May 2018 had some solid TV matches as people qualified for Money in the Bank, but it was a pretty weak in-ring month. The top few here were great – the rest was good but there will be months at the end of the year that had 25 matches better than some in the top 10.
1. WWE Intercontinental Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. The Miz (Backlash 5/6/18)
Intense, dramatic, smartly worked, spectacular – these boys went 20 minutes and tore the house down. Rollins is having the run of his life and here he was opening up a pay-per-view with a guy who had something to prove. The crowd was biting on everything for the epic finishing stretch, complete with some brilliant work around Seth’s hurt knee, and I swear I saw tears of joy at the 3-count.
2. Kairi Sane vs. Lacey Evans (NXT 5/23/18)
A phenomenal wrestling match with not a second wasted, just 5 minutes of smash mouth to-the-point action. This had intensity times a million, Lacey just forcing Sane into holds, Sane throwing elbows any chance she got, and each lady at one point just grabbing each others jaw and chopping each other in the tits. Incredible stuff.
3. WWE Cruiserweight Title: Cedric Alexander [c] vs. Buddy Murphy (205 Live 5/29/18)
Just two fellas tearing the house down and making a eerily quiet 205 Live crowd go, “HEY! These two are really good!” Great counters, great build to Cedric’s comeback, great strikes. Really intense and desperate finish. Plus Cedric’s mom is in the front row and she’s wearing a purple homemade Cedric Alexander t-shirt.
4. Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy (205 Live 5/8/18)
And here’s another example of Buddy Murphy getting the silent 205 Live crowd to give a crap. Some jaw-dropping spots by Ali too – the tilt-a-whirl rope DDT and backflip to the floor are incredible. Buddy powerbombing Ali and just killing his arm dead at the finish is special stuff as well.
5. Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Adam Cole, Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly (NXT 5/16/18)
A tremendous Three Top Heels vs. Top Good Guys TV main event. Good pace, fun wrestling, O’Reilly and Burch tearing it up, Dunne going off on Roddy, an Oney Lorcan Hot tag – this is the stuff.
6. Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens (RAW 5/21/18)
This might seem high but when looking over the list there wasn’t anything below this that I found just as complete as this match. I also just genuinely enjoyed it more, mostly because I missed Roman Reigns TV singles matches. This didn’t reach the heights of 2017 Roman but it did have a hostile crowd completely buying all the up and downs they took them through. Some really cool spots too: the superkick counter of the Drive-By, Owens’ backflipping off of Roman shoulder tackles, and a great sequence with Owens ducking a Superman punch, hitting a superkick, then running into a Superman punch anyways.
7. WWE Intercontinental Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. Kevin Owens (RAW 5/14/18)
A high quality edition of Monday Night Rollins – Owens keeps up but this is Seth just nailing it with such poised, smooth, workhorse professional wrestling. Owens catching Seth’s rope and the falcon arrow were high-quality spots that would’ve had Joey Styles going OH MY GOD. Great finish spot too.
8. The New Day vs. The Miz, Cesaro & Sheamus (SmackDown 5/29/18)
High quality sports entertainment fun for the whole family: hot tag build-up, hot tag delivery, big bumps, big dives, sweet spots, sweet finish. All these guys are good.
9. Handicap Match: Lars Sullivan vs. Ricochet & Velveteen Dream (NXT 5/23/18)
A fun match with good action that got a point across – it sounds easy but it isn’t. They put Lars over as a beast but didn’t kill Ricochet and Dream as he had to really really try to keep them down. Some great creative double team spots by Ricochet and Dream too.
10. Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens & Jinder Mahal w/ Sunil Singh (RAW 5/21/18)
This right here was a real good tag team match, playa. Owens and Jinder doing chinlocks isn’t the best, but Roman’s selling, the build to Seth’s hot tag, and the eventual hot tag is tremendous.
11. NXT Women’s Title: Shayna Baszler [c] vs. Dakota Kai (NXT 5/30/18)
There might be more matches better this month on some Dave Meltzer scale but I loved all five minutes of this. It felt like an Arn Anderson TV Title match on 6:05 in the best possible way: Shayna wrecks Dakota’s leg, Dakota gets in some shots that get over, Dakota flops on her finish and Shayna catches her in a sleeper for the win. So simple, so great.
12. Braun Strowman vs. Finn Balor (RAW 5/21/18)
Fun big fella vs. little fella stuff that hit all the right notes. Gets all nice and hectic towards the end too as Balor tries to go for the impossible kill.
13. Winner Chooses Stipulation at Money in the Bank: AJ Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (SmackDown 5/15/18)
I still cannot believe that We, the People, are able to watch these two guys do their thing so many times on a WWE presentation. But I do wish that We, the People, could have seen this on WWE when these two were just a little bit younger and a had some more mystique to them. This might actually be my favorite match of their 4 so far, but mostly because they didn’t waste any time – they got right to the action. It’s good action, but disappointing all the same.
14. WWE Intercontinental Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. Jinder Mahal w/ Sunil Singh (RAW 5/28/18)
A real basic match but that isn’t a bad thing. Seth Rollins again put in a great performance, just selling his ass off and getting the crowd buzzing and into everything. Jinder meanwhile has come into his own and is an effective heel.
15. Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens (RAW 5/7/18)
I am always all in on a match where an outmatched fella keeps bringing it to a big fella. Owens was cracking me up trying to keep up with the Monster Among Men and there are some real fun little spots like Braun refusing a pop-up powerbomb and just saying NO.
16. Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Jeff Hardy vs. The Miz (SmackDown 5/8/18)
Daniel Bryan might call this match a little “safe,” but it’s an above-average WWE formula match and I dug it a lot. Jeff takes a ridiculous apron bump and they pull out some real nice near falls at the finish. Love a good backslide struggle too.
17. Winner Faces Samoa Joe in Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Jeff Hardy (SmackDown 5/22/18)
Just a fun bunch of babyface vs. babyface wrestling, nothing high-end but a cool as heck match to watch – good action bell-to-bell and I dug the hell out of the choice of finish.
18. Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Rusev w/ Aiden English (SmackDown 5/8/18)
Another fun Bryan TV match, though it stinks that nothing of his cracked the top 10. Regardless, he’s still one of my favorite guys to watch, and here he and Rusev – another favorite guy guy to watch – work a 10-minute match based around hurting each other’s arm and selling the crap out of it.
19. No DQ Match – WWE Title: AJ Styles [c] vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (Backlash 5/6/18)
Any time these two were hitting each other it was great; any time they tried to fill it in beyond that it didn’t get me. Nak still brings the pain and Styles still brings the hops, but a We Want Tables chant during an AJ vs. Nakamura match is some STUFF. The double nut shot finish is an all-time bad buzzkill too.
20. Triple Threat Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Sasha Banks vs. Ember Moon vs. Ruby Riott w/ Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan (RAW 5/7/18)
These three went balls out for about 10 minutes on Monday Night RAW and it was real good stuff. Ember in particular was wrestling like a woman possessed and her warp-speed tope remains one of my favorite things in all of WWE right now.
21. Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: The New Day (Big E & Xavier Woods) w/ Kofi Kingston vs. Cesaro & Sheamus (SmackDown 5/15/18)
A fun TV tag that hit all the right notes in about 6-7 minutes. Woods especially looked good – I loved the spot where Cesaro caught his front-face powerbomb, pulled his hair, then lifted him up over his shoulder to set up the double team from Sheamus off the top.
22. Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream (NXT 5/16/18)
This is a weird match because it’s basically the first 5 minutes of an epic match that gets interrupted by interference. Until that, I loved this – dueling armbar swivels, Ricochet keeping Dream in a headlock, both guys trying to out-backflip each other, Dream posing on the apron and eating shit, and Ricochet’s handspring in the ring only for Dream to roll in waiting for him. A wild ride.
23. Breezango vs. The Revival (Main Event 5/2/18)
Just good old-fashioned tag team wrestling, a fun use of four guys being available to play instead of two – lots of ducks and dodges and double teams. They milked sunset flips, Dawson was a dick, and Breeze took a beating. Very nice.
24. Kalisto w/ Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado vs. Drew Gulak (205 Live 5/1/18)
This was a whole fun bunch of wrestling, with Kalisto doing his balls out Lucha Things and Gulak dishing out punishment like a champ – strikes, stretches, an amazing Gory Stretch, and just tearing at Kalisto’s mask. Also witness Drew Gulak being the first man in recorded history to side-step the backflip headscissors.
25. Kona Reeves vs. Raul Mendoza (NXT 5/16/18)
There might be a few Honorable Mention matches technically better this, but Raul Mendoza – the #1 enhancement guy in WWE – deserves the love. This guy got Full Sail going wild for a Kona Reeves match. Amazing.
Honorable Mentions: Zack Ryder vs. Curt Hawkins (Main Event 5/9/18), Ricochet vs. Chris Dijak (NXT 5/30/18), WWE Intercontinental Title: Seth Rollins [c] vs. Mojo Rawley (RAW 5/7/18), Akira Tozawa vs. Hideo Itami (205 Live 5/22/18), Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass (Backlash 5/6/18), Triple Threat Money in the Bank Qualifying Match: Daniel Bryan vs. Samoa Joe vs. Big Cass (SmackDown 5/29/18), Tye Dillinger vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (SmackDown 5/29/18), Kassius Ohno vs. Tommaso Ciampa (NXT 5/9/18)
Gran Metalik w/ Kalisto and Lince Dorado vs. Drew Gulak (205 Live 5/22/18), Charlotte Flair, Asuka & Becky Lynch vs. Carmella & The IIconics (SmackDown 5/1/18), War Raiders vs. Heavy Machinery (NXT 5/9/18), Ember Moon vs. Alexa Bliss w/ Mickie James (RAW 5/21/18), Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado w/ Kalisto vs. Brian Kendrick & Jack Gallagher (Main Event 5/2/18), Pete Dunne vs. Roderick Strong w/ Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish (NXT 5/2/18), Randy Orton & Jeff Hardy vs. The Miz & Shelton Benjamin (SmackDown 5/1/18)
Hideo Itami & Akira Tozawa vs. Brian Kendrick & Jack Gallagher (205 Live 5/1/18), Xavier Woods w/ Big E and Kofi Kingston vs. Cesaro w/ Sheamus (SmackDown 5/8/18), Chad Gable vs. Drew McIntyre w/ Dolph Ziggler (RAW 5/28/18), Buddy Murphy vs. Liam Louis (205 Live 5/1/18), Kairi Sane vs. Shazza McKenzie (NXT 5/2/18)
