In 2017, the women of WWE put on countless solid matches for the fans, but who were the top ten female superstars of the year?
At WrestleMania 32 in 2016, the Divas Championship was retired, and the following brand split in the summer gave the women of WWE two distinct championships to fight over. In 2017, those titles changed hands a few times, but the fans were able to watch even more title defenses at major pay per views.
It is difficult to narrow things down to a top ten list, because even though we’re just looking at the WWE, there’s so much talent on the roster. The likes of Nikki Cross, the Iconic Duo, and Mickie James failed to crack the top ten, but they deserve plenty of praise for having great years in their own right.
Only female superstars from Raw, SmackDown Live, and NXT were considered for this top ten list. The list isn’t based on kayfabe accomplishments, but wrestlers who were given more wins, segment time, and championship runs were given higher placement simply due to having more opportunities to shine. That’s why extremely talented wrestlers like, say, Bayley or Becky Lynch are ranked lower than they would be if this list were solely about overall ability.
10. Natalya
Natalya won the SmackDown Women’s Championship at SummerSlam, defeating Naomi for her first women’s championship. It was one of the year’s feel-good moments, and there’s no doubt that the victory was well-deserved. “Nattie” has been a bedrock in the women’s division for years as an exceptional technical wrestler who can work with anyone, and she most certainly paid her dues as a performer who was saddled with dreadful gimmicks in the past.
As a champion, Natalya put together her best work, finally solidifying a heel turn that some fans had a difficult time buying into. Natalya came across as a paranoid champion who would do anything to retain her title, particularly when matched up against the dominant Charlotte Flair.
She would finally drop the title to Charlotte on an episode of SmackDown Live before Survivor Series, and she played a key role in helping the fans buy into Charlotte as a babyface.
Prior to her run as as champion, Natalya had one of the best matches of the year against Nikki Bella in a “Falls Count Anywhere” match, which set up a feud involving John Cena, Nikki Bella, Maryse, and The Miz at WrestleMania 33. In fact, Natalya’s whole feud with Nikki was exceptionally entertaining, and it was a reminder that Natalya is more than just a “sound wrestler”.
9. Bayley
I still find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that the WWE have issues with getting Bayley over as a babyface, because she’s just so dang good. Her work in NXT was beyond fantastic, and she could have been much higher on this list if it weren’t for a botched feud with Alexa Bliss. That feud involved Bayley, a grown woman who has competed in some bad-ass matches in her career, being a afraid of a kendo stick. It also gave us the infamous “This Is Your Life” segment, featuring two random actors who fell in love with each other on screen and had nothing to do with a current wrestling storyline.
All of this atrocious booking led to Bayley being booed in Toronto, and Vince McMahon pretty much hit the panic button after that. Bayley has only made sporadic appearances on TV since then and hasn’t been in any major storylines.
That said, they kind of did this with Bayley in the past, because she took a backseat to Charlotte and Sasha Banks during that feud at the end of 2016. After Charlotte and Sasha finished feuding over the Raw Women’s Championship, Bayley entered the title picture in early 2017. Although she ended Charlotte’s undefeated PPV streak at Fastlane in unclean fashion, it was still a big moment. Bayley also retained the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 33 in a great Fatal Four-Way contest.
But it was her championship victory over Charlotte on Raw that received plaudits and for very good reason. After Asuka vs. Ember Moon at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III, it was probably the best women’s match in WWE in 2017. As a matter of fact, WWE ranked the Feb. 13 battle as the 21st-best match of the year.
Bayley also had a strong match at Payback against Alexa Bliss when she dropped the Raw Women’s Championship, and even in a down year, she’s still proven that she is easily one of the best female workers in the company.
8. Becky Lynch
Since the Six-Pack Challenge for the SmackDown Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 33, Becky Lynch hasn’t been involved in a title match and has been arguably the most under-utilized wrestler on the entire roster in 2017. So the fact that she even makes it on this list is a testament to her ability to get the most out of every single segment.
