Becky Lynch v Bianca Belair (Wrestlemania 38, 4/2/22)
I thought this was fucking tremendous and honestly, maybe the best women's match in company history. Becky was so good in this. Last year I actually watched a Bianca v Doudrop match from an early 2022 RAW and Becky was on commentary, and even from that I thought her freshly-turned heel character seemed really fun. While that run Becky went on in 2018 where she got red hot leading to winning the belt at 'Mania was very cool, I was always pretty whatever on her in the ring and eventually the distaff Conor McGregor shtick wore thin. I do not know what precipitated this turn and the change in look but all of it landed great on the night. She comes out in a white Escalade and has the big shades and ridiculous eye shadow and the new hair and she looks like something from Cyberpunk 2077. As far as looks go it was pretty awesome. I knew what had happened at the previous Summerslam when she won the belt off Bianca in like 20 seconds. I didn't know who won this one though, so when she hit the chokeslam right at the start I bought them actually doing it again. The crowd absolutely did as well and I think the fact it was midway through Night 1 and not a main event fed even further into it. If they're going to repeat a questionable booking decision for the shock factor then they'd be more likely to do it there than in the main, and I guess they're more likely to have the heel champ retain in the middle of the show. So they used a booking call that got slated before and teased it happening again at a perfect moment. It was a great way to start out and really they never looked back from there. Becky was channelling Randy Savage at points with how hectic and desperate she worked. I don't even know how many pin attempts she made in the first few minutes but she wanted the match over EARLY and after a while she was about pulling her hair out. WWE - or maybe modern wrestling promotions in general? - are all about wrestlers showing ANGST and self-doubt after a nearfall or big kick, out and while Becky doing it within 30 seconds was kind of stupid it did at least feed into her character portrayal on the night. She also was not the least bit interested in letting Bianca build momentum and use any of her athleticism, but of course there were times where she couldn't outright stop it and Bianca would do something awesome like the middle rope 450. When Bianca did inevitably go on a run I thought Becky was great again at showing desperation to halt her any way she could. At one point that meant rolling out the ring after the KOD, then literally rolling all the way across the ring and out the other side after Bianca threw her back in the first time. The part where Becky dragged Belair out the ring by the braid, used it to yank her into the post and then follow up with the Manhandle Slam on the steps was fucking amazing. Even some of the sloppy moments came off well, like Becky's legdrop while Bianca was draped over the ropes just because of how Bianca wound up landing, and then of course Becky's middle rope senton that she undershot and turned into a koppu kick that about caved Bianca's face in. The finish was what it needed to be to remove the stain of Summerslam, and if beating Sasha the previous year was her ticket into the club then this was her taking the thing over. I haven't followed WWE much at all in recent years so I had no real expectations for this, but it snuck up on me in a big way.
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