I made a conscious decision not to give the World Heavyweight Championship or Universal Championship their own posts in this series because I (correctly) consider the WWE Championship to be the actual marquee title in WWE. But considering I enjoyed watching all the joshi title lineages I just ran through and considering that the WWE Women’s Championships often headline shows (and considering the secrets I sprinkled throughout certain WWE Championship lineage reviews), I’m doing posts on both of them.
I’m starting things off in 2016. The WWF Women’s Championship and the WWE Diva’s Championship were never even what I would consider midcard titles. Yes, the Women’s Championship main evented two episodes of Raw (in 2000 and 2004), but even then the divisions were made primarily of women who couldn’t work and weren’t really being trained to work. But in the ’10s, some women who were being hired could work and wanted to work. And down in NXT, they were being trained to put on real matches. So when those trainees started being called up to the main roster, WWE decided that the Divas were now going to be called Superstars just like the boys, and their title would be rebooted so as to be taken more seriously.
April 3, 2016 – Arlington, Texas
Charlotte def. Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch {WWE Women’s Championship Triple Threat Match}
From WrestleMania 32. Charlotte hands over the Diva’s Championship (the title that was originally going to be defended in this match) for the final time. Earlier in the night, Lita announced that the new WWE Women’s Championship would begin here. I think it’s pretty neat that this title was birthed in front of the largest wrestling crowd ever. And the match was good, though chaotic to the point that it was hard to get invested in either Lynch or Banks beating the dastardly Charlotte. In the end, Charlotte made Lynch submit to the Figure 8 at 16:01 while Ric Flair held Banks back from stopping it from happening. One thing is for sure, it was worlds better than the main event match for the men’s championship. ***½
July 25, 2016 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Sasha Banks def. Charlotte {WWE Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,209. Banks made Charlotte tap out in a tag match the night before. In this match she stiffed the crap out of Charlotte with dropkicks. She also pulled some Eddie Guerrero-style lying to get the referee to get Charlotte’s cornerwoman Dana Brooke sent to the back. She also almost smashed her face on a super jump. I always people’s concern trolling over Banks’s dives was overblown, but that dive was pretty scary. I liked that as the match wore on Charlotte’s inability to put Banks away made her frustrated, desperate, and exceedingly far away from retaining. Charlotte screamed and rushed at Banks, allowing Banks to put on the Bank Statement for the win at 13:52 (shown of 16:52). ***¾
August 21, 2016 – Brooklyn, New York
Charlotte def. Sasha Banks {WWE Women’s Championship Match}
From the 29th SummerSlam. Also on this show was the first ever
Universal Championship
match because WWE brought back the Brand Extension and made the WWE Championship exclusive to Smackdown. Also because of that, they introduced a Smackdown Women’s Championship two days after this and renamed this title for Raw. This time around, Banks’s near neck injury comes because Charlotte drops her in a weird way in the corner. Lay off of Banks’s neck, ladies! This one didn’t work for me. It was sloppy to start and then built around a few big spots with little in between them. Weirdly, it felt like a TV version of the better TV match they had in July. Charlotte countered the Bank Statement to a pin for the win at 13:51. ***
October 3, 2016 – Los Angeles, California
Sasha Banks def. Charlotte {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,219. Here we have the first time this title changed hands in a main event, but far from the last. It was also the first women’s main event in over a decade. This was another mixed bag. On the one hand they had a great power vs. technique dynamic going. On another it was clear that they had every beat meticulously planned, but didn’t execute every beat particularly well. It’s not exactly Kings Road style to simply build each subsequent finish off of the one in their previous match when it’s as basic as the way these two do it. Still, I appreciate that they’re trying it out. Here, Banks kicks out of Charlotte’s Banks’s Statement reversal pin and keeps the hold on for the win at 10:49. ***
October 30, 2016 – Boston, Massachusetts
Charlotte Flair def. Sasha Banks {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Hell in a Cell Match}
From the eighth Hell in a Cell. The Raw main event was well-received, so we get the first ever main roster women’s PPV main event here. It’s also the first ever women’s Hell in a Cell match. The WWE and/or World Heavyweight Championship had only changed hands in the Cell three times before this, and two of those three matches were pretty lame. But I come to this match with an open mind mostly because the first few minutes are amazing. Flair attacks Banks before the Cell is all the way down, beats her up around ringside, and powerbombs her off the side of the Cell and through the announce table. In the touch I love the most, Flair is announced the winner by forfeit when Banks is being carted away on a stretcher. In so many WWE matches the referee will stop the action and let a seemingly injured wrestler recuperate, but the commentators never mention that if that person is a champion that they will lose their title by forfeit if they can’t continue. Anyway, that announcement gets Banks off the stretcher and back in the match. The rest of the match was dope too. They used the cage plenty, and in ways that made sense. In the end, Banks’s back gave when when going for a powerbomb, so Flair threw her onto a table twice and then hit her with the Natural Selection for the win at 21:59. I don’t know if that table was meant to break, but the finish worked either way. I’m writing this in June of 2021, just before the 2021 Hell in a Cell PPV. I don’t know if any titles will change hands on that show but as it stands now, Banks is responsible for 66% of the good matches that featured title changes in the Cell. ****½
