9 Greatest WWE promos of the past decade

Promos play a very consequential part in building up a rivalry in wrestling. Being able to talk on the mic and increase the hype for a match that had no prior intrigue is truly remarkable. There have been a significant amount of exceptional promos over the last decade in WWE, narrowing it down to 9 is no easy challenge, but I’ve managed to put it together.

This list is completely based on the promos I think are good enough to earn a place. I'm sure your list might be a little different. I am letting you know that this will not involve CM Punk's Pipebomb because that is an obvious choice and can easily take the number one spot. This will not include Daniel Bryan's return speech in 2018 or Ultimate Warrior's last in-ring promo either. As astounding as both segments were, they came straight from the heart.

So let's start this list with a Dean Ambrose promo.

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#9 I've been doing this for way too long to be scared of Marketing

This promo came in a week before Ambrose was being scheduled to face Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns at Fastlane 2016. Michael Cole interviewed him in a WWE.com exclusive where he asked him about Brock Lesnar.

Ambrose replied that Lesnar is a cool guy, he likes him, but he's starting to get pissed off about the marketing of the Beast, is he supposed to be scared? And then he goes on about how Lesnar will keep dumping him on his head, but he will keep getting up every time.

Let's take a look at an excerpt from the promo:

"Can Brock break me in half with his bare hands? Yeah, there is a good possibility that I get eaten alive, but you know what happens though? I get dumped over my head, forty-fifty times but I keep getting back up, and he starts to get tired, and the 300 pounds start to feel really heavy, and he starts to wonder why this isn't working? All those years of injuries from all those years of combat starts to creep up on him, and that's when he gets his fingers broken, and that's when he gets his ankles broken and when his eyeballs are dangling above the mat, he starts to wonder maybe I've taken Dean Ambrose a little bit more seriously".

What an amazing promo it really was. It sells Dean as the never-say-die guy who could pull out a win against any odds. I really wish this is how his match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania actually went. They should have booked it in a way where Ambrose put on a fight and looks as if he can win, and then Lesnar has to completely murder-stomp him to win.

#8 I came here tonight to tell you the story of a Paul Heyman Guy

Paul Heyman with a pipebomb of his own!

In 2014, as you know, CM Punk quit WWE the night after the Royal Rumble PPV. A week later, Monday Night Raw fell on the hometown of the straight edge Superstar, and the biggest question that aroused before the show was how will WWE handle the affair? So when the show opened with the entrance music of CM Punk, the crowd went absolutely bonkers, but out came Paul Heyman instead and the heat he generated that night was huge.

Paul Heyman sat in the ring in the same fashion CM Punk cut the historic "Pipebomb" promo and went on a rant about how the management never needed him since day one, and how Punk was the guy who had the balls to say what nobody else had the balls to say.

It was one of the most impeccable performance I have seen Heyman deliver. He ended up taking the jeers of the crowd and turned it into cheers while taking the CM Punk situation and blaming it on the fans. He marvellously turned the tirade and used it to promote the match between his client and The Undertaker at WrestleMania 30, and the fans completely bought it. You can check it out here.

#7 You more than anybody know Seth that how many buckets of blood I've spilt to get here.

Dean Ambrose took offense of being called a joke

Comes in at number 7 is another Dean Ambrose promo. This came after Ambrose cashed in on Seth Rollins at the MITB 2016 pay-per-view where Rollins beat Roman Reigns for the WWE title. Dean went off on Seth Rollins after Rollins called his title reign a joke and claimed that Ambrose was just there to have fun.

This is where Ambrose got intense and said he's no joke or a utility player because there were plenty of guys who came in and walked out or chased fantasies in other sports, he had been the top man in the company. This was an Ambrose promo at it's finest, this kind of ferocity is not often seen in the WWE.

The way he described how Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Vince McMahon or even God himself was gonna have to pry it from his cold dead hands, and talking about the buckets of blood that he had spilt to get there, and how far he was willing to go to keep It. It was simply an amazing promo. The Lunatic fringe gimmick is tiresome and sometimes can get cheesy, but when Dean Ambrose gets serious, it means business. Check it out here:

#6 If you want to talk tough, you better be tough and you a “pu**y"

Cena verbally destroyed Miz here!

This is a perfect example of taking a match that looks ordinary on paper and making people invested in it. Cena and Miz sold this feud by their promos alone, but they saved the best for their last. This promo came in a week before WrestleMania 33 where John Cena absolutely destroyed The Miz after being mocked by "It Couple" for the past two weeks.

