Sean Waltman Says Keith Lee Is The Breakout Star Of The Year

With the start of 2020 just days away people are making their picks for the best of 2019. Sean Waltman focused on NXT where he made his year-end picks including selecting TakeOver: Cardiff as the best TakeOver of 2019.

"Every match was just excellent on that show. I talk about this all the time whenever we're discussing TakeOvers, whether it's on my Twitter or here. They always do an amazing job of either topping or at least following the previous TakeOver," Waltman said on his X-Pac 1,2,360 podcast. "The matches they built, each match was excellent and it just built until the Walter and Tyler Bate match... I had no problem voting for that match. It was just a classic, it was really innovative stuff... we have all these routines that we do with each other in matches and it's all the stuff we've seen before. And there wasn't a lot of that in this match, it was really fresh. It just look like they were killing each other."

When it came to picking a rookie or breakout star of the year, Waltman went with Keith Lee.

"It was tough because my boys are Riddle and Damian Priest and you can talk about any of those guys, it's just most recently Keith has made a huge impact when he was given the opportunity. So it's hard for me to pick anyone else," stated Waltman.

Among those NXT Superstars who debuted in 2019, Waltman chose Xia Li as a future star.

"She has a really good handle on mentally what to do in there when she's making a comeback; her fire that she shows. And other people that have been in wrestling for way longer than her, some of y'all need to look at her," said Waltman. "When she's making her comeback, she blows so many of y'all away. It's not even funny. The way she knocks somebody down, and instead of just standing there waiting for them to come back she's like 'c'mon' and she's into it. It just doesn't look like choreographed stuff and her technique is excellent."

At the end of 2018 Io Shirai was named "Future Star of NXT" and Waltman thinks the future is now and she was the biggest female star of 2019.

"Nobody can touch Io right now, just like Kairi Sane before her in NXT, to me they're really similar. Everything is done with purpose, everything I see her do and I am just so impressed with her," said Waltman.