2022 is officially in the books, and what a year it was. From day one (both literally, with the WWE PLE of the same name on January 1st) to the final Smackdown of the year, where John Cena competed for WWE once again. So many insane things happened over the 365-day span. One thing that is always fun to look back on is the best of the best from a year gone by. Recently, we looked at my end-of-year award winners, but, as we begin a brand-new year, today we look back on my top 10 professional wrestlers of the year from 2022.
This list, as with any I do, is completely subjective. There is no intention of any WWE and AEW bias, however, it is a majority of what I watch, so there is very little I can provide ranking-wise when it comes to most of Impact, NJPW, and the NWA. That does not mean there isn’t representation from some of those companies, however. With those disclaimers said, here is who I think had the best year possible in 2022.
Honorable Mentions: Drew McIntyre, Sheamus, and Sami Zayn. Three guys here who had great years in many respects but without much to show for it except fantastic match quality. Now, that is a great thing to have, and all 3 of these guys have at least one match-of-the-year candidate to their name, but no title gold, and now sustained success in the main event picture leads to them just missing my cut. Drew and Sheamus’s matches at Clash at the Castle, however? Those are things of beauty, and they certainly won’t be forgotten anytime soon by me or anyone who has seen them. As for Zayn, he became the most over superstar in WWE almost by accident this year. Look for him to crack this list very high next year if things keep trending the way they are right now.
10. Kevin Owens
It looked as if it would be another weird year for Kevin Owens in 2022, but thankfully that is anything but what it was. After so much success in a short period of time in WWE between 2015 and 2017, things stalled for KO for much of 2018-2020, and his on-and-off time from TV, coupled with some injuries, really hurt his momentum. A very long and drawn-out story with Seth Rollins and Big E in late 2021 only dampened things further, but 2022 for all time was in store. After re-signing with WWE for the long haul, Owens was gifted a match with “Stone Cold” Steve Austin at Wrestlemania…in the main event of night 1. Just think about the significance of that. To main event any Wrestlemania is historic, adding yourself to a short list of talented legends, but to have the first, and to this point only, match of Steve Austin’s career since his 2003 retirement? The heights Owens was propelled to with that alone was enough to make his year. Then, he had a long but largely comedy feud with Elias/Ezekiel, but he made it into something positive because that’s what Owens does. Then, his so-far masterfully told story with the Bloodline which has spilled into 2023 has been yet another thing of beauty. To top it all off, he got to team with John Cena on the final WWE show of the year in the main event of Smackdown and he helped defeat a team that included Roman Reigns. Any year where you share the ring in a match with both Steve Austin AND John Cena is a banner year for anyone, and for a guy as great as Kevin Owens, it was very well deserved!
9. GUNTHER
The Ring General’s year saw him start in NXT fresh off of a name change which people were still sour on, but boy did they forget about that soon after. GUNTHER has been the highlight of Smackdown most weeks, and his lengthy reign as Intercontinental Champion is in no small part why. GUNTHER has had several fantastic matches with Ricochet, including one right at the tail end of 2022, but his masterpieces were written with Sheamus and the Brawling Brutes. It is often said that a torch can either be passed down or forcibly taken. Well, in these matches, neither guy gave in an inch, and there is still so much that can be told between the 2 men. Their match at Clash at the Castle is one of WWE’s best pure matches in years and is also what turned Sheamus, a hated heel for over half a decade, into one of WWE’s top babyfaces in just about 20 minutes. Their subsequent rematch and the Good Old-Fashioned Donnybrook 6-man match were even bigger bangers (pun intended) and GUNTHER is set for a massive 2023. That 2023 will hopefully include a great showing in the Royal Rumble, and a potential showdown at Wrestlemania with either John Cena or Brock Lesnar. He is only 9th this past year, but he very well may be higher twelve months from now.
