Michael Sidgwick's 10 Favourite Wrestling Matches
6. CM Punk Vs. Daniel Bryan - WWE Over The Limit 2012
This is the one concession I've made in substituting objective greatest for subjective favourite.
Though a classic in its own right, there are several matches that were more important, that were worked better, that were more original in content. The Undertaker doesn't make an appearance here, but he's wrestled at least five matches better than this. Ditto Shinsuke Nakamura, Jushin Liger, Ric Flair...
Context was an important consideration. The worst year in WWE history, to your writer's mind, was 2011. R-Truth was deemed an acceptable Pay Per View headliner. The hottest storyline in years was retconned out of existence. Triple H selected himself as 'Taker's WrestleMania XXVII opponent because, by his own counterproductive admission, WWE had done such a p*ss-poor job in creating stars that there was literally "nobody else in the back" worthy of the privilege.
Emerging from that dispiriting wreckage were CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, who wrestled a technical stunner at next year's Over The Limit - one which could have been seamlessly transplanted, move for move, from mid-noughties Ring Of Honor. Unlike the typical, black-and-white WWE story-driven approach, advantages weren't snatched through nefarious means. Punk and Bryan controlled stretches by hitting one another the hardest and contorting one another in the ever-more sickening submissions.
The origin point of the now a la mode Strong Style in WWE, it was such a refreshing deviation from the tedious norm that it remains a situational masterpiece.