I’ve watched a lot of WWE this past year (by which I mean, 2008), especially to say that for half of it I haven’t had Sky. But luckily the Internet and friend’s houses exist, so I’ve managed to watch more than wrestling than I have in a while. I can’t even remember the last year I watched every single PPV one way or another, but I did in 2008. I was originally going to do a list of just the best matches of 2008, but then I realised that because I haven’t seen as much ROH as I’d like and TNA is a shambles of a company, it would be heavily WWE-based anyway, hence this. Read it, and then immediately become an outraged Internet wrestling fan at the amount of John Cena and Batista matches I like!

PS. I got most of these pictures from WWE.com because, well, they have the best ones. Nobody knows or cares about this blog anyway, so if the one person who pays attention is Vince telling me to take them down or tonight I’ll have to go one on one in that very ring with Kaaaaaaaaane it will at least be a good story to tell.

(Oh and by the way #26 would have probably been Matt Hardy vs. Finlay from a fairly recent ECW episode. I only point this out because it seems weird not to have any Finlay matches in the list when he’s been really consistent and good all year because, after all, it’s Finlay, but sadly he just misses out on the final list. Blame Hornswoggle if you want…)

25. Extreme Rules: John Morrison & The Miz vs. Tommy Dreamer & Colin Delaney
(ECW on Sci-Fi, 12/03)
Including Tommy Dreamer on a list of the best anything seems wrong, but this was tons of fun. It probably wouldn’t have registered a few years ago when this kind of stuff got beaten into the ground, but here it was great nostalgia and just highly entertaining. The highlight would obviously be Morrison’s moonsault to the floor while holding a trash can, but Colin Delaney going nuts with weapons and then acting flabbergasted at what he had done was hilarious.

24. Non-Sanctioned Match: Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels
(Unforgiven, 07/09)
As part of the best feud in recent memory, the reason this match isn’t any higher is because I was so PSYCHED for it and it just didn’t live up to my expectations. It’s still a really good heated brawl though, with plenty of things to like about it, it just could have and should have been better. Shawn’s revenge-seeking performance as a good man pushed too far was amazing though, and I really liked the stuff that called back to their previous stuff, especially the referee stoppage finish. Really needed some blood though, but that’s the new family friendly WWE for you.

23. John Morrison & The Miz vs. Rey Mysterio & Evan Bourne
(Raw, 08/09)
This was just a random Raw tag team match but it was awesome; just six or seven minutes of fast-paced non-stop exciting action. You could call it a ‘spotfest’ if you want, but it had heart, and it made sense. Everything was hit well, everything was crisp, everything looked good, and all four men left the match looking better than they did before it. The crowd loved it too and it probably seemed even better because it was in the WWE, where matches like this don’t happen every day. Rey Mysterio is so much better these days in tag team matches, by the way.

22. CM Punk vs. Batista
(Great American Bash, 20/07)
CM Punk has had quite a lot of good matches this year, but this stood out for me because I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. This was also part of Batista’s ‘hot streak’ that I keep banging on about. It was a good title match, with the story of Punk trying to prove himself worthy of being World champion. Punk just killing Batista with a brutal kick to the head was awesome, as was Batista hitting the spinebuster on the concrete floor. The only downside to the match was the double disqualification finish. Give this a proper ending and it would have ranked way higher.

21. Matt Hardy vs. MVP
(Smackdown, 04/04)
MVP and Matt Hardy are two of the most consistently good wrestlers on the roster, but the problem with that is that sometimes no one match stands out. This one did, partly because their entire storyline and build was good and partly because it was a really good TV match, where they really brought the hate and beat the shit out of each other. MVP played his usual ‘arrogant but skilful’ gimmick and threw in aggression, and Matt was already mad enough thanks to all the stuff MVP had done to him leading up to this, so yeah, this was pretty violent, and all without weapons, just two guys punching and kicking each other to death. Good stuff.

20. 30-Man Royal Rumble Match
(Royal Rumble, 27/01)
It’s hard to rate Royal Rumbles in comparison to other matches…because of their nature, sometimes they seem worse because it’s not really like a normal wrestling match, sometimes they seem way better because of how exciting and unique they are, so I had a hard time ranking this. I did really enjoy it though; I always enjoy Rumbles anyway, everyone does, but this one was well booked, had some really good stuff involving Undertaker and Shawn Michaels in particular, and John Cena’s return was a phenomenal moment and one of the few ‘surprises’ these days that was genuinely surprising.

