The 2020 Strong Style NJPW Awards
The most prestigious awards of the year are given out
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It’s time to hand out the most prestigious of all wrestling awards - the Strong Style NJPW awards! I didn’t bother to come up with a fancy name or acronym for them, but make no mistake - every New Japan wrestler dreams of winning a Strong Style. Hey, maybe that’ll be the name.
Regardless, enough nonsense. On with the awards. The envelopes, please…
(note: no match of the year in this article - I’m doing a separate Matches of the Year article)
Wrestler of the Year
Hiromu Takahashi
(photo by Hirondon)
He had stiff competition from two other LiJ stablemates, but little Hiromu is my choice here. Making his return from a broken neck at the starting of the year, the junior king made the most of this wacky year, beating heavyweights, regaining his junior title (which he subsequently lost), and even main eventing cards. He started his year with a crazy good match at Wrestle Kingdom with Will Ospreay and ended it winning the Best of the Super Juniors in an all-time classic match against El Desperado. He even made Toru Yano finally palatable for me. The sky’s the limit for Hiromu, who is already in the rare company of Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger in terms of transcendent junior talents. Kudos to Daryl and Naoru’s dad.
Honourable Mention: Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi
Tag Team of the Year
Dangerous Tekkers
The tag champion duo of Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi did the impossible this year - they made the New Japan tag scene “must see”. They also made the World Tag League a must see, which is an even greater feat. And they did all this while playing both sides of the aisle - the slimy, cheating heels as well as the fiery babyfaces. They gave the shine to opponents that needed to be elevated. They gave great backstage promos. They even improved both of their individual stocks while working together as a team. Basically, Tekkers were in a class of their own. Now watch them get run over by GoD at Wrestle Kingdom in a couple days.
Honourable Mention: Golden Aces, CHAOS (YOSHI-HASHI, Ishii, Goto)
Junior Wrestler of the Year (not named Hiromu)
El Desperado
While Hiromu was far and away the best junior wrestler this year (and the best wrestler, period, in my books), El Desperado’s 2020 shouldn’t be overlooked. Not only is he half of the junior tag champs along with Yoshinobu Kanemaru, but his year as a singles performer was above reproach. He ended it with a match of the year against Hiromu in the BOSJ Finals, where he was unmasked (temporarily it seems). In fact, his BOSJ overall was stellar. Despy also dabbled in the heavyweight ranks, fighting Tomohiro Ishii, Shingo Takagi (for the NEVER Openweight Championship), Satoshi Kojima, and as part of the KOPW four man match. And no one looks cooler than Despy inside or outside the ring. A breakout year for the masked bandit, with hopefully much more to come.
Honourable Mention: Taiji Ishimori, SHO