2020 – Page 2 – The Strong Style Smark

AEW Match of the Year 2020

It’s December! Christmas is fast approaching and it’s almost time to buy a new calendar, so you know what that means. It’s time to summarise the year! IN LIST FORM!

Truth be told, I had originally planned for this list to encompass all non-WWE wrestling, but as much as I love New Japan, I just never bothered to watch any of their major shows this year, and nothing else from the western wrestling world struck my fancy. So an AEW-dedicated list it is!

With almost two years as an entity in the wrestling world, AEW has shown that the modern wrestling landscape is more than ready to welcome a WWE alternative with open arms, and they have produced some incredible shows this year. So many incredible shows, in fact, that I couldn’t narrow this list down to the standard ten entries, so here are my twelve favourite matches that happened in an AEW ring in 2020!

11 – Jon Moxley(c) vs Eddie Kingston – Full Gear
(AEW World Championship)
(I Quit)

At Full Gear 2019, Moxley & Omega had a hardcore match that divided opinion across the fanbase. While I enjoyed the match, I can see the argument that it felt a lot like uber-violence just for the sake of uber-violence, and the story didn’t necessarily warrant it. So, at Full Gear 2020, Moxley featured in another hardcore match, but this time, the uber-violence was all part of the story, and it made things so much better.

The sense of desperation that came from Eddie Kingston’s character going into this match manifested itself in his actions. Almost every weapon was brought into the match by Kingston and I could really feel the vicious impact behind each strike. The way Kingston cringed in pain as he wrapped the barbed wire around his own hand showed how dark of a place he’d gone to, and how he was willing to give up sacrifice just about anything to put Moxley away.

Moxley meanwhile gave it his all and met everything Kingston hit him with by hitting him right back. The story emphasised the past relationship between the two men, and Moxley’s performance definitely brought that to the forefront. What I like is that, despite clearly caring for Kingston, he didn’t hold himself back, he still got dirty and hurt Kingston as much as he could, because beating him this badly would be the only way to get him to stop.

There’s so much in that final image of Moxley choking Kingston out with his arm wrapped in barbed wire. It was violence for the sake of the story, which will always be better than violence for the sake of violence.

10 – The Elite & Matt Hardy vs The Inner Circle – Double or Nothing
(Stadium Stampede)

At Wrestlemania, WWE put their cards on the table and laid claim to being really good at the pre-recorded segments. I’ll talk about those segments in a couple of weeks, but after that show, all eyes were on AEW to see what they could come up with in response. While I prefer WWE’s matches to this one, it’s still bloody brilliant to watch.

Thanks to the sheer volume of people involved in the match, this ended up being extremely well-paced. They gave themselves a whole stadium to play with and then sent the characters out into it to do just about anything they can think of. We got a comical charge across the field to start the action, and some stuff in the world’s most pointless ring, but the real fun stuff was once the gang split up to look for clues.

I know the meme was of Sammy Guevara getting chased by a golf-cart, but I think that pales in comparison to Hangman Page charging across the football field on horseback to hunt Sammy down. That particular thread led us to the brawl in the bar, which had some surprisingly impressive action with Omega kicking the shit out of everyone in sight. Elsewhere in the arena, Matt Hardy was being his brilliantly comedic self while fending off Santana & Ortiz. Seeing Matt transform into all of his different gimmicks mid-match is one of those moments that just has to happen in a comedy match like this one.

The whole final segment down on the field was jam-packed with brilliance too. The Young Bucks doing dives off of every tall thing they can find is always a spectacle, along with the world longest Northern-Lights suplex segment across the entire field. Then we get stuff like Jericho challenging the referee’s call and you’re left with something you just can’t help but laugh at. Yes, the goofiness might be a bit much in some places, but it’s ok because the match never tried to take itself seriously. It may not be anything world-breaking, but it’s endlessly rewatchable and untouchably entertaining.

9 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Adam Page(c) vs FTR – All Out
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

One of the main mission statements of AEW has been about making tag team wrestling the main-event level attraction we all know it could be. Throughout 2019, we didn’t see much of that, but in 2020, AEW’s tag division blew me away every single month. Trust me, we’ll be seeing both of these teams again later on the list.

This match was able to tell two main stories. One, Omega & Page are falling apart as a duo, and two, FTR is a solid unit who can divide and conquer better than anyone else. What I think made this story so special is how well Omega & Page were able to show their broken bond in the match. It wasn’t just through violent tags or ‘miscommunications’, although there was some of that, it actually felt like they were wrestling as two individuals rather than a team. We’d already seen the two of them wrestle as a near-flawless team earlier in the year (more on that later) and here they very clearly changed their styles to show how little they were relying on each other as partners.

This made FTR the perfect team to rip them apart. Their classic wrestling style already works great for keeping teams apart from each other, but when they’re going up against a team who don’t trust each other already, it’s easy pickings. In reality, it leads to both Omega & Page fighting the match 2-on-1 because they never had each other’s backs, which made the line of FTR virtually impenetrable. They still produced some amazing action and came close to victory, purely by virtual of their relative skills as wrestlers, but the lack of cohesion eventually got the better of them and FTR walked away from the worthy victors.

It was a fun match to watch that also served as the closure on Act 1 of Omega & Page’s story.

8 – Jon Moxley(c) vs MJF – All Out
(AEW World Championship)

I’ll talk about it a bit more later on, but Moxley’s reign as champion has been one of the best parts of AEW this year. What’s interesting about that is the fact that only once have I ever actually believed he might lose it, which is this match here. MJF has been on the roll of all rolls in 2020. I think we all knew he was marked for stardom as soon as AEW was founded, but this was the year where we saw that he was absolutely up to the task of carrying a huge company like AEW. So, when he came to challenge for the title, I honestly thought we were about to see the coronation.

What’s great about this match is that it was able to make both men look vulnerable in places, but in ways that were always true to their character. MJF is the kind of heel that can take a beating and always have it roll right off his back with an arrogant promo, but here it felt almost as if he was controlling the action, which isn’t what you’d expect against Moxley. It’s simple tactics that are highly effective when executed well, in this case, it’s MJF understand who Moxley is as a wrestler and doing everything he can to exploit those weaknesses. It made MJF feel like a guy who could hang with the best of the best while setting out the story for Moxley to look all the better when he came out the victor.

Outside of the story, the action was incredibly compelling. Ever since Moxley has been allowed to spread his wings he seems to be able to create magic in the ring like never before, and it really makes you wonder how WWE management never saw this guy as a potential face of the company. MJF meanwhile impresses every time he comes out to the ring, not by doing anything new, but by working with what we already have and bringing them as close to perfection as he can.

This match achieved the primary goal of any feud in pro-wrestling, it told a compelling story, that led to a really good match and both men looked better coming out of it.

7 – PAC vs Orange Cassidy – Revolution

2020 is the year where everyone realised what a star Orange Cassidy could be. As such, I had to put one of his matches from this year on this list, and this was definitely the best. The grumpy ‘old-school’ critics can moan about the comedy all they want, but Cassidy is a future top-guy in AEW and there’s no denying him.

Orange Cassidy does comedy in pro-wrestling like never before. The idea of a wrestler simply not giving a shit about anything he does is something that I wouldn’t think would work at first thought, but Cassidy was the perfect man to bring it to life. His look is one of a chill guy who just hangs around at the beach every day or his life or something like that, and the way in which he can so easily put anyone down with just a few small actions is brilliant. What’s extra amazing about it is that it isn’t just limited to his promos, he’s able to inject this feeling into the match as well, and it just works, even against someone incredibly serious, like PAC.

PAC was sadly sidelined for most of the year thanks to COVID travel restrictions, but in the brief few months we got of him, he blew the roof off of AEW. He has an insane amount of intensity to him while still feeling somewhat self-aware of how ridiculous it can seem from time to time. He can bring a laugh here and there, while still talking with such an insane amount of venom in his voice that I feel a little scared when he talks. So how does this kind of character react to someone as ridiculous as Orange Cassidy? He sinks to Cassidy’s level, of course.

The sight of Cassidy and PAC gently tapping each other’s shins while the crowd reacts like they’re murdering each other is an utterly hilarious visual that encapsulates everything wonderfully revolutionary about Cassidy’s character. Then PAC puts the topper on it by sweeping Cassidy’s legs for real and the crowd shitting all over him for it. From there, Cassidy showed the other side to his character, the side that can wrestle like you wouldn’t believe and it created a match that, despite only being twelve minutes long, got me out of my seat and popping for almost every move.

6 – Kenny Omega vs Hangman Adam Page – Full Gear
(Winner becomes #1 contender for the AEW World Championship)

As I said in my Full Gear review, what makes this match so special, is how both men clearly understood this wasn’t the end of the story, it was the middle, so they put on a match that, while still amazing, didn’t quite tie up all the loose ends just yet.

The main story this match told is how well both men know each other in the ring. Page was able to slip out of almost everything Omega threw his way while trying some new stuff to catch Omega off guard. Page also put a lot of extra force behind a lot of his moves, which is the kind of small touch needed to add intensity to the encounter. Omega played a largely reactionary role in the match that slowly grew more and more proactive as it wore on and Page slowed down. Then, by the time the ending came and Omega got the win, you get the feeling that Omega’s experience is what won it for him. He’s wrestled matches over an hour-long with Okada and won it, while Page doesn’t have that kind of stamina. You can even see it as Omega has Page on his shoulders for the one-winged angels. Page is still trying to slip out of it, but just doesn’t quite have the power left in the tank.

Story aside, the action was brilliant. The pace was near-perfect and the back-and-forth style worked wonders for the story. With Omega being in the tag division for most of the year, it’s been easy to forget how brilliantly he can control himself in the ring to put together a match that flows so smoothly you just can’t look away. Page, meanwhile, continued to show how he improves every time he steps in the ring. He was already a top-level talent, however, singles matches like this let us see that he really is on the level of the best in the world like Omega, Moxley and even people like Styles or Bryan.

5 – Nyla Rose(c) vs Hikaru Shida – Double or Nothing
(AEW Women’s World Championship)
(No Holds Barred)

For many years I’ve been heavily biased against hardcore/weapons matches. This is because they tend to be slower and more reliant on the spectacle of the big spots, which is not the kind of wrestling I like to watch. However, over this year, my stance on this has softened significantly, and it’s matches like this that I have to thank for that.

