Every WWE PPV of 2018 Ranked

Tables, Ladders and Chairs was the last Pay-Per-View of 2018. We saw an unusual 15 PPV events this year. The year began with Raw and Smackdown getting their own PPVs but WWE reverted back to dual branded PPVs after Wrestlemania.

As a result, Elimination Chamber and Fastlane were exclusive to Raw and Smackdown respectively. We even had 3 Network Specials with one taking place in Melbourne, Australia and the other two taking place in Saudi Arabia.

As if all that wasn't enough WWE even did their first ever all women's Pay-Per-View, Evolution this year as well. But not every event has been a success. Some have been downright dull while some were engulfed in controversy.

Here I will be ranking all the Main Roster PPVs of 2018 in order. Also, NXT TakeOvers aren't included here as they are pretty much superior to any main roster PPV and deserve a separate list.

15. Backlash

Backlash was booked as the fall-out to the Superstar Shake-up. Quite a few titles had recently changed hands and switched brands. The event was confusing as the Intercontinental Champion was defended by Seth Rollins, who was on Raw, against The Miz who was on Smackdown, while The US Championship was defended by Jeff Hardy against Randy Orton, who were both on Smackdown. The absence of Universal Champion Brock Lesnar added to the negative side of the show as well.

But what made this show an absolute disaster was the fact that Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe main evented the show while WWE Champion AJ Styles' title defense against Shinsuke Nakamura was relegated to the mid-card.

The event was heavily criticized for having a very poor quality of wrestling on it. Almost every match was panned by fans and critics. The best match was easily Seth Rollins vs The Miz which opened the show.

As a result, we saw fans actually walking out during the Main Event between Roman and Joe. This was the lowest of lows for WWE this year in terms of quality of the product. Thankfully this was the last time WWE put a random non-title match last.

14. Crown Jewel

While Backlash was the worst WWE show of the year, Crown Jewel was the most controversial. Due to the assassination of renowned journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian kingdom came under heavy criticism worldwide.

As a result, most sports and entertainment organizations severed ties with the country. People like Roger Federer and Tiger Woods refused to participate in events that took place in the country.

But WWE didn't cancel their plans and went forward with Crown Jewel. John Cena and Daniel Bryan refused to work the event and were promptly removed from the show. WWE faced harsh criticism for continuing to work with Saudi Arabia. As a result, WWE removed all mention of Saudi Arabia from Crown Jewel.

That event was promoted as an 'International Event' and not once was the host city or country mentioned before, during or after the show. But the damage control was too little and too late for the damage WWE already did to their image by that point.

In terms of in-ring action, the event was nothing special. At times it even became a downright disaster. Thanks to the World Cup the event had 12 matches on the card. As a result, most matches were under 10 minutes and felt rushed. Shane McMahon's ludicrous win at the World Cup Grand Finals was universally panned.

While AJ Styles vs Samoa Joe and The Bar vs The New Day were decent, they were not enough to save the show. Brock Lesnar's Universal title win over Braun Strowman was criticized as well.

The Main event of the evening was the return of Shawn Michaels to in-ring action. D-Generation X faced The Brothers of Destruction. Kane, who was a US Mayor of Knox County, faced harsh criticism for working the show as well. The Main Event went 27 minutes which felt like a lifetime.

The match was slow and while Michaels looked great, the rest didn't. Overall the entire Crown Jewel event was a forgettable one and rightfully so as WWE will probably never ever mention its existence ever again.

13. Greatest Royal Rumble

The Greatest Royal Rumble was the first Saudi Arabian PPV announced by WWE. This was announced just after Wrestlemania and hyped up a lot. By a lot, I mean a lot.

WWE advertised this event like this was the biggest thing to ever take place, and the 50 Man Rumble match was hyped up like it was the most important match in WWE history. Then they announced that the reward for winning this match was a Special Trophy. Everything went downhill after this announcement.

A huge Triple H vs John Cena match was announced, which few people cared about. Undertaker vs Rusev in a Casket match was announced which was then canceled and Rusev replaced by Chris Jericho, only to be reinstated once again. Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar was also booked in this event in a Steel Cage match for the Universal Title.

