1. CM Punk
The 'Best in the world' is still the greatest. Punk started the year as the WWE Champion, and lost the belt to The Rock at Royal Rumble. It was a decent effort that ended Punk's 434 day championship reign, and it drew an outstanding 579,000 pay per view buys. It was the match that fully announced Punk as a major drawing star. The rematch at Elimination Chamber was even better, and a Wrestlemania 29 clash with The Undertaker was a match of the year contender. The real match of the year was Punk's February 25th war with John Cena. The two men pulled out all of the stops to entertain the audience, including a piledriver. Match of the year contenders seemed to be Punk's specialty in the first half of the year, he had another one with Chris Jericho at Payback. Punk then went on to a top performance in the Money in the Bank ladder match, before contesting a major feud with Brock Lesnar at Summerslam. As well as having the best matches of 2013, Punk can also boast having had the best segments of 2013 too. The Lesnar feud was a catalyst for some of Punk's best mic work. There were several entertaining promo segments with Paul Heyman. The Lesnar match at Summerslam was epic, yet another match of the year contender starring CM Punk. Following this the 'Straight Edge Superstar' was made to suffer in dull matches with Ryback and Curtis Axel ... but things improved with a good encounter with The Wyatt Family at Survivor Series and The Shield at TLC. It has been a great year for Daniel Bryan, but Punk is still untouchable in terms of having the most great matches and promos. The Cena match was 2013's best, The Undertaker, Lesnar and Jericho contests not far behind. In comparison Bryan didn't quite boast that number of truly five star matches. CM Punk remains the best in the world, but it was a close call. If WWE fully get behind Daniel Bryan in 2014 it could be a very different story.
Highlight of the year: Match of the year with John Cena on February 25th Raw