As we continue, the next category worth discussing the categories of promoter and booker of the year. Both awards have clear winners but with close second places, if we analyze both categories.
Promoter of the Year
For many, and rightfully so, Tony Khan is the favorite to take yet again this award, especially with the year AEW had and the Forbidden Door show being a success but I think the growth STARDOM has seen under Rossy Ogawa under the last year gives him an edge on this category and should probably win it overall.
There are other candidates fo this award besides Tony Khan and Rossy Ogawa, but none of them had as strong cases as Khan and Ogawa had in 2022 and were very distant to the promoters of both All Elite Wrestling and STARDOM. 2023 could be very interesting, especially with Mercedes Varnado (AKA Sasha Banks) set to leave WWE.
A name that can’t be ignore is Paul Levesque, but his run has only been 6 months and for the most part in his tenure has promoter in WWE has been very safe, plagued with returns and with a conservative approach to wait to WrestleMania season to start moving pieces. All these factors don’t help Levesque’s case at all on this category and others.
Booker of the Year
Booker of the year is a very different story to promoter of the year, and with category the winner is Tony Khan, and looking at the very strong first half of 2022 AEW had it can’t be ignored, that and with the last few months of AEW put him on the edge on this category.
The booking of STARDOM has been fantastic, and honestly, Rossy Ogawa should be a close second on this award. A third option has to be Gedo with NJPW; NJPW had a slow start in 2022 but Gedo’s booking kept improving as the year went by and NJPW has serious momentum going forward to 2023.
Paul Levesque can’t be ignored on this category, and the same arguments made on promoter of the year apply to him in terms of his booking of main roster WWE; with most of his booking being focused on returns and not much changes related to content of the WWE programming.
