10 Best WWE Royal Rumble Matches

The most recent match on this list, pipping Kevin Owens' Universal Title defence against Roman Reigns on the same night, is this pulsating WWE Championship bout between John Cena and AJ Styles, the climax of their trilogy of five-star matches which began at Money in the Bank the previous year.

Built primarily around the story of Big Match John chasing Ric Flair's title record, the encounter was also an intriguing clash of wrestling philosophies, with Vince McMahon's franchise player of more than a decade taking on the internet darling who irretrievably raised the WWE bar during a stellar debut year.

In previous encounters, AJ responded to everything his opponent threw at him with a kick-out at two. The abiding image of SummerSlam 2016, in fact, is of a wide-eyed Cena sitting in the ring with his head on his hands, stunned that The Phenomenal One would dare get his shoulder up after a top-rope Attitude Adjustmen.

This time, it took two consecutive AAs to finally put the champion away, sealing one of the most memorable of his 16 world title wins - and, in the process, setting a standard that would prove impossible for any pair of WWE wrestlers to match during the next 12 months.