10 Best WWE Matches of the Year 2003

The wrestling year of 2003 for WWE was generally well received by fans. Like most years, ratings began to take a sharp decline, but the wrestling itself remained top notch.

Not everything was perfect in 2003 WWE. Stone Cold Steve Austin wrestled for the final time, The Rock barely wrestled at all, Scott Steiner had a miserable run, Goldberg joined WWE but the majority of his performances were uninspiring, and Triple H was dealing with nagging injuries for a large portion of the year, so wrestling/entertainment wise, he had pretty much the worst year of his career and refused to put over should be main event players like Booker T and Rob Van Dam.

Despite all that that, RAW still had a fair share of solid matches and storylines, while SmackDown was generally on fire. Both shows delivered on great matches and pay-per-view matches were also off the charts. And that brings me to what I feel are the top 10 best WWE matches of the year 2003.

A former WWE writer just went after JBL for his comments HERE

#10 Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels - RAW, December 29

Taking place in Shawn Michaels home of San Antonio, Texas, Shawn Michaels reignited his feud with then former best friend Triple H, as he challenged him for the World Heavyweight Championship.

There was a funny irony heading into this one. You see 2003 was a difficult year for Triple H. Despite being the World Heavyweight Champion for the majority of the year, he also spent most of it dealing with nagging injuries that, although were not serious enough for him to take time off, did hinder his performances.

Most of his matches ranged from mediocre to just about entertaining, but the one exception was this match with Shawn Michaels, which would turn out to be one of the best matches of the year. The irony is that this happened on the very last episode of RAW of the entire year. It took The Game that long to give us a performance that he should have been giving regularly.

The match was excellent, Shawn gave one of his best performances of the year and as mentioned , Triple H gave his best. They went back and forth all match, counter after counter, finishing moves and more. Shawn Michaels pinned Triple H to win the match, but interim referee Eric Bischoff awarded the title to Triple H, ruling it out as a double pin-fall.

#9 Kurt Angle vs. The Undertaker - SmackDown, September 4

Taking place on the September fourth episode of SmackDown in 2003, The Undertaker challenged Kurt Angle for the WWE Championship, and it was quite a showdown.

This was the best match SmackDown had by this point in 2003 and one of the best matches of the entire year. The Undertaker himself later went onto calling it one of his all-time favourite matches and called Kurt one of the greatest wrestlers he had ever been in the ring with.

The match saw several finishing moves, reversals, fast-paced action, both men pull out everything they have to try and beat each other. The last five minutes or so are epic, with Angle desperately trying to make The Undertaker tap out to the Ankle Lock, and The Undertaker trying his best to survive, and take Angle down. The final moment saw Taker setting up Kurt for another Last Ride before Brock Lesnar ruined the ending by attacking both men.

This was easily the best match The Undertaker had in 2003 and the last and one of the best matches of his American Badass persona.

#8 Rey Mysterio & Billy Kidman vs. Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin - Vengeance

This one is an incredibly underrated gem from a really excellent yet overlooked pay-per-view. SmackDown was running a little low on tag teams at the time so we had a brief reunion of former WCW Tag team Champions Rey Mysterio and Billy Kidman, who challenged Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin for the WWE Tag Team Championships.

Without a doubt the shining moment in the WWE career of Billy Kidman, this was one of the best WWE tag team matches ever. The action was red hot all match long, both teams going back and forth, a sling of reversals by both teams, several near falls including Kidman launching Rey onto the top rope for a hurricanrana on Hass but only leads to a 2 count. Kidman delivers a springboard Shooting Star Press to a huge pop.

The end came as Haas reversed Rey's headscissors into a modified Doomsday Device from Benjamin. Fantastic tag team match.

#7 Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon - WrestleMania XIX

Most wrestling fans who have seen it would easily include WrestleMania XIX from 2003 as one of their all time favorite WrestleManias, if not their favorite. The show featured a classic encounter between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle in a stunning main event, and Steve Austin's final wrestling match, an exciting affair with The Rock. The matches on the under-card also ranged from passable to decent.

Surprisingly though, the most overlooked match of the show, and possibly that year, was the Street Fight between Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan, that was literally 20 years in the making. Even before the Hulk Hogan scandal in 2015, this was still one WrestleMania match that was barely ever mentioned as one of the greats.

For a match between a then 49 year old Hogan and 57 year old Vince McMahon, the two men worked very hard. It got pretty violent at points with a barrage of chair shots resulting in a lot of blood loss for both men. Vince executed an amazing Hogan Atomic Leg Drop from the top of the ladder through the announce table; we even had an appearance from Rowdy Roddy Piper for the first time in seven years, when he hit Hogan with a lead pipe quite hard in the head. Hogan took home the win after three consecutive leg drops. The match was far better than it had any right to be, than anyone thought it would be.

#6 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle vs. Big Show - Vengeance

One of the most underrated PPV main events ever

This was destined to be a great one. It was the first time Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle were against each other since their WrestleMania classic, and even Big Show, who wasn't exactly on their level of great matches, had even had some good matches leading up to this one, and had been booked very well with consecutive wins over both Brock and Kurt just weeks earlier.

Big Show started off strong by taking both men down and even getting in a Chokeslam on Brock just moments into it. Big Show continued to dominate for a little while before some double team from Lesnar and Angle took him down.

Brock hit Show with an F-5, Kurt locked his Ankle Lock, they fought outside, Brock showed his freakish strength when he power bombed Show, with then more team-ups, and brawls throughout. Kurt then planted Show through the announcer's table with an Angle Slam.

Brock and Kurt went at it alone with a lot of back and forth action, several suplexes until Show re-entered with a double Chokeslam. Following their recovery, Kurt gave an Angle Slam to Big Show and then to Brock, covering him for the three count and his fourth WWE Championship.

