10 Wrestling Grudges That Changed The Business

1. Sasha Banks Vs Bayley

Vince McMahon Jesse Ventura
WWE.com

Good Friends, Better Enemies was the legendary subheading of an In Your House with a legendary main event, but if Shawn Michaels and Diesel's wild No Holds Barred marked something coming to an end, Bayley and Sasha's 2015 classic (and fabulous sequel) proved to be the start of something special.

The road to total equality unfortunately remains a long and rocky one in pro wrestling, but never had North American women's wrestling felt so vital, on-the-pulse and game-changing as it did when 'The Hugger' and 'The Boss' went to war over the NXT Championship.

As with 'Big Daddy Cool' and 'HBK', Banks and Bayley were real life best friends, and the competitive and collaborative will to coax all-time displays out of each other became a staple of their iconic series. TakeOver: Brooklyn played host to a long-awaited title win for Bayley and a match that was firmly the most important of the 2010s for WWE. Fans tore the roof off SummerSlam's venue one night earlier before the show itself, and nothing topped it for the remainder of the weekend. An Iron Woman rematch the following month was yet more history made, and never had the chants been louder for this to be replicated everywhere across the company.

By WrestleMania 32 the following spring, the "Divas" division was dead and buried, with the Women's Championship reborn in the process. The three years that followed brought about an all-women's pay-per-view, overdue gimmick match inclusion across the calendar year, and a WrestleMania 35 main event.

It all started with the believable spark of hatred between two women that clearly loved their work.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett