One of the most fun parts of being a pro wrestling fan is … the wrestling. Duh. Specifically, getting near the end of the calendar year and picking apart what you think was the Match of the Year. WWE has been giving out Slammys for the company’s chosen Match of the Year for a while now, and it’s pretty much the only Slammy anyone takes seriously. (Note: no one takes that Slammy seriously, either.) We here at With Spandex have pretty much already sewn up our Match of the Year, but the debate will surely continue to rage on long into Royal Rumble season.
WWE Network has posted a collection of 20 matches from 2016 that it has deemed WWE’s very best matches of the year. We don’t know if this officially acts as a short list for next year’s Slammy of the same name, but we can pretty much assume so. The great news is that they pretty much nailed it, and NXT and the Cruiserweight Classic are very well represented, to say nothing of the year AJ Styles had. It was also a shockingly great year for Sami Zayn, even though the guy won like two matches in all of 2016.
You can find the entire collection right here, so click that link to begin diving in. Rather than a list form, the matches are listed in chronological order. The matches included (all links lead to our With Spandex recaps of the relevant shows):
- Last Man Standing Intercontinental Championship Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens, Royal Rumble
- NXT Tag Team Championship Match: The Revival vs. American Alpha, NXT TakeOver: Dallas
- Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, NXT TakeOver: Dallas
- Women’s Championship Match: Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch, WrestleMania 32
- Fatal 4-Way No. 1 Contender Match: AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho vs. Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens, Raw 4/4/16
- Fatal 4-Way Intercontinental Championship Match: The Miz vs. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro, Extreme Rules
- Extreme Rules WWE Championship Match: Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles, Extreme Rules
- Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens, Battleground
- Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa, Cruiserweight Classic episode 4
- Kota Ibushi vs. Cedric Alexander, Cruiserweight Classic episode 5
- NXT Tag Team Championship Match: The Revival vs. #DIY, NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II
- NXT Championship Match: Samoa Joe vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II
- AJ Styles vs. John Cena, SummerSlam
- WWE Universal Championship Match: Finn Bálor vs. Seth Rollins, SummerSlam
- Fatal 4-Way Universal Championship Match: Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins vs. Big Cass, Raw 8/29/16
- WWE Championship Match: AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose, Backlash
- Kota Ibushi vs. TJ Perkins, Cruiserweight Classic episode 10
- Sheamus vs. Cesaro, Clash of Champions
- Raw Women’s Championship Match: Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks, Raw 10/3/16
- Intercontinental Championship vs. Career Match: The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler, No Mercy
There’s no telling whether WWE Network will end up adding more matches to this collection, as the most recent match on the list is from No Mercy in October. One hopes that they will, because the glaring omission here is, of course, Revival vs. GargChomp II from NXT TakeOver: Toronto. And the slightly less glaring omission is the most recent Sasha Banks title win over Charlotte in their Falls Count Anywhere match from Raw.
Other than that (other than the actual Match of the Year being excluded, I mean), this is a pretty spot-on list, and posting them in chronological order means fewer people will get up in arms about the whole thing. Also, kudos to them for not being afraid to include Bálor vs. Rollins, even though the crowd spent the whole match crapping all over the Universal Championship belt. It was a terrific match. Not as good as Cena-Styles from the same show, but they included that, too! Everybody wins!