The Magnificent Seven: The Top 7 WWE Moments of 2015

2015 was an interesting year for WWE programming. It was the year when NXT arguably graduated from captivating subdivision to its own distinctive (and quite arguably superior) brand. It was the first full year of the WWE Network which saw new in-ring specials like The Elimination Chamber, the King of the Ring, The Beast in the East, and Live from Madison Square Garden arrive in our living rooms, in addition to captivating shoot interviews and specials. We saw old faces return, and guys we may never have pegged for WWE contracts get into the mix. We saw great builds, and great pay offs in the form of great matches and new champions being crowned.

I am, necessarily, interpreting the term “moment” quite broadly for this countdown, though I’m aiming to focus on a scope no larger than a single match or incident, as opposed to larger programs or story arcs. For example, the reinvention and ascension of The New Day feels worthy of recognition, but I couldn’t isolate any single moment that deserved a top seven spot. I should also note that, as the introduction suggests, I am considering not only WWE main roster happenings, but also NXT for this countdown.

Without further ado, here are my picks for the top seven WWE moments of 2015.

#7. Samoa Joe arrives

NXT Takeover: Unstoppable was, like most major NXT shows, very, very good. The main event saw Kevin Owens beat back the challenge of a very game Sami Zayn and brutalize him when he couldn’t defend himself. This all culminated in the debut of Samoa Joe.

Joe was the quintessential indy superstar who would never make it to WWE. He didn’t have the right look. He had grown too old. He worked a style that wasn’t compatible with the E. Say what you will, about how Joe fits, but one point is clear—NXT is a better fit for a man of his particular talents and indy appeal. He’s an A+ worker with a cult following, who may be a shave past his prime, but still gelled quickly with the upper card of NXT.

The arrival of Joe firmed up a paradigm shift that had already seemed to be in progress—that NXT was going to be the place where unlikely stars got an opportunity to work in front of a WWE fanship, and to possibly, one day even work their way to the main roster. Since Joe’s arrival, Jushin Liger and James Storm have shown up as well, and rumors persist that AJ Styles may stop in before long. Regardless, Joe’s debut created a truly electric moment to cap off the Unstoppable show and demonstrated that, for fans whose wrestling interest goes beyond WWE, there was a chance that just about anyone, at any point in their careers, might still find their way to the WWE Network.

#6. Steve Austin (kind of) proposes a Texas Death Match with Brock Lesnar

With the advent of WWE documentaries on DVD, we saw the company begin to embrace the shoot interview and peeling back the curtain for those fans who wanted to know true stories behind wrestling. The concept of WWE making these documentaries made al the sense in the world—WWE owns all manner of footage, WWE has the money to consistently offer a polished production, and making the documentaries lent WWE the creative control to spin content to their liking.

The WWE Network has only bolstered WWE’s shoot market as the promotion has now absorbed so much of what works about the burgeoning pro wrestling podcast scene. The company has started airing Table for 3—open shoot conversations between linked superstars, without a moderator. Moreover, it has welcomed a video version of Talk Is Jericho in the form of Live With Chris Jericho!, and given JBL the platform of Legends with JBL. And then there’s The Stone Cold Podcast. Borrowing heavily from, and often sharing content with the actual Steve Austin Show podcast, this recurring features sees Steve Austin conversing with legends and icons, bolstered by Austin’s gift for gab, insightful questions, and the credibility that no one in the wrestling world can justify talking down to Steve Austin.

Relative to Austin’s conversations with guys like Vince McMahon and Triple H—big names who had never done podcasts before—or podcasts with a bit of reunion flair like the one he conducted with Edge and Christian, Austin’s episode with Paul Heyman felt like it could be forgettable. Don’t get me wrong, because Heyman is a fantastic talker, good thinker, and important historical figure in wrestling. Just the same, he had been a guest on Austin’s podcast multiple times before and there wasn’t much reason to expect anything groundbreaking to come out of their conversation.

The podcast was good. The ending was sensational.

For after a cordial, fun jaunt through wreslting history, Steve Austin turned into Stone Cold. And Stone Cold was angry.

Austin slipped seamlessly into kayfabe, suddenly annoyed at Heyman’s boasting, and referencing that he would consider coming back for one more match, if it were opposite Brock Lesnar, at WrestleMania 32, in a Texas Death Match.

By all indications, this was not a long-term creative plan and Austin does not actually plan to westling again; on the contrary Austin and Heyman were having some fun with the audience and decided to work their own mini-storyline within the context of the show (Lesnar’s uneventful appearance on the show months later seemed to put the final nail in that coffin). Just the same, working kayfabe into an otherwise shoot interview like this is relatively unexplored territory and I would argue that it made for the single most memorable moment of any shoot interview the WWE Network has played host to. Were it actually part of an angle that would come to fruition—as the Twitter universe so desperately wanted in the days that followed—I would probably push this entry in the countdown up several notches. Given that it began and ended on the show, I’ll leave it here—worth recognizing, but not top five material.

