1. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens (Battleground 7/24/16)
God damn what a wild wrestling match. Fuckin’ Ring of Honorable New Japan Pro Wrestling Guerilla shit inside a World Wrestling Entertainment ring. These guys have the best chemistry of anybody on the current WWE roster, and had a passionate, intense, exciting, awesome match. A lot of things folks don’t like about independent wrestling was here, but it was rolled up into the right package: Fighting Spirit spots, crazy bumps, a guy in basketball shorts wrestling a ska kid. Not everyone can pull that off, but these two can, and when it gets going it’s the most compelling thing in wrestling. The finish was pure beautiful art, with Zayn looking down at Owens with pity before finishing him off. Incredibly, I think they have an even more high-end match in them too.
2. 2/3 Falls – NXT Tag Team Title: The Revival [c] vs. American Alpha (NXT 7/6/16)
There’s a lot of current WWE that I like, but it can also be very sanitized and forgettable. So I tend to compare it in its’ own bubble. The Revival/Alpha series, though, holds up to to anything in any era. This is the best tag team professional wrestling in the United States of America since the era of the Midnights, Rock n’ Rolls, and Fantastics. These two complement each other perfectly, with the nothing-fancy redneck assholes taking on the fired up collegiate athletes. And the matches are all worked around this story too. Crowds going apeshit, guys getting beat up, fired up comebacks, fun-as-hell creative tag spots. Just very fun, beautiful-looking, awesome stuff.
3. WWE Women’s Title: Charlotte [c] w/ Dana Brooke vs. Sasha Banks (RAW 7/25/16)
When the rebooted women’s division gets some time and focus, it feels like the most special thing in wrestling. This will go down as one of the highlights. Great lock-up struggle, crazy spots built up to well, great selling by Sasha, a hot crowd, Sasha’s Eddie Guerrero tribute, the slapping contest in the Figure-Eight, and a few absolutely insane dives. Well done.
4. John Cena, Enzo & Big Cass vs. The Club (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) (Battleground 7/24/16)
I love the Enzo and Big Cass formula, and this was an Enzo and Big Cass formula match with John Cena and AJ Styles randomly wrestling each other during it. Tons of fun. Just realized Cena, Cass and Enzo is 2016 WWE’s version of Misawa, Kobashi and Kikuchi. Dear god.
5. WWE Title: Dean Ambrose [c] vs. Seth Rollins (RAW 7/18/16)
2016 is certainly a crazy year as far as changes in WWE’s presentation and hiring practices, and it seems even crazier when you’ve got clear puro marks main eventing a Monday Night RAW for the WWE Title. I don’t think Ambrose and Rollins get enough credit for how well they work as main eventers tailor made for the current ADD-TV-PG era. The chemistry is great and there’s a bunch of really fun, impressively laid out sequences here executed really well. This match is missing a real finish, so it doesn’t go high end or anything, but man is it fun while it lasts.
6. Winner Faces Seth Rollins at SummerSlam for the WWE Universal Title: Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor (RAW 7/25/16)
This didn’t even last 10 minutes, but it moved fast and everything had a purpose. Reigns and Balor are both really good at chaining stuff together, moving from move to move, and that was highlighted here. And from a historical context, I think this match will be looked back at fondly for a long time.
7. Finn Balor vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (NXT 7/13/16)
This was a weird match for me. I liked it, it had a balls out great finish and a bunch of fun spots, and yet 10 years from now I’m positive I’d rather watch something like Nakamura vs. Blake from NXT 7/27. That’s a weird endorsement, but it’s what I have.
8. Fatal 4-Way Universal Title #1 Contender’s Match Qualifier: Finn Balor (debut) vs. Cesaro vs. Rusev vs. Kevin Owens (RAW 7/25/16)
Super fun match and a really fun start to the new era of Monday Night Raw. This went 2 commercial breaks, so lasted a while, and it was pretty sweet the whole way through. There was a lot of guys laying outside for extended periods of time, but that also meant you got to see a lot of great pairings. Everybody bumped like mad to put Balor over and the finish was awesome. Also, Rusev rules.
9. WWE Title: Dean Ambrose [c] vs. Seth Rollins (SmackDown 7/19/16)
Strong match, held the day after the RAW match and yet completely different. This is basically all Rollins controlling and being a douche, with Ambrose doing a great job selling exhaustion. Ambrose’s meta gimmick as guy who is insane and won’t say die being slowly broken by the expectations of a modern WWE Champion is wonderful to watch.
10. Cruiserweight Classic – Round 1: Lince Dorado vs. Mustafa Ali (CWC 7/20/16)
The first really great offering from the Cruiserweight Classic, with Dorado doing some of the crispest prettiest high-flying on WWE TV in a while and Ali being a great base and doing a couple sweet spots himself.
This was a pretty awesome month for wrestling. The amount of things just outside the top 10 is insane. WWE delivered a lot of main event type matches this month that weighted the list, but there were a ton of fun short TV matches too. Sami Zayn vs. Curtis Axel was a rare good Superstars match, and Kota Ibushi had two freaking matches on the WWE Network that were both well worth watching. The Usos vs. Breezango from the Battleground kickoff was a fun match that screwed with usual WWE tropes. Shocked AJ Styles only appeared in the top 10 once, but he wasn’t in a lot of featured stuff. The Cruiserweight Classic started this month too, and all of it is at least worth checking out for the uniqueness of it.
Honorable Mentions: Triple Threat Match – WWE Title: Dean Ambrose [c] vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins (Battleground 7/24/16) Bayley vs. Nia Jax (NXT 7/20/16), Sami Zayn vs. Curtis Axel (Superstars 7/15/16), Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss (NXT 7/6/16), Jey Uso vs. Seth Rollins (SmackDown 7/7/16), Enzo Amore w/ Big Cass vs. AJ Styles w/ Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson (SmackDown 7/7/16), Kalisto vs. The Miz (SmackDown 7/7/16), Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho (SmackDown 7/7/16), Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens (RAW 7/11/16), Cesaro & The Usos vs. Alberto del Rio & The Dudley Boyz (Main Event 7/12/16), Cedric Alexander vs. Clement Petiot (CWC 7/13/16), Kota Ibushi vs. Sean Maluta (CWC 7/13/16), Dean Ambrose & Sami Zayn vs. Seth Rollins & Kevin Owens (SmackDown 7/14/16), John Cena, The New Day, Enzo & Big Cass vs. The Club and The Wyatt Family (RAW 7/18/16), Samoa Joe vs. Rhyno (NXT 7/20/16), American Alpha vs. The Authors of Pain (NXT 7/20/16), Akira Tozawa vs. Kenneth Johnson (CWC 7/20/16), The Usos vs. Breezango (Battleground Kickoff 7/24/16), and Sasha Banks & Bayley (debut) vs. Charlotte & Dana Brooke (Battleground 7/24/16), WWE U.S. Title: Rusev [c] vs. Zack Ryder (Battleground 7/24/16), WWE Intercontinental Title: The Miz [c] w/ Maryse vs. Darren Young w/ Bob Backlund (Battleground 7/24/16), Fatal 4-Way Universal Title #1 Contender’s Match Qualifier: Roman Reigns vs. Sami Zayn vs. Chris Jericho vs. Sheamus (RAW 7/25/16), Six Pack Challenge #1 Contender’s Match: John Cena vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Apollo Crews vs. AJ Styles vs. Bray Wyatt vs. Baron Corbin (SmackDown 7/26/16), Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Wesley Blake (NXT 7/27/16), Kota Ibushi vs. Buddy Murphy (NXT 7/27/16), Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tyson Dux (CWC 7/28/16)
