After looking back on the best and worst of AEW as well as the most unfortunate losers of WWE from 2020, it's time to round out this series with the third entry, focusing on the biggest winners of WWE from this past year.

Even during such a rough 12 months, there were more than a handful of Superstars who managed to achieve some amazing accomplishments and cross goals off their lists.

Some captured gold. Others put on some of the best performances to date. A few even saved their careers.

These triumphs deserve to be celebrated, and the victors need to be commended for the greatness they pulled off this year.

Let's look back on the year as a whole and praise the biggest winners of WWE for 2020.

Becky Lynch

Becky Lynch started 2020 as the hottest thing in the company after her amazing 2019. She was Raw women's champion and seemed poised to keep the title for quite some time longer.

Even The Queen of Spades was unable to take her down, as The Man retained her championship over Shayna Baszler at WrestleMania 36. Soon after that, she realized she had an even bigger win on the horizon and handed over the title to Asuka while announcing she was pregnant.

Earlier in December, Lynch gave birth to her daughter, Roux, and transitioned from The Man to The Mom.

Being the top of WWE, holding the title for a full year, scoring a big win at WrestleMania over a tough opponent, never being defeated for the belt and becoming a mom equates to about as fantastic of a year as one could hope for.

Edge and Randy Orton

It cannot be understated how wonderful it was for Edge to return to action at the Royal Rumble.

Having been forced to retire because of injuries deemed too severe to risk aggravating any longer, Edge's career had been over for nearly a decade. It seemed like an impossibility he would ever get an opportunity to go out on his own terms.

Thankfully, through whatever miracle came his way, The Rated-R Superstar came back and was able to soak in the adulation from the crowd a few more times before the onset of the pandemic.

He and Randy Orton started a feud that became one of the best of the year, resulting in a Match of the Year candidate at Backlash.

Unfortunately, Edge suffered another injury and has been absent since then, but he plans to return in 2021.

Meanwhile, Orton transitioned back to his Legend Killer character and has pulled off some of the best work he's done in ages.

Each week, he was arguably the most captivating character on Monday Night Raw, taking out Christian, Big Show, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and plenty of younger talent too.

Orton even managed to win the WWE Championship again, which puts him at 14 world title reigns—tied with Triple H for the most out of anyone in the company save for John Cena and Ric Flair.

The Golden Role Models: Bayley and Sasha Banks

The absence of Lynch and Charlotte Flair made it even easier for the two other Horsewomen, Bayley and Sasha Banks, to dominate WWE in 2020.

The Golden Role Models, as they called themselves, became the focal points of the women's divisions on both Raw and SmackDown.

At one point, they were simultaneously the women's tag team champions and the Raw and SmackDown women's champions. After dropping the tag titles and Banks lost the Raw Women's Championship back to Asuka in the summer, Bayley remained the head of SmackDown for a while longer.

Keep in mind that she had won the title back at Money in the Bank the prior year and only dropped it to Flair for less than a week before winning it back.

Effectively, if you ignore those five days, Bayley was champion from May 19, 2019, until October 25, 2020, and she dropped it to The Boss of all people.

At times, it was a chore to sit through what felt like a million matches against Nikki Cross. However, the history books will wipe that away and focus on the positives and the clear fact that The Golden Role Models took 2020 by a storm.

Roman Reigns

Roman Reigns has been one of WWE's top Superstars for the best part of a decade, and this year, he cemented his legacy even further.

All he had to do to be awarded a shot at Goldberg's Universal Championship was stand next to him. That's how much of a presence he has. That didn't come to pass, but when he returned at SummerSlam, he did so with more of an impact than ever before.

Within no time, Reigns was universal champion again and dubbed himself The Tribal Chief, showcasing a new attitude and villainous demeanor.

As if the title weren't enough, his destruction of Jey Uso led to Reigns being anointed the head of the table by the elders of the Anoa'i family, the Wild Samoans (Afa and Sika, his father).

The Hurt Business

At the beginning of the year, Shelton Benjamin was lucky to get a spot losing on Main Event, Cedric Alexander was struggling to do anything of note and Bobby Lashley was wrapped up in an atrocious love story with Lana.

MVP randomly made his return to WWE in the Royal Rumble, and following that event, he assembled what became The Hurt Business.

These four Superstars tapped into their potential and started stealing the show on Monday nights. They wrecked everyone on Raw Underground, punked out Retribution and have even captured the United States and Raw Tag Team Championships.

With MVP as a mouthpiece, their stylish suits and their justified bravado, all four of their WWE careers were saved, and they are among the best factions the promotion has had in years.

Keith Lee

On January 22, Keith Lee beat Roderick Strong to win the North American Championship.

He held that championship going into Great American Bash on July 1, when he managed to make history by becoming the first Superstar in NXT to hold two singles titles at the same time.

Defeating Adam Cole for the NXT Championship was an immense achievement in and of itself given Cole had held the title longer than anyone in the brand's history at 403 days. Lee willingly vacated the North American title and was then beaten for the NXT Championship by Karrion Kross, but he turned a negative into a positive by going straight to the Raw roster.

While he hasn't won any titles as part of the red brand, he did score a win over The Viper and has had some impressive showings, such as being the final member of Team Raw to secure victory at Survivor Series.

It's clear Lee has what it takes to be a big star, and if 2021 is anything like 2020 was to him, he should live up to his "limitless" moniker.

Braun Strowman

Whether WWE finally realized what it had in Braun Strowman or whether he was just in the right place at the right time, 2020 was a fantastic year for The Monster Among Men as far as adding to his legacy goes.