19. John Cena vs. Randy Orton
(No Way Out, 17/02)
The ending of this match manages to be both annoying and awesome at the same time. Annoying because the match was just getting good when it abruptly ended, awesome because that was the entire point, and it fit in well with Orton’s cowardly champion gimmick. After being unable to beat Cena by either pinfall or count out after an RKO on the floor, Orton is so desperate to keep his title that he intentionally gets himself disqualified by slapping the referee in the face! This is a great cheap heel trick and the crowd hated it, but it did stop the match when it could have developed into something great. As it was, it was still pretty good. Cena and Orton also showed brilliant chemistry so I have high hopes for their future matches.

18. Cage Match: The Undertaker vs. Big Show
(Smackdown, 05/12)
This was a great TV main event, and was also a much better end to their feud than that shitty Casket match would have been. This seemed like a bit of a throwback to an old school cage match, as they really beat the bejesus out of each other, as well as throwing in some impressive spots, such as Show’s missed Vader Bomb, and Undertaker missing a massive top rope leg-drop. The visual of both these big monsters fighting while climbing the cage was pretty good too, as was the decisive Hell’s Gate finish.

17. John Cena vs. Chris Jericho
(Armageddon, 14/12)
If this match was a bit longer, it would’ve been way higher but as is, it’s pretty damned good. They play off some of the stuff from their Survivor Series match well and Jericho is great at relentlessly going after the recently injured neck, going in you assumed he had no chance of winning but he actually made you think he could. Cena was great too, and I really enjoyed the reversals sequence, with them both escaping/countering the FU/STFU/Codebreaker/Walls of Jericho time and time again. This was real good, but like I said, could’ve been longer, and I didn’t really like Jericho tapping to the STFU almost instantly, but to be fair that is splitting hairs a bit.

16. Stretcher Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Batista
(One Night Stand, 01/06)
This was a brilliant use of the match gimmick, definitely the best Stretcher match I’ve seen. This tied in to both the Michaels/Flair and Michaels/Jericho storylines, as well as their previous match in which Shawn lied about his injury, so Batista promised to hurt him in this match. Which is exactly what he did, with Shawn really getting the shit beat out of him. I enjoyed this being a Stretcher match that really was about incapacitating your opponent, instead of the usual ‘push it past the line!’ tomfoolery. Chris Jericho, as a disingenuous face who was just about to turn heel, coming out to stop Michaels from leaving the match, willing him on when really he just wanted Batista to dish out more punishment, played his role well too. Big Dave’s “I DON’T love you and I’m NOT sorry!!” line before he finished him off was awesome too.

15. Money In The Bank: CM Punk vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Mr. Kennedy vs. John Morrison vs. Chris Jericho vs. MVP vs. Carlito)
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
This was one of those ‘spotfests’, but I tend to like that kind of stuff anyway, especially when it’s done well. This was, as it had the spectacular moves and the big stunts, but it also had a sense of structure, as well as some memorable moments, from Morrison’s incredible moonsault to the floor while holding the ladder to Jericho bringing back the Walls of Jericho atop a ladder, from Matt Hardy’s big return to Shelton taking an insane front flip bump off a ladder through another ladder! Of course, the most memorable of these moments was the finish, as I never saw CM Punk’s victory coming, and it really felt pretty special.

14. John Cena vs. Batista
(SummerSlam, 18/08)
This was good but I’ve got a feeling they’ve got a better match in them somewhere down the round. Regardless, it’s my 14th favourite match of 2008 so there’s plenty to enjoy. It had the feel of a big deal even if it had kind of been randomly announced out of the blue, and there was the usual back-and-forth action you’d expect from a match like this. They told the story of Cena’s heart and drive vs. Batista’s size and power and it worked pretty well. The bit near the end, where they traded punches on the top rope, Batista fell down and Cena went for the diving leg drop thing only for it to be reversed into a massive Batista Bomb, was awesome too.

13. The Undertaker vs. Big Show
(No Mercy, 05/10)
This was great, just two giant monsters beating the living shit out of each other until one of them could take no more. Nothing more, nothing less. Undertaker wasn’t the biggest man in the match for once so he got to use speed and skill, while Show just battered him. I really liked Show catching him in mid-air to reverse Old School into the chokeslam, and Taker later countering a second chokeslam into a big DDT. The match ending via referee stoppage after Big Show literally punches Taker’s head in is pretty fantastic. If ‘slobberknocker’ were a real word, this would be the definition.

12. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(Judgment Day, 18/05)
Great match, the official start of the best feud in years, and totally different to their later matches. This was while Jericho was still a face, with the seeds of the heel turn planted, so the match was about competition and respect, and so was much more technical-based than the rest of their series. Some really good spots in here too, such as the now-common ‘Lionsault, opponent gets the knees up, but Jericho turns it into the Walls of Jericho anyway’, as well as a Codebreaker reversal of Sweet Chin Music, and an awesome superkick on the apron. Shawn winning with a cradle instead of more decisively added weight to Jericho ‘snapping’ later too. I should probably re-watch this someday.

11. Triple H vs. Jeff Hardy
(No Mercy, 05/10)
Really strong match and awesome for getting the viewer hooked, for drama, and at presenting Jeff as a guy who you really thought was finally going to get the title victory but just couldn’t do it this time, and HHH as the talented champion who was one second away from losing his belt. HHH played a great role in this match as an old school, slightly-heelish champ, and the crowd were going mental for every time it looked like Jeff had a possibility of winning. These two really have great chemistry against each other, and I really liked the finish, of Jeff actually connecting with the Twist of Fate and Swanton Bomb, only for HHH to surprise him with a roll up and steal the victory. Great finish which kept them both strong and furthered the storyline well.

10. John Cena vs. Triple H
(Night of Champions, 29/06)
I really liked this when I first saw it but I haven’t seen it since, so maybe it should be higher/lower, I’m not sure, but I remember it being pretty great. I also remember it as having a real ‘big fight’ feel, and that they did the sensible thing of switching back and forth between who played the face and who played the heel, which guaranteed a hot crowd who were hooked from start to finish. Cena’s subtle heel work in going after HHH’s hurt leg was pretty awesome if I remember rightly, as was the finishing run of false finishers, reversals, teases and whatnot. After Cena kicks out of the Pedigree and HHH kicks out of the FU, we get an awesome finish of the Pedigree niftily reversed to STFU, fought and reversed to Crossface, powered out of into the FU position, escaped with elbows to the head, and finally a Pedigree to end it all. Hell yeah.

09. Big Show vs. Floyd Mayweather
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
This was far better than it had any right to be and is clearly the best ‘celebrity’ match of all time. I liked this way more the second time round, when I began to appreciate just how good it was as a WrestleMania ‘spectacle’ match, especially considering Floyd Mayweather isn’t a wrestler and Big Show hadn’t been in action in over a year at this point. But against all the odds, it was brilliant and really felt like a big historic match. Show was obviously the glue that held it all together, and pretty great in his own right, but Money Mayweather is a better wrestling bad guy than 90% of wrestling bad guys. So many things he did were awesome: his ridiculous entrance complete with an entourage, money falling from the sky and a fur coat; hitting and moving, dancing around like a little jerk; even stopping the match to drink from a bejewelled chalice. This all meant that when Big Show finally got his hands on him and started to kick his ass, the crowd loved it. At the time, I was kind of mad that Floyd won, but that’s probably just because he was that good a heel, and he kind of had to. The finish was good anyway in that it didn’t hurt Show as it took low blows, chair shots and a knockout punch with brass knuckles to finally put the giant down.

08. Jeff Hardy vs. Edge vs. Triple H
(Armageddon, 14/12)
Perhaps I’m a bit biased with this one and I’m ranking it a bit too highly based on how genuinely happy I was about Jeff Hardy finally becoming the WWE Champion. On the other hand, perhaps not, as it was the best WWE Triple Threat match in a long time. It was action packed, dramatic, edge of the seat stuff, a good showing from all three men. There was plenty of stuff to like in this match; from Edge playing the desperate madman who in no way wanted to relinquish his title, to the constant teases and usage of the Pedigree, to Jeff just doing whatever it took, and looking like he had the match won several times, only to be taken out by the third man. The Whisper in the Wind to Edge sat on HHH’s shoulders was fucking great, and the announce table spot, in which Jeff escaped the Pedigree, HHH avoided the Twist of Fate, and then Edge appeared out of nowhere to come flying in and Spear Jeff from one table onto and through another was brilliant. And then, HHH hit the Pedigree on Edge, the referee counted to two, and suddenly Hardy hit the Swanton, got the pinfall and I had a heart attack of pure joy. What a moment. But yeah, even looking at it a bit more objectively, really fun main event with a great atmosphere.

