WrestleMania 35 is coming up soon and features by far the biggest women’s wrestling angle in the history of the PPV. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch is the show’s main event and it’s the logical climax to both a months-long, high-profile storyline and WWE‘s Women’s Revolution/Evolution that’s been going on for around the past five years. This article looks back at how we got to this point by ranking all the women’s matches in the history of WrestleMania from worst to best (like we did previously with Survivor Series and SummerSlam), from the ladies of the ’80s to the Playboy gimmick matches to the NXT Four Horsewomen.
A note before we begin: Mixed tag matches have been left out of this ranking in the interest of length and focusing on the history of the women’s division over the decades, no disrespect meant to Snooki, Ronda Rousey, Queen Sherri, etc. There have been mixed tag team matches at seven WrestleMania shows, with women only wrestling in that context at three of those (WrestleMania 6, 14, and 27.) (On a related note, no women wrestled on WrestleManias 3-5, 7-9, and 29.)
27. Torrie Wilson and Sable vs. Miss Jackie and Stacy Keibler, WrestleMania XX
The worst women’s match in the history of WrestleMania is the first Playboy-branded one, but far from the last. Torrie Wilson and Sable were on the cover of Playboy and Miss Jackie and Stacy Keibler feel professional jealousy about this, so they’re going to fight on the Grandest Stage Of Them All! It’s a “Playboy Evening Gown match,” but the babyface team of Sable and Wilson decide to take their gowns off because they’re feeling “restricted.” Keibler joins in, but Jackie decides to leave the ring instead, so her opponents grab and strip her. Their team never even agreed to strip! That wasn’t a stipulation of this match!
After a few minutes of bad-looking wrestling, Miss Jackie is further sexually humiliated by having part of her underwear pulled down and her ass slapped while she’s being pinned. So in addition to the wrestling part of this match being very weak, the story it tells has a pretty dark element of non-consensual voyeurism. The issue of Playboy it advertises is probably more entertaining even if you’re not sexually attracted to women.
26. The Fabulous Moolah vs. Velvet McIntyre, WrestleMania 2
This 1986 match for the WWF Women’s Championship is terrible in a much different way. McIntyre is definitely one of the best North American female wrestlers of this ear, but her opponent, heel champ Moolah, is 63 years old. Their minute or so of wrestling looks okay, but the match quickly ends with Moolah pinning McIntyre while one of her legs is very clearly on the bottom rope. The only reason the ref doesn’t see this is because he’s looking at her shoulders more closely than any official has ever looked at any shoulders – even though the pin is happening extremely close to the ropes! It makes so little sense that it’s hardly even a nefarious heel victory; it’s just stupid.
25. Torrie Wilson vs. Candice Michelle, WrestleMania 22
Wilson vs. Michelle in a Playboy Pillow Fight is part of the Vince’s Devils breakup angle and is honestly so bad it’s good. The ring has a mattress in it and pillows in every corner, which, if you think about it, makes this the hardest type of wrestling match to win because almost everything in the ring makes it more difficult to damage your opponent. I’m also pretty sure that the fact that all these objects can be used as weapons and Michelle at one point brings out scissors to try and cut off Wilson’s evening gown and is not stopped by the ref means this is actually a type of deathmatch.
The ultimate lowlight of this match is again the element of sexual humiliation via stripping, but the highlight is how it’s immediately obvious that Michelle wrestling in her underwear rather than a full-length formal dress gives her a HUGE mobility advantage over her opponent, which she uses to lock Wilson in a rope trap headstand headscissor choke. I would really like to see some promotion play this match stipulation to its logical comedy and/or violent extreme – which I just realized I’m going to have to check if DDT has already done.
24. Terri Runnels (with The Fabulous Moolah) vs. The Kat (with Mae Young), WrestleMania 2000
If you’ve watched any Attitude Era WWF shows and you see a match on a show from the late nineties is a combination of young, hot ladies and their ancient female managers and also the match type is listed as “catfight” and Val Venis is the special guest referee, you know what you’re getting. The humor all has to do with old ladies being horny as well as gross, old ladies fighting, and the younger women both trying to seduce the referee. The best part is Venis’s striped referee towel and the worst part is again public humiliating via stripping. It’s all hurt by the fact that the women working the actual match are not experienced wrestlers at all, so the dumb story this is trying to tell isn’t even told that effectively.
