10 Best WWE Network Shows Of 2018
1. Chronicle
A beautifully-shot pre-WrestleMania profile piece on Shinsuke Nakamura was the ideal way to welcome Chronicle's combination of crystal clear visuals and muddied kayfabe waters onto the WWE Network, and it foreshadowed a further three that served as wonderful accompaniments to equally complex characters.
Samoa Joe's SummerSlam main-event was backed heft of his post-WrestleMania return in the second edition. As always, the 'Samoan Submission Machine' carried himself with magnetic confidence throughout, only turning up his inner heel when his outer one appeared in clipped form. A Becky Lynch episode leading into December's Tables, Ladders & Chairs had the whiff of a cash-grab, but fair play for WWE for striking whilst the iron was white hot. 'The Man' is moving the needle and this, if very little else, was an acknowledgement of it.
A special on Dean Ambrose's comeback trail and heel turn was an undisputed triumph and perhaps the company's best slice of digital content this side of Stone Cold Steve Cold incinerating Mike Rome on WWE.com. Stunningly tiptoeing across a tightrope, the feature revealed a man as broken as his character should be.
Physically damaged by his first major injury and emotionally destroyed by Roman Reigns' ill health, Ambrose stopped just short of smashing the lens with a scream. He built barriers between himself and the viewers - himself and the world - that his current gas mask aesthetic is perhaps an all-too-literal representation of. Again unlike the version currently thrown out to die on the weekly shows, he was an incredible method actor. This wasn't Raw, this was raw.