Several former superstars returned for the 50 Man Rumble match including Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, and Chris Jericho. Several other title matches were also announced.

But the event failed to deliver in spectacular fashion. To summarize, the most memorable thing about the event was Titus O'Neil slipping and sliding headfirst underneath the ring. Not one match on the card was treated as important by WWE's booking.

Everything felt like it was thrown together hastily and that the people backstage didn't even care. It was aptly described by several critics as a glorified house show. Braun won the 50 man Rumble match without much follow-up. The only match to have a lasting impact was Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar's Steel Cage match. The ending gave Roman another rematch for the title at Summerslam, which he won.

12. Fastlane

Remember the awesome Six Pack Challenge for the WWE Title at Fastlane? No? Neither do I. Smackdown's last PPV before Wrestlemania was nothing special.

Everyone and their mothers knew that AJ Styles vs Shinsuke Nakamura was the match that was going to happen at Wrestlemania and WWE's attempts to make the 6 Pack Challenge look unpredictable failed. Every fan knew exactly what each member of the match was gonna do at Wrestlemania.

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn's angle with Shane and Daniel Bryan was going on for ages. John Cena and The Undertaker's match was being teased since after The Royal Rumble. And, let's be honest, we all knew that neither Ziggler nor Corbin would win the match. So, the stakes for this event were ridiculously low.

Charlotte and Ruby Riott fought over the Women's Championship and again, everyone knew Charlotte wasn't going to lose her title to Ruby of all people. Usos and New Day delivered the best match of the night before The Bludgeon Brothers interfered. Randy Orton also defeated Bobby Roode to win the US Championship.

No one remembers anything about this PPV and rightfully so. The event was panned by critics as well. It was boring and nothing happened that was worth talking about. The fact that Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles were already teasing their Wrestlemania match since Money in the Bank didn't help. The only thing that people looked forward to was the fact that John Cena's loss confirmed he was gonna face The Undertaker at Wrestlemania.

11. Elimination Chamber

Raw's final PPV before Wrestlemania had a similar fate to Fastlane. We all knew the matches going into Wrestlemania and there was no way they would change. But there was still some hope that Braun Strowman would somehow get involved in the program between Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar. That, however, didn't happen.

The event also saw the first ever women's Elimination Chamber match and the first ever 7 Man Elimination Chamber match.

Alexa Bliss retained her title in the Women's Chamber match, which was nothing special. Roman won the men's match, winning the right to challenge Lesnar at Wrestlemania. However, Braun Strowman eliminated 5 men in the match setting a new record before falling to a Spear from Reigns. The match was enjoyable and helps this event rank higher than Fastlane.

The other matches on the card were Asuka vs Nia Jax, where Asuka continued her undefeated streak, Cesaro and Sheamus retained their Tag Team Championships in a throwaway match against Titus Worldwide, and finally Bray Wyatt and Matt Hardy had a pretty uninteresting match.

Again, much like Fastlane, nothing in this event created a buzz. Only Braun's performance in the Chamber match was praised heavily. But the fact WWE just booked the exact same Wrestlemania main event from 3 years prior received criticism.

10. Extreme Rules

Extreme Rules is one of the most anticipated events of the year. The stipulations usually mean we get hardcore, spot heavy matches which are a good throwback to the ECW days. But Extreme Rules 2018 didn't have much extreme.

There were 10 matches on the main card, out of which only 3 had stipulations. But only 1 had an extreme stipulation - a 7-minute bout between Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax. Kevin Owens faced Braun Strowman inside a steel cage and Seth Rollins faced Dolph Ziggler in the main event in a 30 minute Iron Man match.

Most matches weren't memorable and were normal matches instead of Extreme ones. Critics heavily panned the lack of Extreme Matches on the show. The only Extreme Match, between Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss, was lackluster. Rusev also received a WWE Title shot at this event which was long overdue.

Ziggler and Rollins' main event was completely ruined when the crowd kept doing the Royal Rumble Countdown for every minute on the clock. Roman Reigns lost to Bobby Lashley at the event, while Shinsuke Nakamura and The B-Team became the United States and Raw Tag Team Champions respectively.