What this match had that so many of my most hated weapons matches lack is substance in every single move. So often, especially in WWE, any move that doesn’t involve a weapon in these kinds of matches is utterly meaningless, and sometimes they don’t even bother doing any, but this match understood that just using the hardcore stuff wasn’t how a compelling story is told. Instead, it blended the two styles of matches nad made as tory out of the hardcore elements.

Most notably here is the kendo stick which came in and out of the match at several points but always made an impact when it did. The way the two women wrestled for control over the weapon early on, only to eventually throw it to one side until they needed it later was some brilliant ‘Chekov’s gun’ style storytelling that is done often in weapons matches, but never to this effect. The weapons spots were bridged with a lot of regular wrestling action, but everything had an extra sting of brutality to it. Shida did the impressive kind of technical moves but put a more hard-hitting edge onto them, this meant that the weapon spots felt more natural, and had purpose, rather than just happening to pop the crowd.

While the ‘toppling the giant’ story gets less effective every time Nyla is toppled, it worked perfectly here, because despite being the underdog, there was definitely the feeling that Shida was tough enough to pull it off. We see her strategy play out in the match for how to take Nyla down, and more importantly, we saw her adapt to when the situation stopped going her way. Storytelling like that is what makes a compelling champion. It’s just a shame AEW can’t seem to book their women’s division to save their lives.

4 – Cody Rhodes(c) vs Darby Allin – Full Gear
(TNT Championship)

This made some of Cody’s more questionable wins with the TNT title totally worth it.

Cody has such a wonderful grasp of what perspective his character should take in every story that I honestly think he’s one of the best storytellers in the business right now. When he’s facing a guy like Brodie Lee, he needs to be the pure-underdog babyface, when he’s facing a guy like Chris Jericho he needs to be the hungry challenger willing to put it all on the line, but when he’s facing a guy like Darby Allin, he needs to tell a very different story.

Cody’s character has always had an ego because, to be fair, he did found AEW and has held one of its major championships for almost the entirety of its current lifespan. It’s cost him big a few times, like when he allowed MJF into his inner circle (no pun intended) or fell out with Kenny over the Bullet Club, but this feud was where it manifested and clearly became his one true weakness that his opponents can exploit. Darby Allin is the eternal underdog, he always will be, not only because of his size but because his character is built around the idea of being an outcast who never conforms, who better to rally behind?

This is where the complexity AEW allows in its stories comes into play, because despite both being faces, Cody and Allin are about as close to diametrically opposed as you can get. One wear suits and run a business, the other lives on the streets and does what he wants, of course, we’re going to root for the free spirit over the corporate lifestyle, and AEW knew that and adapted their story to it. It’s the kind of three-dimensional character work that WWE so often forgets with their stories and you can see beneficial it was here.

Everything that happened in the match was in service of the story, Cody’s dominance and his growing cockiness. The moment where he started showboating only to be scolded by Arn Anderson was such a small, but powerful moment. Even the finish, which was a rollup, enhanced the story because it exploited Cody’s ego and caught him off-guard to lose the title. They’re clearly not going for the rematch straight away, but the door is open for it down the line, and I’m really excited to see what angle they take for the next chapter.

3 – Chris Jericho(c) vs Jon Moxley – Revolution
(AEW World Championship)

When Jericho won the title in 2019, I honestly thought we were going to see him hold onto it for a LONG time, it really seemed like AEW were putting all their eggs in the Jericho basket, so I genuinely wasn’t expecting Moxley to win this match, which I think goes a long way as to why I enjoyed it so much.

I’ve touched on it a bit already but Moxley has been absolutely incredible throughout 2020 as AEW Champion. Even now his reign has ended, his run with the title this year has been a huge factor of what has made AEW so entertaining to watch week to week and absolutely put all the naysayers following his WWE exit to shame. The way Moxley carried himself as champion along with the way he’s approached every single one of his feuds is such a massive part of what has made AEW feel like a true equal to WWE this year, and even superior in terms of consistent quality.

This match was where it all began, and looking at the rest of Moxley’s title run, it was the perfect way to start it. The AEW crowd were hot for Moxley from the moment he turned up and this match capitalized on it in the best way, the fact that the two men already had experience working together in WWE probably helped them put together such a compelling match, but whatever the reason, I loved it.

The action was a lot more hard-hitting that I’d expect from a Jericho match, but it worked so well with the intensity of the feud. Moxley’s eyepatch created a classic exploitable weak spot that paid off in a spot at the end of the match that was so corny, but utterly brilliant. The action was compelling from bell-to-bell and both men really felt like they were wrestling at their best, which elevated the story and made the belt feel like a huge deal. On top of that we had all the shenanigans with The Inner Circle around the ring, and probably the best ringside ejection I’ve ever seen.

For the first world title change in AEW history, it was built in such a way to feel like a landmark moment. They littered beats throughout the match to pop the crowd bigger and bigger until Moxley won the title in what was genuinely a wonderful surprise to me.

2 – FTR(c) vs The Young Bucks – Full Gear
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

One of the key mission statements since AEW’s announcements has been their desire to change the perception of tag team wrestling as a side attraction and turn it into the main event. If these top two matches are anything to go by, I think that the main event future for tag team wrestling is going to come about sooner rather than later.

Many were disappointed by the build to this match, and I can’t say I disagree with them, but it’s a scenario where all of that is completely erased by the fact that the match itself was incredible. It was so densely packed with story beats and homages to, not just tag team history as a whole, but both team’s specific history and yet it didn’t feel overbooked for a second.

FTR’s methods of divide & conquer were on full display here, and the Bucks played off it to perfection. It created this burning desperation as I watched to see the big tags get made, and I don’t just mean one big hot-tag, I mean EVERY tag, which is an almost unbelievable thing to accomplish. These teams have almost complete opposite philosophies when it comes to their tag team styles and yet they understood the perfect way to make it mesh. We got limb targetting, we got attacking the illegal man, we got everything both teams have done to make their careers so successful.

We also got a look into how each team views tag team wrestling as a whole with all of their homages. I’ve no idea if it was intensional, but I loved the touch of the Bucks using old moves from the greatest tag teams – the Dudley Death Drop, the Twist of Fate/Swanton combo – while FTR used old moves from their greatest rivals. I honestly don’t think I marked out harder at any point this year than when FTR did #DIY’s finisher, it blew me away.

It was the kind of match, where when it was said and done, I was virtually speechless, and even now, all I can think of to say in summary is that I want more.

1 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Page(c) vs The Young Bucks – Revolution
(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

This was not only my favourite AEW match of the year, it was my favourite wrestling match of the year AND may very well be my favourite tag team match of all time, but I’m going to have to rewatch #DIY vs The Revival 2 out of 3 falls to know for sure.

I mean, what can I even say to describe the action in this match? I feel like no words I could produce could do it justice because it really was the best of the best. When you get four guys who have known each other for so long and have been so close as The Elite have and you put them all in the ring together, it’s pretty much a guarantee that they’re going to make magic, but I’m not sure even they expected to put on a match this good.

It understood exactly the story it was telling. Yes, they were friends competing against each other, but the storytelling up until that point had given us a few more layers of complexity. This is where Page started drinking heavily and having those slightly uncomfortable interviews, while the Bucks let their hunger for tag gold get the better of them and were being overly aggressive/confrontational to the champs. The match used all of those elements to create a story that didn’t take centre-stage for the match but instead used it to inform the real star of the show, which was the wrestling action.

The action itself was paced to perfection. It created that ideal graph of a perfectly smooth rising curve in excitement & intensity levels, and the crowd came with them every step away. In a year where the absence of crowds has detracted from many matches, this is one that benefitted from a live audience to it’s fullest. The ‘feeling out’ process lasted quite a while, but it was littered with a bunch of cool moments and speedy action. There was never a slow moment in this match and it helped create that feeling of desperation that both teams had to end it from the very beginning.

As always in tag matches, when things broke down and chaos began to reign is where things reached a fever-pitch unequalled by anything else I saw in wrestling this year. The action was fast and brutal, with every man in the perfect place at the perfect time to do the perfect move. It’s the holy grail of matches where everything just worked and that’s all there is to it. I could sit here listing off all the cool spots, but that wouldn’t do it justice and why would I when you can just go and watch it again right now?

I’ve always loved tag team wrestling, but a match like this feels like the true realisation of just how brilliant it can be and it gives us an all-time classic in the process.

And that’s it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what you thought were AEW’s best matches were in 2020, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time next week, where I’ll be running down my favourite old games that I played for the first time in 2020!

9 Best Multiplayer Modes in Games

Other people. They exist, and some of them are fun to play games with.

While the world has made many forms of social gaming impractical for the foreseeable future, video games still allow for us to have fun with our friends without the looming threat of infection & death. On a less depressing note, playing a game with friends can make just about anything fun. There have been countless games that I’ve found tedious on my own, but a great joy when played with another person. Over the years, designers have learnt how to hone their multiplayer mechanics to make the most enjoyable experience for people playing games together, so I’d like to take the time to discuss some of the best.

Before I start, I should clarify the kind of multiplayer games I play. For the most part, I prefer the easy-going games that you can just bust out at a social gathering and play a few quick rounds of. There are exceptions to this on the list, but I’m not big on competitive multiplayer, so don’t expect to see games like MOBAs or Halo on this list. They’re not bad games, of course, they’re just not what I enjoy playing.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Overcooked – It’s lots of fun, I just never played enough of it to fall in love with it.
Trivial Pursuit – A personal favourite, but at the end of the day, it is just a trivia game, and it was a board game first.
Rocket League – An absolute blast that I am utterly terrible at.

9 – Portal 2

Co-op modes are hard to get right. So often they’re just the regular singleplayer mode with an extra person. This is a fine way of doing it, but it doesn’t get the most out of what a co-operative gaming experience can be. It’s very rare in a co-op video game that I really get the feeling of proper teamwork and collective achievement as we move towards our goals. Here’s where Portal 2 comes in.

Firstly, it’s a puzzle game, which is great in terms of the ‘sense of accomplishment’ factor. Humans are better at solving a problem together, and the ability to bounce ideas off each other as you work your way through the puzzles. Additionally, it doesn’t assume you know anything about how to play Portal. If you want to introduce someone to the game, they don’t have to go through the singleplayer to understand what’s going on, and because the game explains everything, it removes that barrier where you have to awkwardly try and explain it to the other person.

