The 10 best WWE matches of May 2018

May was a weird month. The normal post-WrestleMania lull was in full swing. Many of the Championship reigns at the moment are dead cold, much less the overall direction of the programming.

Even so, May gave us a slew of excellent matches. It was only a matter of finding the gems that were hidden in the hours of underwhelming content.

205 Live proved to punch far above its weight class this month. It's always been capable of delivering and May was arguably its best month yet.

Raw was in very poor form, with only one match that truly warranted mention here, featuring a Superstar that's probably obvious to you. SmackDown and NXT were the workhorses, to the surprise of nobody.

In a truly damning indictment, Backlash, the company's pay-per-view for the month, only had one match featured, but what a match it was! There were two legitimate match of the year contenders this month, but which of them was better than the other?

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#10: The New Day vs Cesaro, Sheamus, and The Miz (SmackDown, May 29th)

Put six great wrestlers in a match and you'll get a great match, unsurprisingly. It seems like The New Day can never do anything wrong in a match, The Miz has been on fire, and Cesaro and Sheamus are always reliable too. You really can't go wrong with any of these six guys, and sure enough, nothing did go wrong.

It was one of the better Six-Man Tag Team matches in 2018. Sure, there weren't any stakes, but the action was fluid, spilled outside the ring to get just chaotic enough, and never dragged even once.

After some of that aforementioned chaos on the outside, Big E would take revenge on the Miz, hit the Big Ending, and essentially give it away that he'll be the New Day's contender in the men's Money In The Bank Ladder match, though it was arguably Xavier Woods who was the true star of the match.

#9: Kalisto vs Drew Gulak (205 Live, May 1st)

205 Live has quietly become the little engine that could in WWE. It can always be relied on to produce at least one four-star match with each episode. The underappreciated purple brand features more than once on this list, and Drew Gulak started things off with Kalisto.

It was a scintillating clash of styles. Kalisto was the agile high-flyer, while Gulak, the man who hates high-fliers, the technical and submission wrestler who wanted to keep him grounded.

Gulak's style would eventually prevail, as he locked Kalisto in his Dragon Sleeper and forced him to submit.

#8: Seth Rollins vs Kevin Owens (Raw, May 14th)

Raw has been in a bad state in this post-WrestleMania season. Seth Rollins has been its undisputed MVP. His open challenges have been the must-see parts of the show. His bout with Kevin Owens was one of the better ones this month.

A hard-hitting contest with thrilling counters and brutal offense, these two fighters battered each other until some lucky placement allowed Seth Rollins to hit the Curbstomp on Kevin Owens and retain his championship.

#7: AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura (SmackDown, May 15th)

In an indictment of the perpetually damaged WWE creative process, AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura had their best match on American soil on free TV.

There wasn't much reason to book it either, since the stakes on hand - the stipulation for their Money In The Bank match - could have been chosen some other, less redundant way.

It was still a good match, though. Shinsuke Nakamura would humorously pretend that AJ Styles had given him a low blow, causing a distraction that would eventually seal his victory in decisive fashion.

It was nice to see the callback humor of the low blow without actually using it.

#6: Jeff Hardy vs The Miz (SmackDown, May 8th)

In my opinion, this match was greatly superior to the more talked-about Jeff Hardy vs. Daniel Bryan match which took place a couple of weeks later.

Miz and Hardy traded offense more often, leading to more edge-of-your-seat action. Thrilling near falls and false finishes were seeded throughout the match.

The Miz's ring IQ was on full display, as he outlasted the Swanton Bomb for a reversal we haven't seen before.

The Miz would thus punch his ticket to Money in the Bank.

#5: Velveteen Dream and Ricochet vs Lars Sullivan (NXT, May 23rd)

This was the best handicap match I've seen in a long time.

The action was fluid, all three men's character work was on point, and all three looked like stars as a result.

Ricochet and Velveteen Dream's unusual alliance was shaky at first, but looked to be paying off as they repeatedly attacked Lars Sullivan.

Through sheer effort, they were finally, finally succeeding in chopping the big man down, until Velveteen Dream turned on his partner and left the arena.

The result was that Lars Sullivan won advancing his feud with Aleister Black, while Ricochet and Velveteen Dream advanced their own feud. It was the kind of smart booking to expect routinely from NXT.

#4: Shayna Baszler vs Dakota Kai (NXT, May 30th)

May went out with a bang with this match. While other matches may have been worked better, the character work in this match reigned supreme, with Dakota Kai still being scared of Shayna Baszler, who mercilessly tore her apart.

Her joint manipulation was even more vicious than Pete Dunne's standard.

Just when it looked Dakota was down and out, she fought through the pain to land some devastating strikes, but couldn't capitalize due to injuries. That's when Shayna stopped playing around and took her out.

Then out came Nikki Cross and Shayna looked flabbergasted that she couldn't play the bully anymore. It was brilliant all around.

#3: Buddy Murphy vs Mustafa Ali (205 Live, May 8th)

They had a great match in March, they had another one in May. This was a fast-paced, hard-hitting affair where the heart of Mustafa Ali was on display against a bigger, stronger man who was still just as agile as he was.

Both men fought very hard. The action spilled all over the ringside area. In the end, Buddy Murphy was victorious, staking his claim to a Cruiserweight title shot.

#2: Buddy Murphy vs Cedric Alexander (205 Live, May 29th)

This was outstanding. I'm honestly not entirely sure which was better between this match and the next one on the list.

Rest assured, I'll be looking at both again when reviewing my matches of the year in December.

For 205 Live, this really did have a big fight feel. Buddy Murphy was on a role coming into the match, and Champion and challenger traded high-paced offense as they tried to get the better of one another. Eventually, Murphy would work on Alexander's back.

One thing I appreciated about this match was that there were no finisher kickouts. Both men simply traded offense until Cedric Alexander would eventually hit his finisher and win the match.

The wrong man won in my opinion, as all the momentum was clearly on Murphy's side, but perhaps we can get an even better match in the future!

#1: Seth Rollins vs The Miz (Backlash)

An outstanding match preceded a whole slew of worst match of the year contenders. That's what we'll remember about this year's edition of Backlash.

Seth Rollins and The Miz proved once again why they're two of 2018's best performers, as they went back and forth.

Though the outcome wasn't in doubt because of Miz's transfer to SmackDown a few weeks before, they made you believe for a split second that perhaps it wasn't.

The highlight of the match was when Miz worked Rollins' knee after it crashed into the ring post. Seth Rollins reversing the Figure Four, to Miz's astonishment, will be an image indelibly stamped on 2018.

WWE should have honestly just told us to stop watching after this match. Then we would have had fond memories of Backlash.