By Jonathan Williams

With its final DVD release of 2011, WWE celebrates some of its greatest moments of the year with WWE Best Pay-Per-View Matches 2011. While the three-disc set obviously rehashes matches also found on previous WWE pay-per-view DVD releases, most people don’t buy every DVD and filtering out the less memorable moments is a great way to reflect on one of WWE’s most interesting years in recent memory.

Hosted by WWE commentator Scott Stanford (who provides brief reminders of what led up to some of the matches), Best Pay-Per-View Matches begins with Edge‘s World Heavyweight Championship defense against Dolph Ziggler at the Royal Rumble in January, as well as his subsequent successful defense the following month inside the Elimination Chamber.

Next up is the year’s biggest pay-per-view, WrestleMania XXVII. In addition to including the no holds barred match between the Undertaker and Triple H (an obvious choice), it also features the match between Rey Mysterio and Cody Rhodes, a good (and somewhat surprising) choice considering that it was overshadowed by much of the other WrestleMania hoopla.

From Christian‘s ascension to main event status in his ladder match victory over Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship at Extreme Rules to Mark Henry‘s dominant victory over Randy Orton at Night of Champions for the same title, this DVD definitely features some of the biggest matches of the year. And you can’t talk about WWE pay-per-view matches from 2011 without mentioning CM Punk‘s victory over John Cena at Money in the Bank (after which he departed the company through the audience with the WWE Championship) or Mark Henry and the Big Show‘s World Heavyweight Championship match at Vengeance that resulted in the ring collapsing.

Though this collection definitely features some of WWE’s most exciting moments from 2011, it does feel a little lacking simply because it was released too early to include any matches from Survivor Series or TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs (which ended up being one of the best overall pay-per-views of the year despite mostly low expectations). And considering how easily this exclusion could have been remedied (either by releasing the set a month or so later or by following the its own pattern set last year with Best Pay-Per-View Matches 2009-2010), it’s a little unfair to call this collection the best of the year without including anything from two major pay-per-views.

Minor complaints aside, it is interesting to note that Edge, who was forced to retire in April due to a back injury, is featured here just as many times as John Cena, who was actively in the WWE title picture for most of the year. And other names such as Rey Mysterio, CM Punk and Mark Henry pop up just as many as or more than Cena. Also, in retrospect it seems that the World Heavyweight Championship made for more great matches this year than the WWE Championship with six World title matches being included alongside only two WWE title matches.

These facts, as well as the collection of matches itself, are indicative of the changes that have occurred in WWE in 2011. For the most part these changes have created some of the best wrestling matches and a level of excitement that hasn’t existed since the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars. Hopefully what was successful at WWE pay-per-views in 2011 will continue to take the company in different directions, resulting in another interesting year in 2012.

For more information, go to www.wweshop.com.

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