10 Best WWE Feuds Of 2017

In every WWE year, there are feuds that stand head and shoulders above all the rest.

Think of 2001, for instance, and one's mind is instantly and inexorably obliged to remember Stone Cold Steve Austin's for-the-ages battle with The Rock, culminating with the heel turn of all heel turns at WrestleMania X-Seven.

A couple of years later, in 2003, it was Brock Lesnar versus Kurt Angle, arguably the greatest three-match series that WWE has ever promoted, its competitors switching alignments midway through to keep things going long past the summer.

Many have complained that today's era doesn't seem to have the same epic, all-encompassing battles, the company now favouring a more slapdash booking style where loose ends find themselves neatly tied up again within weeks.

On the other hand, there is now a more diverse range of feuds than ever, a consequence of WWE running four distinct, weekly shows, together with the fledgling (and often forgotten-about) UK Championship division.

It's not that bad, in other words - certainly, it's better than it was a decade ago, anyway - and here are 10 great feuds from this year to prove it.

There is only one real complaint you can level at Brock Lesnar's summer feud with Samoa Joe, and that's the inescapable fact that, at six-and-a-half minutes long, the climactic encounter simply wasn't long enough.

Ignore that, though, and everything else was pretty much perfect, from the searingly intense pre-match interviews to the admirable (and, honestly, somewhat surprising) way in which Brock Lesnar sold Samoa Joe's Coquina Clutch in the build-up.

Logically, it seemed impossible to imagine that this former TNA star, a member of the main roster for no more than six months, was about to bring down Vince McMahon's biggest asset - and yet in the moment you could never quite tell, particularly after their GBOF match began with a pre-bell ambush.

The ending upset some of the fans, but for Joe himself it seems to have done less harm than many of us first feared. After rubbing shoulders with Lesnar, he now seems like a legitimate WWE force, whose World Title aspiration may yet re-emerge in 2018.