The event was very forgettable and had no match that was talked about for any amount of time. One of the more fun parts of the event was the reunion of Team Hell No as Kane and Daniel Bryan took on The Bludgeon Brothers in a losing effort. The biggest spot of the event came when Braun Strowman threw Kevin Owens from top of the steel cage through the announce table.

9. Hell in a Cell

Hell in a Cell 2018 was the year's first B-level PPV which had the Universal Title on it. Roman Reigns defended his title against Braun Strowman in the main event inside the cell, and the match was the main selling point of the show.

Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Ziggler, and Drew McIntyre got involved in the match and brawled outside and on top of the cell. The match ended after Brock Lesnar made a surprise return and laid out both men after breaking the Cell's gate. This was Lesnar's first B-level PPV since No Mercy 2017.

Randy Orton defeated Jeff Hardy in a sloppy but memorable Cell match in the event's opener and Becky Lynch won the Smackdown Women's Title on this show, kick-starting her 'The Man' gimmick. Ronda Rousey defeated Alexa Bliss to retain her Raw Women's Title while Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler defended their Raw Tag Titles against Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose.

Miz and Daniel Bryan also extended their feud as Miz and Maryse defeated Bryan and Brie Bella. AJ Styles also defended his WWE title against Samoa Joe.

Hell in a Cell by itself wasn't that memorable except for the main event which got people talking but still got criticized for the non-finish. Becky Lynch's title run would eventually go on to become the best thing of the entire year, but her victory at Hell in a Cell wasn't in the legendary zone just yet. All the other matches were average at best and were not followed up much on TV. Also, Jeff Hardy took a crazy bump that got some people talking.

8. Super Show Down

This was a strange one. WWE's first broadcast from Australia saw some storyline matches but also saw some matches put together for no apparent reason. The Undertaker and Triple H main evented the show which didn't make much sense. But both had their former tag team partners in their corners which set up their future match at Crown Jewel. The match itself wasn't that bad as most of us had assumed it would be, although it was a bit too long.

John Cena returned for the first time since The Greatest Royal Rumble and teamed up with Bobby Lashley to defeat Elias and Kevin Owens. AJ Styles defended his WWE Title against Samoa Joe in arguably the pair's best match. Becky got herself disqualified in her first title defense against Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey teamed up with The Bella Twins to defeat the Riott Squad.

The Shield had their first match on PPV as a team as they defeated Braun Strowman, Dolph Ziggler and Drew McIntyre in an awesome match.

The event would also be notable for Buddy Murphy's title win against Cedric Alexander which essentially revitalized the Cruiserweight Division and got the title back on PPV. Their match was also the best match of the night. The overall quality of the event got praise from critics and fans and the matches were mostly enjoyable too. The crowd was hot for the event as well, as even the IIconics got several cheers.

7. Money in the Bank

Money in the Bank 2018 had to follow the abysmal Backlash event. WWE managed to redeem themselves and put up a great show. Granted, Roman Reigns and Jinder Mahal had a 15-minute snooze-fest midway through the card, but the rest was mostly good. James Ellsworth returning and costing Asuka her match against Carmella was another huge down but both Money in the Bank ladder matches more than made up for it.

Alexa Bliss won the Women's MiTB ladder match to huge cheers and cashed in later in the same night. During the Raw Women's Title match between Ronda Rousey and Nia Jax, Bliss cashed in and promptly pinned Nia Jax to become a 5 time Women's Champion. Braun Strowman won the main event and became Mr. Money in the Bank to a huge ovation.

Also on the card were AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura's Last Man Standing match, which was the pair's best match. Seth Rollins defeated Elias to retain his Intercontinental Championship while Bobby Lashley defeated Sami Zayn and Daniel Bryan beat Big Cass.

Money in the Bank was a great follow up to Backlash and WWE redeemed themselves by putting out a great show. Bliss' cash in and Braun's victory in the main event got everyone excited and talking about the future. Braun's victory even set up the main feud of the Raw brand for the coming future.

6. Wrestlemania

Wrestlemania should always be WWE's best PPV of the year. But in recent times, the quality of the Show of Shows has deteriorated in an alarming way. Fans can argue that Wrestlemania 31 was the last 'good' Mania as all 3 shows after that have been sub-par.