#5. The Rock N Rousey Connection

WrestleMania 31 was a special show that overachieved from almost every angle. Even the announcement of the evening’s attendance numbers. Even the mid-show Authority promo that that turned into.

The Rock’s arrival at Levi’s Stadium was a lot of fun—the perfect counter to Triple H and Stephanie McMahon’s ramblings, and even a nice throwback to the Attitude Era in The Rock and Triple H facing off once again. But the thing about a Rock cameo at a major show in 2015 is that it isn’t a shock. Don’t get me wrong, because it’s cool, but The Rock has now appeared at five consecutive WrestleManias, the last two unannounced and thus these appearances simply cannot broach the electricity of his initial surprise return in the build to WrestleMania 27.

But an in-ring appearance by Ronda Rousey? Now that’s electric.

Rousey has been shown in WWE crowds before and gone on record as WWE fan. But the idea that she would get in ring and physically engage to any extent with the WWE roster, particularly while she’s under contract with UFC was legitimately shocking, and held the promise of us one day getting a legit WWE match out of Rousey.

The match part has become increasingly complicated with Dana White not approving and Rousey’s film schedule apparently precluding any chance of a match at WrestlelMania 32 (not to mention the ways in which her UFC loss to Holly Holm might affect her brand). Just the same, even if it never leads to anything meaningful, Rousey’s cameo, including trapping McMahon’s arm and hip tossing Triple H marked what may have been the greatest thirty seconds any celebrity outsider has ever had in WWE. Yes, the segment was a little too long, and Rock’s dramatic pauses could have used tightening, but particularly as part of the live crowd, this moment was simply sensational.

#4. The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar have a pull-apart brawl

I was lukewarm on The Undertaker’s return at Battleground. It felt like a copout finish to a very good Seth Rollins-Brock Lesnar match. It felt random, given that the ‘Taker-Lesnar issue hadn’t been touched upon for over a year (and that The Undertaker had spent his limited TV time during WrestleMania season hunting Bray Wyatt and ignoring Lesnar). I was ready to write off ‘Taker-Lesnar as a revisitation on an old theme and a lesser use of Lesnar’s skill and star power to put him opposite a slowed-down part-timer with whom he had already had two significant programs.

On the July 20 episode of Raw, WWE changed my mind.

The show featured The Dead Man explaining his reasons for spoiling Lesnar’s title match—indignant that Lesnar and Heyman had continued to brag about ending his Streak for an entire year. Not exactly a thrilling explanation or moment, but logical enough and delivered with conviction.

Then came the brawl.

‘Taker and Lesnar tore into each other with a fury on that episode of Raw, and given each man’s size, reputation, and history, it made complete kayfabe sense that they would need a roster full of guys to keep them apart. The brawl most iconically included Lesnar screaming that he was going to kill The Undertaker, and The Phenom not taking one step back, but rather daring The Beast Incarnate, “You’re gonna have to!”

And I was hooked. WWE had suddenly succeeded in doing what it has so rarely been able to accomplish in recent years—an irresistible, main-event-level blood feud.

The two went on to a fringe MOTYC at SummerSlam, and a solid bout at Hell in a Cell, capping off a good program in which Lesnar rightfully went over to further shore up his place as the definitive monster in this era of WWE programming.

#3. Kevin Owens pins John Cena

John Cena’s US Open Challenge was one of the very best qualities of WWE programming this year that can’t find a meaningful place on this list, because I don’t think any single iteration is top-ten material, but if I were to go twenty-five deep, I suspect a good five or six entries would be dedicated to it.

Adjacent to the open challenge falls Kevin Owens.

Owens was the NXT Champion and came out to confront Cena amidst one of his challenges. Rather than take the challenge on the spot, Owens picked a fight, demanded respect, and got himself booked in a champion vs. champion non-title bout for Elimination Chamber.

Prior to this point, talents like Neville and Sami Zayn had benefited from putting on very good matches with Cena, and looking hyper-competive in losing efforts. The prevailing logic at the time was that Owens would get a similar outing and resume his NXT residency. Or maybe he would eke out victory via nefarious means.

But then Owens won clean. In one of the very best, and most surprising matches of the year, Owens beat Cena.

Hating on John Cena is still a thing, and there’s a very justifiable argument that his program with Seth Rollins this summer into autumn was booked backwards. Just the same, Cena as a performer 2015 has arrived largely selfless, entertaining, and key to pushing new talents. Nowhere was this more evident than his bruising encounter with Owens at Elimination Chamber in which Owens pounded and powerbombed Cena until he could pin him—straight up, no controversy or shenanigans.

Some of this initial Owens push was undone when Cena beat him in back-to-back rematches, but the fact remains that Owens picked up the first win cleanly and decisively.His only business left in NXT after that was to drop the title to Finn Balor, but he successfully straddled the two brands for those interceding months before being a full-time main roster star. It still has yet to be seen just how far Owens will go, but after WWE immediately established him as a very big deal, a world title run doesn’t seem far-fetched for his future.

