Review for WWE: The Best Of Raw And Smackdown 2017

2017 was an odd year for WWE. In some ways this was because it was the first year after the draft and so each show really stood as their own entity. This is the first time for a while that both shows felt like separate entities and maybe they should have had a disk each or their own set. As it is the three disks is filled with matches and moments from WWE’s Raw and Smackdown Live! from the year.

It consists of 23 matches (10 from Raw and 13 from Smackdown) it is surprising that they have not decided to include anything from 205 Live, but maybe they will be getting their own set similar to the ones for NXT? It is surprising the number of PPV-quality that have been given away for free on TV and it is almost WCW-level, the number championship matches that have been given away.

This includes the shocking WWE Championship match between Jinder Mahal and AJ Styles (shocking because it happened, not because of the match) and also the amazing dream match of a Triple Threat between Kevin Owens, AJ Styles and Chris Jericho for the US Championship which was one of the best TV matches of the year. Other notable matches are Bayley’s match against Charlotte another great match between Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens and even more amazing Women’s matches.

Unfortunately, they also include the awful women’s Money in the Bank which was supposed to make up for the awful outcome at the PPV and instead of WWE realising that we wanted someone else more worthy to win instead it was Carmella again, with help from James Ellsworth AGAIN??

As well as matches they include multiple notable moments that happened throughout the year. At times I wish that they would release a combination of this set with the PPV set to show what the TV actually built up to and I think that would make it a more concise and essential set.

Moments include the reformation of The Shield, the build and destruction of Braun Strowman, the magnificence of Rusev Day and the amazing Festival of Friendship. Considering everything going on in the real world it is surprising that WWE have included the Neville match against Rich Swann and also any mention of Enzo as both have a dark cloud over them at the moment.

This set is a pretty good look at what happened in the WWE Universe in 2017. I can’t think of anything that is missing. The lack of Brock Lesnar really shows how little he appeared on shows that were not PPVs and this is something that WWE really needs to do something about. However, the emergence and push of new talent has been very encouraging, despite the adverse affect its had on the NXT product, it has been great to see the stars of tomorrow like Bayley, Shinsuke Nakamura and Bobby Roode get their chance to shine on the big stage.

The Best of Raw and Smackdown 2017 is a great set for those who want to remember 2017 and there were definitely highlights throughout the year. Maybe next year they can merge it with the Best PPV Match set and make it a set that I would be recommending to everyone.