07. TLC Match: The Undertaker vs. Edge
(One Night Stand, 01/06)
This match seemed to get a mixed reaction when it happened, but clearly I thought it was great. I’m usually a fan of this type of matches anyway, and this one had a clear story and purpose for happening, and genuine drama, excitement and surprises. Plenty of highlights in this one, including Edge getting chokeslammed on a ladder set up between the apron and the barrier, Taker disposing of Edge’s lackeys Hawkins and Ryder by just hurling them through tables, and Taker giving Edge an awesome Last Ride from halfway up the giant ladder through a stack of two tables. Hell yeah. But it was nothing compared to the end…given the “title vs. career” stipulation, there was literally no way that I expected Undertaker to lose so when he did, it was shocking, but not as much as the insane fall he took in doing so: from the top of the big ladder, crashing to the outside through no less than four tables. At his age, and at this point in his career, it is fucking mental that The Undertaker would be willing to take such a ridiculous bump.

06. Career Threatening Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
I know a lot of wrestling fans have listed this match as their number one of 2008, but to me, it comes down to how attached to Ric Flair you were. I liked Flair and respect him as a legend, but I grew up on the WWF as opposed to WCW/NWA so I’ve never seen a lot of his best stuff, so don’t really have any emotional attachment to him. Having said that, this match was still really, really, goddamn good. Michaels lived up to his ‘showstopper’ reputation, and Flair had one last great match to go out on. There were a few dodgy bits where things didn’t seem to go to plan, but considering Ric Flair is older than God, it’s forgivable, especially in a match where the focus is really more on the spectacle and storytelling. Although, having said that, Shawn missing a moonsault and crashing ribs-first into the announce table was easily one of the highlights. The emotion in this one really was off the charts, the performances by both men were great, and the closing minute or so was pretty much perfect: Flair begging Shawn to put him out of his misery, Michaels being heartbroken at retiring his idol and the big “I’m sorry. I love you” line shouldn’t have worked so well in a fake sport built around men fighting, but it did, and it was glorious. HIGH DRAMA.

05. Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(Great American Bash, 20/07)
I’ve written time and time again how amazing the Jericho/Michaels storyline was, and at the time I really thought this was going to be the peak of it (but then Jericho punched Shawn’s wife in the face, Michaels went on a quest for revenge and we were lucky enough to get a few months more!). It isn’t a ‘good match’ in the same way a back-and-forth, hold-for-hold technical bout would be, as 75% of it is just Jericho beating the holy hell out of Shawn and trying to end his career. But for the storyline, that was perfect, and they really do a damn good job of getting that across. Michaels is willing to throw caution to the wind to get back at Jericho for injuring his eye in the first place, but really this match is about advancing the angle as a whole and fully transforming Jericho into the bitter, twisted, heartless swine he is today, so the turning point is Jericho elbowing Shawn right in his injured eye, causing Shawn to sport the ol’ crimson mask (heh). This leads to just a complete demolition of the Heartbreak Kid, with Jericho ruthlessly going after the eye with punches, kicks, elbows, stomps, and a particularly awesome headbutt in a cold, calculating manner. There’s one bit where Shawn is practically dead in a pool of blood and the crowd is concerned (kids are crying, I swear), the ref asks HBK if he submits and Jericho asks “he said no, right?!” before kicking him directly in the face. The ending with Jericho trapping Shawn’s arms out of the way and then repeatedly punching him straight in the eye until the referee has no choice but to stop the match was fucking brilliant. Simply put, without this match, the whole saga probably would’ve just been another wrestling feud.

