#15: Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks, WWE WrestleMania 32 (4/3/2016).
This is a Triple Threat Match for Charlotte's Diva's Champi...ugh, sorry. That shit is gone. This is for the new WWE WOMEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP!
This is also the best women's match I've ever seen in person, as I was lucky enough to attend WrestleMania 32, which is still one of the worst wrestling shows I've ever seen. But hey, I was there, and it was fucking awesome!
The Women's Revolution is in full swing in WWE. What that means is after decades of bullshit booking, WWE finally started to book women seriously...you know, like the rest of the world. Was it perfect? No. But it was damn better than what we'd been getting for a long time. The payoff to that initial start to this movement was this match, featuring three of NXT's Four Horsewomen, and three of the best wrestlers in the world at the time.
I'm currently reading Becky Lynch's autobiography, which means I just learned that as she made her entrance for this match, she peed herself a little. Poor thing. Don't you just want to give her a hug? Sasha enters with her relative, the one and only Snoop Dogg. Charlotte is led to the ring by her father, Ric Flair.
Almost immediately, this feels like the most important women's match WWE has ever done. The presentation is as well done as just about anything on this card. You can tell just how much this means to the three women involved, as the opening phase of this match is ripe with fast action and nearfalls. The nervous jitters are noticeable, but when you're competing in front of allegedly 101,000+ people, what do you expect?
Charlotte sends Sasha back first into the ropes. Becky comes off the apron onto Charlotte. Charlotte with a back breaker to Becky off the corner. Becky sends Sasha to the outside, and she looks like she lands face first. Charlotte gets the Figure Four locked in on Becky, and Sasha breaks it up with a Frog Splash to Charlotte's knees.
Becky hits a gnarly looking German Suplex to Sasha. Sasha soon hits a nice tope to Charlotte on the outside. Becky goes to dive at Sasha, but Sasha pulls Ric in front of her, and Becky knocks him on his ass. Charlotte goes to the top rope and hits a beautiful moonsault to both women on the outside! She brings both back in the ring at the same time, and hits a double Natural Selection to both. That was cool. She gets multiple nearfalls off both women.
Charlotte and Sasha get in an Electric Chair position, and Becky dropkicks them both down. Becky gets the Disarm-her on Charlotte, and Sasha chimes in with a Bank Statement to Becky. Charlotte gets the Figure Eight in on Sasha, and Becky breaks it up. All three are on their knees, exchanging fisticuffs. Sasha gets hung up in the corner, and Becky hits Charlotte with a nice suplex from the top rope.
Sasha gets the Bank Statement in on Becky, and Charlotte breaks it up and sends her to the outside. She gets the Figure Eight on Becky, and as Ric holds Sasha on the outside, Becky taps and Charlotte is the new WWE Women's Champion. For WWE standards, this was groundbreaking, and it laid the foundation for how women were presented in WWE to this very day. Everything from the prematch video package, to the entrances, to the match structure showed that they were serious about showing the women in a more serious light.
The action is frantic at times, which makes this an easy watch. All three women got to shine. I was personally rooting for Becky at the time, because she was my favorite of the Horsewomen. So, it broke my heart when she was the one who tapped out. Still, a match like this had no losers. Everyone won because this was the most high profile women's match WWE had done in decades. And on a show as shitty as WrestleMania 32, this was far and away the best match on WWE's biggest show of the year.