One WWE Match You MUST Watch From Every Year 1984-2024
7. 2017 - The New Day Vs The Usos, SummerSlam Kickoff
Of all the things (and there were many) that there were to complain about WWE in 2017, the placement of certain matches on the pre-show in favour of others was typically redundant. Bloat was en vogue, and the company had put almost as much of a push on tuning in for the Kickoff events as they had done for the main shows themselves. However, you'll rarely see a match where four wrestlers so profoundly disagreed with that very principle that they wrestled in such a way to prove it wrong.
A incredible high-flying brawl that topped their phenomenal effort at WWE's Battleground event one month prior, the quartet (and a not exactly uninvolved Kofi Kingston on the floor) were given just under 20 minutes to delight a Barclays Center crowd still filing in with an effort that should forever be lamented for not sharing a brighter spotlight during 'The Biggest Party Of The Summer'.
Placing yet more foundational building blocks into what became the defining tag team feud on the era, the work was so good that it begat the babyfacing of The Usos all over again, only this time in roles a little less dated than play-hard-in-the-paint personas they'd flailed with years earlier. People fondly remember when Jimmy and Jey stepped aside during a 2019 New Day Gauntlet match that paved Kofi Kingston's Road To WrestleMania. The respect - and crucially, the buy-in from the fans - was earned in wars like this one being waged, and offered WWE a rare chance to lean on its own continutity during its most creatively bankrupt period.