With AEW going through a full year of Dynamite, I feel it’s worth expanding the annual Naughty and Nice 3-Count to include All Elite Wrestling’s roster just the same as WWE’s.
As with that list, this is a recap of the best babyfaces, heels and tweeners (if possible) from this particular year. The names were picked solely by my personal opinions, although I tried to factor in accomplishments, longevity, character work, intensity and other kayfabe elements even if I didn’t necessarily prefer that person over some others. I try to be as objective as I can, despite how it’s a mostly subjective topic.
Naturally, your personal preference may disagree. If so, be sure to tell us your list in the comments below!
Without further ado, let’s talk about the men and women who made this year’s AEW list…
“Hangman” Adam Page
Technically speaking, even though AEW likes to act like there are no heels or babyfaces, Page has primarily been a babyface this year. However, he was consistently booked as someone with problems who screwed over his friends and was teetering on the edge of a heel turn he never fully went through with. In my book, that’s a tweener, even if it’s unintentional.
That journey was fun, even though it didn’t reach a more satisfying conclusion. I liked not knowing if they were going to turn him and have him join this potential Four Horsemen group or if they would make him go solo. Here’s hoping this is at least part of the foundation between an eventual scenario where Page is the babyface who dethrones Kenny Omega for the AEW World Championship, preferably at All Out 2021.
Honorable Mentions: n/a
Jon Moxley
At the beginning of the year, Jon Moxley was the fierce lone wolf who went after The Inner Circle and managed to take them down a peg by dethroning Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship.
Over the following months, Moxley was booked very much like Stone Cold Steve Austin from back in the day. He was never kissing babies and shaking hands with everyone in the crowd (partially due to COVID, of course) but it was never in question whether he was one of the good guys. When push came to shove, he stood up for people and held a firm opposition against some of the biggest villains of the year like Dark Order, Lance Archer, Eddie Kingston and Team Taz.
Moxley paired up with plenty of babyfaces, too, to illustrate this point. He took a particular shine to Darby Allin, but he had no issues working alongside others like Will Hobbs.
Back at Winter is Coming, Moxley was cheated out of the AEW World Championship, further illustrating his good guy status as he was honoring the gentleman’s agreement he had with Kenny Omega that The Cleaner went back on.
Best Friends (particularly Orange Cassidy)
Feuding with The Inner Circle is an easy way to position yourself as one of the best heroes of the brand. Orange Cassidy did that and then some.
Extra points are awarded for being one of the coolest characters and most interesting/gifted performers the company has. It’s hard to dislike this guy and he shouldn’t even be polarizing, either, as he’s the most chill person on the roster.
Chuck Taylor and Trent are no slouches in the babyface department, either. They’ve come out to help nearly every babyface team at one point or another from a post-match beating or an attack out of nowhere. They’ve shown humble values revolving around Trent’s mom Sue, too.
Private Party come off like jerks. The Young Bucks started superkicking people for no reason and were turds for a portion of the year. SoCal Uncensored were pretty staunch babyfaces, but they lost momentum more and more as the year went on.
Jungle Boy
While guys like MJF and Sammy Guevara are the young “this kid’s the future” types on the heel side, Jungle Boy is one of their contemporaries for the babyface opposition.
I’m not fond of Marko Stunt pretty much at all. The act wore thin almost immediately and I don’t think his character is likable. Luchasaurus is great and super fun in most matches, but even he is nowhere near as consistent as Jungle Boy.
Jack Perry doesn’t bother to cut promos, but he’s likable. He’s had great matches with nearly everyone he’s worked with, even to the point where if he’s working some jobber on AEW Dark, it’s typically the best match that jobber can have because he’s running the show.
I might not want him to win the world title before a lot of other people (Scorpio Sky, Adam Page, etc) but I do think he’s someone I’ll continue to enjoy watching grow into a main event star down the line and for now, I can see him being AEW’s Ricky Steamboat or Rey Mysterio where he never really turns heel.
Honorable Mentions: Cody Rhodes almost made this list (although I hated that “no” promo and I think he has been trying to be tweenerish too many times for his own good). Another who came very close was Big Swole, but since she only really had one feud with Dr. Britt Baker and never capitalized on that, I had to prioritize the others.
This guy is an ass and it’s great. He’s one of the most stuck-up people on the roster who clearly thinks his shit doesn’t stink or, better yet, would probably take a bigger whiff.
What’s particularly impressive about Starks is that he never lets up on the act. When he’s on commentary (typically on AEW Dark) he’s in character the entire time. Even if he’s joking around with Taz and Excalibur, he’s doing so through the voice of his jackass character.
Starks quickly upstaged Brian Cage in Team Taz. If he had the size of Cage, forget about it. I still think he’s a future world champion in the making regardless and based on how successful he’s been with this heel character, I don’t think he should turn babyface for a long, long while. It suits him far more naturally than his babyface material I had seen in NWA.
Inner Circle (particularly MJF)
MJF is one of the rare heels who knows he’s cool but manages to get you to boo him anyway, rather than cheer him. It’s actually impressive since even Chris Jericho can’t quite manage to pull that off as much anymore.
However, teaming these guys up has allowed MJF especially to amplify his heel tendencies. It’s quite impressive.
At the beginning of the year, The Inner Circle was poking people’s eyes out. They’ve wailed on other wrestlers with socks filled with baseballs, ruined Sue’s van, and so much more.
Then, despite all the bad things they’ve done, the majority of them look like babyfaces in comparison to MJF at the moment. He’s a heel who comes off like an even bigger heel when around heels!
It reminds me of a quote from DC comics where if the villains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories. On a similar wavelength, if there’s one heel who even the other heels can’t stand and would probably join the babyfaces in fighting, it’s MJF.
He’s better than all them, too, and they know it.
Lance Archer
Lance Archer is one of the most dominating, imposing people on the roster. That alone wouldn’t earn him a spot on this list, though. If that were true, Mr. Brodie Lee would be on it, wouldn’t he?
What he does with that size is the true reason he’s here. Every time we see him, he’s attacking someone random who is normally far smaller than he is. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, either. It’s not revenge or retaliation or even purpose. He simply attacks people for the sake of doing it.
That’s about as simplistically bad as you can get. Beating people up is one thing. Doing it arbitrarily on a regular basis before you go out to the ring to cut a promo about how everyone dies and you’re going to slaughter them = quite the heel.
In my book, Archer’s a much bigger antagonist on the overall roster than someone like Luther who is just trying too hard and nowhere near as intimidating.
Honorable Mentions: Dark Order came very close to making this list. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized they’re almost more entertaining because they’re not full-blown heels anymore. When they were attacking people on behalf of Mr. Brodie Lee, that was fine, but nothing special. The real treat is seeing people like John Silver on Being the Elite, which isn’t really canon and is a completely different character. Plus, I couldn’t tell you much of anything about Alan Angels or Preston Vance. It’s really Silver who I wanted to give some accolades to and that’s not strong enough for me to put them above the others in this 3-Count. Maybe next year.
I also considered giving a spot to Dr. Britt Baker. Frankly, a few months ago, she would have gotten it. Recently, though, her work on The Waiting Room has been so cringy bad and not at all what I’m digging that I found it too difficult to want to praise her current character. She went from being a great heel to coming off to me like someone poorly trying to copy the character she was at before.
Those are my picks, but who do you think should be considered the best babyfaces and heels of 2020? Who do you think will take these spots in 2021? Tell us what you’re thinking in the comments below, and happy holidays, everyone!