04. Cage Match: Jeff Hardy vs. Umaga
(Raw, 07/01)
I saw this match right at the beginning of 2008, and it’s stayed on the list since then, which is a testament to three things: how big of a Jeff Hardy fan I am, how I’ve missed Umaga since his injury, and most importantly, just how good of a match it is: a great, exciting TV main event. But it was when I watched this again recently that I realised how good it really was, basically an instant classic. Jeff and Umaga have faced a lot of times, and always have good chemistry against each other, mostly because Umaga is awesome at kicking somebody’s ass, and Hardy is awesome at taking a beating. As a Cage match, it’s worked brilliantly, and I like that pins/submissions are legal as well as escaping the cage, as it makes Jeff’s eventual victory seem like more of an achievement. This was when Jeff was gaining momentum for his WWE title match against Randy Orton, and Orton played his role well as the antagonist on the outside of the cage, desperately wanting Hardy to lose. Both guys go out of their way to make this a good and memorable match, with Umaga doing great ‘big man selling’ so that the crowd goes nuts when Jeff is finally able to take the monster down; and Jeff taking his usual ridiculous bumps, including a back body drop into the cage wall which looked insane. Orton bringing chairs into the match was good too, with Jeff ultimately using them as an equaliser, setting up Poetry in Motion against the cage, and later just hurling them at Umaga’s head. The false finish of Jeff flooring Umaga and heading for the door, only for Randy to come flying in and send it crashing against his head, was awesome, and the fans really bought it as the end of the match, and hated Orton for it. Jeff somehow manages to survive though, and incapacitate Umaga for long enough to climb to the top of the cage, but before he can climb out, Randy Orton is there to block his way, leading to the ending which has since made it’s way into dozens of video packages: Jeff takes a last look at Orton, and then hits a fucking phenomenal Whisper in the Wind from the top of the cage back into the ring on Umaga, which gets the hugely popular three count.

03. Hell In A Cell: The Undertaker vs. Edge
(SummerSlam, 18/08)
I’ll get the one bad thing about this match out of the way first: lack of blood in an epic, feud-ending Hell In A Cell match. It’s the whole WWE PG thing; I get it and for the most part support it, but come on…Undertaker, Edge, Hell In A Cell. Anyway, that aside, this was awesome. Some people didn’t seem to like it but I thought it was brilliant as an epic, feud-ending main event Hell In A Cell match, and that the whole build-up and payoff to it were great too. This was when Edge had gone crazy at the prospect of ‘going to Hell’ with The Undertaker and was pretty much channelling Heath Ledger’s Joker , and Undertaker was on a murderous quest for revenge, so it was a pretty interesting dynamic. Edge going mental meant that he wasn’t afraid of The Undertaker here, so spent a good portion of the match in control; hitting Taker with some nasty chairshots, hitting a Spear with Taker leaning against the steel steps, and destroying him by diving off a ladder while holding a chair, putting Undertaker through a table. I guess some people didn’t like Edge bringing in the tables, ladders and chairs and making the match more about them than the cell itself, but to me it takes sense: TLC is Edge’s speciality match, as Hell In A Cell is one of Taker’s. One of the best moments of the match was Edge Spearing Undertaker against the cell wall, causing a panel to break and both of them to go crashing out of the confines of the cage. This looked great and got a good crowd reaction, but did kind of tease that they were going to climb up to the top, which is probably never going to happen now that the cell is even bigger and they don’t employ Mick Foley. Edge hitting another Spear after running across two of the announce tables, putting Taker through the third, was pretty bad ass too. And the ending sequence was a perfect end to the storyline too: Undertaker gets the ultimate payback, doing to Edge everything Edge had done to him over the course of the feud – throwing Edge from a great height through two tables, hitting a Spear of his own, smashing Edge in the head with the camera really really hard, and finishing with a devastating Conchairto. One Tombstone later, and Taker has his revenge…but then decides to finish things off by literally send Edge to ‘Hell’ by chokeslamming him off a ladder all the way through the ring, STRAIGHT TO HELL, complete with smoke and flames. I fucking loved this match and also marked out at the ridiculous ending; it’s The Undertaker, not Ring of Honor. A lot of the complaints about this was that some of the other HIAC matches were more violent, or intense, or bloody, but as a conclusion to a storyline, as a spectacle, and as match, I just thought this was really awesome and it’s probably the match I’ve watched the most from 2008 actually.

