One WWE Match You MUST Watch From Every Year 1984-2024
6. 2018 - Becky Lynch Vs Charlotte Flair, Evolution
Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair weren’t afforded the main event of Evolution 2018, but they worked this instant classic Last Woman Standing match with the knowledge that they deserved the spot.
On the night, the headline attraction was a Ronda Rousey/Nikki Bella contest that was itself an impressive over-delivery. It was star-laden, agented to perfection and found both women in the sort of form they’d never reach again. In contrast, Lynch and Flair had spent three years maintaining a level almost unlike any female wrestlers in company history not counting their fellow horsewomen Sasha Banks and Bayley, and fellow NXT unstoppable force Asuka. The bright lights were on Rousey and Bella, but the performance pressure lay with the “veterans”, and ‘The Man’ and ‘The Queen’ more than lived up to the billing.
Six months of compromises and comedowns for Becky in particular followed before both shared a WrestleMania stage with ‘The Baddest Woman On The Planet’, but this was proof when none were needed that they belonged in the spots just as much - if not more - than one of the world’s most famous combat athletes.
Battled on the cusp of Lynch hitting peak popularity, she was but a broken face from megastardom, and wrestled every brutal second of this with the infallible energy of a worker headed for the very top. Flair had lived the life so long that it actually informed her rival’s ascent, but similarly seemed fired up to cling on as long as possible. Considering these very real stakes set to some very real-feeling violence elevated the match to rarified air for a WWE plunder brawl. Only during a Survivor Series 2021 match would the two capture such venom, and that had the tragedy of their real-life falling out as a backdrop. For this to feel equal in its animosity from first second to last was a credit to the work.