Early in the year, Strowman captured the Intercontinental Championship for his first singles belt. Not too long after that, he was the emergency replacement for Reigns at WrestleMania 36 and managed to defeat the almost unbeatable Goldberg to win the Universal Championship.

Just like that, Strowman went from having some joke tag team title reigns and a meaningless Greatest Royal Rumble victory to becoming a Triple Crown champion.

Sure, he suffered some horrors at Extreme Rules, fell victim to an injury and severed his friendship with Alexa Bliss, but none of that erases his spot in the record books.

Asuka

Asuka started 2020 with the Women's Tag Team Championship in her possession alongside Kairi Sane. The Kabuki Warriors dropped the titles at WrestleMania, but The Empress of Tomorrow wasn't without gold for much longer.

She quickly bounced back from this loss by winning the Money in the Bank contract and traded that in the next night to win Lynch's Raw Women's Championship.

Truth be told, if you were judging Asuka's status based on how WWE has booked her, she wouldn't be as much of a definitive part of this list. WWE's largely ignored her and has given her lackluster defenses along the way.

But even though she lost the title to Banks, she won it back. Is it better to have a title reign uninterrupted or to be able to call yourself a two-time women's champion in the span of a year?

She's also a double champion, as she won the women's tag titles alongside Charlotte Flair at TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs on Sunday, making her the third woman this year to hold two belts at the same time.

Asuka's accomplishments in 2020 put her in a league of her own, as she's the only woman to have won the Raw, SmackDown and NXT women's titles, the tag titles, Money in the Bank and Royal Rumble. If she wins an Elimination Chamber, she will have done everything she can possibly do in the company.

Charlotte Flair

As mentioned, Asuka and Flair now hold the Women's Tag Team Championship, but that's not the first thing The Queen won this year.

She started 2020 by outlasting 29 other women to win the Royal Rumble. After being pestered by Rhea Ripley for several weeks, Flair decided to give the NXT women's champion the match she was asking for.

Rather than get shown up by the upstart who had been on a tear, Flair dug in her heels, proved why she's the most prolific female wrestler in WWE history and dethroned Ripley.

Flair didn't hold the title especially long, but she managed to add another accolade to her list and derailed Ripley's momentum, which is impressive.

The Street Profits

The Street Profits captured the Raw Tag Team Championship on March 2 and, in a sense, have yet to drop those titles.

Technically speaking, their reign was interrupted when they traded the belts with The New Day and became SmackDown tag team champions, but that's far from losing a championship.

If you count this as one title run, Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins have had the longest stretch with any tag team gold in the past 14 years save for The New Day's record-breaking reign in 2015.

Both members have come into their own this year and held down the fort while WWE had little talent to utilize. They showed up every week, wrestled multiple matches per show and have only gotten better.

At this point, they are fixtures of the tag team landscape in WWE. They have made their names in 2020, and with Ford jumping as high as he can for his Frog Splash, the sky's the limit.

Drew McIntyre

2020 was easily the best year of Drew McIntyre's career.

It started in earnest when he booted Brock Lesnar out of the ring and went on to win the men's Royal Rumble. He carried that momentum into WrestleMania and was able to take down The Beast Incarnate yet again to capture his first WWE Championship. Moments later, he also took out Big Show, making history as the first person to defend the WWE title in a dark match at WrestleMania.

Over the following months, The Scottish Warrior dominated Monday Night Raw, retaining against Seth Rollins, Bobby Lashley and Dolph Ziggler, among others.

There was a brief stumble when he dropped the title to Randy Orton, but a few weeks later, he was gifted his family sword by Sheamus and took that lucky charm into battle to win the WWE Championship for the second time.

McIntyre arguably would have beaten Reigns at Survivor Series had it not been for interference too, which would have been monumental.

There's no debate who has been the top talent on Raw this past year. It was The King of Claymore Country.

Honorable Mentions

Many other Superstars had some big wins this year but just weren't quite as impressive as the others on this list.

Here are just some of the honorable mentions worth giving credit to.

The following won their first-ever WWE championships this year:

• A-Kid became the first winner of the NXT UK Heritage Cup trophy.
• Apollo Crews won the United States Championship.
• Tyler Breeze and Fandango finally won the NXT Tag Team Championship.
• Damian Priest won the NXT North American Championship.
• Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan won the NXT Tag Team Championship.
• Io Shirai won the NXT Women's Championship.
• Santos Escobar won the interim NXT Cruiserweight Championship.

R-Truth technically won more titles than anyone else this year, as he captured the 24/7 Championship a whopping 15 times. He also debuted The R-Truth Game Show on the WWE Network.

Several others didn't manage to win gold but had great moments or showings in other ways.

• Ashante "Thee" Adonis, Curt Stallion and August Grey joined the rosters and have made names for themselves on 205 Live.
• Drake Maverick found his way back into the company, as he signed an NXT contract several weeks after being released. He could have been gone like everyone else, but he fought for his job and earned it back.
• Omos took major steps forward in his career, as he went from a Performance Center recruit to one of Akira Tozawa's ninjas, Shane McMahon's bodyguard for Raw Underground and the heavy for AJ Styles.
• Dominik Mysterio earned his spot on the roster and signed a contract with WWE as a true Superstar.
• Pat McAfee stole the show in NXT with his performances against Adam Cole and The Undisputed Era.

Even in a rough year, all these Superstars and more managed to have major highlights that will be celebrated going into 2021 and beyond.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.