23. Beth Phoenix and Melina (with Santino Marella) vs. Ashley and Maria, WrestleMania XXIV
The first appearance of Snoop Dogg on this list has got to be one of the most embarrassing celebrity segments in the history of WrestleMania, and that’s saying something. It’s an awkwardly executed tag match very much carried by Phoenix that features Jerry Lawler coming off commentary to punch Santino in the face, then special guest MC Snoop Dogg getting out of his RINGSIDE THRONE to clothesline the Italian after his cheating leads to the heels winning the match. Then he kisses Maria, who is both Santino’s ex-girlfriend and a person who flirted with him before the match. What a hero and a lady’s man! Overall, this is boring 2008 WWE garbage, with the lights randomly going out in the stadium in the middle for good measure.
22. Sable vs. Tori, WrestleMania XV
Sable had truly figured out how to make bank from the Attitude Era by 1999. She wears a revealing outfit and does the lowest effort sexy dance of all time. These late-nineties young men lose their entire minds because a woman is saying something vaguely sexual in the same building as them and they think they might see a boob.
But although I respect her hustle, that doesn’t mean her wrestling matches are enjoyable to watch at all! You can see Tori has more wrestling experience, but the whole thing is really slow, like students at a wrestling school are walking through these sequences for the first time. There’s also a dumb ending with the debut of bodybuilder/Howard Stern Show personality Nicole Bass as Sable’s bodyguard. Almost everything about this is bad.
21. Miss WrestleMania Battle Royal, WrestleMania XXV
This match is bad in the way many of the many Divas battle royals of this era are bad. All twenty-five women start in the ring brawling with each other, but the match never evolves into something more entertaining. Even Beth Phoenix dominantly eliminating several people in a row doesn’t happen in a compelling way here. When she goes to eliminate Melina with a Glam Slam over the top rope, a mysterious Diva who is clearly Santino Marella in drag pushes them both out of the ring to win and become the first “Miss WrestleMania.” This is a title that Charlotte Flair is now using in a Shawn Michaels way and I’m pretty sure she should have to fight Marella for it on the last SmackDown before WrestleMania 35 (and obviously destroy him.)
Marella’s pageant queen reaction followed by a terrible dance highlights how this guy really sold the dumbest WWE comedy stuff as best a human being can, but it’s not enough to save this match and his win is ultimately a sign of what a low priority the women’s division was for this company at this time.
20. Melina vs. Ashley, WrestleMania 23
We are truly in the hell zone for women’s wrestling in WWE here in 2007 when this lumberjill match takes place! Melina is mad at Ashley because Ashley’s been getting more attention than her even though she’s the Women’s Champion because she was on the cover of Playboy, so they’re having this match. Melina gives a really committed performance and her bridging pin to retain her championship looks nice, but her opponent is mainly a model and not very good at any aspect of wrestling. In addition to the match being weak and boring, the lumberjills don’t even play a role until a post-match, everybody-in-the-ring fight.
19. Kelly Kelly and Maria Menounos vs. Beth Phoenix and Eve Torres, WrestleMania XXVIII
There is a physical story that this match aims to tell, which is Phoenix and Torres focusing on the ribs Menounos injured while training for Dancing With The Stars. However, it’s executed really poorly and the match is further hurt by nobody caring about what is clearly just a “Here’s a celebrity!” segment. Menounos is a contender for least embarrassing semi-regular WWE celebrity guest, but that doesn’t make this match any stronger.
18. Alicia Fox, Layla, Maryse, Michelle McCool, and Vickie Guerrero vs. Beth Phoenix, Eve Torres, Gail Kim, Kelly Kelly, and Mickie James, WrestleMania XXVI
This ten-Diva tag match is under four minutes long and squeezed between Chris Jericho vs. Edge for the World Heavyweight Championship and John Cena vs. Batista for the WWE Championship, with the Undertaker-Shawn Michaels streak vs. career match set for the main event. Basically, it’s the epitome of the “pee break” Divas match. For the most part, it’s not the worst one of these you could do, with every wrestler getting at least a moment to hit her finishing move. The tone of the ending is crazy though, with a dramatic contrast between usually heel Guerrero pointing to the sky to honor her late husband before hitting a frog splash for the win and commentary jokingly calling it a “Bullfrog Splash” and “Hog Splash” because she’s fat, get it? Fortunately, the live audience who obviously can’t hear the announcers is more supportive and it seems like a really positive moment for Guerrero.