02. The Undertaker vs. Edge
(WrestleMania 24, 30/03)
Three matches in the top ten from the same two guys is pretty impressive by anyone’s standards…I suppose some people may wonder why I rank a ‘regular’ match, which was almost the start of the whole thing, as the highest, when the same feud produced a TLC match and a Hell In A Cell match. Well, because this was no ordinary match, it was a huge, impressive, highly entertaining, WrestleMania main event. The crowd and the arena and the general setting gave this a big time feel, and it more than lived up to it in my opinion. Edge being in the main event of WrestleMania was huge, and so was the fact that despite being against The Undertaker, he managed to be in control for a large percentage of the match. They worked a story that Edge was always one step ahead of Taker, and had counters for all his major moves, which was proven by him continually escaping the chokeslam, Tombstone, Last Ride etc. The best one of these was probably doing the ’ten punch’ bit, so Undertaker would predictably reverse it into the Last Ride, only for Edge to slip out of it and take him out with the Edge-O-Matic for a near fall. Another really cool thing about this match was that Edge actually got to kick out of the Tombstone piledriver, in what the entire crowd assumed was the finish. After a great, attention-grabbing main event match, the climax was fantastic: Undertaker stops Edge’s lackeys and their constant interference by chokeslamming one of them off the apron onto the other (I don’t care enough about Hawkins & Ryder to know the difference), then turning around straight into the Spear, which gets a very close near-fall. By this point the atmosphere is electric. Edge then takes Taker down with a second spear, but while he hesitates, Undertaker reaches up and out of nowhere traps him in Hell’s Gate (or as it was known at the time, “That Deadly Submission Hold, Coach!”)…Edge struggles and fights it as the stadium crowd goes insane, and he finally taps out to end a brilliant WrestleMania main event. Undertaker then poses with the World title as the fireworks go off and the crowd goes home happy. WrestleMania moment, right there. Seriously, I feel as if my write-up of this really isn’t doing it justice because it’s just a really, really good wrestling match.

01. Ladder Match: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho
(No Mercy, 05/10)
It’s fitting (and somewhat predictable) that something that is widely known as the best storyline the WWE have done in ages, and a feud which I myself have banged on about time and time again (several times in this very countdown), produced my favourite match of the year. I was always going to like this: here was a feud that got better almost every week, with a real sense of rivalry and hatred, and brilliant performances and believable characters from both of the guys involved, and it was going to be in a Ladder match, which is usually my favourite type of gimmick match. The feud had always been about personal rivalry, jealousy and animosity, and it had not only completely saved the career of Chris Jericho and made him arguably the best he’s ever been, but had made Shawn Michaels more interesting than he had been in a good while as well. But now it was about Chris Jericho’s newly won World Championship, and it was in the match Shawn Michaels made famous in the WWE, the Ladder match. This was going to be good.

The only slight worry I had before I saw the match was that I thought for a second it could end up being another ladder match built around crazy falls and stunts, with most of the match basically being there to fill in the gaps before another big spot. Don’t get me wrong, I like those matches, I included two of them in this list, but for what was probably going to end up being the conclusion to this feud, it wouldn’t really have worked. Luckily, what we got instead was a match built around two men who despised one other, using the ladders as dangerous weapons in an attempt to permanently maim and disfigure their opponent. In the case of Jericho, this ended up legitimately happening after the “slingshotting the ladder into the face” spot inadvertently causes him to break a tooth and bleed from the mouth a fair bit. There really was a ton of stuff to like in this one; liked how they paced this, and didn’t immediately go for the ladder shots, but instead had Shawn do things like reverse a whip into the ladder by jumping up and climbing it for a dive. I also really liked Jericho kicking the ladder from his back, sending it flying into Shawn’s face, and then placing his head inside it and slamming it shut, which looked incredibly painful. There’s a brilliant sequence later on in the match where Jericho trapped Shawn under the ladder, mocked him and then climbed it, only for Shawn to use his legs to tip it up and send Jericho flying all the way to the floor was both awesome and pretty scary, as that could have gone wrong in plenty of ways, and Jericho landing on his legs/knees could’ve ended horribly. And then the ending sequence is amazing and very memorable too; from Jericho getting his leg caught in the ladder (a cool call back to when the same thing cost him Money In The Bank), to Lance Cade’s desperate interference to give the win to Jericho and getting superkicked for his troubles, to the finish with both men fighting atop the ladder, grabbing a side of the belt each and having a tug of war which ended with the momentum causing Jericho headbutting Michaels right in the face, causing him to fall and Jericho to retain the title. Fucking awesome.

I could seriously write about how good a match this was all day, but the two words above say it best. Here’s hoping the WWE produces many more great matches in 2009. Bold prediction: 50% of next year’s list will include Dolph Ziggler.