From cutting heartfelt backstage promos to sipping tea with Charlotte to beating up James Ellsworth to being the Survivor Series team captain, Becky Lynch has made all the little moments matter. She continues to receive noticeable pops on television, and fans were legitimately pissed when she was the first wrestler eliminated in the Survivor Series five-on-five elimination match.
Lynch hasn’t been in a real singles feud since losing her final opportunity at Bliss’s title in a steel cage match on SmackDown Live at the beginning of the year. Yet she remains relevant on SmackDown, and who can forget how well she sold a beating from the Riott Squad before leaving to film the Marine 6?
Further, her battles with Ellsworth and Carmella both on screen and on Twitter were exceptional. Lynch might be the most underrated promo in the WWE today, because even though she’s a straight-up babyface, she’s also able to project genuine passion in her promos. She has an extra layer of drive and courageousness in her character, and maybe the WWE could apply some of what works for Lynch to Bayley.
7. Carmella
There’s simply no way to defend the WWE’s decision to have James Ellsworth climb up the ladder to capture the first ever women’s Money in the Bank briefcase on Carmella’s behalf, but I have to give Carmella plenty of credit for doing her best to soak up all of the heat she could get on the following episode of SmackDown Live. Carmella vindicated all of her online support by cutting the promo of her life, and she proceeded to somehow top that on Talking Smack in a promo with Daniel Bryan, in which Carmella credit.
She would win the Money in the Bank briefcase “for real” the following week on SmackDown, and she’s held it ever since. Carmella’s teased cash-ins, but she’s still maintained a stranglehold on the contract, guaranteeing a shot at the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Although it’s a bit of a surprise that she hasn’t won the title just yet, she can afford to take losses with the briefcase in her hands.
During her time with the briefcase, Carmella has continued to shine as a character, and her segments with James Ellsworth were always entertaining. The leash schtick, the soiled underwear appearance on the Fashion Files, the fake break-up, and the eventual break-up were all memorable moments. Whenever Carmella has a match or a promo, it’s hard to not be entertained, and I can’t wait until she claims the SmackDown Women’s Championship as her own.
6. Sasha Banks
It may be hard to buy into a wrestler who had a grand total of zero successful title defenses as the sixth-best female superstar of 2017, but Sasha Banks deserved to be rated highly on this list. Whenever she’s involved in a match, there is a noticeable improvement in the quality of that match, whether it’s a singles match or a multi-woman match.
Most wrestlers produce their best work in the ring with Banks, who sells like a maniac for everyone. She has taken some hellacious bumps against the likes of Nia Jax, who truly looks like a destructive force of greatness when she’s in the ring with “The Legit Boss”. Banks also had a great match with Paige, and that was the Absolution leader’s first singles match since returning from a career-threatening neck injury.
Banks and Alexa Bliss had some great back-and-forth action both in the ring and in interviews, and they had easily one of the best women’s feuds in WWE. It takes two to make a feud, so if Bliss is in my top three, then Banks deserves to get some major praise, too.
You can criticize Banks for her babyface character, and she hasn’t been in as many big segments as she was in 2016. But Banks is still one of the best wrestlers in the business today, and I just couldn’t justify ranking someone of her caliber any lower than sixth for her work in 2017.
5. Charlotte Flair
The current SmackDown Women’s Champion, Charlotte Flair is set for a storyline with the Riott Squad, which is comprised of NXT call-ups Ruby Riott, Sarah Logan, and Liv Morgan. The WWE already tried this type of a storyline where Charlotte faces off against a heel stable, but the “Welcoming Committee” failed miserably (and with a name like that, I wonder why it didn’t work out).
Anyway, Charlotte’s feud at the beginning of the year with Bayley was quite good, particularly when the two of them were allowed to go to work inside of the ring. The promos became robotic and started to blend together, but at the beginning, Charlotte, as she typically does, did a great job of making “The Huggable One” seem sympathetic.