November 28, 2021 – Charlotte, North Carolina
Sasha Banks def. Charlotte Flair {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Falls Count Anywhere Match}
From Raw 1,227. Back in the main event. It’s kind of wild to think how a Raw main event featuring women is something you don’t even notice anymore, given how recently it was a really big deal. This match started in the middle of the show and was billed as the final confrontation in this rivalry. But then Flair won in like four minutes by count out and Authority Figure Mick Foley decided to book this stipulation in the main event to give everyone a satisfying ending. And what we got was satisfying. It was a walk n’ brawl, but a well-planned one that never seemed pointless and was always easy to see (props to the production crew). Banks wedged Flair between bars on a hand railing and made her tap to the Bank Statement there at 13:02 (shown). Ric Flair celebrated with Banks after the match, though I’m watching these out of context so I don’t know why it’s happening. ***¾
December 18, 2021 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Charlotte Flair def. Sasha Banks {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Ironman Match}
From Roadblock: End of the Line. So, there was nothing wrong with this match. It only felt like they were stalling for time for the first five minutes, and you can absolutely consider that part of both of their strategies for lasting in what will be the longest matches of their careers to date (or tied for longest in Banks’s case). Charlotte gets two points off of an avalanche Natural Selection and the Figure 8, while Banks gets two falls off of roll up and the Bank Statement. Therein lies the issue though. The score was very close the whole match, so there was no reason for the crowd to rally behind Banks. In fact, Banks was up and all she had to do was stay ahead. So when she tapped to the Figure 8 with two seconds to go, it made her look like an idiot. Anyway, they decide there will be a sudden death overtime. On commentary, Michael Cole says that usually the tie would go to the champion, but there’s literally zero precedent for that ever happening in WWE, while there is precedent for a sudden death overtime in the case of a tie. So fuck off with your ahistorical nonsense when NONE WAS NECESSARY because you’re doing the overtime anyway! God damn this company is so annoying so much of the time. The overtime made this even more frustrating because Banks tapped to the Figure 8 again at 34:45 (total match time). Imagine how much more impactful that would have been had they had Flair win her second standard-time fall with anything over than the Figure 8, and then had Banks tough it out in that hold until the time limit expired. Then, her bloody-faced tapping to the hold in overtime would have been even more tragic. Blah, this was super frustrating even though both wrestlers tried hard. It just was structured very stupidly. And this is for real the end of the feud, as Banks was told she would get no opportunity for a rematch. ***¼
February 13, 2017 – Paradise, Nevada
Bayley def. Charlotte Flair {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,238. This is the last time I’m going to mention it, but this was the main event again. Actually, I’ll probably mention it when it’s a PPV main event. This match was terrific. Flair was channeling her father more than usual, strutting before hitting a kneedrop and skinning the cat to get to the apron. In response, Bayley channeled a lot of the senior Flair’s contemporaries, Hulking up and hitting Randy Savage’s elbowdrop. Most importantly, Bayley looked like she was having the time of her life out there. I could have done without the interference at the end, with Brooke attacking Bayley and Banks doing the same to Flair. Actually, had it been only Brooke attacking Bayley it would have worked fine for me because it would have been the challenger overcoming immense odds. The Banks interference worked in that it made the crowd insane, which reminded me of Steve Austin helping Mankind win his first championship. After Banks hit Flair with a crutch, Bayley hit Flair with the Bayley to Belly for the win at 14:33 (shown). ****¼
April 30, 2017 – San Jose, California
Alexa Bliss def. Bayley {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the fifth Payback. This took a while to get going, and while it did eventually get going the match was so short that it wasn’t in that second gear for very long. Bliss shoved Bayley’s head into the post and then hit a DDT for the win at 11:13. After a year of layered, engaging title changes, it was a bummer to see Bliss take it in what was essentially a TV match. Was I meant to assume that Bayley lost because of the rotten luck that saw her hit her head on the post? Because she fought through a lot more than this to beat Flair. Bliss became the first person to have held both the Smackdown and Raw Championships with this win. If I were in charge I probably wouldn’t have booked that to happen so soon after these titles were established, and I likely would have made it a bigger deal. **¾
August 20, 2017 – Brooklyn, New York
Sasha Banks def. Alexa Bliss {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the 30th SummerSlam. This was a step up from the Bayley match, as Bliss had to dig deeper into her cheating repertoire to keep up with Banks. That said, I don’t understand the finish. Bliss had seemingly neutralized Banks’s arm enough to be able to force her way out of the Banks Statement, but then Banks just reapplied it immediately and Bliss was suddenly unable to stop it? Why? Give me a reason! The submission happened at 13:08. ***
August 28, 2017 – Memphis, Tennessee
Alexa Bliss def. Sasha Banks {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,266. I don’t understand why this happened. So Banks had the title for one week and then Bliss just beats her clean to regain the title? Why have Banks beat her at all? Nia Jax turning on Bliss after the match would have worked to the exact same extent had Bliss never lost the belt. The match itself was solid, on par if maybe a little more interesting than the SummerSlam match. The finish came out of nowhere, as Bliss hit her Evenflow DDT on Banks for the win at 10:32 (shown of 14:03). It was even more abrupt than her win over Bayley, so split the difference I guess. But yeah the one week swap is irritating because had they not done it and then had Jax beat Bliss at Mania (which they did anyway), then Jax would have been ending a nearly year-long reign. So weird! ***
April 8, 2018 – New Orleans, Louisiana
Nia Jax def. Alexa Bliss {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From WrestleMania 34. Bliss had Mickey James in her corner, so Jax took James out before the match. Shockingly, this was technically a good match. Bliss was better and meaner, but Jax was bigger and in the end inevitable. My only problem with this match is that Jax does not have a likeable personality or an interesting stage presence, so it was impossible to get emotionally invested in her journey to defeat her crappy, bullying former friend. But as I said, the action all made sense as Bliss repeatedly attacked Jax’s legs and eyes to even the playing field. That made for action I could get behind. Jax hit an avalanche Samoan Drop for the win at 10:15. I’d say it was better out of context because I didn’t care about Jax not getting a satisfying quick win, but again because Jax isn’t very likeable I don’t think wrecking Bliss would have been the thing to get her over. ***¼
June 17, 2018 – Rosemont, Illinois
Alexa Bliss def. Nia Jax {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the ninth Money in the Bank. The deal here is that Jax just barely survived a match against Ronda Rousey, who had been tearing through the roster on her inevitable path to the title. Bliss ran in and attacked Rousey with the Money in the Bank briefcase that she’d won earlier in the night, drawing a disqualification or a no-contest or who even really cares? This is the exact scenario where the heel waiting until the end of a match to interfere makes sense, as she wanted Rousey to soften up Jax so that when she cashed in the briefcase it’d be easy to win. And It was easy. She hit Jax with the briefcase before the match started, then hit the DDT and the Twisted Bliss for the win in 33 seconds. N/A
August 19, 2018 – Brooklyn, New York
Ronda Rousey def. Alexa Bliss {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the 31st SummerSlam. This is the squash you’re looking for. Bliss got in basically no offense, except for when Rousey let her do it and no-sold it. And since Rousey was actually over, she was the right person to blitz Bliss. And isn’t it more satisfying to see it since Jax wasn’t also able to do that. Rousey put on her armbar for the win at 4:39. Not much of a match, but the right thing to do at the right time. **
April 7, 2019 – East Rutherford, New Jersey
Becky Lynch def. Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair {WWE Raw Women’s Championship vs. WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship Triple Threat Match}
From WrestleMania 35. The main event of WrestleMania 35. Pretty cool. Flair landed at the arena in a helicopter as part of her entrance, but it took her so long to get from the helicopter to the ramp that it felt disconnected and kinda dumb. She came into this match as the Smackdown champ. In mid-2018, Lynch got herself over as a sort of Steve Austin no bullshit character. She won the Royal Rumble (“impromptu” taking the place of an injured Lana). Her momentum was undeniable enough that she made her entrance after both champions. By winning the fall, she won both titles. This match had two flaws. The first was that it came at the end of a six-hour show. The fans were exhausted after all that, and specifically after just having sat through a plodding brawl between over-the-hill Triple H and Batista. The second was the finish was goofed, as Rousey’s shoulders popped up and the fans were confused until Lynch’s music started playing. Those two things made for a lifeless crowd. That said, this was a lot better than I remembered from watching it two years ago. There were plenty of cool spots involving all three women and they never felt choreographed. In fact, the match was a rare case in WWE of it looking like everyone involved was fighting out of desperation; it didn’t at all feel as though all of the sequences were planned. Rousey and Flair played different shades of overconfident narcissist, while Lynch just kept plugging away until the opportunity to win presented itself. And where it presented itself was very cool. Flair had gone after Rousey’s leg rather viciously. So when Rousey tries to lift up Lynch for her swinging slam, Lynch took advantage of Rousey’s leg buckling and countered to a crucifix pin for the win at 21:33. This one is worth a revisit. ***¾