Most importantly, it lets you be absolute arseholes to each other…in a fun way. There’s no consequence for death in Portal 2, other than having to run through the level again, which usually takes just a few seconds. That lack of consequence means that dying isn’t frustrating, which means that when your friend pulls a dick move on you, it’s funny, not annoying. The light-bridges are the perfect example of this. Your friend is walking along the bridge over a pit of death, while you and you alone hold the power to remove the bridge. You know you’re going to do it, they know you’re going to do it, but it’s still hilarious when you send them plummeting.

It gives you the tools and lets you mess about with each other to your heart’s content, but once you want to get serious, there’s plenty of puzzly goodness, that makes the most of the co-op portal mechanics.

8 – Nidhogg

As you’ll see throughout this list, the kind of multiplayer games I tend to connect the most with are the ones that I can play with someone in the same room as me. Playing games online is great when it’s the only option (see: 2020) but to me, nothing beats the joy that comes from a room bursting into enthusiastic shouting and laugher all around you as you play something.

Nidhogg is great at getting those kinds of reactions out of people. As only a 2 player game, it might not seem the best thing to bust out at a party, but honestly, it’s just as gripping to watch as it is to play. The tug-of-war style of gameplay makes for insane levels of intensity, especially when games get dragged out for a long time. The excitement levels never drop as one person breaks through, only to be stopped inches from victory and be slowly pushed back to the centre of the map.

You find yourself going through phases, as the game progressed. You’ll have some fast-paced kills as you run back and forth, maybe make some progress, until you both suddenly slow down and have a stand-off. The mechanics are simple enough that you can determine the pace of every game and almost tell a story during your fight. Then, when the match finally ends, you feel that emotional sigh of relief, which is an incredibly satisfying feeling, and you want to just right into another game.

7 – Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

Confusion and chaos are the order of the day in the best way possible.

A co-operative game where the distribution of information is heavily asymmetrical is a style of game that we haven’t seen much in the video game sphere as much as I would’ve expected. Maybe that’s just because this game got it spot-on first try and nothing could ever compare.

Whenever I play this game with someone for the first time, it’s always a joy to watch them struggle their way through the manual. It plays so well with how people communicate, that the experience is always very different depending on who I play it with. With some people, it’s a relatively calm puzzle-solving experience, while with others it becomes a hilariously panicked shouting match, and both are just as fun to play. Every person develops their own little code for how to describe the weird shapes or a method for communicating each puzzle, it’s great fun.

What’s great is that it’s the kind of concept that you can introduce to anyone. It’s easy to understand even if you’re completely computer illiterate. I’ve given the manual to plenty of people who don’t play video games and we’ve still had a fun experience thanks to the simplistic nature of it. It succeeds as both a unique feature of co-operation and communication in games and as a social game.

6 – Super Smash Bros

Ultimate is my personal favourite, but any of them could fill this slot.

If you have a look through my 100 favourite games series from the summer, one thing you’ll notice a distinct lack of is fighting games, I just don’t play them. Smash Bros is the exception, as it’s the perfect fighting game for someone completely inexperienced in the genre. Many use “kid-friendly” as a negative, but the fact is, Smash Bros is a family fighting game, which is a rarity for a genre that usually has quite a high skill floor.

Straight out of the gate, there’s the appeal of all these characters, from just about every corner of gaming’s past and present. Nintendo characters dominate the scene, but there’s a huge handful of characters from elsewhere, especially with Ultimate’s DLC fighters. There will be a for just about anyone to connect to in there somewhere, even those who don’t play video games. In fact, it’s arguably a good gateway to get people interested in franchises they haven’t tried. People who don’t know the characters will just pick one they like the look of, and then slowly form a connection with them, maybe eventually going on to play some of their games. It’s almost the gateway game for other games in that way.

Outside of that, every match is simply madness. Yes, if you learn what the buttons do, you’ll do better than those who don’t, but you can still have a lot of fun from hitting attacks at semi-random. When a screen is full of a bunch of characters doing all their flashy attacks and moves it’s a sight to behold, and things get even crazier when items are added into the mix. What’s great though, is that there are enough advanced techniques in there for people to play at an insanely high skill-level too. I’m not one of those people, I’m a filthy casual, but for a game to be able to balance both of those types of players is an incredible feat.

5 – Jackbox Party Pack

When a game presents itself as “fun for all the family” what that normally means is that it’s designed for kids, and adults can play it if their kids bug them about it enough. Jackbox though really is fun for ALL the family, and it can be played in any environment. I’ve spent evenings playing Jackbox with my family, with everyone participating in the games and it’s been a lot of fun, but equally, I can sit around with a bunch of friends the same age as me and still get a great kick out of it.

Thanks to all of the games relying on the answers entered by the players, you can perfectly tailor your jokes to the room, meaning everyone always gets to enjoy the jokes. What’s more, is that the player-based responses allow you to form in-jokes during your group. I’m sure all of us who’ve played Jackbox can think of at least one time where one answer that particularly tickled people got repeated later in the night to an even bigger laugh.

I think that’s what makes Jackbox so fun for a group setting, the fact that every game doesn’t overbear too much on the interactions in the group. Instead, it carefully crafts different scenarios that allow the players to make the jokes themselves. This means it works as just about whatever you want it to be, whether it’s an ice breaker, a drinking game, or just some laughs with some friends. With only one person needing to actually own the game, it’s the height of accessibility.

4 – Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

Up until now, I’ve been talking about playing all of these games in the context of playing with someone you know – because that’s how I play them – but here’s a game where the fact that you primarily play with strangers is what makes it so brilliant.

The controlled chaos of Fall Guys is something completely unreplicated in video games at the moment. I thought I’d lost interest in battle royale as a genre, that everything that could be done had been done, but then Fall Guys comes along and shows us just how far the genre still has left to go. The light and bouncy aesthetic is a breath of fresh air and fills the whole thing with hilarity. When your bean is being bounced around the place by giant rubber hammers, it’s impossible not to laugh about it.

Every level has such a brilliant sense of variation to it that even when I’ve done it a hundred times, I still enjoy playing through it. Partly because it very rarely goes the same way twice, but also because the simplistic gameplay of ‘jump, dive, grab’ is incredibly satisfying. The simplistic gameplay also means that even when you get good at it, you can never get THAT good at it. No matter how skilful you are at controlling your bean, there’s still every possibility that an unlucky bounce or another player getting in your way could send you tumbling to your death. As such, it really is a game where anyone has a chance of winning every game, another thing that I don’t think any other battle royale game achieves.

Even when you don’t win though, there’s still plenty to enjoy about the match. The gameplay is so intrinsically rewarding, that making it all the way to the finals, only to lose isn’t a slow, agonising journey to defeat like in other battle royales. It’s one of the few competitive games where I genuinely don’t play for winning (even if it is a very good feeling when I do), I just play because the levels are so much fun.

3 – Minecraft

While it’s true that Minecraft’s multiplayer doesn’t actually do anything different to the singleplayer in terms of design, it’s a game where the experience is undoubtedly improved by playing with friends.

When you’re just playing a regular world in survival, adding a friend to the mix makes the whole thing way more engaging. Yes, I still like to play in singleplayer when I want to chill out and build worlds, but adventuring and building while chatting to people brings the true joy out of the game. You can bounce creative ideas off of each other to come up with designs far beyond what you could’ve come up with on your own, and it allows anyone you play with to flourish in exactly the way they want to.

I’ve played Minecraft with just about every close friend that I’ve had at some point in my life and it’s always an enjoyable experience, and we always come up with something new depending on who it is I’m playing with. It’s the perfect game to play when you want to hang out with someone, but don’t want a very intense experience. Over the course of these months in lockdown/isolation, being able to hop on and virtually hang out with friends while building an impressive world has been an absolute God-send.

What’s more, is there’s still plenty of fun to be had playing with strangers. Plenty of game-modes that were innovated on large Minecraft servers eventually got big enough to become their own games, many would even argue Minecraft Hunger Games is the true progenitor of the battle royale genre. To this day the biggest servers allow you to hop online and play hundreds upon thousands of different styles of gameplay. Be it parkour, anarchy, battle royales or even regular survival Minecraft, no game is as expansive for multiplayer opportunities.

2 – Among Us

Before everyone says it, yes, I know Among Us did not innovate this style of gameplay, nor was it the first to bring it to the video game sphere, however, it is the best.

I’ve always loved social deduction games. My personal favourite was Secret Hitler, which I have played A LOT of over the years. There’s a great thrill that I get from hiding my true identity, lying through my teeth and manipulating the scenario so I can execute my master plan. I also have loads of fun being one of the good guys and working with the information at hand to track down the traitors and eliminate them from the game. Once again, it’s a style of gameplay that is entirely driver by the players and their interactions. The fun comes from those debates (sometimes shouting matches) and mystery-solving sessions, so much so, that even when the game ends and you find out you’ve been outplayed & manipulated the whole time, you still look back on the experience positively.

What Among Us does is it takes the most important elements of those games and sees exactly what advantages doing it in a virtual space can afford it. Now, the gameplay becomes more than just having discussions with your fellow players, now you get to wander around a virtual spaceship and do a bunch of fun mini-games. You get to actually run around a big space rather than sitting on your sofa looking at cards; not that I’m saying looking at cards isn’t fun, but doing it this way is making the most of what a virtual space can give you.

Even outside of a pandemic, getting 10 friends in the same room can be quite difficult in the real world, and for just £4 (or free on mobile) this is the perfect way to get around that problem. It keeps the core of makes social deduction games so fun and just adds to it in great new ways. What’s great is that the developers are still looking to improve the game, and hopefully, its success will encourage other developers to make more with their own twists on the gameplay.

1 – Towerfall Ascension

I mean, come on, did you really expect anything else?

Towerfall Ascension placed third in my 100 Favourite Games series, and one of the main reasons for that is because the local multiplayer battling is hands down the most fun experiences I’ve had playing games. It’s easy enough to learn that anyone I’ve played it with you is at least somewhat video game literate picks it up within their first few times playing and from there the possibilities are endless.

The game moves at such a fast pace and yet the level of tension can reach a fever-pitch when a match is close. The precision you can achieve in terms of movement and shooting is incredible and will lead to some of the most exciting near-misses you’ve ever seen. Each different arena design gives you new tactics as you find the best way to place yourself at an advantage. You can stay still and try to outsmart your opponent and they come for you, or you can keep constantly on the move to come at your opponent from as many angles at once as possible. All the while you’ve got to be thinking about your opponent’s positioning, and also where you’re shooting your arrows, as you’ll need to pick them up again if you miss.

On top of that, the game offers a huge amount of variants to mix the game up and keep it fresh, even hundreds of hours in. You can create some crazy and hilarious matches using them that will keep you laughing even watching the replays long after the fact. It’s able to make me laugh hysterically, feel like a God of gaming and create fond memories all in one package. It’s something truly special and easily the best multiplayer mode I’ve ever played.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. Please, let me know what your favourite multiplayer games are, either in the comment below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Finally, make sure to come back this time next week, where the end-of-year lists begin with my favourite AEW matches of the 2020!

WWE Survivor Series 2020: Every Match Ranked

Survivor Series doesn’t really feel like a big 4 anymore, does it?

The show last night was fine, and there were a handful of enjoyable matches, but the whole thing is going to be forgotten about by the end of the week. They didn’t even bother keeping track of which show won this year, which shows you how much of a shit WWE seem to give about the main gimmick of the Pay-Per-View.

Before I start talking about the matches though, I do want to touch on The Undertaker’s final farewell, because I really liked it. I know it wasn’t much when you think about it, but it’s all a character like The Undertaker really needs. Admittedly, I’m not entirely sure why we had to sit through 10 minutes of other legend’s entrances only for them to immediately vanish and never be seen again, but this felt like the ‘series wrap’ on The Undertaker we needed.

After Wrestlemania 36, there was no indication that it was Taker’s last match until the Last Ride documentary came out in the summer, so I liked that we had this. We got that final chance to say goodbye to The Undertaker, and perhaps more importantly, for The Undertaker to say goodbye to The Undertaker. You can criticise the last few years of his career, as the man himself has, but the fact remains that The Undertaker is my favourite wrestler of all time, and is arguably the reason I’m a wrestling fan in the first place. Maybe I’ll do a longer piece about it one day, but for now, I’m glad I got the chance to say goodbye.

Anyway, onto bitching about bad booking!

7 – Team Raw (Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Lacey Evans, Peyton Royce, Lana) def. Team Smackdown (Bianca Belair, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Natalya, Bayley)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

I just don’t understand what the goal was here, no-one benefitted from the way this was booked.

The opening section of the match – before any eliminations happened – was pretty enjoyable wrestling if a little basic. It threw off the trope of one or two competitors getting eliminated early and allowed everyone at least a little bit of time in the ring. However, once the eliminations started coming, things fell apart. I don’t mind Bayley being eliminated first, because quite frankly, she took one hell of a beating leading up that point, however, then Natalya tapped out Peyton Royce with a Sharpshooter so bad that even The Rock would think it laughable. From there, the dominos kept falling as Natalya & Lacey Evans were dropped with just one or two moves each.

Then, we got inarguably the best section of the match, as Team Smackdown did everything in their power to topple Nia. Admittedly, I don’t really like how Nia was booked as a Strowman-level monster here, but it worked for this specific part of the story. Morgan & Riott trying to take her down was very compelling, and a bit heartbreaking when they eventually failed. Then, Bianca went on an absolute tear and I was properly enjoying the match again. Bianca looked like a superhero as she fought off both Baszler & Nia, and Baszler’s elimination was perfect.

But then…BUT THEN…

The finish happened, and now we have to talk about Lana because I genuinely don’t understand what the intention of this booking was. Was it supposed to make us cheer Lana? Because if it was, it utterly failed. I don’t care who’s talking down to her, having her spend the whole match stood on the stairs pouting like a pissy schoolgirl who’s just been told to tuck in their shirt doesn’t endear me to her. On top of that, her winning by accident doesn’t make me like her either. If she had just done something in that final section where she actually caused the double-countout, then it might’ve worked, but the fact is she did literally nothing and then celebrated like she carried the whole team. That’s not someone I want to cheer, and based on the story that was told up until this point, I think cheering her was what WWE wanted.

6 – Bobby Lashley def. Sami Zayn
(United States Champion vs Intercontinental Champion)

Well, this match wasn’t necessarily bad…it just wasn’t very interesting.

The heel vs heel dynamic didn’t work in this match, and I think the reasons are twofold. One was that commentary did not give us a clear narrative. They kept going back and forth on who they were presenting as the marginalized underdog, and who they were presenting as a dishonourable cheat. For the first half of the match, the face commentators were condemning The Hurt Business being around and oppressing Zayn, but as the match progressed, they changed their mind and decided that Sami deserves it because he’s a bit of a jerk.

Two was the fact that both teams tried to heel it up in different ways. Sami was being braggadocious and cowardly, while The Hurt Business was being oppressive and threatening. It meant that I didn’t like either guy and didn’t want them to win. The action in the ring was largely fine, but the match highlights the flaw with crowbarring in a gimmick PPV like this. It would’ve been so easy to avoid this problem, but because WWE already has plans in place for December, they booked themselves in a corner here and it led to a mess of a story.

5 – The Miz won the Dual-Brand Battle Royal
(Kickoff Show)

This may have been a meaningless battle royal, but it was a pretty fun meaningless battle royal.

As always with these kinds of matches, the early stages were full of short exchanges and quick eliminations, then once we started to boil down the competitors, things got more action-packed. Amazingly, almost everyone in the match got a chance to shine, Murphy went on a tear and I liked his small battle with Ziggler & Roode; Nakamura was fairly consistent throughout, making an impact when he was needed; Hardy & Elias touched on their feud again with a small exchange; Chad Gable reminded us that he’s really good at suplexes, and Dominic Mysterio was the MVP of the whole thing.

The way in which The Miz won was pretty easy to see coming, but it was still a good way to do it. Personally, I would’ve preferred to see Dominic get the win, but I certainly can’t argue with keeping Mr Money in the Bank looking strong.

4 – Team Raw (AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, Keith Lee, Sheamus, Riddle) def. Team Smackdown (Jey Uso, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, King Corbin, Otis)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

Well, I knew Team Raw would finally pull it together in this match, but I certainly didn’t expect to see a sweep. It’s the kind of move that I thought I’d be annoyed about, but in reality, who does it hurt? The fact is, the Smackdown team really don’t suffer much from this loss. Seth took the pin voluntarily, and he’s about to take some time off anyway; Corbin can get his ass kicked time and time again, but still come back from it fine; Otis was easily the MVP for his team and only lost because it was 5 on 2, and Jey has this loss play into his story with Roman. The only person you could argue will suffer from it is Owens, but he wasn’t doing anything noteworthy anyway, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.

Once again, the action was fairly basic, but it was still good. There was a consistent pace and it allowed everyone to get a chance to shine. Splitting the eliminations between everyone meant that all of Team Raw looked to be on the same level, and while Keith Lee didn’t get to be the sole survivor, getting the final pin is definitely a good way to go about it. Weirdly, I found myself enjoying Otis’ performance the most in the match, especially when it was down to 5-on-2. However, Jey Uso also did a brilliant job as the final man.

I can’t wait to see them all start beating the crap out of each other on Raw tonight.

3 – The Street Profits def. The New Day
(Raw Tag Team Champions vs Smackdown Tag Team Champions)

Here we have ourselves an uncomplicated, high-quality tag team match.

As opposed to the mid-card titles, where the heel vs heel dynamic ruined the match, this one definitely benefitted from face vs face, as it allowed both teams to mix up their styles a bit. New Day definitely took a more heelish role in the match and I’d honestly forgotten just how good they are at it. Xavier started putting a little extra impact on his moves to make them more hard-hitting, and Kofi’s taunting from ringside was fantastic stuff.

Street Profits knew just the right way to respond to all of it though, and they turned all of New Day’s shots into comebacks for them. They spent a large part of the match getting down, but by the end, the Profits felt like a team of equal quality who completely deserved their win. As always with these kinds of matches, when it broke down towards the later stages in when the match reached its peak. The working of Ford’s rib kept the result constantly in doubt, especially when he couldn’t cover after the splash.

Having Street Profits use a different finisher worked wonders for them too, as it showed their ability to adapt when their opponents throw their plans to the dogs. After spending half the year feuding with the same teams, this was a breath of fresh air that reminded me just how amazing Street Profits are when they’re at their peak.

2 – Sasha Banks def. Asuka
(Raw Women’s Champion vs Smackdown Women’s Champion)

In my predictions, I made no secret of the fact that I wasn’t looking forward to this match due to having seen it a bunch over the summer. However, these two put a lot of work in, and it paid off because this match felt very different to the ones from earlier in the year. Part of this is thanks to the fact that Bayley wasn’t lurking to cost Asuka the match at every opportunity, but also the style they wrestled was very different.

I often struggle to get invested in technical, mat-based affairs, but putting it right at the start of the match pulled me in because of how different it felt. What’s more, is they were able to move through this phase pretty quickly without it feeling rushed. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wish more wrestlers had submission finishers, so we could get stuff like this. The match lulled a bit around the middle, but I don’t mind because things picked up again by the end. The final 5 minutes were very enjoyable and showed a big chunk of what each woman has to offer, which in Asuka’s case is very refreshing given her recent history.

As for the finish, it’s not what I wanted to see, but I don’t think it was the worst. I definitely didn’t want to see either woman tap, especially Asuka, so this seemed like the decent middle ground that didn’t harm the loser too much. It’s the product of the PPV booking WWE into a corner again, and the performers made the best of what they had.

1 – Roman Reigns def. Drew McIntyre
(WWE Champion vs Universal Champion)

In this era of smaller guys working technical, faster-paced matches, it’s easy to forget how fun it can be to watch two jacked dudes beat the piss out of each other for 20 minutes.

The match started out VERY slow, but it was slow with a purpose. The pacing and staring they did with each other created a very tense atmosphere that carried large chunks of the match. I spent the whole opening segments just waiting for the first massive strike to land, but they kept me on the hook with it for a while. The early exchanges were able to hold and build the tension into the explosion we saw later in the match. My interest did fade a bit around the middle with all of the rest-holds, but once things started to build up again, I was sucked right back in.

Once those big strikes started to land, business really picked up. Drew was absolute fire when he started his comeback, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen the man move so fast and they did a perfect job of teasing the Claymore for about 15 minutes of the match. Despite Roman overbearing on huge chunks of the match, it always felt like a matter of time before Drew turned it around on him, and as things reached the climax, they knew exactly how to play with those ideas.

