With WWE having several times more Superstars than titles to go around, management has begun using tournaments to give wrestlers something else to fight for.

There were several years when WWE didn't hold a single tournament other than the King of the Ring pay-per-view, and once that went away, tournaments all but disappeared for a couple of years.

The company has expanded quite a bit in recent years to include a developmental system in Florida and another in the United Kingdom with the potential for more territories to be added in the future.

In addition to using tournaments to find contenders for champions, WWE has started using them as a way to introduce new faces to fans and scout potential future signings.

The company held over a dozen tournaments in 2018 alone. A few of them were not televised, as they were only meant to be seen by those who attended WrestleMania Axxess, but the rest were broadcast for the world to see.

This article will look back throughout the year and rank all of the major tournaments in 2018.

WWE World Cup

Let's get the biggest stinker out of the way first. The WWE World Cup was a total farce, to begin with, but the execution was even worse than the initial concept.

After fighting through three rounds, Dolph Ziggler and The Miz were scheduled to battle in the final round. The Hollywood A-Lister jumped his opponent before the bell in order to gain the upper hand.

A storyline injury caused The Miz to forfeit his spot before the match even began, so Shane McMahon decided to put himself in his place.

Had The Miz been injured and this was WWE's way of covering for it, this wouldn't have been such a big deal, but we found out a few days after Crown Jewel that The A-Lister was fine.

This means WWE went through all the trouble of booking an entire bracket's worth of matches just to throw it all away and give the owner's son a trophy nobody will care about by this time next year. 

The one good thing to come out of this has been The Miz's attempting to claim credit for the win while trying to form a tag team with McMahon on SmackDown.

Tag Team Eliminator and SmackDown Tag Title Tournament

SmackDown's tag team division has been killing it in 2018. We have seen several show-stealing performances from the likes of The New Day, The Usos, The Bar and several others.

However, the storylines haven't always been the best when it comes to the blue brand's Tag Team Championships.

Sometimes it feels like the creative team has no idea how to write a feud for two teams who have already fought each other several times during the year, so it puts together a tournament.

Over on Raw, Braun Strowman was forced to vacate the tag titles following his win at WrestleMania because his partner, Nicolas, was too young to defend them. Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt eventually won the belts at Crown Jewel.

SmackDown's tag title tourney culminated with a match at SummerSlam between The New Day and The Bar. Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods defeated Sheamus and Cesaro to claim the belts for themselves.

The matches in these tournaments were fine, but the reasoning behind them was weak, to say the least. 

United States Championship Tournament

Dolph Ziggler won the United States Championship at Clash of Champions on December 17 by defeating Baron Corbin and Bobby Roode. Two days later on SmackDown, The Showoff vacated the title and declared the WWE Universe didn't deserve him as champion.

The storyline didn't end up leading anywhere and Ziggler returned to the show after a couple of months, but it did lead to a tournament to crown a new champion.

After going through Baron Corbin and Mojo Rawley, Bobby Roode claimed the title by beating Jinder Mahal on January 16 during the main event of SmackDown.

Had Ziggler immediately returned and challenged Roode, this would have been a decent story, but it just wound up being another case of WWE management not tying up its own loose ends. 

Mixed Match Challenge Seasons 1 and 2

WWE's first Facebook Watch series launched this year with Mixed Match Challenge, and the company barely waited six months before giving us season two.

The first tournament was a standard eight-team bracket with the winners earning $100,000 for the charity of their choosing. The Miz and Asuka emerged victorious for Rescue Dogs Rock.

Season 2 took a different route with a round robin-style tourney. This allowed the company to have more episodes and give each team a minimum of four appearances.

The first season was a fun change of pace from the usual WWE programming we see every week. Certain combinations stood out thanks to their chemistry like Big E and Carmella.

The second season was still entertaining, but it began to get repetitive after a few weeks. Some pairings didn't have the same level of chemistry that we saw in the first season and a few injuries led to changes halfway through the tournament.

Season 2 is still going on right now, so it will be interesting to see which team wins to earn the final entries in next year's Royal Rumble matches.

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic

The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic has been going on for three years and it has become one of the developmental systems first annual traditions.

Not only is it a great way to pay respect to The American Dream after he was so integral to the early success of NXT, but it's a fantastic way to showcase every tag team on the roster.

Current Raw tag team champions Akam and Rezar made it to the final round along with Roderick Strong and Pete Dunne, with both teams earning a shot at the tag titles held by The Undisputed Era.

During the Triple Threat bout at NXT TakeOver: New Orleans, Strong turned on Dunne and helped Kyle O'Reilly and Adam Cole retain their Tag Team Championships.

This was an exciting conclusion to the tournament and it helped push The Undisputed Era to become the most dominant faction in NXT history.

Cruiserweight Championship Tournament

Enzo Amore's firing in January forced WWE to vacate the Cruiserweight Championship and hold a tournament to crown a new champion.

A four-round bracket was created and WWE held matches on every episode of 205 Live leading to the final round at WrestleMania 34.

Cedric Alexander went through Gran Metalik, TJP and Strong to make it to the final round while Mustafa Ali had to defeat Jack Gallagher, Buddy Murphy and Drew Gulak. 

The cruiserweights ended up on the pre-show like usual, but Alexander and Ali have never let their placement on the card stop them from putting on amazing performances.

They only had 12 minutes to work with, but these two talented high-flyers gave the crowd a match to remember. When the ref finally counted the pin, Alexander was declared the new champion.

NXT UK Women's Championship Tournament

NXT UK has been slowly gaining momentum on the WWE Network since debuting a few months ago, and it just crowned its second champion on the November 28 episode.

An eight-woman tournament was held to crown the first NXT UK women's champion, and after going through the other competitors, Toni Storm and Rhea Ripley made it to the final round.

The tournament featured many of the same faces we saw in this year's Mae Young Classic, but it had a much different result.

Ripley and Storm are both destined for greatness on the main roster someday, so it didn't surprise anyone when they put on a competitive match on Wednesday. 

Storm came close a few times before Ripley put her down with her Riptide finisher. It's a match every WWE fan should take the time to watch along with some of the other fun bouts from this tournament featuring the likes of Xia Brookside, Dakota Kai and Isla Dawn.

United Kingdom Championship Tournament

Before the company launched its NXT UK brand, WWE held its second United Kingdom Championship tournament in 2018.

Since Pete Dunne already held the title, this year's tourney was all about finding his next challenger. A few familiar names returned from 2017's tournament along with a handful of fresh faces.

Zack Gibson defeated Travis Banks in the final round after going through Amir Jordan, Jack Gallagher and Flash Morgan Webster.

Much of the success of this tournament is owed to the devoted fans of British wrestling. Every match was treated like a big deal because for UK fans, having their own WWE brand was important.

The NXT UK division is still in its infancy, but with more time we should start seeing some of those Superstars appear on other WWE programming on a consistent basis.

Mae Young Classic

The inaugural Mae Young Classic introduced us to some great talents and produced some awesome matches, but the followup in 2018 was even better. 

Returning stars like Mercedes Martinez, Mia Yim and Taynara Conti had established a following since last year's tournament, but we also got to see some familiar faces who didn't compete last year like Kaitlyn and Ashley Rayne, who many will know as Madison Rayne from her days with TNA.

Storm winning was a memorable moment after she came up short last year, but it was getting to meet Superstars like Io Shirai, Meiko Satomura, Kacy Catanzaro and Xia Li that made it that made the entire tournament special.

Many of the stars from the event are signed to NXT or NXT UK deals, so we can expect to see many more show-stealing performances from these women in the future. 

What was your favorite WWE tournament in 2018?