2017 SmackDown Live Superstar Report Card (10 to 1)

From heel turns and face turns to reunions and retirements, the last 12 months of WWE television has seen more eventful moments than any year in recent memory.

As 2017 comes to an end, we have been taking a look back at the top 50 Superstars from each of the Raw and SmackDown Live rosters over the last year, ranking them from 50 to 1 and grading them from F to A+.

In this article, the countdown ends with a look at the Superstars who took the positions from 10 to 1 on the SmackDown Live roster.

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#10 Carmella

If you’d have said at the start of 2017 that Carmella would either feature in a ‘top-10 best’ or ‘top-10 worst’ list of SmackDown Live Superstars for the year, you’d probably have imagined that the next 12 months wouldn’t turn out too well for her.

However, thanks to her alignment with the recently released James Ellsworth and her history-making Money In The Bank ladder match win in June, “The Princess of Staten Island” has gone on to have the best year of her career so far.

She hasn’t been involved in many major storylines since winning the contract, but Carmella has still shown enough in 2017, through her matches and believable promos, that she’ll be a star of the women’s division for years to come.

Grade: B+

Joint #7 Big E, Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods

Whether it’s hosting WrestleMania, participating in rap battles, commentating at the announce table or, you know, actually having wrestling matches, The New Day have shown again and again that they are capable of doing whatever WWE throws at them.

As good as their match was with The Shield at Survivor Series, the highlight of their year came when they feuded with The Usos over the SmackDown Live Tag Team titles between May and October.

The culmination of that rivalry saw Big E and Xavier Woods represent the fun-loving trio against Jimmy & Jey in one of the best Hell In A Cell tag-team matches you’re likely to see.

Grade: A

Joint #5 Jey Uso & Jimmy Uso

As has often been the case in 2017, wherever The New Day goes, The Usos aren’t far behind, and it’s Jimmy & Jey who are next in our countdown after another brilliant year on the SmackDown Live roster.

In a far cry from their crowd-pleasing babyface days, The Usos have unleashed a more vicious side to their characters over the last 12 months – as shown in their epic SmackDown Live Tag Team title match against Big E & Xavier Woods at Hell In A Cell.

It was difficult to choose which of the two teams should feature higher on our list but having improved leaps and bounds as a heel duo, we’re giving the nod to The Usos.

Grade: A

#4 Charlotte Flair

If you ask any WWE performer if they prefer to play a babyface or heel, 90 percent of them will say they much prefer the freedom of controlling a match and being able to do almost anything you want as a bad guy.

Charlotte Flair faced her toughest test yet on the main roster when, after being drafted to SmackDown Live in April, she transformed from a dastardly heel to a smiling babyface who had the unenviable job of trying to get fans who previously booed her back on her side.

Although she’s admitted in media interviews that the transition was difficult, that didn’t come across on screen and “The Queen” just got more and more popular as the months went on before her emotional SmackDown Live Women’s title victory over Natalya in November.

Grade: A

#3 Jinder Mahal

When the Superstar Shake-Up took place in April, it was pretty clear that the people who switched from Raw to SmackDown Live, and vice versa, were moved in like-for-like swaps with another Superstar (Alexa Bliss swapped with Charlotte Flair, Dean Ambrose swapped with Kevin Owens etc).

Well, as crazy as it might seem, when Jinder Mahal was drafted from Raw to SmackDown Live, his like-for-like replacement on the red brand appeared to be Curt Hawkins – a serial loser whose run of defeats spans over 100 matches.

From someone on the same level as Hawkins to a WWE champion in a matter of months, 2017 has been an incredible year for “The Modern Day Maharajah”. Only time will tell if he will remain a main-event level Superstar in the months and years to come.

Grade: A

#2 Kevin Owens

Did Kevin Owens defeat Roman Reigns in 2017? Yep. Did he face Goldberg? Yep. Did he betray his best friend in one of the best segments of the year? Yep. Did he win the United States title? Yep. Did he headbutt and frog-splash Vince McMahon? Yep. Did he reunite with Sami Zayn? Yep.

As you can see, all the way from his battle with Reigns at the Royal Rumble to his recent rivalry with SmackDown Live authority figures Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan, the leader of the “Yep Movement” has had a pretty eventful year.

There were a few negatives, most notably when we got to witness in the ‘365’ documentary on the WWE Network that Vince wasn’t a fan of his WrestleMania match with Chris Jericho, but 2017 was still a brilliant year for the former Universal champion.

Grade: A

#1 AJ Styles

Come on, who else but AJ Styles was ever going to top this list? “The Phenomenal One” had one of the greatest breakthrough years of anybody in WWE history in 2016 and he followed that up with an equally sensational second year with the company in 2017.

The last 12 months have shown that Styles isn’t just the best in-ring talent in current-day WWE but, without a hint of exaggeration, he really is one of the greatest performers we’ve ever seen grace a WWE ring.

His match with John Cena at the Royal Rumble was an instant Match of the Year contender and the story of his battle with Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, despite hardly any pre-match build-up, was told to absolute perfection.

Grade: A+