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SI<\/a>: Pro Wrestling Illustrated drops their Top-250 women wrestlers, topped off by Mercedes Mon\u00e9<\/span><\/p>\n I had to laugh when I saw this list, because not only do I disagree that Mercedes Mon\u00e9 isn\u2019t the #1 female wrestler this year, I barely think she\u2019s top-5, and mostly on account of industry impact and not necessarily strength of work.\u00a0 Also, I always love how whenever people make all-industry encompassing lists, there\u2019s always what seems like some forced integration of talents from promotions not in the Americas.<\/span><\/p>\n Obviously I can\u2019t speak for anyone but myself, but I have this suspicion that short of having infinite time on your hands, there aren\u2019t a lot of people who contribute to a North American publication are always up to the minute on all of the wrestling going on in AAA, CMLL, New Japan and in the case of this women\u2019s list, Stardom.<\/span><\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, any time I see Stardom highlights, they\u2019re incredible, they\u2019re intense, and Japanese women work with a level of stiffness that would make Fit Finley, Vader and Gunther wince and cringe while watching.\u00a0 Their level of in-ring work probably eclipses a lot of the women on PWI\u2019s or anyone\u2019s top-women workers lists, but the problem is that most people aren\u2019t on top of their product like they are with the mega promotions of the Americas, and I say all this to preface and cover the fact that when it comes to listing talent, I simply cannot factor them in, due to general unfamiliarity.<\/span><\/p>\n But if I were to make a top-5 or top-10 list, it all starts with Iyo Sky<\/strong>, whom not only is the best female wrestler of 2025 in my opinion, she\u2019s frankly the best wrestler in general throughout the calendar year.\u00a0 She\u2019s had incredible matches all year long with Rhea Ripley, Stephanie Vaquer, Naomi and Bianca Belair, and I\u2019m still hard pressed to think of a single match this year better than Iyo vs. Ripley at Evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n #2 is Toni Storm<\/strong>, because she\u2019s not only the hard carry of AEW\u2019s entire female roster, she\u2019s arguably the most entertaining talent they have on their entire roster outright.\u00a0 I know I get critical about AEW in general, but there\u2019s no questioning my love for Timeless Toni, and she\u2019s simply the greatest character to have emerged from that land of chaos.\u00a0 But the main reason I don\u2019t rank her above Iyo is that when it comes to in-ring work, Toni is nowhere close to Iyo\u2019s level.\u00a0 Which is ironic, because young Toni was an absolute technician in the ring, but over the years, she\u2019s clearly put way more work into her character, and less in the ring, and maybe it\u2019s just the general green-ness of AEW\u2019s women\u2019s roster, it\u2019s harder to find high quality matches that don\u2019t devolve too hard into props, weapons and gimmick, versus just straight great wrestling matches.<\/span><\/p>\n #3 goes to Stephanie Vaquer<\/strong> who had the year of all years, having won three* different championships throughout the calendar year.\u00a0 She\u2019s a counting stat monster, having won the NXT North American and NXT Women\u2019s championships, and then moving up to the main roster where she eventually won the WWE Women\u2019s World championship.\u00a0 She\u2019s also a master technician in the ring, and frankly in pure technical skill, she\u2019s probably better than Iyo, but she also hasn\u2019t been really tested into a real masterpiece, save for her match against Giulia in NXT.<\/span><\/p>\n *I don\u2019t count the blood money Saudi blet as a championship<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n #4 would be Rhea Ripley<\/strong>, for whom was the main reason why Iyo is #1, because it takes two to tango, and her and Iyo are basically one of this generation\u2019s rivalries that could be on the echelon of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock or Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat, because the two just have such nuclear chemistry where every time they get in the ring together, it\u2019s brilliance, regardless of if there\u2019s an extra player involved or not.\u00a0 Frankly, the only reason she\u2019s not higher is because she didn\u2019t get as many matches, and with talents like Vaquer which helped push Iyo over the top.<\/span><\/p>\n And #5 is where I\u2019d put Mercedes Mon\u00e9<\/strong>, and like I said, it\u2019s mostly on account of her impact on the business and not necessarily her strength in the ring.\u00a0 She\u2019s (still) horrible on the microphone, and staying on the train of AEW nerfing women\u2019s technical skill, her in-ring work in AEW is nowhere as clean as it was when she was still in the E.\u00a0 It\u2019s ironic that AEW keeps spamming the narrative that it\u2019s where the best wrestle, but that must apply to men only, because a lot of the women known for great talent, aren\u2019t having their best work under the Turner banner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, what Mercedes has been doing all year, touring the indies and getting out in the world and lighting fires, collecting blets not-withstanding, is unprecedented, and in a holistic sense, worth giving her some rank on a top-women\u2019s list.