10 most valuable WWE players of 2018

2018 was the ultimate hot and cold year in WWE. When it was good, it was really good. When it was bad, it wasn't good. See the current state of Raw compared to SmackDown. See the women's division from before SummerSlam compared to what happened after it. Look at the state of the tag team division before versus after WrestleMania. Compare the current NXT title scene to the NXT women's title scene.

WWE was in a tailspin in the months between WrestleMania and SummerSlam, but managed to bounce back nicely - on SmackDown, that is - in the months after it.

Now with the end of the year upon us, it's time to take a look back at those stars that made 2018 what it was and saved it from potentially being much worse.

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#10 Kairi Sane

In an aberration of how things usually go, the NXT women's division fared worse than its main roster counterparts. The booking of Shayna Baszler is responsible for this. Baszler is very much like WWE itself.

In certain contexts, she's great. In others, she's underwhelming. The year didn't start off on a promising note. The feud with Ember Moon fell far short of NXT Women's Championship standards. The feud with Dakota Kai ultimately became disappointing. The match with Nikki Cross at NXT TakeOver: Chicago II was very poor, especially by TakeOver standards.

It was in this context that Kairi Sane entered the title picture and that proved to be its saving grace for most of the rest of the year.

Kairi's efforts weren't enough to save the NXT women's division from having its worst year in history. The bizarre booking of Baszler continued, culminating at TakeOver: War Games II, and the entrance of Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke into the picture, along with the setting up of a Baszler vs. Belair match, promise to make the division even worse, but Sane's efforts were enough to make it compelling in the back half of 2018.

#9 Charlotte Flair

Though her push in 2018 became too obnoxious to ignore, it was in large part for this reason that the feud with Becky Lynch has been as good as it's been.

Charlotte's match catalogue in 2018 has also been very impressive. Most of the best matches in the WWE's women's division have involved her, and she was a key component in stealing the show at Evolution, which performed far above the standards that most people thought it would.

When she hasn't been in the ring with Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair was putting on clinics with Asuka and Ronda Rousey. Her current character is confusing and feels like a bootleg version of Becky Lynch, but this actually leads to her being somewhat underappreciated.

When she isn't being pushed obnoxiously, Flair is a reliable hand who can always be counted on to deliver. She proved that throughout the year.

#8 AJ Styles

Though the WWE title felt more important after he finally dropped it to Daniel Bryan, it isn't hard to see why AJ Styles kept it for so long. He was a reliable hand who could always be counted on to deliver something good, even if this year didn't quite live up to his high standards until the closing stretch.

Nothing that AJ Styles did could quite be categorized as bad. The feud with Shinsuke Nakamura was a huge disappointment, but that came in large part because it didn't live up to the high standards we had in our heads for it. It was solid, if unspectacular.

Which is saying much more than WWE's overall performance for most of this year, especially in the months between WrestleMania and SummerSlam. That alone is worth pointing out when we talk about Styles' track record as a performer.

Of course, Styles would go on to pick things up with Samoa Joe and now, with Daniel Bryan, both of which turned out very well.

#7 Aleister Black

Though he's been overshadowed by Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, Aleister Black has very quietly put together a spectacular 2018. A participant in several of WWE's best matches this year, he also managed to make the best of a bad situation and get involved in one of the hottest angles of the year, which was spun because of his unfortunate injury. It all culminated in another match of the year candidate at TakeOver: War Games II.

And his year might well not be done. He has a steel cage match with Gargano coming up this month. There might just be one more match of the year candidate in him just before the final bell of 2018.

That we wonder about this so close to the end of the year, in a month that's normally quiet for WWE, tells us all we need to know about Aleister Black as a performer. He's proved it all year.

#6 Buddy Murphy

Few could have predicted the year that Buddy Murphy had. When he started out, he was calling himself the "best kept secret" in WWE. In December, he's not that anymore. Far from it, he's now the Cruiserweight Champion after a run that took the purple brand by storm and reinvigorated it from the doldrums it was in during the reign of Enzo Amore.

Even though Cedric Alexander held the championship for most of the year, Buddy Murphy was the one carrying the show. His victory in October was overdue.

Murphy's matches routinely were some of the best in every month, beginning in the Cruiserweight Championship tournament at the start of the year. His match against Cedric Alexander on May 29th is in WWE's match of the year collection on the Network.