#2. Bailey and Sasha Banks main event NXT Takeover: Respect

The WWE Iron Man match between Bailey and Sasha Banks was not the match of the year. Heck, despite being a solid four-star-plus outing, I wouldn’t even cal it the best NXT women’s match of the year (I’d rate both Bailey-Banks at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn and Banks-Becky Lynch at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable ahead of it). However, it was the very first women’s match main event PPV-ish WWE Network live special, and it did deliver.

Bailey and Banks are both outstanding professional wrestlers, together they have remarkable chemistry, and the NXT brand has let them run with their potential to put on true barn burners. In giving them not only a main event spot, but also a full thirty-minute block to work with, WWE acknowledgmed what the two had already accomplished and what they were capable of.

In the match to follow, each woman played her role perfectly—Bailey the every-woman, plucky babyface, Banks the nasty, conniving heel. They traded falls in a well-paced match that culminated in Bailey locking Banks in a stretch as the clock ran down with the score tied, and proceeding to kick viciously at the back of her head—hyper-realistic offense and a beautiful poetic throwback to Banks’s own evil offensive style and particularly the way she had kicked at Bailey’s injured hand in Brooklyn.

Bailey got the win—sending Banks to the main roster in style, shoring up her spot as “the woman” in NXT, and subsequently earning the applause of the NXT roster on the stage and flowers from Triple H. I’ve heard some folks criticize this moment as condescending toward the women involved—that nobody from NXT brought Finn Balor flowers and thus it comes across as WWE infantilizing Bailey and Banks to do so for them. I understand the logic, but feel it’s more appropriate to take the moment at face value—a promotion celebrating the hard work and accomplishment of two performers who worked their way up to this point, earned their spots, and delivered.

#1. Seth Rollins cashes in

WrestleMania 31 was way better than I ever expected for it to be. The overwhelming majority of matches over-performed. The show featured no true stinkers. The build suggested that, at best, we’d wind up with a middle of the road ‘Mania. We ended up a clear cut top ten WrestleMania–arguably even a top fiver.

And as much as the show, on the whole, was quite good, a lot of the credit for it being considered an all-time great show has to go to the main event match. 2015 Brock Lesnar is a special talent, all but incapable of putting on an unentertaining match. Roman Reigns—particularly at this point—was far less proven as a singles wrestler. Despite what uncertainty fans had going in, the match delivered. Lesnar was his dominant monster self. Reigns both sold well and succeeded in telling a compelling underdog story—not only refusing to stay down but adding the wrinkle of laughing at Lesnar, even as Reigns bled from the mouth.

Fifteen minutes in, Reigns gained the advantage based on a combination of luck and dogged perseverance. I foresaw that he would, finally pin Lesnar, and that though I wasn’t entirely won over to the Reigns cause, he would have had a career match and established himself as worthy of the mantle of face of WWE. Not an entirely satisfying conclusion, but a fair enough ending to a solid main event, to cap an excellent show.

Then Seth Rollins’s music hit.

Money in the Bank cash-ins have offered up their share of electric moments. But no one had ever had the gumption to cash in at WrestleMania. Also—in a less recognized, but little less noteworthy turn—Rollins became the first man to ever cash-in mid-match to turn a one-on-one encounter into a Triple Threat. A minute later, Rollins had pinned Reigns ina simply sensational twist. Lesnar, as an indomitable property, was protected by not having to eat the pin. Reigns may have gained more babyface sympathy for losing to Rollins after surviving Lesnar and not getting even a taste of championship glory than he has before or since for the entirety of his face run. The Rollins victory both earned him magnificent heat and turned in a moment that was objectively exciting and unexpected enough that I don’t know that anyone left WrestleMania disappointed.

Perhaps most importantly, a Rollins cash-in offered the best possible outcome to a main event match. Even for the Reigns haters and Lesnar lovers, a victory for the Beast Incarnate would have felt a little deflating in the main event (and left WWE with little obvious direction to move forward in for its main event scene). A Reigns win would have been OK, but a little too paint-by-numbers for a not-entirely-over main-event face to win the Rumble then beat the odds to win the tile at ‘Mania. Rollins winning offered super valuable third option, solidified Rollins as the top full-time heel in the company, and even set up Randy Orton as a perfectly logical early challenger given he had pinned Rollins earlier in the night.

For all of its ramifications and consequences, but all the more so for the wonder of the moment itself. Rollins’s cash-in is my clear cut pick for WWE’s top moment of 2015.

A few moments just missing the countdown—Brock Lesnar’s performance in the Royal Rumble triple threat, Alundra Blayze’s Hall of Fame induction, the nWo cameo to combat DX amidst the Sting-Triple H bout at WrestleMania, a number of New Day’s most inspired comedy bits, Finn Balor winning the NXT Championship, Sasha Banks’s win over Becky Lynch at NXT Takeover Unstoppable, Bailey winning the NXT Women’s Championship, and the returns of The Dudley Boyz and Alberto Del Rio, Which moments would you add to the list? Let us know what you think in the comments section.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.