Wrestlemania 34 ended after Brock Lesnar pinned Roman Reigns to retain his Universal Title. The problem here was that the fans hated both individuals in this match. But Roman was the lesser of two evils and WWE in an attempt to swerve the fans made Lesnar retain his title.

The fallout from this was catastrophic as viewership for Raw plummeted without the World Title on TV for an elongated period of time. AJ Styles defended his WWE title in a very underwhelming 'dream match' against Shinsuke Nakamura, Jinder Mahal inexplicably won the US Title in a poorly booked Fatal 4 Way match and Nia Jax won the Raw Women's Title in yet another underwhelming match against Alexa Bliss, and her cringe-worthy promo after the match did not help.

The good parts of the show included the IC Title triple threat match, the Charlotte vs Asuka match and the Mixed Tag Team match between Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle vs Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.

This mixed tag match stole the show and was easily the best match of the night. Rousey was elevated into a star overnight and has been carrying Raw's women's division ever since.

Also on the show was Undertaker and John Cena's dream match which, even though was booked in a ludicrous fashion, was pretty entertaining and Braun Strowman's absolute burial of the Raw Tag Team Championship.

All things considered, the good of this show outweighed the bad just by a little bit as Wrestlemania still managed to live up to its grandeur despite its shortcomings.

5. Summerslam

Summerslam was a saving grace in a tough time for WWE. Raw was suffering a lot from Lesnar's absence and WWE desperately needed to get the title off of him. They had created the perfect environment where Lesnar can lose his title after Braun won Money in the Bank and Roman became the no.1 contender.

Their match main evented Summerslam and finally brought the Universal Title back on Raw. Braun even teased a cash in and the fallout resulted in The Shield reuniting and having a great feud with Braun, Ziggler, and McIntyre.

Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler had an amazing opening match where Rollins became the new Intercontinental Champion. New Day and The Bludgeon Brothers put up an amazing match as well. Charlotte won the Smackdown Women's Title by defeating Becky and Carmella in a triple threat. This night was also the start of Becky's amazing heel run.

Samoa Joe and AJ Styles forwarded their storyline in a decent match as well. Finn Balor brought back his Demon King persona after almost a whole year and squashed Baron Corbin in a minute. Finally, Ronda Rousey won her inaugural Women's Championship after destroying Alexa Bliss.

The downsides to the event were the Squash match between Kevin Owens and Braun Strowman, Jeff Hardy and Shinsuke Nakamura's US Title match and The Miz and Daniel Bryan's match. These failed to deliver but weren't bad by any means. Summerslam was an awesome show and WWE got everything right while putting together the match card.

4. Tables, Ladders and Chairs

In November WWE Raw posted their lowest ever rating for the 3rd time in 2018. This was followed up in December as Raw again had their lowest ever rating, this time two weeks in a row. As a result, WWE went all out for their TLC PPV.

This provided us with an amazing show main evented by Charlotte, Asuka, and Becky Lynch in a triple threat TLC match for the Smackdown Women's Title. Asuka won the title after Ronda Rousey got involved to a huge pop from the crowd. The rest of the card was stacked and pretty awesome as well.

Finn Balor beat Drew McIntyre in a greatly booked match which made both men look strong at the same time. Braun Strowman ousted Baron Corbin from power with help of all the superstars who had been hurt by Corbin's run as Raw GM.

The Bar, New Day and The Usos had a great match as well. Rey Mysterio beat Randy Orton in what just might be the best Chairs Match in history. Ronda Rousey carried Nia Jax to a somewhat decent match for the Raw Women's title and Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles had an absolute banger of a match.

The Bryan-Styles match deviated from the WWE style hard and gave us an amazing match where both participants went all out. Certainly the match of the night, this might just have been the match of the year.

On the negative part, Natalya and Ruby Riott had a fairly decent match given their abysmal buildup. R-Truth and Carmella beat Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox on PPV to win the Mixed Match Challenge.

But the worst part of the show has to be Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose's match which defied all odds and ended up being an absolute boring wreck. The crowd booed both men during the match but the sour crowd soon got what they wanted as soon as the main event began.

