10 Most Important Matches In Modern Wrestling History
7. Bayley Vs. Sasha Banks - NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn
Bayley Vs. Sasha Banks was one of the best matches of the 2010s.
It stole the show on NXT's debut in the big time of the Barclays Center, establishing the TakeOver brand as an arena-sized concern. Kevin Owens Vs. Finn Bálor was very good, but Bayley Vs. Sasha, the true main event, was special. This match launched Paul Levesque as a booker and a promoter. He should send Bayley and Sasha fruit baskets for the rest of his life.
As a match in and of itself, it was spectacular - a timeless study in character contrast. Sasha looked like the coolest presence in company history making her entrance, and her nasty streak of violence added a vital sadistic edge to her arrogant cool heel persona.
The juxtaposition of Bayley's work underscored her credentials as the perfect working babyface: she was impossibly wholesome with a value system of pure goodness, but f*ck with her injured hand, and she'd drop you right on the f*cking dome.
If WWE's "Women's Revolution" rhetoric was always hollow, an exercise in optics, Bayley Vs. Sasha substantiated it. It was the first bonafide classic match in WWE's women's division, any era. Cora Jade has spoken of this match being her inspiration to become a wrestler. She's far from alone. Hell, Dr. Britt Baker is about the same age as Bayley and Sasha, she was in training when that Brooklyn match happened, and she cites that match as her inspiration, too.
To this day, many fans have never allowed WWE (nor AEW) to give up on women's wrestling and the parity that should have existed by now.
Does that happen if Bayley and Sasha did ugly heel heat and badass vengeance better than the men in 2015?