The finish seemed entirely designed to make Drew look incredible in defeat. Roman put him through a table and Speared him through the barricade and Drew still kicked out. Then Roman hit another Spear, at which point I was sure it over, only for Drew to kick out again. On top of that, they made sure to protect the Claymore like nothing else, the only time Drew hit it was when the referee got knocked from the ring, which meant Roman never had to kick out of it, which was brilliant. Jey’s interference was definitely the right choice, given the number of people that could’ve shown up, it brought a resolution to the story set up earlier in the night and gave Drew all the sympathy in the world when he eventually took the pin.

It’s the classic WWE trope of booking themselves into a corner, but then escaping it far better than anyone thought possible. Roman looks like a strong champion and Drew still looks like a near-unbeatable champion despite taking the loss.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, let me know what you thought of the show, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time on Friday, where I’ll be running down the best multiplayer modes in video games!

WWE Survivor Series 2020: Predictions & Analysis

We’re just a couple of days away from Survivor Series 2020 and I honestly couldn’t give less of a shit if I tried. The “brand warfare” stuff is boring at the best of times, but at least in previous years then been some proper intensity around it, and at least some semblance of a story. This year, it doesn’t seem like any of the wrestlers care about the matches and are still building to their own independent feuds.

There’s really no build to speak of, because instead of doing sneak attacks or running down Roman Reigns, Orton was too busy fighting off both Drew and The Fiend; only to lose the title and force us to build a new match in a week. The whole endeavour is entirely pointless and come Monday, it will scarcely be mentioned ever again. It’s a classic example of WWE creative having to put all their plans on hold because the calendar says it’s time for everyone to wear red & blue t-shirts while having matches with no steaks.

Still, let’s predict it anyway.

Dual Brand Battle Royal
(Kickoff Show)

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good battle royal, but given they announced this just 48 hours from the show, with no announced participants, I can’t think this is going to be thought through. They haven’t even specified if it’s men or women involved. I mean, given that there aren’t enough women on the roster of a 10-women tag match AND a battle royal, I’m assuming it’s the men, but you never know.

Much like with the Wrestlemania battle royals, there’s really no point trying to logic this one out. They never give it to anyone who you’d think would benefit from a win, it’ll just be someone they’ve never given wins to before now and probably won’t start after it’s over.

I think Smackdown is going to come out the overall winner of the night, and my predictions for the rest of the card dictate a Smackdown wrestler needs to win here. To me, that gives two potential candidates. The first is Daniel Bryan since he’s almost certainly about to be going after Roman Reigns over the winter, but given how he’s being booked on Smackdown, he doesn’t really need it. Instead, I’m simply going to go with who I want to win it, which is Big E.

The New Day vs The Street Profits
(Raw Tag Team Champions vs Smackdown Tag Team Champions)

A tag team match in WWE that I’m actually excited for? Well, colour me impressed.

I know WWE treat tag team wrestling like it’s not worth anything, but The New Day are at the point where they’ve got a bit of licence to get more time and the likes. In many ways, The Street Profits feel like New Day’s eventual successors. They’re perhaps not as funny, but Montez Ford is one of the most charismatic men on the roster right now and they seem to have perfected their ‘fast guy, muscle guy’ dynamic, which makes for some really entertaining in-ring work. Ultimately, it just depends on whether or not they’re given enough time. Although, given that the 5 on 5 matches tend to take upwards of half an hour, I’m not optimistic.

The problem I face with picking most of these matches is that the complete meaningless of the whole endeavour means there’s no real rationale for who should win. I honestly think I’d have better luck flipping a coin than trying to think it through. I guess I’ll go for The Street Profits purely because they’ve got more to gain from winning. No loss could hurt The New Day at this point in their careers and it would be a big win for the younger guys.

Bobby Lashley vs Sami Zayn
(United States Champion vs Intercontinental Champion)

I honestly don’t know what to say about this one. Sami Zayn’s done a better job of building it on Twitter than anything that’s been said on TV.

I don’t understand what the plan is for The Hurt Business. I mean, I know the real answer to that is that there isn’t a plan, but I don’t see a long-term goal for this faction anymore. It just feels like it’s going along with the only purpose of preserving Lashley’s US title reign, which has been pretty underwhelming as it is. What really gets me though, is that if there are no long-term plans for them, why on Earth have they been absolutely dominating Retribution every week? Does Vince just hate Mustafa Ali that much?

Sami Zayn’s been doing much better on Smackdown, but that feels more like by default. His charisma and promo ability are more than enough to carry whatever he’s involved in to be good, and as much as it’s easy to forget, he is a world-class wrestler. Sadly, there’s no way the outcome is anything other than Bobby Lashley winning. WWE management just doesn’t think a guy like Sami can beat a guy like Lashley, and I can’t see them changing their mind now.

Asuka vs Sasha Banks
(Raw Women’s Champion vs Smackdown Women’s Champion)

I would be excited for this match if we hadn’t already seen it a bunch of times this year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it will still be good, these are two of the best women’s wrestlers in the world after all, but the shine is definitely off the apple by this point.

I went back and forth on this one a lot. On the face of it, it seems like Sasha would be the favourite, as she’s actually been on TV every week doing noteworthy stuff, unlike Asuka, who’s just been around and doing nothing of any importance. However, I actually think Sasha’s story is why she’s going to lose. Both Bayley and Carmella are still on Banks’ tail, and I could easily see them both getting involved in this match. Admittedly, it won’t be the best look for Asuka to win this way, but I think it’s consistent with her character. Sasha Banks caused her a lot of trouble over the summer, why should Asuka respect her now, just because Bayley turned on her?

Team Raw (Nia Jax, Shayna Baszler, Peyton Royce, Lacey Evans & Lana) vs Team Smackdown (Bianca Belair, Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, Natalya & Bayley)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

And here we come to the elimination tag team matches. The matches that are sometimes utter brilliance, but 90% of the time are people getting pinned after one or two moves when they’d normally be a lot more resilient.

The biggest problem I have about the brand vs brand matches this year is how the teams have had absolutely no interaction with each other. Now, I’m not saying I wanted full-on brand invasions every week, I think we can all agree those are quite tiresome, but throughout the entire build, Drew McIntyre is the only person to appear on a brand that isn’t their own. On top of that, the booking of both teams has been so lop-sided. Team Raw have been interacting and telling somewhat of a story for the whole month, meanwhile, Team Smackdown didn’t even have a full line-up until yesterday.

Of course, just because Team Raw actually have a story, that doesn’t mean it’s any good. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing Lana get beat up as much as the next guy, but who cares? I don’t understand what they’re building up to here, is Lana going pull out a Dolph Ziggler level performance and sweep the Smackdown team? Or is Jax just going to keep beating the shit out of her? Given how they’ve treated Lana this year, I honestly think the latter is more likely.

I’ve gone back and forth on both of the tag matches all week, but I’m going to settle on Team Smackdown as the winners for this one, and I’ll take a punt and say Bianca Belair & Bayley will be the survivors. My thought is that Lana will get sick of Nia’s shit and somehow cause her to be eliminated, giving Smackdown the advantage they need to win, because at least that gives the tag champs something to do going forward from here.

Team Raw (AJ Styles, Keith Lee, Braun Strowman, Sheamus, Riddle) vs Team Smackdown (Kevin Owens, Jey Uso, King Corbin, Seth Rollins, Otis)
(5-on-5 Elimination Tag)

Once again, Team Raw has a bit of a story, Team Smackdown has just been largely doing their own thing in the build.

The stories between both of Raw’s teams are quite similar, but the difference is that the women’s team is only teasing falling apart, while the men’s team already did fall apart. It’s been a pretty boring story of people coming up with dumb nicknames for each other and arguing over who’s the captain, but at least Retribution got a win out of it. I think the focus has been all wrong, the people who need to be built like Lee & Riddle have been pushed to the background to serve Styles, Braun & Sheamus’ bickering and I couldn’t care less about any of it.

Ultimately, the fact that Team Raw already did their ‘falling out’ thing on Monday telegraphs pretty heavily that they’re going to pull it out of the bag and win on Sunday. If I were to guess, I think someone like Styles or Braun will be eliminated shockingly early and the rest of the team will pull together to bring it back. I’m going to pick Keith Lee to be the sole survivor for this one, because why the hell not? The fact is, no-one on Team Smackdown needs the win. Jey Uso looks great alongside Reigns no matter what, Rollins is about to take some time off to be a father, Owens isn’t in a great spot right now anyway, and I couldn’t care less about Corbin or Otis.

Drew McIntyre vs Roman Reigns
(WWE Champion vs Universal Champion)

I must admit, going from the least anticipated match on Wrestlemania 35 to the most anticipated match of Survivor Series has been quite the character transformation for both these guys.

Genuinely, this is the one match I actually have high hopes for. I think WWE is big on making both of these guys look like world-beaters and their brutal in-ring styles should clash in the best way possible, even if we do get a wonky finish. I know I moaned in the intro about only having one week to build this match, but the contract signing on Smackdown did a pretty good job of it. Drew has his usual simmering charisma to him, and Reigns was absolutely slaying on the mic.

Roman Reigns is definitely winning though. He’s been built up as someone truly unbeatable and there’s no way they’d waste that on a meaningless match like this. While it’s not the best look for Drew, he’s proven once already he can recover from a big loss and be absolutely fine straight after, so I’m not worried about that. You could have Jey, Orton or The Fiend get involved to protect Drew a bit, but even if they didn’t, I think Drew will be just fine.

So there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this post. Please, let me know what you think is going to happen on Sunday, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back this time on Monday, where I’ll be giving you my review of the show.

Every WWE Raw & Smackdown Women’s Champion Ranked

While it certainly happened a lot later than we all would’ve liked it to, over the past 5 years, WWE has finally allowed women’s wrestling to take its place as the featured attraction we’ve always wanted it to be. While things still aren’t perfect, women’s wrestling is largely treated as being on par with – and sometimes greater than – whatever the men are doing.

While the depth of the women’s division is a huge factor in this becoming the case, a good indicator for how the women’s division has been treated in recent years is to look at the championships. Since the horribly named, horribly designed, and horribly horrible Diva’s Championship was abolished in 2016, there have been 11 different women to hold either the Raw or Smackdown Women’s Championship at least once. Today, I’m going to rank these women based on what they did during their time as champion.

