10 Best WWE Matches Of 2016

WWE underwent some pretty seismic changes in 2016.

Shane McMahon came back, the brand split returned, AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, and The Good Brothers all jumped ship from New Japan, and some bloke named Cody Rhodes left the promotion to see if he could make it on his own.

As well as these huge moments outside of the ring, the squared circle was also home to some sensational happenings, as you’re about to find out.

These are the 10 Best WWE Matches of 2016.

10. AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose - TLC

By the end of his first year with the company, AJ Styles was the WWE Champion with the full force of the WWE machine behind him. This was a minor miracle, considering how badly other ex-TNA stars had been treated once they had joined.

In his final pay-per-view defence of the year, Styles squared off against Dean Ambrose, the man he had taken the title from, in a TLC match at the pay-per-view of the same name.

AJ and Ambrose had built up quite the rapport over the months leading into this match and this very much felt like the culmination of a long-running story. There were crazy spots out the wazoo, including a mad 450 splash from AJ to Dean through a table outside the ring, and it looked like Ambrose was going to win the title back until he was stopped by… James Ellsworth.

The chinless wonder’s involvement in the finish does knock points off this match, but before Ellsworth turned up, it was a mile-a-minute thrill-a-thon.

9. Roman Reigns vs. AJ Styles - Extreme Rules

Before he beat one former Shield member for the WWE Title, Styles was challenging for it against another. He faced off against Roman Reigns in two matches following the Big Dog’s big win at WrestleMania 32, with the best of the pair coming at Extreme Rules.

Styles had helped Reigns to one of his best matches ever the previous month and now, with all sorts of plunder to play with, the pair had the chance to go one better. They made great use of the No DQ stipulation, brawling in the ring, around the arena, even landing in the Kickoff Show area.

Add some run-ins from The Usos and The Good Brothers and you’ve got yourself a recipe for one dramatic main event. Reigns might have retained, which fans weren’t 100% thrilled about, but Styles now had another great pay-per-view title match under his belt, which no doubt played a part in his rise to the top later in the year.

Also, the aftermath of this match saw the surprise return of Seth Rollins, which set up another encounter we’ll get to later.

8. Kota Ibushi vs. Cedric Alexander - Cruiserweight Classic

In a round-of-16 match that aired on August 10th, American wrestler Cedric Alexander took on Japanese sensation (and one of the tournament favourites) Kota Ibushi in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic. Alexander had but a fraction of Ibushi’s star power but, by the end of the night, everyone knew his name.

These two pulled out all the stops, hitting all the big athletic moves, showing off all the dramatic facial expressions, and driving the CWC crowd into a frenzy. Over the course of 15 exhilarating minutes, the audience fell in love with this pair, especially Alexander, who won their hearts as the valiant underdog.

Ibushi might have scored the pin, but chants of “Please sign Cedric” made it clear that the other man in the match was also a winner in the eyes of the fans and helped him earn a WWE contract proper.

7. Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens - Royal Rumble

Whilst the 2016 Royal Rumble might be most famous for the fact that the WWE Championship was on the line in the titular match, other titles were also contested on the night, including the prestigious Intercontinental Championship.

Dean Ambrose was the defending champion going up against vengeful ex-champ Kevin Owens, and the Last Man Standing stipulation suited both brawlers to a tee.

The Prizefighter and Lunatic Fringe were the perfect fit for this sort of brutal battle and enacted all sorts of mayhem during the match, mainly involving chairs. Chair shots, moves on one chair, moves on stacks of chairs - you name it, they did it.

The finish came when Ambrose launched Owens off the top rope through two tables outside the ring - a fittingly violent way to end such a barbaric encounter.

Last Man Standing matches can be quite dull sometimes, but this one had enough innovation and spectacle to keep fans glued to the action the whole way through.

6. Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch - WrestleMania 32

After years of the women’s match at WrestleMania usually being the most overlooked thing on the card - if there even was one - WWE finally gave their female performers the time to shine with this history-making triple threat.

Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks initially thought they were challenging for Charlotte Flair’s Divas Championship but, as revealed beforehand, this match would actually be for the newly minted Women’s Championship, a significant upgrade from the butterfly-shaped monstrosity.

Three of the four horsewomen brought their A-game and brought the revolution that had been stewing in NXT for years to mainstream eyes. They traded strikes, suplexes, and submissions in perfect harmony as the Dallas crowd ate it all up and then asked for seconds.

