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is built on the backs of feuds. When you add up all the matches and promos, they combine to form a feud between two wrestlers or teams. Over the course of 2016, WWE has produced more than its fair share of them but a handful have stood out above the rest. Today we’re going to look at the nominees for Feud of the Year. As will be the case with all of the awards we’ll be looking at over the next few weeks, these are presented in no particular order.
1. Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks.
This led to a long series of matches between the two of them with both women getting the better of it at one point or another. Both have taken the title from the other on multiple occasions, though Banks was never able to defeat Charlotte in a pay per view setting. All of her three title wins came on episodes of “Monday Night Raw” and all three ended in less than a month with Charlotte taking the belt back every time.
However, as good as their matches were, there was a much bigger historical significance to their rivalry. At “Hell in a Cell 2016”, Banks and Charlotte wrestled in the main event, making them the only women to ever do so at a WWE pay per view. To call this a huge moment would be an understatement as just a few years ago, WWE Divas (a term which has thankfully gone by the wayside) were lucky to have a two minute match with a chunk of that going to entrances.
2. The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler
While Charlotte vs. Banks was built on action, this feud was built entirely on emotion. Ziggler has spent a large portion of this year talking about how he needed to win the big one no matter what happened. Unfortunately, this led to loss after loss after loss as Ziggler continues his career trend of not being able to pull off the big one no matter what he did.
3. DIY vs. Revival
4. Samoa Joe vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
That champion would be Samoa Joe, who had surprised quite a few people by defeating Balor to become NXT Champion. This set up a collision course between Nakamura and Joe over the title with Nakamura taking the belt away at “Takeover: Brooklyn”. It seemed that Nakamura would go on to hold the title for as long as he wanted as no one had ever been a two time NXT Champion.
This feud had some excellent, hard hitting matches but also took NXT and its title to some new places. Instead of having someone win the title, defend it against the former champion and then move on, it was actually something fresh with the two wrestlers trading the title. This gave us some very strong surprises to go with the intense matches and promos between the two, making it an NXT classic.
5. AJ Styles vs. John Cena
A match was quickly set up over the summer with Styles taking a surprise heel turn on Cena to set things up. In an even bigger surprise, Cena lost to Styles, albeit with some help from Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows. With one classic under their belts, the only solution was to have a second match on the bigger stage of “Summerslam 2016”.
This is how you make someone into a huge star by way of a big rub. Cena is someone who is going to be able to lose matches like this and bounce back with almost nothing lost along the way. Styles on the other hand was able to gain more in those two wins than almost anything else he could have done in months against other opponents. The shock of Styles winning clean still holds up and Cena will be just fine when he gets back in the ring full time.
6. Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens
They had two great matches on pay per view this year at Battleground and Payback with the two of them splitting the wins. That win for Zayn at Battleground was a huge moment because he never won the big one over Owens at any point. This made Zayn into a player for the first time and if you ignore him doing nothing special after the win, it should have been a turning point in his career.
On the other hand, Owens got a big run out of this and would wind up being the World Champion as a result. Now, logic would suggest that Zayn would go on to be the #1 contender but since WWE decided that THIS IS THEIR LAST MATCH (until a few months later when they fought on Raw), that went nowhere. At least the two matches on pay per view were great.
The feud was violent, personal and entertaining as the big payoff was worth the build in the end. Kyle made the title seem important and beating one of the biggest stars in the history of the company helped so much. The fact that it was his old partner and rival was the big icing on the cake, which made everything work so well.
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