#5 Team Austin vs. Team Bischoff - Survivor Series

This is in my opinion, hands down, the best Elimination match in Survivor Series history and perhaps even the best match in all of Survivor Series.

It was a team chosen by Stone Cold Steve Austin vs a team chosen by his co-RAW General Manager, Eric Bischoff. If Austin's team won, he could beat up anyone he wanted, whenever he wanted. If Eric's team won, Austin was finished as RAW GM. Austin's team was comprised of Shawn Michaels, Booker T, Rob Van Dam and the Dudley Boyz, while Bischoff had Randy Orton, Chris Jericho, Christian, Mark Henry and Scott Steiner.

This match was very exciting, especially during the last 15 minutes or so. Shawn Michaels gave one of his very best performances here, and the drama was just so intense. Scott Steiner was the first eliminated, pinned by Booker T following a reverse 3D and Bookend. The Book was eliminated by Mark Henry just seconds later. Henry was out a few minutes later after a 3D and Frogspalsh from RVD.

Orton pinned RVD after an RKO next. The both Dudley's were eliminated by Jericho and Christian, leaving ol' HBK in a 3 on 1 situation. Shawn eliminated Christian and Jericho just a couple minutes apart after getting the better of them, but was then left bloody by Jericho and a chair.

Shawn is covered in so much blood, he looked like he just walked out of the first Hell in A Cell match. He and Orton battle it out for a few minutes before Bischoff attacks Shawn. Austin then takes out Eric and hit Orton with a Stunner. As Austin beats Eric, Batista emerges from the crowd and Powerbombs HBK, leading to Orton getting the three count and win for his team.

#4 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle - WrestleMania XIX

A great one, even if Brock can't remember most of it

Everyone knew Lesnar was winning this one. He was the handpicked next face of the company at the time and Angle shouldn't have even been wrestling due to his practically broken neck at the time, yet the two managed to pull off an outstanding match. WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart has even referred to it as his favourite WWE match this century.

The Beast Incarnate kicked out of the Angle Slam and the Olympic Gold Medalist became the first superstar to kick out of the F-5. At one point Angle gave him a German Suplex and Lesnar sold it by flipping on his stomach, which was just an incredible sight.

The most famous and incredible moment came when Lesnar amazingly attempted to hit a Shooting Star Press and landed directly on his head, nearly killing himself. Bonus points for regaining conscious with enough time to hit one more F-5 for the win.

Angle hugging Lesnar after the bout and raising his hand was also a nice touch.

#3 Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho - WrestleMania XIX

Everyone knew this match was going to be good, but I don't think anyone expected it to be as phenomenal as it was. Shawn had to really prove himself in this one because not only was it going to be his first WrestleMania match in 5 years, but by this point, Shawn had been back in WWE and had had at least 6 or 7 televised matches, but only two of those had been up to the 'Shawn Michaels' standard.

After a disappointing 3 Stages of Hell match with Triple H at Armageddon 2002, Shawn immediately entered a feud with Chris Jericho, but wouldn't have an official one-on-one match with him until WrestleMania, and boy was it worth almost 3 months of waiting.

The timing of everything was on point, we had near fall after near fall, a tremendous exchange of reversals, Chris performing his very own Sweet Chin Music and a whole lot more!

#2 Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle - SmackDown, September 18

These two had just amazing chemistry together, Kurt Angle was easily Brock's greatest rival and opponent in the ring.

This was the ultimate battle of speed vs strength. It is easily the best match in the wrestling career of Brock Lesnar and arguably the best match that Kurt Angle has ever had.

We had some good back and forth action and chain wrestling to get us started. Kurt took the first fall pretty early on as Brock took a steel chair and got himself disqualified as he hit Kurt with it repeatedly. He had a good reason though, this weakened Kurt into giving Brock the next two falls, the second of which was Kurt tapping out to his own submission move, the Ankle Lock.

We got a fury of suplexes from both until Brock hit Kurt with an F-5 outside the ring, for his next fall. Kurt took the next one with an Angle Slam, followed by some brawling before the referee went down, allowing Brock to take another fall by hitting Kurt with the WWE Championship belt.

They fought some more in and out of the ring until Brock got his fifth fall with a superplex.

Brock dominated Kurt until Kurt fought back and pinned Brock after a belly to belly superplex. More suplexes, DDT's and reversals until Kurt took a fall with the Ankle Lock once more. Now at 5 - 4 to Lesnar, we got even more suplexes and brawling outside of the ring before Kurt had Brock back in the ring, locked in the Ankle Lock for the remaining 18 seconds, which Brock survived to become the WWE Champion.

#1 Kurt Angle vs. Chris Benoit - Royal Rumble

I don't think many people will have expected this one to top the list, especially as it involves Chris Benoit, but the reader should have, as it is one of the best wrestling matches of all time.

When it was first announced, many fans expected the match it to be very good. After all, Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit had been feuding on and off for 2 years and always delivered in the ring. That night, the fans cared more about Scott Steiner's return in his World Heavyweight title match against Triple H than Angle vs Benoit.

However, by the time the event was over, absolutely no one cared about the Steiner/Triple H match and all props were given to the Pittsburgh native and the Rabid Wolverine.

A match that was completely different to their previous encounters, the two men pulled out enough suplexes to make Brock Lesnar blush and more than a dozen reversals of each other's key submission moves into a version of their own.

At one point, Benoit gave his trademark diving headbutt to Angle as he lay well more than halfway on the other side of the ring. A defeated Benoit was given a rousing standing ovation from the Boston fans and the match would win several Match of The Year Awards from various websites and magazines.

Edited by Gabby Duran