Sure, it may have been nicer if Sasha had won instead of Charlotte or if Ric Flair hadn’t been involved in the finish - at least he didn’t kiss anyone this time - but this was still a signal that things were changing in WWE and changing for the better.

Also, this was a great match at a WrestleMania where those were in seriously short supply.

5. The Miz vs. Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn - Extreme Rules

Elsewhere on the Mania ‘32 card, Zack Ryder shockingly won the Intercontinental Championship in a move nobody saw coming. In a much more predictable turn of events, he lost it to The Miz one night later.

Miz would go on to defend against Cesaro at Payback and then in this fatal four-way at Extreme Rules, where the Swiss Superman was joined by Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. Putting these three in a ring together sounded like a good idea on paper and, wouldn’t you know it, it was also a good idea in the real world!

The former Ring of Honor lads all showed why they were in contention for “Most Underrated WWE Wrestler” by seamlessly stringing moves together across this 20-minute clash. As for The Miz, he played his part to perfection, sneaking around between the big spots to pick the bones like the smug little vulture he was.

This strategy paid off in the end, as the ‘Awesome One’ pinned Cesaro to hold onto his shiny belt buckle, bringing to a close one of the best four-way matches in WWE history.

4. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins - Money in the Bank

After jumping Roman Reigns at the end of Extreme Rules, Seth Rollins challenged his old buddy for the title at Money in the Bank. This would be Seth’s first televised match since he blew out his knee the year before, and fans naturally wondered if time away from the ring had affected The Architect's abilities.

By about the halfway point in the match, nobody was wondering that anymore.

Reigns vs. Rollins had that intangible big fight feel about it, like this was a moment in time that simply had to be watched live. The two former faction buddies meshed perfectly with one another, building to an ending sequence that was absolutely awe-inspiring.

The spot of the match has to go to the incredible way Rollins countered a Spear, by catching Reigns in midair and Pedigree-ing him in one fluid motion.

Eventually, The Architect pinned his old foe clean to win back the belt, only to have his hopes dashed by Dean Ambrose, who immediately cashed in Money in the Bank.

3. Men's Survivor Series Match - Survivor Series

Since the brand split was reintroduced in 2016, that meant that Survivor Series could now be used for brand warfare!

Before it became a dull parody of itself, this concept was actually treated pretty well, especially in the traditional 5-on-5 men’s match that went down in 2016.

On Raw’s side, you had Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Braun Strowman. For SmackDown, there was AJ Styles, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, and Shane McMahon.

Not only was there great wrestling between the two teams, there was also infighting on both sides, with Ambrose turning on his rival Styles and rejoining Rollins and Reigns to give him a Shield-style powerbomb through the announce table.

Wyatt got to interact with Strowman for the first time since they’d been in the same stable, there was great character work from Owens and Jericho, and Reigns speared Shane out of midair so hard he was left in a crumpled mess on the mat.

This jumbo-sized battle earned every single one of its 53 minutes and is easily much better than any of the rubbish Survivor Series matches from the next few years.

2. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens - Battleground

Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn never got to finish their story in NXT thanks to Zayn getting injured, which is why it was somewhat disappointing when their first match on the main roster was a throwaway piece of card-filler at Payback 2016.

Thankfully, the sequel would be much better.

At Battleground, Zayn and Owens had the match many expected them to have down in developmental; a tight, soulful affair that showed off the many years of chemistry these two had cultivated in NXT, Ring of Honor, and beyond.

Even if you knew nothing about these two and their history, the work they did in the ring was more than enough to get you invested. They played their roles perfectly - Owens as the nefarious baddie and Zayn as the valiant hero that fans were desperate to see get the victory.

That’s exactly what happened when Zayn nailed his rival with a Helluva Kick that should have been the end of the match, only to then look down at his former friend and hit a second Kick to emphatically win the day.

1. AJ Styles vs. John Cena - SummerSlam

When John Cena and AJ Styles shared a ring for the first time ever on the May 30, 2016 episode of Raw, they didn’t need to say a word. The crowd went nuts just looking at them; two men that many thought would never cross paths were now inches away from each other.

So just imagine what they were like when these two actually wrestled. For their second singles match, Styles and Cena went one-on-one at SummerSlam, but this had all the grandeur of the biggest of WrestleMania moments.

All their recent history in WWE, plus their own individual legacies, came to the boil, resulting in a seismic atmosphere that was more than met by the action. This was like Zeus facing off against Atlas.

That face Cena pulled when AJ kicked out of a top rope AA sums everything up perfectly - this was a match people simply could not believe was happening and it blew away even the loftiest of expectations.

And what’s more? AJ won!