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2017 had more than its share of great matches in WWE. We’re living in an era in which the company has embraced independent and international talent like never before. In so doing WWE has a deeper and more diverse talent pool than ever, prepared to put on intriguing matchups the likes of which we’ve never seen. 2017 saw classics between Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate over the UK Championship, and The Authors of Pain rage against #DIY in NXT.
Charlotte Flair and Natalya continued to string together rock solid matches in the women’s ranks, while AJ Styles got the most out of any opponent thrown at him, and The Shield—when everyone was healthy—proved they can still work magic in six-man tag scenarios.
For all of these special matches that will stand the test of time, there are those that looked to be special, and that some pundits have even got behind, that wasn’t actually that good. Maybe it was the smoke and mirrors of a strong program or a high profile spot that made the match seem better than it was. Maybe it was simple WWE hyperbole to suggest we were getting a classic. Regardless, this article looks at the ten most overrated WWE matches from the past year.
#10 Roman Reigns vs The Undertaker, WrestleMania 33
On paper, Roman Reigns facing The Undertaker should have been special. You’ve got the new face of the company on one side of the ring. On the other side, one of the all-time biggest legends of the business. They’re guys of comparable size, who have each proven before that they have the impressive athleticism for such big men. Add on that this match had the opportunity to close out WrestleMania, and that it was rumoured to be The Phenom’s last match, period, and this should have been an instant classic.
Reigns vs The Undertaker wasn’t actually that good, though. It was a largely lethargic brawl, hampered by The Dead Man looking his age—slow and stiff—and Reigns simply not having the toolkit to compensate. Factor in an ugly botched Tombstone reversal spot and some poorly booked late stages that completely bored the audience, and you have a match that in no way lived up to its hype.
#9 Randy Orton vs Jinder Mahal, Backlash
Make no mistake about it. While the Universal Championship may get more attention nowadays, and there are other titles of significant merit outside WWE, the WWE Championship remains the most prestigious prize in wrestling. For longevity, visibility, and the roster of all time greats attached to the title’s lineage, there’s not belt quite like it.
In 2017, Jinder Mahal won it.
I don’t want to knock Mahal more than necessary. He’s a competent wrestler and, by most accounts, a hard worker and nice guy. The guy didn’t have any business winning the WWE Championship in 2017, though, particularly after jobbing out in the lower ranks of Raw mere weeks before picking up the win of a lifetime over Randy Orton.
Mahal’s ascent to the title might have been redeemed for winning the strap in a great match. WWE would like for us to believe his Battleground encounter with Randy Orton was a classic with a frenzied finish. In reality, it was a paint by numbers match of the most blah variety. Worse yet was the lackadaisical finish in which the Singh Brothers distracted Orton long enough for Mahal to hit his not-over-at-all finisher for the disappointing win.
#8 Shane McMahon vs Kevin Owens, Hell in a Cell
There’s a tradition for world title matches to close out shows, but when Hell in a Cell rolled around this past October, it didn’t feel out of place for a non-title match to get the nod for the last spot on the show. Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens had built a heated rivalry with one another. Combine their story with Owens’s impressive performances in big match scenarios and McMahon being a special attraction, put them inside the Cell, and things were looking good.
In the end McMahon-Owens wasn’t bad by any stretch, and the swerve finish of Sami Zayn helping Owens was exciting and well executed. The match, on the whole, wasn’t anything to write home about, though. It was longer than it should have been—particularly for the anticlimactic brawl on top of the Cell. The match all built to the big spot of McMahon leaping off the cage, but it was a spot seen before, that anyone could see coming, and that he predictably missed.
WWE tried to sell this one as an all-time epic when, in reality, it wasn’t even the best Hell in a Cell Match of the night, as The New Day and The Usos had put on a far superior exhibition to open the show.
#7 The Shield vs The Miz, Sheamus, Cesaro, Braun Strowman, and Kane, TLC
It’s telling just how over, and just how good The Shield was that, after only three and a half years apart, their reunion this fall nonetheless felt like a huge deal. Seeing Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Dean Ambrose back on the same side, this time all as former world champions and performers who had come a long way seemed special, and it didn’t necessarily seem out of place that their first PPV match back wouldn’t come against another trio, but rather a five-man team whose numbers advantage would make things competitive.
Oddly enough, when Reigns had to sit out the match at the last minute, it actually got more exciting, because last-minute substitute Kurt Angle added another layer of excitement and intrigue. Here was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, working a WWE match for the first time in over eleven years.
Fans were unbelievably excited for this match. And while it had some fun moments and good spots, it was nothing like the epic war WWE tried to sell it as. On the contrary, it was a largely incoherent match that ran too long. There’s a segment of fans who will defend any Shield or Angle match to the extreme, or be fooled into thinking a bout longer than thirty minutes is a classic. While this wasn’t an awful match, it doesn’t belong on anyone’s match of the year lists.
#6 The Royal Rumble 2017
The Royal Rumble is such an iconic tradition that it generates excitement every year, regardless of who is actually wrestling in the match in a given year. The 2014, 2015, and 2016 editions of the Rumble weren’t very well received, in particular for their both predictable and disappointing choices for winners. The 2017 edition had some promise, and, to be fair, was certainly the best Rumble in four or five years. That didn’t make it especially good, though.