8. Will Ospreay
Ospreay’s year started out in less than stellar fashion, losing the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his title unification match with Okada at Wrestle Kingdom 16. Will is a man who turns lemons into lemonade quite often, and he spun yet another fantastic year after this. He had a great showing in the 2022 New Japan Cup and made it all the way to the finals of the 2022 G-1 Climax Tournament, again being bested by Okada. Ospreay’s year seems to have been more about the headlines he made worldwide. He made appearances for AEW over the summer as a part of the many crossovers to do with Forbidden Door. He also became IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion and had several fantastic title defenses, including a match of the year candidate with Orange Cassidy, surprisingly, at Forbidden Door itself. A successful string of defenses later and Ospreay had closed out the year as champion and was set for a showdown with AEW’s Kenny Omega at the first NJPW show of 2023, Wrestle Kingdom 17.
7. Jay White
White’s year really kicked into high gear once the summer came along. An attack on Okada led to him facing and defeating the IWPG World Heavyweight Champion to win the gold. He would take that gold to Forbidden door, New Japan’s crossover event with AEW, where he would retain in a 4-way against Okada, Adam Cole, and “Hangman” Adam Page. White went almost undefeated in the 2022 G-1 Climax, but a loss to Tama Tonga cost him the tournament, although he gained revenge later in the year when he defeated Tonga. White’s year was built on strong work, successful ventures, and a consistently improving character which has led him to the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 17 against Okada once again!
6. The Usos
It’s not every year that a champion holds gold for every single calendar day of that year. It’s even less frequent in this day and age for two different sets of champions to do so, but the Bloodline bucked that trend in 2022. In addition to Roman Reigns (we’ll get to him later), the Uso’s entered 2022 already having been Smackdown Tag Team Champions for the entire second half of 2021. In the course of the next 12 months, not only did they hold onto those titles every single day, but they unified them with the Raw Tag Team Titles, held those as well through the end of the year, broke the New Day’s record for longest tag team championship reign in WWE history, and had more banger matches than we can count. Among the many included several showdowns with the New Day, RK-Bro, The Brawling Brutes, and the Street Profits. Need I say more about how amazing their reign has been? It will likely only go up as we wait for any team to finally be the ones to dethrone the Uso’s from the top of the tag team mountain in WWE.
5. Josh Alexander
Alexander is one of those guys who has really come into his own as of late. Originally a tag team guy (and a tag team champion with Ethan Page for over a year), Alexander worked his way up and won the X-Division Title and the World Title once each before 2022 even began. Upon defeating Moose for the Impact World Championship at Rebellion, Alexander has essentially gone on the run of a lifetime. He defeated the likes of Moose, Eric Young, Joe Doering, Alex Shelley, Eddie Edwards, and Frankie Kazarian. He then had a 60-minute instant classic with “Speedball” Mike Bailey to close out the year. All of this is topped off by an already wonderfully told storyline with Bully Ray heading into the new year and breaking the record for the longest single World Title reign in Impact/TNA history. Alexander’s 2022 was a career year, and 2023 may only go further up for the face of Impact Wrestling!
4. Bianca Belair
Bianca Belair’s 2021 was a banner year for the EST of WWE, but 2022 somehow managed to be even better. She may not have won the Royal Rumble or main evented Wrestlemania like the year prior, but Belair consistently got better and better as the year went along. Her two major matches with Becky Lynch have proven that she can go with anyone and everyone on the grandest stages, and they were both some of the best WWE matches of the year. Her feud with Bayley may have been long, but they crammed a lot of fun things in, including a fantastic Last Woman Standing Match as well. She also had successful defenses against the likes of Carmella, Sonya Deville, and Asuka in 2022, and she captained her team to victory in of War Games in November. She also looks as though she will hold that title through until Wrestlemania, which means that a year-long title reign could soon be added to the EST’s resume.