17. Vickie Guerrero Invitational Match For The WWE Divas Championship, WrestleMania XXX
AJ Lee retains her Divas Championship in another obvious pee break match, a one-fall fatal-fourteen-way between her and, like, all the other women in WWE. I don’t know that there’s a way to do a good fourteen-person singles-competition match and if there is, it’s sure not what goes down here! The closest thing to a compelling moment is when it looks like the Bella Twins are going to throw down, but also the Undertaker’s streak just ended so the audience is too rattled to really respond to anything.
16. Jazz vs. Lita vs. Trish Stratus, WrestleMania X8
This triple threat for the WWF Women’s Championship match is basically a preview of women’s wrestling would be in the Ruthless Aggression Era, but not the best version of it. Trish and Lita don’t have much in-ring experience yet and Jazz is clearly the glue holding this match together. Overall, it’s a short and not very engaging match.
15. Wendi Richter (with Cyndi Lauper) vs. Leilani Kai (with The Fabulous Moolah), WrestleMania I
The first women’s match on a WrestleMania – the first WrestleMania! – is an alright, very eighties match made more interesting by the involvement of Cyndi Lauper, who played a big part in starting the Rock N’ Wrestling connection and getting the WWF mainstream exposure. Before, during, and after this match, it feels like every woman involved in this would be down to fight in a parking lot, which gives this part of the show even more retro charm.
14. Trish Stratus vs. Christy Hemme (with Lita), WrestleMania 21
The setup for this match combines some dumb Playboy-related stuff with the actually compelling Trish Stratus vs. Lita rivalry. It’s essentially a squash for Stratus, which makes sense because her opponent, Christy Hemme, is in kayfabe a model who has only recently been trained by the injured Lita in order to defeat their shared rival. Hemme definitely gives this match her all and doesn’t look afraid to take bumps, Stratus works really well as a dominant heel champion, and the crowd is pretty invested.
13. Alundra Blayze vs. Leilani Kai, WrestleMania X
Blaze defends the WWF Women’s Championship at WrestleMania right before the All Japan ladies start coming over, when she’s still working her way through the veterans of the WWF women’s division’s past. She runs circles around Kai, showing off her athleticism, but Kai gains control of the match for a while with a mix of cheating and power. By the time Blayze wins the match, it’s clear she’s of a new generation of female wrestlers, and if you’ve seen her matches with her contemporaries from a few months after this, you know her only WrestleMania match doesn’t display her full potential.
12. Chyna vs. Ivory, WrestleMania X-Seven
Chyna’s return to the ring to avenge the storyline neck injury caused by Women’s Champion Ivory and her Right to Censor cohorts is a squash match. It’s a perfectly fine squash and Chyna comes out of it looking awesome, but it doesn’t feel like a WrestleMania championship match.
11. Team Total Divas vs. Team B.A.D. and Blonde, WrestleMania 32
This is a way better “get a bunch of Divas Superstars (as of earlier in the kickoff show) on the card” match than in years previously, but it’s still not great. Mauro Ranallo describes this match as having “seemingly incompatible elements on both sides,” which is the nice way of saying “this was thrown together with the theme of promoting Total Divas, for which there is an ad during this match.” The crowd pops the most by far for Brie Bella doing Daniel Bryan things. Her win of the match with a Yes Lock is a good moment, but the match is overall unmemorable.
10. Victoria vs. Molly Holly, WrestleMania XX
The rare, “fun” WWE babyface variant of Victoria against the known-to-wear-granny-panties Molly Holly title vs. hair match for the WWE Women’s Championship is pretty solid and very short with a clear face vs. heel story. The wrestlers really work to put on a good match here, but the crowd is sadly not into it and barely even get invested in the head shaving afterward.
9. Alexa Bliss vs. Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James vs. Carmella (with James Ellsworth) vs. Natalya vs. Naomi, WrestleMania 33
This six-pack challenge is heavy on entrances, light on wrestling. It’s more of a collection of moments (some of which, like Lynch really firing up against James, are good) than a cohesive match, but the ending of hometown hero Naomi winning back the championship she had to vacate due to injury is a nice one.