3. Survivor Series

Survivor Series had become an afterthought, but the brand split effectively revived the PPV and basically turned it into Bragging Rights 2.0. The 2018 version of the event was amazing as we got one of the most anticipated dream matches ever in Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan.

Lesnar won his second Universal Title just a few weeks before Survivor Series and his first match as Champion was against Bryan, who had won the WWE Championship barely 6 days ago from AJ Styles. Lesnar won a very entertaining match which put over both men greatly.

The Raw vs Smackdown heavy event saw Raw get a clean sweep over Smackdown if we don't count the pre-show, and WWE doesn't seem to. The 5 on 5 Women's Match opened the show and WWE had Nia Jax be the sole survivor in the match to capitalize on her already existing heat. Nia had broken Becky Lynch's nose a couple weeks ago for which she received extreme amounts of heat from the WWE Universe.

Seth Rollins and Shinsuke Nakamura had a decent match with Seth getting the win after a technical bout. Buddy Murphy defeated Mustafa Ali to retain his Cruiserweight Title in a great high flying match.

The Men's 5 on 5 match saw Braun Strowman dominate and win the match for Team Raw although Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley survived too. The match was great and booked to near perfection although it could have done with a bit less Shane McMahon.

Finally, Ronda Rousey and Charlotte had a cracker of a match before Charlotte brutally attacked Rousey with a kendo stick and turned heel getting a huge reaction from the crowd.

2. Evolution

WWE occasionally likes to create history. Evolution was one such event where WWE absolutely nailed it and actually created history. The all women's PPV performed beyond everyone's exceptions and delivered what has to be one of the best WWE PPVs in recent memory.

Almost every single match on the card delivered and some became the biggest talking points in the world of wrestling. Ronda Rousey main evented her first ever WWE PPV, defeating Nikki Bella in a match for the Raw Women's title.

Trish Stratus and Lita defeated Alexa Bliss and Mickie James in the night's opener and warmed up the crowd perfectly. The match was followed by one of the best battle royals in WWE which was won by Nia Jax. Toni Storm and Io Shirai then fought in the finals of the 2nd Mae Young Classic and had an amazing hard-hitting match which Storm won.

Shayna Baszler defeated Kairi Sane to regain her NXT Women's Title in another exciting action packed match which saw interference by Baszler's stablemates from the Four Horsewomen of NXT. Becky Lynch and Charlotte had the match of the night then as Becky won the first ever Last Woman Standing match.

The only weak match on the card was the Riott Squad vs Sasha Banks, Bayley and Natalya match but even that had its moments. Overall, WWE put out an amazing show which the fans and critics enjoyed all the same. The final moments of the show which saw all the women on the stage with Ronda and Becky holding their titles high was just perfect.

1. The Royal Rumble

The Royal Rumble is WWE's most exciting event of the year. No matter the state of their product, the Rumble will be selling a lot of tickets. The PPV's 2018 edition also saw the very first Women's Royal Rumble match as well.

The match main evented the show and cemented Asuka as a top-level performer in the women's division. Maybe it's just fate that Asuka finished the first and last PPV of 2018 as the person with her arms raised.

The Men's rumble was an exciting affair as well. Fans knew either Shinsuke Nakamura or Roman Reigns would walk out the winner as they were the 2 Challengers for the World Titles. But Shinsuke winning was still a huge shock to everyone as no one expected Roman to lose.

The Rumble match was stacked with big names and shocking returns like Rey Mysterio and was the first Rumble match in 5 years to receive 100% approval of the audience.

The Usos defeated Gable and Benjamin in a 2 out of 3 falls match which was a great bout. AJ Styles also retained his WWE Title in a 2 on 1 handicap match against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn which was pretty good as well.

The bad matches on the card saw Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan lose to The Bar in what was a confusing mess. The Universal Title match was slow, boring and clunky as Kane, Lesnar, and Strowman failed to keep the match exciting and fast-paced. However, the two amazing Rumble matches and Ronda Rousey's debut at the end are good enough to make The Royal Rumble the best Pay-Per-View event of 2018.