The 2017 Rumble was competently worked and had a reasonably satisfying winner in Randy Orton (particularly because he disposed of Roman Reigns at the end). The match lacked Pat Patterson’s traditional eye for detail and layout that made earlier Rumbles such successes, though, not offering much by way of flow or meaningful subplots.
The Rumble match is a fun enough concept that the resulting match is hardly ever actively bad. THe 2017 version doesn’t deserve a lot of praise, though, just because it wasn’t as totally off point as its immediate predecessors.
#5 John Cena vs Rusev, Battleground
While it took fans years—arguably over a decade to embrace John Cena en masse, now that he’s a part-timer, he’s quite arguably better appreciated than ever before. While he’s not a technical virtuoso like AJ Styles or Daniel Bryan, he tends to put on very good matches. While he’s not as special of an attraction as Kurt Angle or The Rock, he undeniably has more star power than any full-time talent.
When Cena came back from a stint away to work the SmackDown Live branded Battleground, his match with Rusev seemed like it ought to be a fun piece of business. Indeed, WWE tried to sell the match as an epic battle for national pride, with Cena defending the US against the Bulgarian Brute.
Cena and Rusev had told this story before, though, and much better, with their WrestleMania 31 angle. In addition, competing under Flag Match rules didn’t exactly set them up for a classic. The resulting match was an uninspired brawl, building to painfully contrived spots. Contrary to WWE’s claims we’d witnessed a war, this one was totally underwhelming.
#4 Roman Reigns vs John Cena, No Mercy
In the fall, WWE made unusual decision to hotshot two of its biggest prospective feuds quite suddenly, and well away from any of the traditional big four PPVs where dream matches typically go down. The die was cast for No Mercy to feature Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman, as well as Roman Reigns vs. John Cena.
Cena-Reigns benefited from an impassioned worked shoot build in which Cena and Reigns traded barbs centred on Reigns replacing Cena as the face of the company, and Cena suggesting he wasn’t ready. The two traded barbs in a number of Raw promo segments before locking horns on PPV.
WWE tried to sell this match as a classic. To be fair, it was a good back and forth match, and both men did look like stars. The trouble is, that each man has much better matches on his resume against guys like AJ Styles and Seth Rollins.
Cena-Reigns felt largely like a paint by numbers big match scenario, complete with trading finishers, close two counts, and drawing competing chants from the crowd. It was a solid enough three-star affair, but a far cry from the five-star classic some fans would have you believe it was.
#3 Randy Orton vs Bray Wyatt, WrestleMania 33
In the lead up to WrestleMania 33, Bray Wyatt was quoted telling reporters that he wouldn’t want to follow his WWE Championship match with Randy Orton. The implication was that the match would be so good, anyone forced to wrestle after it would be fighting an uphill battle by way of comparison.
While not every WWE Championship match at WrestleMania has been a good one, Orton-Wyatt this year put itself on the short list for worst of all time. The in-ring action was uninspired, all working around Wyatt mystically having the production team project pictures of bugs on the mat. I suppose we’re supposed to assume that the projected images were really there, or else the images were more magically manifested by Wyatt’s powers (begging the question why he never used these powers before or since).
In any event, the whole match came across as C-level horror movie garbage—poorly used special effects that did nothing to cover a below average match. When people think of WWE Championship matches at WrestleMania, they think of Steve Austin vs. The Rock, Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels, and Hulk Hogan vs The Ultimate Warrior. Now they’ll need to think of this dud, too.
#2 Alexa Bliss vs Bayley, Extreme Rules
2017 saw the rise of Alexa as the top female star on the main roster. After she overachieved on SmackDown Live, she had the opportunity to do much the same on Raw. Similar to her Tuesday night work, on Mondays she thrived on charisma, strong promo work, and continuing to improve as an in-ring performer.
Post-WrestleMania, Bliss feuded with Bayley, including taking the Raw Women’s Championship off of her. The feud wasn’t exactly stellar—particularly for how respected Bayley is and how far Bliss seemed to have come. The promos—in particular, a “This Is Your Life” attempt—were uncharacteristically weak, and the matches were only OK.
Their Kendo Stick on a Pole Match at Extreme Rules was particularly lacklustre. The match was stunted by typical “something on a pole” limitations of repetitive action, and Bliss beating down Bayley, in the end, came across as completely joyless.
#1 Braun Strowman vs Roman Reigns, Great Balls of Fire
As WWE moved into summer, Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns revisited their on again off again rivalry. While WWE tried to sell the intensity of the big man war, it was difficult to get over convincingly when Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe were working essentially the same storyline with more organic heat.
Strowman and Reigns' Ambulance Match was a decent enough brawl, and it was refreshing to see Reigns lose a match clean to the guy who was more over with the fans. The story became far more about the post-match angle, though, as Reigns played the sore loser attacking Strowman afterwards, locking him in the ambulance, and crashing it into a production truck.
The whole ordeal felt like it was trying to communicate a much more exciting war than the players at hand actually delivered, and the post-match attack fell particularly flat. Strowman neither appeared seriously hurt nor exploded free from the ambulance in a dominant display, making for a more awkward finish with no real takeaway for the fans.