2018 was the story of how Murphy went from virtual unknown to can't-miss superstar. Whenever he's performing, you need to take notice.

#5 Ronda Rousey

No one could have predicted that Ronda Rousey would start in the wrestling business as good as she has. Her debut performance at WrestleMania was a show stealer that no one saw coming. She followed that up by performing a minor miracle and carrying Nia Jax to a standout match at Money in the Bank. This was a feat that only Sasha Banks and Asuka, two of the best in the company, had previously. Ronda Rousey did it in her first singles match.

It was only a matter of time before Ronda Rousey got the Raw Women's Championship, and though she was put in a lacklustre angle with the Bella Twins in the aftermath, she even managed to make something of that in her match at Evolution.

When she's done with Nia Jax, I expect a lot more exciting things to come from Rousey on the Road to WrestleMania.

#4 Seth Rollins

2018 has arguably been the worst year Raw has ever seen in its 25 year history. It wasn't exactly the follow up the show should have had in the 12 months since its big 25th anniversary show. The red brand is truly not among the best shows on television at the moment, and it seems that only those who need to watch the show for business purposes actually do so these days.

There has been one bright spot, though.

Seth Rollins rebounded in February, escaping the confines of being Jason Jordan's partner, winning the famed gauntlet match soon afterward, and rocketed to becoming the hottest act on the red brand. Throughout a dismal spring, his Intercontinental Championship defenses were the highlight of Raw.

He cooled off in the second half of the year, held back by a tedious Shield reunion and a Dean Ambrose feud that hasn't lived up to the hype, but it's very possible that bigger and better things await him, and he's still one of the only reasons to actually seek out Raw content.

#3 Johnny Gargano

What can be said about the year Johnny Gargano has had?

He began it with one of the greatest matches in WWE history against Andrade "Cien" Almas. He followed it up with two more against Tommaso Ciampa.

Gargano's momentum has slowed somewhat following his loss at TakeOver: Chicago II in June. His story arc is confusing and he doesn't have the support in December that he did in January.

But he sure has made his deranged character work. He was just involved in one of the hottest angles of the year with Aleister Black, after all, and it seems that the angle will continue all the way to the end of the year.

Johnny Gargano can be counted on to deliver excellence in any role, no matter the task assigned ho him. 2018 was a banner year for his career.

We can only await the things that 2019 has in store for him!

#2 Becky Lynch

Before SummerSlam, WWE's women's division was in a dire state. Becky Lynch grabbed that bull by the horns and almost single handedly turned not only her career around, but indeed shifted the course of the entire women's division, delivering the promises we were given in 2015. The Divas were finally sent to the back of the line and the "women's revolution" was in the ascendancy again.

Her fantastic feud with Charlotte Flair culminated in one of the best women's matches in WWE history at Evolution. A week from now, she'll take center stage in a true dream match at TLC opposite Flair and Asuka.

Becky Lynch was an afterthought at the start of the year. At the end of it, she's entrenched herself at the very heart of the women's division and become the hottest act in the company, to the extent that even WrestleMania plans have reportedly needed to change.

A renaissance year indeed.

#1 Tommaso Ciampa

Good as Becky Lynch has been, the winner of WWE's 2018 MVP award was never in any doubt.

A year ago, Tommaso Ciampa was on the shelf with an ACL injury, which often ends careers. Instead, Ciampa used his to take his to a level few manage to reach. Ciampa emerged at NXT TakeOver: Philadelphia in January, haunted Johnny Gargano for months, had a couple of the best matches of all time in April and June, and went on to win the NXT Championship in one of the most shocking moments in the yellow brand's history a month later.

Finishing 2018 off with yet another match of the year contender with Velveteen Dream, he is without question WWE's most compelling character, and one of the greatest heels in the company's history.

All within the course of a year.

Ciampa has become such a big deal that it will truly be a massive, monumental moment when he finally loses the NXT Championship, and one of the defining episodes of 2019. It will likely come on WrestleMania weekend.

I'm in no rush to see it happen, though. Ciampa is too good for that. He has a lot yet to do as champion, and he should start 2019 as hot as ever. He truly is the main event and makes things feel far more important just by his mere presence.

CIAMPA. IS. NXT. pic.twitter.com/nLlmF2ai3g

— BLACKHEART (@ProjectCiampa) December 9, 2018