10 Best WWE Matches Of 2017

2017 was full of ups and downs for WWE. The Undertaker seemingly “retired” in a pretty awful match at WrestleMania 33, Baron Corbin became Mr. Money in the Bank, and Jinder Mahal won the WWE Championship.

Thankfully, there were some great moments across the year, such as The Hardy Boyz making their comeback, the rise of the Undisputed Era in NXT, and these outstanding matches.

These are the 10 best WWE matches of 2017.

10. Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt - Extreme Rules

One of the big problems facing Raw in 2017 was the absence of Brock Lesnar, who had become Universal Champion at WrestleMania and then gone on an extended holiday.

He wasn’t booked for the Extreme Rules pay-per-view, so what did WWE do instead? They just stuck five of their biggest names into one match and told them to knock the stuffing out of each other. Yeah, that’ll do it.

Balor, Joe, Reigns, Rollins, and Wyatt clashed over the number one contendership in this completely insane show-closing brawl. For almost half an hour, these brutes took chunks out of each other, making full use of the no DQ stipulation.

Spotfests aren’t always a good thing, but this was a great example of how to do one right, with plenty of exciting sequences helmed by five distinct characters fans could get invested in.

Joe won by tapping out Finn, which granted him a title match with Brock at the upcoming Great Balls of Fire pay-per-view.

9. Kevin Owens Vs. Shane McMahon - Hell In A Cell

For some bizarre reason, WWE decided to book Kevin Owens in a feud with Shane McMahon that took up most of the back half of 2017.

KO and the billionaire’s son only had one actual match during this time but, to be fair, it was a real doozy.

The stage was the 2017 Hell in a Cell pay-per-view and Owens and McMahon were put inside the titular structure. Fans who feared this would be a repeat of Shane’s boring ‘Mania 32 match with The Undertaker need not have worried, as The Prizefighter was in much better shape than The Deadman.

Owens got the best out of his blue brand boss, who naturally thrives in no DQ environments. Did it need to go 40 minutes? Absolutely not, but it was still good fun.

There was some great action inside the Cell, but everyone remembers this match for what happened outside it. Shane threw himself off the big scary cube, looking to crush his opponent beneath him, only for Sami Zayn to run in at literally the last possible second to pull his old enemy to safety.

Now that’s how you end a match.

8. Men's Money in the Bank Ladder Match - Money in the Bank

2017’s Money in the Bank was a SmackDown-exclusive affair and also played host to the first-ever Women’s version of the eponymous match. However, it was the Men’s version that performed better, mostly because it wasn’t pretty much won by James Ellsworth.

Dolph Ziggler, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Baron Corbin, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Sami Zayn were all in the running for the briefcase and all brought their A-game for the St. Louis crowd.

There were plenty of flippy boys involved who were willing and able to put on a show, and this was a ladder match featuring Owens and Zayn, which guaranteed that they would do horrible things to each other in the name of our entertainment. There was also that fun spot where Styles was left dangling above the ring.

The only downside to this excellent example of a Money in the Bank match was the winner. Baron Corbin was nobody’s preferred choice, and it made matters worse that he failed his cash-in later in the year.

Still, the match did give us that awesome AJ-Shinsuke staredown, so we guess all is forgiven.

7. Finn Balor vs. AJ Styles - TLC

Relying on the “card subject to change” caveat isn’t usually a good thing in wrestling, but at TLC 2017 it actually saved the show.

An outbreak of illnesses late in the day changed many plans for this pay-per-view, including Finn Balor’s original opponent of Bray Wyatt in his Sister Abigail guise.

Wyatt’s illness meant that this horrible idea was scrapped and AJ Styles was flown over from SmackDown to face Finn instead. Despite being purely an exhibition match, The Phenomenal One and Balor showed everyone why they were two of the best wrestlers working in the world at the time.

This was an NXT TakeOver-style match on WWE’s main roster, something that was incredibly rare back in the day, and Balor getting the big win surely meant that he was destined for great things. Instead, he was squashed by Kane the next night on Raw.

6. Kevin Owens Vs. Roman Reigns - Royal Rumble

Part of why it was so strange that Kevin Owens had such a lengthy feud with a middle-aged non-wrestler was that earlier in the very same year, he had been Universal Champion.

Owens had won the belt the previous year and made his first big title defence of 2017 at the Royal Rumble, where he faced off against The Big Dog. And not just in any old match as it was a No DQ encounter with Chris Jericho suspended above the ring in a shark cage.

Nevertheless, this match was awesome. Owens and Reigns had excellent chemistry and worked really well in this hardcore environment, getting super creative with weapons and keeping the wild violence going at a strong and steady pace.

This was also one of the first instances of Owens hitting someone with a Stunner on the main roster, which is a neat little footnote.

