2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Sasha v. Charlotte

11. Sasha Banks v. Charlotte WWE Raw 7/25

ER: Excellently paced, well worked match that most importantly felt like a title match, and felt like an *important* title match. Sasha going for the kill with the Banks Statement right out of the gate, and the entire match, was great, and Charlotte really looked like she was going to be snapped straight in half in that thing. The backcracker into Banks Statement is something that I actually really love. It could come off super indy or cooperative, but Sasha has a sorta of...not smooth (don't really want to say sloppy as I don't think that's necessarily it, but "raw" doesn't feel right either) execution of stuff and I always think it adds to things. Makes her stuff feel a bit more struggly. With the recent revelation that so many current WWE women were inspired by Lita, it's only appropriate that in her biggest Raw showcase Sasha decided to pay tribute to Lita by almost breaking her neck on a dive on Raw against a dominant blonde champ. Sasha bumps crazy into the barrier off a Charlotte kick, I loved the Dana Brooke trick and Sasha hiding her bye bye wave from the ref, thought Charlotte set up Sasha to look killer throughout the whole thing. Really selfless performance from Charlotte, made Sasha look like an extremely deserving champ, and this was just a wonderful women's match (the night after two other women's matches I really really enjoyed. We're on a hot streak!).

PAS: WWE is kind of mess right now, but they can still occasionally put together a match that feels important in the way that few other wrestling matches can. Having this match given such a focus an so much time on a big RAW like this might make this the most meaningful women's match since Wendi Richter v. Lelani Kai. The work was excellent too, both Banks and Charlotte can work this kind of produced big match epic well, the crowd cares about Banks and this was a shockingly good babyface performance from someone who I thought needed to be a hell. Charlotte is pretty green but she went above and beyond to make Sasha look awesome, including trying that nutso moonsault and using every bit of her flexibility to make the submissions look super nasty. Even little production changes like post match interviews and no ringside announcers freshen up RAW so much.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST