10 Awesome Wrestling Matches From 2017 (That You've Already Forgotten About)

10. AJ Styles Vs. Dean Ambrose - WWE SmackDown January 31

Lost in the adulation of his Match of the Year contender with John Cena three days prior and polluted by Miz’s distracting commentary is the best non-gimmicked entry into the underrated Dean Ambrose Vs. AJ Styles series.

There was no James Ellsworth on the outside, infecting a superb wrestling match with sports entertainment mugging. Baron Corbin’s squabbling with Miz at the booth requires a great deal of concentration to filter out - but succeed and you are treated to an intense war fought by two men with an awesome chemistry and an intimate awareness of one another’s repertoires. Ambrose countered Styles’ strike combination with a smooth neckbreaker before knocking him out of his boots with a teeth-rattling clothesline. Ambrose countered the Phenomenal Forearm by sending Styles into the barricade with a forearm of his own.

In response to that, Styles countered Ambrose’s suicide dive with a forearm of his own, precipitating another lightning-paced blur of reversals telling a story of literally inseparable quality - perfectly pitched, given that Elimination Chamber was on the horizon, and all six men had to be on even footing ahead of it.

It was just a great TV match - thrilling, watertight, fought at an end-at-any-time urgency. Even Corbin, whose character exists to be unimpressed at everyone, was compelled to lavishly praise it.