\u00a0 Bonus points for the rumored stories about how she\u2019s donating a ton of her independent bookings to local charities of the places she\u2019s touring, and despite my general critical skepticism of her, I do think she\u2019s doing a lot of good with her platform, albeit while obnoxiously leaning into the heel persona, but deserves does deserve respect.<\/span><\/p>\n #6-10, I would put rank, in this order: Athena, Tiffany Stratton, Asuka, Naomi, Becky Lynch.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Toni Storm might be the hard carry of the AEW women\u2019s division as far as presence and entertainment go, but Athena is honestly, the best pure wrestler that exists in the AEW\/ROH ecosystem.\u00a0 As far as my previous comment about how AEW nerfs talent, Athena has remained immune, and has demonstrated to have good, watchable matches with anyone she\u2019s been paired up with, and her match against a motivated Mercedes Mon\u00e9 is probably the AEW\/ROH women\u2019s match of the year as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u00a0 The endless ROH Women\u2019s champion might not have a large pool of talent to work with, but it\u2019s not just for lack of better options that she\u2019s been holding her title for nearly three straight years.<\/span><\/p>\n Tiffany Stratton, is one of those talents that as far as her character went, had a really quiet year in general.\u00a0 After winning the WWE Women\u2019s championship, cashing in on Nia Jax, she had one heated program with a 60%-ready Charlotte Flair for Wrestlemania, but really not much else throughout the rest of the year except repeated matches trying to carry Jade Cargill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I feel like one of the comps I think for Tiffy is that of Mr. Perfect, in the sense that her character work is still pretty uncomfortable and needs work, but once she steps into the ropes, she\u2019s a natural in the ring.\u00a0 She\u2019s managed to pull off respectable carry jobs on Cargill, and didn\u2019t get outclassed when in the ring with a master like Vaquer and frankly dropping the title in her fourth or fifth match to Cargill can only help her grow some more, now unburdened with the duty of having to be the champion.<\/span><\/p>\n As far as Asuka and Naomi rank for me, Asuka is very much someone on the upswing, having returned in the middle of the year, and has been one of the most entertaining and watchable character on television as she\u2019s working the heel sempai role to Kairi Sane and gaslighting Iyo Sky, and if she pulls this off for a whole calendar year, there\u2019s no doubt that she\u2019s a top-5 next year.<\/span><\/p>\n Naomi on the other hand, would have been an easy top-5, as her heel turn, Money in the Bank win and cash-in, and rise to the Women\u2019s World championship were all booked outstandingly, and she was really picking up steam and momentum to be the top female heel in the company, but ol\u2019 Big Jim decided to derail her career once again, and she\u2019s been knocked out of the ring for the next year on account of having gotten pregnant.\u00a0 I mean there\u2019s fewer better reasons to go on the shelf, but the unfortunate byproduct of it was that it happened right at the biggest push of her career.\u00a0 But if she can come back and pick up where she left off, there\u2019s little reason to believe that she couldn\u2019t get back to that upper tier.<\/span><\/p>\n And #10 I have to give to Becky Lynch, even in spite of how unpopular she is among the unwashed masses of the internet.\u00a0 Her character work has been upper-tier, playing the obnoxious, gaslighting heel, and her in-ring work will probably never be above a 6\/10, but she\u2019s one of the few workers, male or female, that still understands telling stories in the ring, working body parts and maximizing her skillset to work logical and digestible matches.\u00a0 But she\u2019s clearly accepting of what\u2019s asked of her at this current juncture, which is to remain in the mid card, elevate the Women\u2019s Intercontinental championship and bringing the best out of lesser talents, like her current endless feud with Maxxine Dupri.\u00a0 As much as the internet pretends to hate her and call her shit like Becky Hogan, I think she\u2019s a consummate professional and a team player and seems to be down and willing to do anything that is asked of her, and doing it well.\u00a0 She deserves better than what internet fans and PWI think of her.<\/span><\/p>\n The point to this whole diatribe is that PWI\u2019s women\u2019s rankings are dumb, and they clearly put way too much weight in Mercedes\u2019 blet count, and not nearly enough on the bodies of work and the impact of character development, ring talent and entertainment, and artificially injected some Stardom names to make them look worldly.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SI: Pro Wrestling Illustrated drops their Top-250 women wrestlers, topped off by Mercedes Mon\u00e9 I had to laugh when I saw this list, because not only do I disagree that Mercedes Mon\u00e9 isn\u2019t the #1 female wrestler this year, I barely think she\u2019s top-5, and mostly on account of industry impact and not necessarily strength … Continue reading PWI be drinking that blet kool-aid<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[100,83,156,54,55],"class_list":["post-50945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-comparison","tag-observations","tag-social-media","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50947,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50945\/revisions\/50947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}