8. Trish Stratus vs. Victoria (with Steven Richards) vs. Jazz, WrestleMania XIX
Trish Stratus starts coming into her own between WrestleMania’s X8 and XIX, 2002 and 2003. Jazz is still clearly the best wrestler in this triple threat, but Stratus can hang with her and is carried by her charisma and popularity. Victoria’s crazy acting with a capital “A” is admirable and she holds her own as well. Though the execution of some spots isn’t too clean, it’s safe to call this the best women’s match in WrestleMania history at the time it happens. There’s good energy, it gets what feels like an appropriate amount of time, each wrestler gets to show off her skills, and there’s a solid story of a well-liked babyface overcoming the odds/two heels to win a championship on the biggest show of the year.
7. Alexa Bliss (with Mickie James) vs. Nia Jax, WrestleMania 34
The build for this match is embarrassing and nerfs, at least for a while, everything that had made Nia Jax such a refreshing presence in WWE’s women’s division. You could say that her character could realistically deal with body-shaming outside of the ring, but using the fact that one wrestler is almost a full foot taller and over one hundred pounds heavier than their opponent to make her the underdog is insane.
Maybe this wouldn’t have mattered if this ended up being a squash, but it’s a struggle for Jax to defeat Bliss. The champ does do some cheating to gain control of the match, but the execution of this combined with very over-the-top acting moments really bring this down.
6. WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal, WrestleMania 34
The inaugural battle for the Uterus Trophy is an overall enjoyable mixed bag. The beginning features some incredible corny moments like the “NXT!” chant and Becky Lynch yelling at Kavita Devi for wearing orange. But the teamwork-to-elimination sequence between Sasha Banks and Bayley is a highlight and Naomi’s surprise win ends the match strong. On the scale of every women’s match at WrestleMania, it’s very good, but on the scale of all battle royals ever, it’s okay.
5. AJ Lee and Paige vs. The Bella Twins, WrestleMania 31
With the Divas Revolution underway, former enemies Lee and Paige unite to represent nonconformity against the Bellas in a tag match. The Bellas dominate the match early with teamwork, but the heart of the babyfaces and their own teamwork combined with their next-gen wrestling skill gets them the win. The story, execution, and the feel-good ending make this an entertaining watch. It’s also the first actually good women’s match at WrestleMania since Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus nine years previously.
4. Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus, WrestleMania 22
This is the biggest match in the story of Mickie James befriending Trish Stratus, then becoming more and more obsessed with her, living out Ilana from Broad City‘s (RIP) line about Vanessa William’s character: “I don’t know if I want to be her or be in her.” In addition to the hook of a lesbian stalking angle, this match keeps the crowd invested by telling a clear physical story as James brutally targets one of Stratus’s knees. Watching these two be able to counter each other and James ultimately win by using Stratus’s own finisher against her because they know each other so well is entertaining and satisfying. Besides the “grab ’em by the pussy” moment that could have just been a low blow, this match really holds up.
3. Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax, WrestleMania 33
Bayley retaining her Raw Women’s Championship in this fatal four-way elimination match might turn out to be her defining WrestleMania moment. The story of her proving herself is the through-line of this match, but it also features an excellent opening section of the three Horsewomen teaming up to eliminate the dominant threat of Nia Jax and an encore for the division-defining Banks vs. Flair rivalry. Each wrestler here has a clear character and a straightforward goal and does some quality wrestling in her quest to achieve it, resulting in an enjoyable and quality match.
2. Charlotte (with Ric Flair) vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks, WrestleMania 32
This triple threat transitions the Divas Revolution to the Women’s Revolution, with Charlotte’s victory making her the last to wear the butterfly belt and the first to hold the reactivated championship. It’s the story of her heel quest for dominance at all costs, Sasha Banks’ fandom-driven ruthlessness, and Becky Lynch’s heart. It’s also just a badass match with some exciting counters and cool spots. Overall, this bout shows what this up-and-coming generation of female wrestlers are capable of and the crowd is into it. This one’s never not going to hold up.
1. Asuka vs. Charlotte Flair, WrestleMania 34
What other match could possibly be called the best women’s match in the history of WrestleMania? Flair vs. Asuka owns on every level. These wrestlers go super hard and completely live up to the “iron sharpens iron” phrase used in this match’s build. At the time, this match made it feel like a better future for women in WWE wasn’t just visible down the road, but had arrived. It’s going to be really hard for people to top this, but I’m excited to watch them try.
