The 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards (Part Seven) – The Best Promotions of 2021

Welcome back to Part Six of the 411 Wrestling Year-End Awards of 2021! The Year-End Awards have been out for a couple of years but they’re back, and here’s how they work. For the next couple of weeks, we will present our top choices for a particular topic relating to wrestling in 2021. All the writers here on 411 will have the ability to give us their Top 5 on said topic and the end, based on where all of the votes rank on people’s list, we will create an overall Top 5 list. It looks a little like this…

1st – 5
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 2
5th – 1

Once everyone’s had their say, we will tally the scores and get our overall top 5. Tonight we’re looking at the Best Promotion of the year. Let’s get right to it…

Rob Stewart

5. GCW
4. NJPW
3. Impact
2. WWE

1. AEW – In a year where, aside from consistently entertaining PPV events, WWE seemingly got everything wrong, everything was coming up roses for AEW. Obviously the CM Punk signing was ENORMOUS, and the company is doing a very good job at slowly integrating him to the company without forcing him straight to the main event. Adam Cole was also brought in and allowed to simmer, knowing fans will be 100% engaged in whatever they decide to do with him and The Elite. Oh, and Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish also joined up, promising a new Era of things to come. And Bryan Danielson, my favorite wrestler of all time, jumped ship to All Elite Wrestling and just put on banger and banger after banger. It took me while to grow on AEW–I thought their first year-plus was a bit overhyped, but I’m all up in the Kool-Aid now.

Jeffrey Harris

5. MLW
4. Impact Wrestling
3. STARDOM
2. NJPW

1. AEW – I mean there really shouldn’t be any other answer on any list. In terms of product quality, the answer is AEW. Considering they have a weekly TV product, they put on the best and most consistent one for wrestling fans on a regular basis. But really, for they get number one for The First Dance and signing CM Punk alone. There was noise about AEW having interest in Punk back in 2019. However, it looked like Punk just wasn’t keen on joining AEW at that time. Punk did have the broadcast analyst position with WWE Backstage, but that seemed like an easy gig for him, and him returning to wrestling didn’t seem like a realistic feasibility. That is until AEW made it happen this year.

Not to mention, AEW managed to also sign Bryan Danielson, fresh off another main event run in WWE. Bryan Danielson likely could’ve stayed in WWE and continued to make a very comfortable living. But there was just something about AEW that managed to catch his interest, and now we have Bryan Danielson wrestling 60-minute broadways in AEW.

Lastly, AEW launched its second cable TV show this year with AEW Rampage, and they won the Wednesday Night Wars against NXT. AEW wins this hands down.

Steve Cook

5. New Japan Pro Wrestling
4. Impact Wrestling
3. Game Changer Wrestling
2. World Wrestling Entertainment

1. All Elite Wrestling – I’d love to include ROH here based off their TV, but sadly their whole hiatus thing nips that in the bud. I’ve seen much more of Impact than GCW, but I have to give GCW credit for creating more buzz around their product and drawing some good houses after coming back. WWE is a money-printing machine and still produces some good stuff even though there’s a lot I don’t like. AEW has added a ton of good talent. We can debate whether they’re all being used to their best abilities, but they’ve at least improved the show quality from where it was. Punk & Bryan are drawing..I don’t know if peoples’ needles are moving or not, but AEW is in an interesting spot right now. Gonna be interesting to see what they do in 2022.

Andrew Cazer

5. Impact
4. WWE
3. NJPW
2. AEW

1. GCW – AEW will likely receive a majority of votes for this category and rightfully so, they brought in Punk, Danielson, Cole and a plethora of others. They broke their own records and produced high quality events in the process. That’s all fine but GCW managed to help the world of independent pro wrestling stay relevant and then eventually thrive in 2021. They ran shows across the country and became a company recognized by many as a place for talent to go and revitalize their careers. Someone like Matt Cardona could join GCW and be part of one of the best angles of the entire year. If you enjoy the type of product GCW brings to the table then they almost never missed and they consistently did things you didn’t see coming. From Wargames matches, to Jon Moxley appearing GCW in 2021 was insane. They gave talent a platform and really helped revitalize independent wrestling.