May 10, 2020 – Stamford, Connecticut
Asuka def. Carmella, Dana Brooke, Lacey Evans, Nia Jax, and Shayna Baszler {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Money in the Bank Ladder Match}
From the 11th Money in the Bank. This is a weird one for a lot of reasons. First, it technically wasn’t for the Raw Women’s Championship but rather for the Money in the Bank briefcase. At the time of this match, Lynch was still champion. But the next night on Raw, Lynch revealed that the title was in the briefcase and the match had been for the championship. Why? Because she was pregnant and had to vacate the title after 13 months as champion. She had lost the Smackdown title only a month after winning it. The other reason this match was weird was because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the viral outbreak, there were no fans allowed at sporting events/wrestling shows. Around this time, WWE mostly did empty arena shows in silence, later adding fans on LED screens and fake crowd noise. But they also experimented with cinematic matches. And for Money in the Bank they had the wrestlers battle from the lobby to the roof of WWE Headquarters. Both the men’s and women’s matches happened simultaneously, sometimes interacting with each other. Lame, royalty free songs play throughout the match, all sounding like different kinds of muzak. The segments with the women are almost entirely straightforward bad brawling. There’s one excruciatingly unfunny and awkward bit with Stephanie McMahon lecturing Brooke where McMahon was clearly filmed somewhere else. I remember the men’s portion having one relatively funny bit with Vince McMahon, but the women’s side had no such luck. Asuka fought off Evans and Jax (and also Baron Corbin, who was in the men’s match, which didn’t make sense because they could have just grabbed their separate briefcases at the same time) to win the match at 21:43 (bell-to-bell time. There was only 11:52 of footage of the women fighting). At the time I remember being unoffended by this, but watching it over again it’s a total disaster. But not a funny disaster, just a boring, misguided one. ½*
July 20, 2020 – Orlando, Florida
Sasha Banks def. Asuka {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,418. A week early at the Horror Show at Extreme Rules (ugh). Bayley cosplayed a referee and counted the pin for Banks over Asuka in a title match. That didn’t count for anything, but Banks was in possession of Asuka’s belt going into this. Weirdly, Asuka isn’t announced as the champion during ring introductions. Whoops. The title could change hands on a disqualification or count out, and if Bayley or Kairi Sane interfered then their partner would lose the match. I’m not sure what the logic was meant to be behind tipping the balance of the match in Banks’s favor after she was the one dicking around at the PPV, but this is how WWE booked a wrestling feud during an apocalypse. This was during a period I forgot about when a handful of Performance Center wrestlers were maked up in the crowd to make a little noise during the matches. The match was solid, but the finish was such bunk it’s hard for me not to be harsh on the whole thing reactively. Asuka was getting Banks into the Asuka Lock when the big screen showed Bayley beating up Sane in the back. Sane screamed for Asuka, so Asuka ran away and lost the title by count out at 16:53. I could have sworn that Bayley was a professional wrestler, who you think could hold her own against one other wrestler in a fight and not cry out while her partner is in the middle of something important. That finish is real bad. People were very kind to this at the time, but I think they were just starved for anything resembling a good match in the face of the industry falling apart. ***
August 23, 2020 – Orlando, Florida
Asuka def. Sasha Banks {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the 33rd SummerSlam. Now we’re in the Thunderdome with the fans on screens and the fake fan voices making this feel a bit more normal. Earlier in the night, Asuka had also gotten a shot at Bayley’s Smackdown Women’s Championship and lost, in part thanks to Banks. But she won here, even though Bayley tried to help Banks. This was exactly as long as it needed to be and every moment was filled with good action. I liked how seamlessly Asuka countered the Bank Statement to the Asuka Lock. Not having her submission be effective allowed Asuka to bait Banks to the top and then avoid the frog splash and cause Banks to splatter on the mat. Asuka won with the Asuka Lock at 11:30. ***½
Asuka held the title from SummerSlam through to WrestleMania 37. But that show happened in 2021, and my ongoing reviews end at the end of 2020. So you’ll just have to check out my 2021 catch up reviews to see how the reign ended.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