3. Jon Moxley
It was a year that forever established Moxley as the face of AEW, and nobody else. Moxley’s return from rehab came right as 2022 got underway, and he wasted no time in creating a year for the ages. He had a fantastic match with Bryan Danielson at Revolution, which subsequently led to the creation of the Blackpool Combat Club, anchored by William Regal. A longstanding feud with the Jericho Appreciation Society began, and though Moxley was in and out of his involvement with it, he participated in the Anarchy in the Arena Match at Double or Nothing, one of AEW’s best outputs of the year. Moxley would soon become the AEW Interim World Champion after CM Punk went down with an injury, and Moxley defended it regularly. After defeating New Japan legend Hiroshi Tanahasi at Forbidden Door, Moxley reigned through the summer before defeating a returning Punk to become the official champion, his second official reign. Punk would regain the title at All Out, but with the infamous fiasco after the show, Punk was stripped of the title and Moxley eventually won it again at Grand Slam by defeating Bryan Danielson. He would have several more TV defenses before dropping the title to MJF at Full Gear, tying a bow on a year where AEW leaned heavily on Moxley to be their guy amidst injuries, chaos, calamity, and uncertainty. Moxley didn’t bend at all and became a household name in the process.
2. Seth Rollins
Seth Rollins did a lot of things for WWE in 2022, but the biggest was becoming their workhorse. With Roman Reigns and the Undisputed Championship absent for much of 2022, Rollins was the leader of several individuals who carried things more than capably in their absence. Rollins walked into 2022 not having held gold in several years, and in fact, he only ended up becoming United States Champion for a short reign in the Fall all told. But Rollins filled the remaining months with matches nobody will soon forget. A Fatal-5-Way loss at Day One aside, Rollins’ year began with his infamous entrance in his match with Roman Reigns at the Royal Rumble. The highly anticipated match began with Rollins marching through the crowd to the Shield’s music in his Shield attire, identical to what the Shield did for years. He lost that night, but nobody forgot how amazing that performance was. He single-handedly built himself a Wrestlemania match with Cody Rhodes (whose return to WWE was a surprise) and proceeded to have a trilogy of classic matches with Cody, helping the American Nightmare reaffirm his place on the WWE roster. Rollins lost all 3 of those matches but came out all for the better on the other side. The third of those matches was the legendary Hell in a Cell Match where Cody competed with a torn pectoral muscle and Seth led them through an amazing match. It’s one of WWE’s best matches of the year, and maybe ever honestly. Then, his feud with Riddle got personal and real and it was so much fun to watch. Then his feuds with Theory and Bobby Lashley have only brought Seth full circle from a babyface nobody wanted to cheer to a heel so good they had to cheer him, turning him back and creating WWE’s biggest star not named Roman Reigns.
1. Roman Reigns
Was there ever really any doubt? I know Roman missed much of the year all told, and the number of matches he’s been in surely been far less than everyone else, Seth Rollins especially, but it is the significance of Roman’s matches that provide him with such an element of rarified air. He faced Seth Rollins, Brock Lesnar (twice), Goldberg, Matt Riddle, Logan Paul, and Drew McIntyre, plus a War Games Match and a tag team match with John Cena involved. One of his matches with Lesnar was dubbed “the biggest Wrestlemania match of all time” which saw him unify the WWE and Universal Championships. He held the title(s) for every calendar day in the year for the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW. This is unheard of in modern-day WWE outside of the NXT: UK Titles. This reign is well beyond CM Punk, John Cena, and AJ Styles’ year-plus-long reigns. Reigns are truly everything WWE has wanted him and needed him to be for so long, and he has amazing matches with anyone he graces the ring with. It’s truly safe to say that Roman Reigns is what WWE is all about, and he was the top wrestler in the world in 2022.
It is not just bias that had the 3 former Shield members as my top 3, it is truly just a hard-to-debate concept. They have all come into their own in so many ways and are at the top of their game now more than ever. 2023 looks to be another banner year for the 3 men who once wished to instill justice in all of WWE, and who now runs the wrestling world and are holding it firmly in the palms of their hands!
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