The champion retained the gold after a blistering match that WWE overbooked at the end by having Braun Strowman run in at the end and cost Roman.

5. Men's Elimination Chamber - Elimination Chamber

After 15 years of forcing their performers to take horrible bumps on exposed steel grates inside the Elimination Chamber, WWE finally introduced a version of the structure with padding on the outside.

This baby version of the Chamber debuted in 2017 with a match for the WWE Championship. John Cena was defending against AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Baron Corbin, Dean Ambrose, and The Miz, all of whom had recent history with at least one other member of the match. This made for quite the tussle.

Intermingling narrative threads, combined with some top-notch grappling, produced one of the strongest Chamber matches in some time, with the final three coming down to Cena, Styles, and Wyatt.

The Eater of Worlds was able to take down both men, pinning AJ after countering the Phenomenal Forearm to become WWE Champion for the very first time.

This just made the match even sweeter; many worried that the ship had sailed on Wyatt as a top guy, so to see him finally capture the prize he had worked so hard for was fantastic.

4. Brock Lesnar vs. AJ Styles - Survivor Series

For most of 2017, fans had to sit through one of the worst world title reigns in modern history, as Jinder Mahal limply carried SmackDown as its underprepared WWE Champion.

This left everyone wondering how the company was going to book him in the traditional Survivor Series Champion vs. Champion match against Raw’s Brock Lesnar.

Turns out, they didn’t have to, because they put the title on AJ Styles right before the pay-per-view.

As if any more proof was needed that Styles was a better choice than the Modern Day Maharaja, he went on to have an incredible bout with The Beast, structured around whether AJ’s speed and agility were enough to topple the behemoth.

Styles sold like a fiend for his opponent, playing the outgunned babyface to perfection. But to be fair, Lesnar gave it right back, showing real peril in the brief moments where AJ got the upper hand.

Though the result was never really in doubt, this match did enough to make people believe that Styles could win, and that’s what wrestling is all about.

3. The New Day vs. The Usos - Hell In A Cell

Nobody expected one of the rivalries of 2017 to come from SmackDown’s tag team division, mainly because Vince McMahon viewed tandem wrestling with the same amount of respect as a man sneezing in front of him.

The Usos, who had undergone a serious character revamp the year before, first crossed paths with The New Day at Battleground and would fight many more times throughout the year, both on pay-per-view and TV.

After an incredible match on the SummerSlam pre-show (which very nearly made this list), the two teams squared off inside Hell in a Cell for the SmackDown Tag Team Championships, and good grief was it good.

Both teams had incredible chemistry with one another and their rivalry had built organically, so a stipulation of this magnitude had been thoroughly earned. They played off their previous matches superbly, incorporating new twists to the format and using a healthy amount of weapons to boot.

Jimmy and Jey got the win, the titles, and put this incredible rivalry to bed in stunning fashion. This feud was so good, that it turned The Usos face without them even needing to do anything.

2. Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe - SummerSlam

The final entry in our series of multi-man matches that devolved into absolute chaos took place at SummerSlam 2017, a show which was, largely, quite boring.

The main event of the show was Brock Lesnar defending his Universal Championship against three recent adversaries - Roman Reigns, Samoa Joe, and Braun Strowman. These four would have to do something special to wake up this tired crowd, and that’s precisely what they did.

Think of a demolition derby but with people instead of cars and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this match looked like. There were crashes, there were bashes, and there were smashes.

The Beast retained, but the real winner was The Monster Amongst Men, who announced himself in a big way in this match, finally managing to shake the stench that had plagued him since his lacklustre debut that had begun to alleviate during his feud with Roman Reigns.

Wrestling fans are simple folk, and sometimes all we want to see is four gigantic lads running into each other really hard and really fast.

1. AJ Styles vs. John Cena - Royal Rumble

After a series of great matches in 2016, AJ Styles and John Cena squared off one more time at the 2017 Royal Rumble, this time for AJ’s WWE Championship.

The ex-TNA man had routinely gotten the better of Mr WWE, leaving Cena with a lot to prove. This, plus the talent of both men involved, resulted in a truly special encounter.

This was everything a big-time title fight should be. It started slowly, the pace gradually building over time, until, by the end, it was a breathtaking sprint to the finish. Big moves were hit, countered, and kicked out of in equal measure, as fans perched on the edge of their seats desperate to see what would happen next.

In the end, history was made when Cena emphatically hit Styles with back-to-back Attitude Adjustments to pin the champ and claim the belt for his own. With this, he became a 16-time world champion, tying Ric Flair’s legendary record.

One of the best matches in both performers’ legendary careers, this was a shoo-in for match of the year just 29 days into it.