Jake Chambers

5. Pro-Wrestling NOAH
4. Beyond Wrestling
3. AEW
2. WWE

1. NJPW – Despite my love for NXT UK, the majority of WWE content is just so bad that it’s tough for me to put them at #1 despite producing my favourite wrestling of the year. Thus New Japan still promotes the wrestling at a level and style that I enjoy the most even though they are long past the glory days of the mid-2010s, and the pandemic “no cheering” era of shorter cards has been a challenging change. As cliche as it is to label puro as more of a “real sport” presentation, that categorization remains, and when the NBA or NFL have down years the competition to be the best is still the main goal. I get lost sometimes in the logic of WWE or AEW when winning a championship feels more like being in a video game final battle or fodder for a reality show segment, but NJPW continues to be the highest profile promotion in the wrestling world where it’s all just about trying to win.

Ian Hamilton

5. Game Changer Wrestling
4. Beyond Wrestling
3. Rev Pro
2. wXw

1. AEW – See my Dynamite blurb – it’s not a perfect promotion, but it’s the best big-scale promotion we’ve had in years. There’s definitely signs of impending turbulence, but in 2021 at least AEW delivered high highs without the crashing lows.

Kevin Pantoja

5. NOAH
4. Impact Wrestling
3. NJPW
2. WWE

1. AEW – This one feels easy. New Japan has no show as they were pretty bad throughout 2021. Even the G1 Climax didn’t produce on the level it typically does. WWE has a major number of problems but still entertains me when things are going right and I enjoy a lot of their roster. AEW takes the top spot because they’ve managed to minimize their mistakes. The women’s division still needs to feel more important and Tony Khan needs to stop tweeting but otherwise, they’re firing on all cylinders. Consistently showcasing great talent, giving us intense promos, and putting on PPVs that actually feel worth the money.

Thomas Hall

5. Impact Wrestling
4. Ring Of Honor
3. NXT
2. WWE

1. AEW – Yeah I’m not sure what else this really could have been. AEW has been on fire and come a long way, but above all else, it doesn’t have as many dumb, often self-inflicted problems as WWE. That is enough to put it above WWE, but AEW does some great things on its own. It has signed some incredible talent, put on some awesome matches and some classic pay per views, all in the course of a year. This is pretty much a layup and that’s quite impressive for a company that is still pretty new.

Lee Sanders

5. GCW
4. NJPW
3. NWA
2. MLW

1. AEW – One thing I pay great attention to in my wrestling shows is overall quality. I don’t care about quantity as it does nothing for me. When I think about all the promotions I’ve watched in 2021, Say what you will but AEW has delivered their very best quality of matches in all respected divisions. Even their women’s division improved despite a drawback in recent months from Britt Baker. Add into the mix Malakai Black, Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, CM Punk, Ruby Soho, Jay Lethal, and Christian Cage all debuting in the Promotion in 2021? You’re not just going to turn heads onto your product but make new fans in the process and that’s what AEW has been doing. My only concern though is Tony Khan acting like POKEMON’s Ash Ketchum collecting all these free agents as it could come back to hurt him. Sooner or later he will have to deal with releases as it’s a cash flow positive industry. For now it’s been fairly solid how he’s been balancing the roster with compelling story arcs, and solid matches.

Jeremy Thomas

5. NJPW
4. MLW
3. Impact
2. WWE

1. AEW – There comes a point where it’s impossible to deny a product. For those who hadn’t yet seen it, 2021 was that year for AEW. And listen, few people will try to argue that AEW is perfect because it’s not. They screw things up sometimes, and Tony Khan’s phone needs to have Twitter uninstalled from it. But they’re doing more than enough right that those things are just dings on the side of a bullet train at this point. There are some potential pitfalls up ahead (When do they stop signing talent? Can the women’s division find success outside Baker and Rosa?), but nearly everything that they’ve stumbled on, they’ve turned around and fixed or at least improved the matter. They launched a new weekly show in Rampage, they had wildly successful PPV events, and they delivered some of 2021’s most memorable moments in wrestling. It’s really hard for me to argue anything other than AEW at the top of this list.

AND 411’s TOP 5 Promotions of 2021 ARE…

5. GCW – 11 points

4. Impact Wrestling – 14 points

3. NJPW – 21 points

2. WWE – 26 points

1. AEW – 47 points

THE 2021 411 WRESTLING AWARDS:

* 1. The Biggest Disappointment of The Year: WWE’s Talent Releases – 28 points
* 2. The Best Non-Wrestler: Paul Heyman – 40 points
* 3. The Best Tag Team: The Lucha Bros – 32 points
* 4. The Worst Major Show: WrestleMania Backlash – 18 points
* 5. The Best Major Show: AEW All Out – 34 points
* 6. The Best Weekly Show: AEW Dynamite – 42 points