10 Best WWE Matches Of 2018 (So Far)
Spoiler alert: Stephanie McMahon.
WWE's habit of tanking great performers with terrible booking has never been more apparent than in 2018.
Asuka, once the most magnetic performers in the company, is now a threatless parody of the monster she was in NXT, her mystique obliterated by James Ellsworth, Carmella, and broken English promos. Her countryman Shinsuke Nakamura has suffered a similar fate despite his heel turn's early promise. Remember the Authors Of Pain? They barely exist anymore. Roman Reigns was long considered the company's most over-protected star, but was sacrificed at the altar of Brock Lesnar this summer. The list goes on.
Athletic standards are higher than ever and the talent pool is impossibly deep, but WWE's cack-handed booking team has overseen a noticeable in-ring decline. This is particularly true of Raw and SmackDown. NXT, for the most part, remains a reliable source of excellence, but main roster PPVs are riddled with problems.
That doesn't mean that WWE haven't delivered great matches in 2018, though. They have, just not with the consistency fans should expect.
A roster this talented will inevitably transcend the writing on occasion, and their finest work compares favourably with anything on offer elsewhere...
10. Buddy Murphy Vs. Cedric Alexander (205 Live, 29 May)
No wrestler has benefited more from 205 Live's 2018 rebirth than Buddy Murphy, who is currently in the form of his life after several years in the wilderness following the dissolution of his NXT career.
Him and Wesley Blake lost their way when valet Alexa Bliss hit the main roster. Both vanished from television, but while his former partner remains adrift, Murphy is flourishing as a Cruiserweight. He has been an unexpected highlight on an under-watched brand that guarantees at least one good-to-great singles match every week, and he met 205's other 2018 standout in a Cruiserweight Championship encounter on the May 29 episode.
It'd be a terrible shame if it went down as the year's most under-watched great match, because Murphy and Alexander worked their arses off, and outdid any other bout in the brand's history. Everything was on point save for 205's notoriously bad crowd reactions. Throw the bout before a white-hot TakeOver audience and it'd likely be in the 'Match Of The Year' conversation, but the duo didn't let the library-like atmosphere dissuade them, trading streams of beautiful sequences en route to Cedric's big victory.