This's the best can John Cena get on the mic unless he's going back to his rapping gimmick. It was one of the best promos I’ve heard in a very long time. It was a mix of comedy and about getting personal, and just John Cena smoking the other guy for being inferior to him.

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#5 I say ear because you only gonna have one left. I'm gonna rip your dirty stinking hair out by the roots, and I'm gonna stuff it in your mouth where your teeth used to be

This kind of intensity is not often seen in WWE!

Another promo where Dean Ambrose showed off his next level mic skills after Seth Rollins double-crossed The Shield and joined The Authority in 2014. WWE did an astounding job in putting everything together to make it look like he hated Seth Rollins with a passion.

This is one of the most memorable promos of Dean Ambrose's WWE career, and I think it was his best mic work till today. He sold Seth Rollins' heel turn really well, and you could just feel that he really wanted to destroy him.

The intensity with which he banged his chest and tensed up in his fingers as he wrapped one around the other was truly a marvellous sight to see.

This segment also included Roman Reigns, and he was great there too as he kept it short, sweet and simple.

#4 It's called a promo kid, and if you wanna be the big dog, you're gonna have to learn how to do it.

Cena smoked Reigns in this promo!

This was just John Cena doing John Cena stuff. Even though Roman Reigns cut a long promo which was fine, Cena ripped him apart into a new one, and each moment got worse to the point where the mic drop from Cena, in the end, couldn't have been any more perfect.

While people gave some credit to Reigns, it was all John Cena here. Cena carried this segment after Reigns forgot his lines and called him out for it.

I loved how Cena entirely taunted him about how he can't cut a promo, and all Roman could do was shout "Shut your mouth, John" a few times.

This segment was as real as it gets and I recommend you all to check it out.

#3 Brock Lesnar is not here to put smiles on people's faces. Brock Lesnar is here to shock the World and put tears in the eyes of children

Probably the best Heyman promo!

Brock Lesnar conquering The Undertaker's undefeated streak at WrestleMania will go down as the saddest moment in professional wrestling history. No one expected it to happen and no one could believe it when it did.

With that being said, the biggest issue about the situation was how to follow the angle when the post-WrestleMania crowd was ready to murder Brock Lesnar the moment he appeared? The answer was easy, send out Paul Heyman, give him a microphone and plenty of time, and watch him keep the crowd in the palm of his hand.

The manipulator of the masses, cut arguably the best promo of his life and turned the raucous boos of the crowd into cheers when he said, Brock Lesnar was not there to make people happy, he was there to put tears in the eyes of children.

He skillfully played with the fact that nobody expected to end the Streak, but it ended up happening anyway. This is something they should be showing to everybody down at the Performance Center on how to get their character over. This was a true Heyman masterpiece! You can check it out here.

#2 That's your material, you can have your joke back. Just don't go racing to Witch Mountain, Rock, cause your mountain is Brokeback.

Cena having some fun!

This was John Cena's response to The Rock. The Rock returned to Monday Night Raw a week prior and targeted John Cena.

John Cena just politely replied in arguably the best mic moment of the past decade. He not only matched The Rock on the mic but completely destroyed him as well.

John Cena proved that he could be as good on the mic as he wanted to while he balanced his jokes with seriousness. He threw The Rock's own words back into his mouth.

Sure, Rock catered to the most hardcore and nostalgic fans from the Attitude Era, but Cena burned Rock to the core here while Rock was on his usual catchphrase game. Watch the video here.

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#1 Why don’t you quit and go to bingo halls with your indie friends?

Being called a "Coward" pissed the Miz off!

This was in 2016, and the show was Talking Smack. In one of the most talked about promos of the modern era, Daniel Bryan called the Miz a coward which led to the Miz firing up with a now now-famous rant about how Daniel Bryan's wrestling style was why he couldn't wrestle anymore and how a hard working guy like him had been an underappreciated star in the WWE.

It was simply the best Miz had ever been on the microphone, and probably was a straight up shoot instead of a scripted rant.

This amazing promo led to many fans fantasizing about a potential Daniel Bryan return to the WWE ring, and how great a program between the two men would be.

Bryan made his historic return to wrestling in 2018, and a program between the two was made. As good as the feud was, we never got to see a worthy conclusion to it.