There are a number of things that play into it. First of all, the pure numbers. How many times have they won a championship, and how many days did they hold it? However, you also have to consider other factors like the calibre of opponents they faced with the belt, or the more subjective factors, like were their storylines and matches any good? Then, lastly, I’ll throw in a little personal bias and we’ve got ourselves a list.

Let’s get ranking.

11 – Natalya

Number of Reigns: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 1
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 86

I honestly forgot Natalya had even won a women’s title, which isn’t a great sign.

Truth be told, I really can’t stand Natalya as a wrestler. I think her promo style is lifeless and boring, and I think her style in the ring is lacking any kind of special shine. Sure, she was one of the best wrestlers during the ‘Diva’s’ era, when there were very few legitimate wrestlers on the roster, but I think that time has passed her by and she can’t compete with the incredibly talented women of WWE today.

Unfortunately, Natalya’s time as champion was equally boring. She won the title from Naomi at Summerslam 2017 in a 10-minute match that was ok. She retained the title on Smackdown a few weeks later in a 7-minute match that was also just ok. Then Charlotte Flair stepped into the picture and the writing was on the walls. They had a match at Hell in a Cell where Natalya deliberately got herself disqualified, which will always be a super lame finish. Then, with Survivor Series on the horizon and a champion vs champion match against Alexa Bliss on the card, she lost the title to Charlotte clean as a whistle in 12 minutes.

Natalya had her rematch against Charlotte at Clash of Champions, lost, and that was that. Natalya would never sniff the title scene again. It did nothing to elevate Natalya, or even Charlotte, as she was already the biggest thing in the women’s division by that point. It didn’t even serve as a nice “thank you” present for Natalya’s decade of serivce to WWE because she was made to look weak and ineffective at almost every turn. None of her storylines were interesting and all of her matches were average in quality, not what you want from your top woman.

10 – Naomi

Number of Reigns: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 2
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 148

I feel bad putting Naomi this low because I remember really rooting for her at the time, but when you look at her time with the title, there really isn’t a lot to shout about.

In the build to her title win, Naomi was a good foil for Alexa Bliss. She’s very easy to love, and her personality clashed with Alexa’s in such a way that I enjoyed the build. Their match at Elimination Chamber should’ve been better than it was, but unfortunately, it was only given 8 minutes, which is not enough time to have the amazing match they were able to. However, it was ok, because Wrestlemania was on the horizon, and it was happening in Naomi’s hometown, so that’s where the real money match could happen, right?

No, of course it didn’t.

Sadly, Naomi suffered an injury and would have to relinquish her title after just 9 days, making it unlikely she would be able to compete at Wrestlemania 33 that year. As it happened, Naomi’s injury wasn’t too severe and she was healed in time for Wrestlemania, but it was so late that she has to be awkwardly crowbarred into the plans WWE had already made. This meant that instead of a big one-on-one match with Alexa, Naomi won the title for the second time in a Six-Pack Challenge. What’s worse is the match was only given 5 minutes and was slotted in between the two main events of the evening, so the exhausted crowd couldn’t have cared less.

Naomi’s second title reign was much longer, at 137 days, but it was no more interesting. She had a rematch with Alexa Bliss that was ok, and a 9-minute match with Charlotte that ended in a no contest. Then, things fell off a cliff and WWE decided they were going to push Lana as a title contender. Lana would have three matches with Naomi. One was a 7-minute snooze fest that consisted of Naomi desperately trying to get something out of Lana, and failing. The second was a 1-minute squash match, and the third was a 10 SECOND squash match. To put it plainly, it was shit.

Then she had a fairly boring feud with Natalya, lost the title and that was that.

As much as I love Naomi, she pretty much only avoids the bottom spot because she held her title for more days than Natalya. What sucks is that I don’t think many of the issues with her reign were her fault. Her matches were constantly being put in bad spots and being given nowhere near enough time on shows. Then, she got thrown in there with Lana, a competitor who even the best of the best would struggle to get a decent match out of.

Here’s hoping she gets a proper chance to shine in the years to come.

9 – Carmella

Number of Reigns: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 1
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 0; Smackdown – 130

Carmella is another woman that I hope gets another chance to run with the title someday because her first go-around wasn’t as good as I believe it could’ve been.

Things started about as well as they possibly can start. Cashing in her first-ever women’s Money in the Bank contract, Carmella rode a wave of momentum into the start of her title reign. She’d cashed-in and taken the title away from Charlotte just two days after Charlotte had ended Asuka’s undefeated streak and pissed everyone off. The problems started to rear their heads right away, however, as her character started to lose the unique charm she had before winning the title. Almost immediately she fell into the template of any heel champion who won thanks to the green & gold briefcase, which didn’t make for exciting TV.

She beat Charlotte cleanly in the title rematch, which sounds like a good thing, but it actually felt pretty underwhelming, especially considering Charlotte left for a while almost immediately afterwards. Next, she entered a feud with Asuka, which seemed specifically crafted to make the unstoppable Asuka look like as much of a chump as is humanly possible. In every instance, Carmella only retained thanks to interference from James Ellsworth, a man who WWE presented as the single most pathetic human being to ever live. It was a nice twist the first time it happened, but quickly became played out and horrendously boring.

Before we knew it, the time had arrived for Carmella to lose the title. This is the most historically significant part of Carmella’s reign, but not because of anything Carmella did. When Charlotte beat Carmella & Becky Lynch to win the Smackdown Women’s Championship at Summerslam, it set in motion the chain of events that would lead to the insane rise of Becky Lynch. I’d love to Carmella’s role in the story some credit for this, but she really didn’t make a difference. It could’ve been any heel champion in that role and it would’ve worked out just the same. Charlotte still would’ve been unnecessarily crowbarred into the match, and Becky Lynch still would’ve ‘turned heel’ only for the fans to cheer her as they’ve never cheered anyone since Daniel Bryan in 2013/14. Carmella was just the spare part.

She rises a few places from the bottom purely through the virtue of having a couple of memorable moments under her belt, but there was sadly very little to enjoy during her one and only title reign.

8 – Nia Jax

Number of Reigns: Raw – 1; Smackdown – 0
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 70; Smackdown – 0

While the numbers aren’t in Nia’s favour, what she did during her run as champion was a lot better than I think many remember.

The story going into Wrestlemania 34 between Nia & Alexa was an odd one. They pressed pretty hard on the anti-bullying stuff, but it always felt pretty disingenuous. The writing wasn’t very nuanced and it felt like they were just trying really hard to make Nia into this amazing role model for little girls. Of course, having role models for little girls isn’t a bad thing, but when you try to force it with a woman like Nia, who is SO much better as a villain, it tends to fall flat. It wasn’t all bad though, the fact remained that Alexa Bliss was an incredible heel, so her work was good enough to make the sympathy roll Nia’s way.

The problem comes in with her matches. The Wrestlemania match was mostly just Nia beating Alexa down with her huge size advantage, which didn’t exactly make her seem like a sympathetic bullying victim. Still, the moment where she won the title was a good one, and the emotion on Nia’s face made the whole thing feel extremely heartfelt. The feud didn’t need to continue from there, but it did, and it was boring. Thankfully, once it was out of the way, we got to the highlight of Nia’s title reign, her match with Ronda Rousey.

Nia has never been the most incredible wrestler, in fact, I find very little to enjoy in the majority of her matches. Her match with Ronda Rousey, however, was an exception. It was, interesting, impactful and an all-round joy to watch. I finally felt like I was seeing Nia’s true potential, and it was an amazing showcase for Rousey too. Things ended in excitement as well, as Alexa Bliss would show up with the Money in the Bank contract she had won mere hours ago, and challenge for the title. A Money in the Bank cash-in is one of those events in wrestling that is always exciting, even when something you don’t like is happening because of it. Bliss won the title back from Nia and that was the end of it.

Her reign wasn’t all that long and didn’t make a lasting impact on the women’s division as a whole (hence why it’s low), but it did begin and end in rather spectacular fashion, which counts for something.

7 – Sasha Banks

Number of Reigns: Raw – 5; Smackdown – 1
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 106; Smackdown – 20+

By far the weakest ranking of any of the four horsewomen, Sasha has always got the raw end of the deal when it comes to title success. Sure, five title reigns is an impressive number, but when you consider that the longest of these reigns was a pathetic 34 days, you’ve got to realise something is wrong.

Her first three title reigns all came and went within the space of 5 months, as it was during her extended feud with Charlotte. These two would hot-potato the title like no-one ever had, with things averaging two title changes every month. The pattern that played out on our screens for half a year was that Sasha would win the title on an episode of Raw at some point during the month, then when the Pay-Per-View rolled around, Charlotte would win it back. I was an extremely odd decision that didn’t do a great deal to raise the stock of either woman, however, it did create a lot of good-great matches.

That’s the thing with Sasha’s title reigns. They were often short and somewhat pointless, but they were almost always surrounded by either good matches or good stories, which I personally value more than the pure numbers.

After Bayley debuted on Raw, Sasha would play a supporting role for the next 6-8 months, backing up Bayley in whatever her endeavours were. One such endeavour was a feud with Alexa Bliss, in which fortune would favour Sasha. The original plan for the match at Summerslam was to be Bayley vs Alexa Bliss, however, Bayley suffered an injury during the month, so Banks was substituted in as a replacement. As WWE always like to pull for shock value Sasha was given the title for no reason. I can prove that it was for no reason too, as Banks would lose the title back to Alexa just 8 days later on Raw.

Banks wouldn’t sniff the title scene again for almost three years, however, her alliance and subsequent heel turn with Bayley turned her fortunes around. Banks & Bayley had already banded together to claim tag team gold, and after the two had spent most of the year ruling the roost over on Smackdown, they set their sites on Raw Women’s Champion, Asuka. The storyline surrounding this was great. Although the duo has recently broken up as of the time of writing, their run as ‘schoolyard bully’ style heels has been one of the biggest highlights to come out of the WWE product this year.

