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For 52 Sundays (plus one Saturday before and one Monday after WrestleMania 37), Cageside Seats asked you to tell us about your favorite performances in pro wrestling. In record numbers, you Cagesiders answered the call.
Ladies and germs, smarks and casuals, here's the full, final, official S3 for 2020 - 2021:
Wish I had time to do some fancy graphs like I used to back in the early days of this thing - if anyone wants to take a stab at analysis, let me know and I can share the full spreadsheet I use to keep track of it week-to-week.
Even without those, here are some quick thoughts as we close the book on our ninth year...
11 on down
- It was year unlike any other, as we all know. But I’m not sure that had an impact on the Standings. The companies whose talent gets most of our votes kept putting on shows.
- 21 more performers earned Performer of the Year points in Year Nine than did in Year Ten, so despite the pandemic, a full year of Dynamite seemed to create more opportunities.
- I don’t code the Standings by company (but maybe I should... I do love giving myself more work!), so I can’t say what the percentages of AEW vs. WWE or main roster vs. NXT are. But glancing over the top 50 or so, I think the two Wednesday night shows split our vote the way they may have been splitting ratings. Spots that used to be all NXT are now a mix of AEW and NXT instead. Will that change this year with their shows on different nights? Or will tribalism persist?
- Every year, there’s someone who has an early run which keeps them in the top ten most of the year, but whose push fades and they end up not getting a lot of votes later. Call it the Damien Sandow Award. Sonya Deville and Drake Maverick probably qualify this year.
- Personally, one of my favorite things about this is the weird, coincidental (?) ties which either make perfect or no sense. This year, sign me the f up for a season of Mixed Match Challenge featuring the pair tied at 20, any combination of the trio sitting in 68th, and the first four name in the logjam at 79.
10 - Cesaro
9 - Kevin Owens
Swiss was a staple of the early years of our little exercise whose fallen off lately. KO’s a former Performer of the Year who’d been up and down ever since. Nice to see them both get some meaningful work on Friday nights, and earning you votes by making the most of it.
8 - Kenny Omega
AEW gets two spots in the Top Ten this time, which is a first. Omega benefited from a few things, including his work with another promotion. Being the most prominent guy going through the Forbidden Door is probably a big reason why he’s here, but it’s not the only one.
7 -Drew McIntyre
The man who started the year as WWE champion was a regular presence in the weekly Standings, but only occasionally finished near the top of them. If I had to guess, that was more of a factor of the quality of the show he was on, and the feuds it offered him.
6 - Io Shirai
5 - Bayley
4 - Asuka
Three women who spent the bulk of the last twelve months as their brand’s champion, and finished within 12 points of each other in the Standings. There’s no shame in these spots - at all - but a few more defenses for Io, a little more to do after her main event program wrapped up last fall for Bayley, and... where to start with Asuka? The fact she’s in the Top 5 considering the way she was cast as a supporting character for much of the year is a testament to her talent, and the effort she gives regardless of the material she’s given.
3 - Jon Moxley
Mox finishes third for the second year in a row. Obviously, jetting across the Pacific wasn’t as big a factor this year, but he worked wherever he could whenever he could. It’s a big reason we love him.
2 - Roman Reigns
If Reigns was on our screens from April - August last year he might be celebrating his second Performer of the Year win. But his absence gave birth to the Tribal Chief, and that gimmick is the reason he came as close as he did to closing the gap on...
1 - Sasha Banks
You need to be on television, but for those that have that spot, there are multiple ways to succeed in the Standings, because there are multiple types of wrestling fans You can have great matches. You can have a dominant title reign, or be featured in an entertaining storyline. A dedicated, passionate fanbase will also take you far. The Boss has always had the first and last ones. This was the year she got the other ones, too.
It made her our Performer of the Year.
For fun, use the poll below to make a prediction as to the 2021-22 winner (I’ll also score comment votes as usual if folks want to submit those). Last year, you picked Bray Wyatt, and... YOWIE WOWIE!
Can The Fiend bounce back as a babyface (I think that’s what he is)? Could an AEW performer become our first non-WWE winner? Will The Boss repeat, or is she off to reclaim Mandalore? Let us know what you think!
Any other questions, concerns, screams or cries? Use the comments for those, too!
See you on Sunday for Season Ten of The S3!
Poll
Who will have the best year’s worth of performances between WrestleMania 37 and WrestleMania 38?
This poll is closed
-
3%
Jon Moxley
(15 votes) -
5%
Cesaro
(24 votes) -
19%
Sasha Banks
(79 votes) -
0%
Kevin Owens
(3 votes) -
2%
Britt Baker
(9 votes) -
0%
Bobby Lashley
(4 votes) -
0%
Asuka
(3 votes) -
1%
Karrion Kross
(8 votes) -
4%
Kenny Omega
(17 votes) -
20%
Roman Reigns
(81 votes) -
1%
Raquel González
(5 votes) -
0%
Drew McIntyre
(2 votes) -
5%
Big E
(23 votes) -
0%
Johnny Gargano
(0 votes) -
0%
Darby Allin
(2 votes) -
9%
Bianca Belair
(38 votes) -
0%
Hikaru Shida
(2 votes) -
0%
Bayley
(3 votes) -
1%
MJF
(7 votes) -
0%
Asuka
(1 vote) -
0%
Daniel Bryan
(1 vote) -
0%
Thunder Rosa
(3 votes) -
0%
Edge
(2 votes) -
1%
Rhea Ripley
(6 votes) -
1%
Adam Cole
(7 votes) -
0%
Braun Strowman
(1 vote) -
1%
Charlotte Flair
(7 votes) -
1%
Io Shirai
(8 votes) -
0%
Bray Wyatt
(2 votes) -
0%
Randy Orton
(1 vote) -
5%
Hangman Page
(24 votes) -
0%
Kyle O’Reilly
(2 votes) -
0%
Alexa Bliss
(4 votes) -
2%
Other (use comments)
(11 votes)