Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole Set New Records With NXT Year-End Awards

NXT announced the winners of its annual Year-End awards during this week's pretaped episode, and the show turned out to be another victorious night for the Undisputed Era. The faction closed out the year still holding all three of the brand's top championships and took home the awards for Male Competitor of the Year (Adam Cole), Overall Competitor of the Year (Cole), Tag Team of the Year (Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish) Rivalry of the Year (Cole vs. Johnny Gargano) and Match of the Year (Gargano vs. Cole 2/3 Falls Match at NXT TakeOver: New York).

By the end of the night, Cole and Gargano both earned numerous spots in the record books. Gargano now holds the record for most award wins (five), most wins for Match of the Year (three), Most Nominations (18), Most Match of the Year Nominations (nine), while Cole set the record for Most Awards in a Single Year at four.

The #WWENXT Male Competitor of the Year is the #NXTChampion... @AdamColePro BAY-BAY!#NXTYearEndAwards pic.twitter.com/gHSyItwAlO

— WWE (@WWE) January 2, 2020

Cole started off 2019 without a championship but was inserted into the NXT Championship picture after Tommaso Ciampa had to step down from wrestling at NXT TakeOver: New York to undergo neck surgery. Gargano beat him in their first encounter at TakeOver: New York, only for Cole to turn around and capture the title at TakeOver: XXV. The two had one last clash at TakeOver: Toronto during SummerSlam weekend, which saw Cole win a 2/3 Falls match.

Since then Cole has successfully retained against the likes of Matt Riddle and Finn Balor. Meanwhile Gargano spent the rest of the year wrestling in a limited capacity due to injury, though he did get some revenge on Balor by distracting him during his NXT title match with Cole.

Gargano celebrated his accomplishments on Twitter, though it kicked off a war of words with Bayley.

But I didn't sign with the company until 2016? 🤷🏻‍♂️

I do have an idea to settle all of this though..

You know where we'll be on Wednesday Nights. pic.twitter.com/GUKZ0Z0gu5

— Johnny Gargano (@JohnnyGargano) January 2, 2020

Back in September Gargano publicly announced on Twitter that he would never leave the NXT brand for either SmackDown or Raw.

I made my choice.

I poured my heart and soul into this brand for YEARS. You think I'm gonna leave now that everything I helped work towards is finally happening?

Not a chance!

The phrase going "up" is dead. We're THE Main Roster now.#WeAreNXT and when you're NXT.. you're NXT pic.twitter.com/DZKmHll033

— Johnny Gargano (@JohnnyGargano) September 12, 2019