The title win wasn’t perfect though, as it happened in a weird finish where Bayley put on a referee shirt and counted the pin, then a week later, Stephanie McMahon rescheduled the match, and Sasha won the title anyway. Next up was Summerslam, and there, Sasha continued her pattern of not being able to successfully defend a title and lost it back to Asuka. However, Bayley betrayed Sasha at the start of the autumn and this led to what has to be her strongest title win yet. As the reign is still less than a month old, I can’t really judge it very much, but given that she’s already successfully defended the title on Smackdown, it seems she may have finally shaken her curse and is in for a fantastic reign.

Ultimately, Sasha Banks did a lot of great things surrounding her time as champion, however, she held the belt so briefly in almost every title reign, that they don’t feel very meaningful or prestigious.

6 – Asuka

Number of Reigns: Raw – 2; Smackdown – 1
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 154+; Smackdown – 99

For many years, it felt like Asuka was yet another NXT star that got totally destroyed by creative on Raw & Smackdown, but eventually, it seemed like WWE came to appreciate what they have with her, and are finally running with it.

Asuka’s first title reign began in extremely grand fashion. Coming at the tail end of Becky Lynch’s feud with Charlotte Flair, Asuka found her way into a TLC match for the Smackdown Women’s championship. To put it simply, this match was excellent, and most certainly one of the best WWE produced that year. The finish came when Becky & Charlotte were atop a ladder, ready to grab the gold, when Ronda Rousey came down to the ring, pushing the ladder over and allowing Asuka to win her first title. Many would say this cheapened Asuka’s win, as she didn’t do it all herself, but given that the Becky/Ronda/Charlotte story was the hottest thing in the company during that time, I’d say it just amplified the spotlight.

Asuka had several strong defences against, Mandy Rose & Naomi, but her biggest was against Becky Lynch at the Royal Rumble. This was the night that Becky would eventually win the rumble and stake her claim for Ronda Rousey’s title, so for Asuka to get a 100% clean win over Lynch that night was HUGE. Sadly, things would end in disappointment, as Charlotte would beat Asuka for the title in March, as WWE wanted to promote the Becky/Ronda/Charlotte triple threat match at Wrestlemania as being for both belts.

Fast forward a year and a bit to 2020, and things in the world are going a bit mental, and WWE followed suit. Asuka won the Money in the Bank briefcase in a match that I’m still not entirely sure wasn’t some weird fever dream I had, and things seemed to be exciting going forward for Asuka. However, the next night, things took a shocking turn. The champion Becky Lynch appeared on Raw with Asuka’s Money in the Bank briefcase in tow, during a promo, she revealed that she was relinquishing the Raw Women’s Championship, and handing it over to Asuka voluntarily. After some moments of confusion, Becky Lynch would reveal she was pregnant in an extraordinarily heartwarming moment.

Asuka’s title reign following this wasn’t the strongest, but she did get clean wins at almost every turn. Sadly, her first title defence Nia Jax wasn’t one of these, as it ended in a double countout, but Asuka would later defeat both Nia Jax & Charlotte Flair clean as a whistle. In the summer, she entered a feud with the duo of Bayley and Sasha Banks which produced some great matches, even if there was a small case of overbooking here and there. Sadly, moving into the autumn, Asuka has almost vanished completely from WWE TV. She had a short match at Clash of Champions against Zelina Vega, defended the title on Raw in 2-minutes against Lana and then missed Hell in a Cell completely. Her reign is still going strong, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot going on for her right now.

5 – Alexa Bliss

Number of Reigns: Raw – 3; Smackdown – 2
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 396; Smackdown – 109

When the ‘women’s revolution’ kicked into gear around 2015, there were certain women that were virtually guaranteed for stardom. The four horsewomen come to mind for this, and others like Asuka & Nia Jax held qualities that WWE would very clearly value in a main event talent. Alexa Bliss wasn’t one of these women, but she went ahead and did it anyway.

Alexa Bliss wasn’t a huge star in NXT. Her biggest accomplishment on the yellow brand was being the most entertaining member of the Blake & Murphy tag team. This meant that when she was drafted to Smackdown in the 2016 brand-split, I don’t think I was alone in thinking she wasn’t going to go super far. However, Smackdown branded itself as the land of opportunity, and it proved time and time again in 2016 that it was true. Case-in-point: Alexa Bliss.

Bliss wasn’t treated as much of a threat to Becky Lynch’s title reign in 2016, but the somewhat lucky (but ultimately, clean) circumstances surrounding a tables match gave Bliss the title. Bliss then proceeded to show everyone that she could hang with the best. She cut promos like few other women could at the time and created a truly despicable heel persona. Her two reigns with the Smackdown Women’s Title aren’t very significant in the grand scheme of things, but they served as a platform for her to establish herself as a real player in the division by the time she moved to Raw.

After switching the Raw in 2017’s Superstar Shakeup, Bliss wasted no time establishing dominance, beating Bayley for the title at Payback almost immediately. This feud was critically panned for some horrible segments like “Bayley: This is Your Life” and a match at Extreme Rules where Bayley lost because she was scared of a stick, however, you can’t deny that Bliss looked dominant during all of this. Bliss moved onto a feud with Sasha Banks, losing via Count-out at Great Balls of Fire, before losing the title the next month at Summerslam.

It wasn’t over for Bliss though, as she won the title back just 8 days later. Her 2nd run with the Raw title would be her longest, and she beat a great variety of opponents during this time. Defending the title in all sorts of different matches, including five-ways and even the very first Women’s Elimination Chamber match. Bliss felt virtually untouchable during this period, but it’s worth mentioning that for various reasons – including Survivor Series & Royal Rumble getting in the way – Bliss didn’t defend the title at all during November, December or January during this reign, which is a large contributor to her dropping a few places on this list.

She would eventually lose the title to Nia Jax at Wrestlemania 34. She did win it back later that year, but it’s barely worth talking about, as she only won it so Ronda Rousey had a heel to destroy at Summerslam.

At the end of the day, Bliss is the biggest example of someone breaking free of their low expectations and turning themselves into a star. Although it’s been a good few years since Bliss won a singles title, she’s always a feature-player of WWE’s women’s division and will go down as one of the greats.

4 – Charlotte Flair

Number of Reigns: Raw – 4; Smackdown – 5
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 242; Smackdown – 189

I can understand how some may see this as an odd placement. It’s always felt like Charlotte has been CONSTANTLY sniffing around the title scene since her main roster debut. It’s true that she has the most title reigns out of everyone on this list, and her contributions to the women’s revolution in WWE can never be denied. However, when you actually look at the content of her title reigns, it’s not as impressive as you might think.

For one thing, despite having almost double the number of title reigns as Alexa Bliss, she’s spent less total days as champion by quite the margin. Arguably her best title reign was her first one, especially if you include her time as Diva’s Champion before the new women’s title was introduced. Winning the title in what was inarguably the best match of Wrestlemania 32, Charlotte was a ready-made star from that moment onwards. She continued to retain the title with the help of her father, putting away Natalya on several occasions (including a rehash of the Montreal Screwjob, because Bret Hart was in the building).

Come mid-2016, it was time for the brand split to begin anew, and Charlotte’s epic feud with Sasha Banks began. As I’ve already discussed, these two traded the title A LOT, bringing Charlotte’s total number of reigns with the championship to 4. After many excellent matches, Charlotte came away as the winner, cementing her place at the top of the food chain, only for Bayley to come sniffing at her heels. She successfully repelled Bayley at the Royal Rumble, but wasn’t so lucky in their rematch, losing the title for what – as of the time of release – would be the final time.

In 2017’s Superstar Shakeup, Charlotte was traded to Smackdown. It took her a good chunk of the year, but she would eventually win the Smackdown Women’s Championship in November, and here she would have an excellent run with it. She spent a large chunk of the reign feuding with Natalya again, which could’ve been better, but it ended on a high. Then, after tearing through Ruby Riott at Fastlane, she would face down with the then-undefeated Asuka at Wrestlemania 34, and she came out victorious. I and many others view this as a horrible booking decision, but for the purposes of this list, it works in Charlotte’s favour, as the match was amazing & the queen of WWE gained a huge amount of prestige from the win.

Then two nights later, Carmella cashed-in the Money in the Bank briefcase and she lost the title. This is where Charlotte drops some places, as despite winning the title four more times past this point, they were reigns with absolutely no substance.

She won the title back from Carmella at Summerslam, but lost it to Becky Lynch a month later, won the title from Asuka next March, but lost it just two WEEKS later at Wrestlemania 35 (in a match where her presence arguably took away from the quality). Following Wrestlemania, Charlotte beat Becky to get the title back (after Becky had already fought a match against Lacey Evans) and this time, she would lose the title in less than five minutes thanks to Bayley cashing-in her newly won Money in the Bank contract. October rolled around and it was time for Charlotte to win the title back – this time at Hell in a Cell – where she managed to hold onto it for a whopping 5 days before losing it back to Bayley.

During only one of those title reigns did she ever eke out a successful defence of the title, and even that felt more like a formality than a proper feud.

Charlotte seems to exist purely to lose titles to people to get them over. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can get quite tiresome after it’s been going on for so long, and really puts a downer on Charlotte’s status as one of the best.

3 – Ronda Rousey

Number of Reigns: Raw – 1; Smackdown – 0
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 231; Smackdown – 0

I’m sure the internet will want to crucify me for making this placement, and it looks like the numbers don’t support it. However, the cold, hard fact of the matter is that Ronda Rousey’s title reign did more for Becky Lynch, the women’s division, and even WWE as a whole than anyone outside of the company is ever willing to admit. The main event of Wrestlemania 35 would not have been a women’s match for the first time ever without Ronda Rousey’s involvement. There, I said it.

After putting on the best match of Wrestlemania 34, and a match at Money in the Bank that was far better than anyone expected, it was time for Ronda to be crowned champion like everyone knew was going to happen. Her dismantling of Alexa Bliss was expected and did the necessary job of establishing her as a very dominant champion. Plus, after Bliss had been a very despicable heel for the past couple of years, it was good to see someone properly pick her apart for a change.

Rousey dispatched of Bliss again at Hell in a Cell, and then the Evolution Pay-Per-View rolled around. The first (and to date, only) WWE PPV to run only women’s matches. You don’t need me to tell you how big a deal this was, and while it probably would’ve gone ahead anyway, Rousey’s huge star power was a big factor in bringing it to life. There, Rousey faced Nikki Bella, the woman who, to many, was the distillation of everything that was wrong with the ‘Diva’s era’ which held women’s wrestling back in WWE for over a decade. The match wasn’t incredible, but it was still good, and better than people like me thought it was going to be, and it established Rousey as a huge face of WWE’s women’s division.

