shirai on the women's side. She's stood head and shoulders above the rest in a stacked division. Honorable mention to Shi-Tzu Blackheart, who has improved a ton this year. The male WOTY is much harder. A case can certainly be made for Kyle O'Reilly and/or Finn Balor. You could also make a big case for Damien Priest who seems to have taken a few huge steps towards main event status. But, I've got to give the nod to Johnny Gargano. He totally reinvented his character and took huge leaps in terms of his out of ring abilities.

Main roster is much easier. No one had a better year than Bayley for the women and she proved time and again why she's on another level than most women in the business. For the men, it has to be Randy Orton. He's been doing the best work of his career this year and that's saying a lot for someone who has already had a hall of fame worthy career. Honorable mention to Drew McIntyre who finally is the main event level superstar he was always meant to be.

I have a hard time picking between Asuka, Bayley, and Sasha.... so I won’t and say Drew. He’s been pretty great all year.

NXT, let’s not forget about Keith Lee until he left. Won the North American Championship in January and held at least one title until his final night in NXT. Obviously won the NXT Title to become double champ. Awesome 8 months in NXT for Keith Lee this year.

Main roster - Orton and then McIntyre.

NXT - Balor. I felt Ciampa came back strong but then it seemed like they had nothing for him and he was gone for months.

Bayley and Shotzi

Bayley will always be my favorite but you can’t deny she did very well this year despite no crowd. I’ll never forgive that one Raw crowd for booing her in her sling a few years ago. Her yelling at Michael Cole, her promo work and social media presence was also great. If this year did one thing good, it was Bayley.

Shotzi has green hair and drives a little tank to the ring. I love Candice too, but it hasn’t been the best year for her. Seems like it may be turning around though. I still think they should have booked her to beat Adam Cole at some point...

I don’t watch much NXT, but from what I have seen, Pat McAfee is the best thing they have. I’ve enjoyed the matches I’ve seen of Kyle O’Reilly, and pretty much everything Drake Maverick has done.

Main roster - Drew McIntyre. Thrown into his first title run in unprecedented conditions, he’s really carried Raw through. And he’s successfully established himself as a true top guy. Braun was in a similar situation on SmackDown and just didn’t have the goods to excel at it.

Honourable mentions:

Randy Orton - possibly the best year of his career, which is saying a lot. Some genuine all-time classic content with Edge and McIntyre.
Bayley - with Becky and Charlotte inactive for most of the year, Bayley really stepped up as the top women’s wrestler. She’s been on both shows a ton over the year and has almost always been in a highly featured role.

MVP - he doesn’t wrestle that often, but he has been a godsend to Raw. He made Bobby Lashley finally seem like a big deal. He created a faction that gave Cedric Alexander the chance to shine. He even made Shelton Benjamin interesting for the first time in about fifteen years.

Roman Reigns - being gone half the year matters, but the half of the year he has been there has been incredible. Putting Drew over at the Rumble, the boss move of calling out Goldberg for Mania, then the whole Tribal Chief run is up there with the best character work in WWE history. Absolute bangers with Jey Uso and KO, great ratings and positive engagement from Twitter casuals last week.