WWE: Ranking Brock Lesnar’s PPV Matches In 2017

1. Brock Lesnar Defeats AJ Styles At Survivor Series

At first, we were all worried that the WWE would give us a Jinder Mahal vs. Brock Lesnar battle as the WWE Champion vs. Universal Champion match at Survivor Series. Instead, Styles upset Mahal in one of the most special moments of the year, pinning him with a Phenomenal Forearm in Manchester, England, to re-capture the WWE Championship.

Styles’s victory set up a champion vs. champion match at Survivor Series, and it was one of the best matches of 2017. Yes, Lesnar got gassed early, and, yes, Styles did most of the work. But Lesnar sold the absolute hell out of Styes’s “Calf Crusher” submission hold, which is becoming increasingly more powerful with each passing month, and he put together one of the best matches of his career. That isn’t easy at the age of 40, but this match reminded some fans of Lesnar’s instant classic at SummerSlam against CM Punk, who, like Styles, is a favorite of manager Paul Heyman.

The beginning of the match was marked by Lesnar absolutely dominating the much smaller Styles, who took some nasty bumps in order to sell the Beast’s brute force. Some of those bumps were scary, but they made the ultimate turning of the tide in Styles’s favor all the more meaningful.

Styles came up short in the end, but he took Lesnar to the brink and came much closer to defeating The Beast than either Joe or Strowman. Like the others, he lost to a single F5, but he could have easily won the match with the Calf Crusher, which left Lesnar broken down at the end.

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This match was an absolute clinic, and it reminded fans of two things. Firstly, that AJ Styles is indeed as phenomenal as he’s billed, and, secondly, that Lesnar is still one of the best wrestlers and story-tellers in the business when he’s on his “A” game.