The 10 most important WWE matches of the 2010s

#9 Aleister Black vs. Velveteen Dream (NXT TakeOver: War Games, 2017)

"Enjoy infamy, Velveteen Dream!"

This one is more a prediction than the others. It wouldn't be fun if we didn't try to look forward a little bit. What we can look forward to is father time, as always.

Namely, The Shield members, who WWE's weekly programming has built around since the middle of the 2010s, hard as it is to believe, aren't spring chickens anymore. Seth Rollins will be turning 34 this year. Roman Reigns will be turning 35. That's not to say that they'll be declining in performance any time soon, but inevitably, the company's top brass will have to look to the younger talent and find someone to build around for the next decade. Recall that John Cena scaled back his time as the face of WWE in 2014 at the age of 37 - not too far away from where Reigns and Rollins are now.

Fortunately, WWE has plenty of young talent, but one of them stands out the most. That's Velveteen Dream. Out of anyone on the NXT roster, he has the most tools in his arsenal to be the next big thing in the company. The brass down there know it, too, which is why Triple H is handling him carefully and Shawn Michaels is personally overseeing his development.

If there's anyone with the highest chance of emerging as the face of the company in the 2020s, it's Dream. And this was the match that made him a star, even in defeat. It was a fantastic match, too.