Rousey was set to compete against Becky Lynch at Survivor Series, but unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately, if you look at the larger picture) Nia Jax broke Lynch’s nose and Charlotte Flair was swapped in instead. This lead to what I believe to be Rousey’s best one-on-one match she ever had in WWE. It told a brilliant story with some brilliant wrestling, and the DQ finish only built the desire to see the match happen again later down the line.

From November through until March Rousey tore through the Raw women’s division. She put away Mickie James, Natalya, Nia Jax, Ruby Riott & Dana Brooke in matches that weren’t a huge deal, but were a lot of fun. She also had some featured matches with both Sasha Banks & Bayley, both of which told extremely compelling stories and were a joy to watch.

Finally, there was the climax to her story, Wrestlemania 35. The build was flawed, but none of that was Rousey’s fault, and even though there were flaws, I still thought it was really cool, and a lot of fun. She took the loss and passed her title onto Becky Lynch in a Wrestlemania moment that will live on in time immemorial. The first women’s match to ever main event a Wrestlemania is a huge deal, and Ronda Rousey was a huge part of what made that possible. Not just through her name value, but through the work, she put in over her 8 months as champion to build up an aura of an untouchable badass, butting heads with a cool character like Becky Lynch to create lightning in a bottle.

2 – Bayley

Number of Reigns: Raw – 1; Smackdown – 2
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 75; Smackdown – 520

For the longest time, Bayley seemed like a hopeless case on the main roster. After being easily the biggest star the NXT women’s division had ever produced up until that point, Bayley absolutely floundered for her first couple of years on Raw.

Her first title win came and went in a flash. It held some good moments but is sadly only remembered for the bad. Beating Charlotte Flair on an episode of Raw in early February, Bayley defended the title on two occasions. The first was a rematch against Charlotte which is barely worth talking about, while the second was at Wrestlemania 33 in 4 way match against Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Nia Jax. The Wrestlemania match was fine, but it was far from the best thing on the show, so it’s sadly been forgotten by history. Then, before we knew it, Bayley had lost the title to Alexa Bliss. Then, in the rematch, Bayley lost again because she was scared of a stick. I’m never letting that go…unlike how Bayley let go of the stick.

For the rest of 2017 and all of 2018, nothing interesting happened with Bayley. The only thing I even vaguely remember from that time was Bayley screaming “You ain’t shit!” in Sasha Banks’ face, and then going to couples therapy with her. 2019 is when things started to turn around. Her & Banks became the first-ever WWE Women’s Tag Team titles…and then lost them a couple of months later. This wasn’t a good thing, but it turned into a great moment for Bayley just one month later at Money in the Bank, where she won the titular briefcase.

Bayley cashed-in that briefcase mere hours later, taking advantage of a worn-out Charlotte and crowned herself Smackdown Women’s Champion, and getting wildly cheered by the audience for the first time in ages. Bayley took that momentum and ran with it. Her face persona suddenly felt renewed and she capitalized on it by reigniting her old feud with Alexa Bliss, this time coming out on top. She defended the title again against Ember Moon at Summerslam, then again against Charlotte at Clash of Champions. Then, things looked like they were going to get a lot worse. In yet another rematch with Charlotte at Hell in a Cell, Bayley lost and was without a title once again…

…for 5 days.

To the shock & relief of many, Bayley regained the championship from Charlotte on Smackdown. However, that wasn’t all. She also turned heel for the first time in her WWE career. Helped by old friend Sasha Banks, the two of them thoroughly beat the shit out of Charlotte and began the most incredible run of Bayley’s career. Alongside Sasha Banks, Bayley created a heel persona that has been wildly entertaining to watch for almost a year now. Dubbing herself a role model and acting like an annoying school-yard bully (in the best way possible), Bayley has beaten everyone there is to beat.

Not only did she tear through ever women on the Smackdown women’s roster over a year, but she even went over to Raw and beat their champion while she was at it. She added to her collection by regaining the Women’s Tag Team Championships and helped Sasha Banks win (and then lose) the Raw Women’s Championship. Her sudden but inevitable betrayal of Sasha Banks came at the start of the Autumn, which led to her losing her title at Hell in a Cell, in one of the best matches on the show.

To put it simply, Bayley has been second only to Becky Lynch over the past year on WWE TV, and after Lynch left in the spring, she stepped up and proved that she could carry the entire company on her own if she needed to. For so long it seemed as if all hope was lost with Bayley, but the past year of her career has undone all of the damage and then some. She tore down every barrier in her way and created really entertaining television along the way, what more could you ask for?

1 – Becky Lynch

Number of Reigns: Raw – 1; Smackdown – 3
Total Days as Champion: Raw – 398; Smackdown – 216

A lot of times with these lists, I try to avoid the ‘obvious’ number 1 pick. I try to give a new perspective and offer a view you might not have considered. However, there’s absolutely no way I could argue anyone being ranked higher on this list than Lynch. When you look at the pure facts, there’s a pretty clear parallel to be drawn between Lynch & Bayley’s career paths. Starting out with a lot of lows, but eventually reaching incredible highs. What separates them is the fact that Lynch’s highs were so, SO much higher.

Becky’s first run at the gold wasn’t anything worth talking about. While she always can lay claim to being the first-ever Smackdown Women’s Champion, she only successfully defended the title once in that reign, and it wasn’t even on Pay-Per-View. Lynch lost the title to Alexa Bliss in 2016, and for almost two years, there was nothing worth talking about in regards to Becky Lynch.

2018 rolled around and it seemed like things weren’t going to turn around for her anytime soon. Then, on Smackdown she started winning on a fairly regular basis. She wasn’t involved in any major storylines, but she was having good-great matches and winning week in and week out, and the fans took notice. In the build to Summerslam 2018, Lynch was announced as Carmella’s opponents and people were very excited to see Lynch inevitably be crowned champion. Then Charlotte returned suddenly and was thrust into the match. People were not happy about this, but it would surely be ok as long as Becky still won, right?

Charlotte won…oh dear.

After the match is when history was made, as Becky Lynch attacked Charlotte in what was supposed to be a heel turn (no matter what Road Dogg claims). However, it was met by mammoth cheers from the crowds, who were sick of Charlotte ‘being shoved down their throats’ (even though, as we’ve already covered, she wasn’t, but that’s not the point). Becky completely transformed her look & persona into that of an absolute badass and people loved it, no matter how much she tried to insult them.

Lynch eventually won the title back from Charlotte. She would then successfully defend the title against Charlotte…three times in a row. It got a bit tedious after a while, but the matches were almost always great, especially their Last Woman Standing match at Evolution, which was a far better match than I gave it credit for at the time. During this reign, Lynch would continue to build her persona and get more and more over with the audience, but she was yet to reach her peak.

In the build to Survivor Series that year, Lynch was gearing up to fight Ronda Rousey in a champion vs champion match that everyone was very excited for. Here is where Lynch reached the white-hot level that she would maintain for the next 6-months or so. Lynch tore into Rousey at every available opportunity and could banter with the best of them. Lynch would school Rousey on the daily over on Twitter, and the pops just kept getting bigger and bigger. In a cruel twist of fate, however, we never got to see that match. A stray punch from Nia Jax broke Becky’s nose and caused her to have to pull out of the event, however, it would turn into a blessing in disguise, as the image of Becky standing up in the rafters, standing tall with a bloody face has lasted in the memory for a long time since.

Lynch was back in action very soon after Survivor Series and lost the Smackdown Women’s Championship to Asuka at TLC. However, there was no stopping Becky’s momentum by this point, especially with Wrestlemania 35 on the horizon. Lynch wasn’t just the most popular female wrestler in the company by this point, she was the single most popular wrestler, gender was irrelevant. She won the Royal Rumble that January in yet another epic moment for her career and the match was set between her & Ronda Rousey at Wrestlemania 35.

Then Charlotte showed up again.

The storyline in the build to this match wasn’t anywhere near as good as it could’ve been, but it was still great. Charlotte’s presence was unnecessary, but I don’t think it detracted too heavily from what was going on. In the end, that match would become the main event of Wrestlemania 35, and while I put a huge chunk of the credit for that on Rousey’s involvement, Becky Lynch was the wrestler who put that epic story on the table. So it was done, and Lynch walked out of Wrestlemania that year with BOTH the Raw & Smackdown Women’s Championships over her shoulders.

The next year belonged to Becky Lynch. She lost the Smackdown Women’s Championship fairly quickly, but she held onto the Raw Women’s Championship for very nearly 400 days and did loads of great things in that time. She had a feud with Lacey Evans that put Evans on the map, had a feud with Sasha Banks that re-established Sasha as one of the best, and had an extended feud with Asuka that made for rivetting TV. Even though she had to vacate the title, how she did it was still extremely memorable, announcing her pregnancy before passing the title on to Asuka.

Lynch has become a truly iconic wrestler over the past couple of years, giving us some incredible memories along the way. Whenever she returns (if she decides to do so) I’m sure her star will only rise even further with more amazing moments & matches.

And there you have it! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this list. Please, let me know what you think of these women’s title reigns, either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo. Finally, make sure to come back here this time next Saturday, where I’ll be covering WWE Survivor Series!

11 – Jon Moxley(c) vs Eddie Kingston – Full Gear(AEW World Championship)(I Quit)

10 – The Elite & Matt Hardy vs The Inner Circle – Double or Nothing(Stadium Stampede)

9 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Adam Page(c) vs FTR – All Out(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

8 – Jon Moxley(c) vs MJF – All Out(AEW World Championship)

7 – PAC vs Orange Cassidy – Revolution

6 – Kenny Omega vs Hangman Adam Page – Full Gear(Winner becomes #1 contender for the AEW World Championship)

5 – Nyla Rose(c) vs Hikaru Shida – Double or Nothing(AEW Women’s World Championship)(No Holds Barred)

4 – Cody Rhodes(c) vs Darby Allin – Full Gear(TNT Championship)

3 – Chris Jericho(c) vs Jon Moxley – Revolution(AEW World Championship)

2 – FTR(c) vs The Young Bucks – Full Gear(AEW World Tag Team Championships)

1 – Kenny Omega & Hangman Page(c) vs The Young Bucks – Revolution(AEW World Tag Team Championships)