Now, Charlotte has been able to come across as a legitimate babyface, and she can get the crowd behind her despite also being bigger and more athletic than most of her opponents. Against Natalya, she sold the heck out of Nattie’s brutal holds, and she also did some impeccable selling for Alexa Bliss in their excellent champion vs. champion match at Survivor Series.
Charlotte was arguably the best female superstar in WWE in 2016 and has fallen down the list this year, but she’s still been among the best in 2017. Few wrestlers check off all the boxes, but Charlotte is certainly one of them.
4. Naomi
I have a bit of a soft spot for wrestlers who have proven me wrong, and Naomi did just that in 2017. At the beginning of the year, I saw Naomi as kind of a generic babyface character, but her second run as SmackDown Women’s Champion after her win at WrestleMania 33 made me a big believer in “The Glow”.
Although Naomi seemed to lack chemistry with Charlotte in the ring, most of her matches as champion were solid, particularly her final match at SummerSlam against Natalya. That battle seemed like a culmination of all of the in-ring improvements that Naomi made.
Naomi never had a real singles feud as a champion, but she still made the title feel important. She also came across as a fighting champion and seemed like both a legit bad-ass and a sympathetic babyface, depending on which type of promo she was asked to cut. Her work on Talking Smack was some of the most underrated in 2017, because it was cool to listen to her talk about her matches and her journey.
I can’t think of many wrestlers in 2017 who either improved more or put in more work than Naomi, and the pop she received near the end of 2017 on an episode of SmackDown Live when announcing her appearance at the first women’s Royal Rumble was a sound to behold.
It also doesn’t hurt that Naomi is one of the best hot tags in WWE.
3. Ember Moon
There are several great finishers in the WWE today, but maybe none of them are more impactful than Ember Moon’s “Eclipse”. Asuka kicked out of it for the first time during their match at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III, which will go down as one of the best women’s matches in WWE history. It was one of the top ten matches of 2017 overall, and it told an incredible, yet heart-breaking story.
Although Ember’s best shot wasn’t good enough to defeat Asuka and end the unbeaten streak, she did get her NXT Women’s Championship by winning a Fatal Four-Way at NXT TakeOver: WarGames. Following the win, she was given the title by Asuka, who had vacated it following her move up to the main roster.
Moon is capable of putting on a great match with anybody, and the red-eyed “War Goddess” deserves to be the centerpiece of the NXT Women’s Division right now. She low-key has one of the most intriguing characters in WWE, and I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what she’s capable of in WWE. She brings it all every night, and both of her pay per view matches with Asuka were legitimate instant classics.
On top of that, Moon’s promos are always solid, and she’s yet another example of how the WWE can build a babyface with interesting layers to their character.
2. Alexa Bliss
There’s no doubt that Alexa Bliss was excellent in her first year on the main roster, capturing the SmackDown Women’s Championship from Becky Lynch at TLC. However, she has improved by leaps and bounds in the ring, seeing as how she gets better with every match. Maybe her move-set doesn’t match her size, but it does match what the WWE asks from her as a heel. Her matches with Sasha Banks at Great Balls of Fire, Bayley at Payback, Mickie James at TLC, and Charlotte at Survivor Series were all good-to-great.
And, of course, who can forget about her promos? Bliss cut some amazing promos at the beginning of the year, including one on Daniel Bryan on SmackDown Live in which she insulted the crowd and asked for the GM to hand her the vacated women’s championship immediately after Naomi vacated it due to injury in a heartfelt segment.
However, Bliss’s promos on Raw were on another level, and she immediately injected new life into the Raw Women’s Division when she made the move to the “Red Brand” during the Superstar Shakeup. She has dominated this division since day one, and she put everyone else on noticed with the way she commanded the attention of the audience whenever she walked or talked.
There’s a reason why no other woman’s combined length of reigns on the main roster is longer, and there’s a reason why she’s been a two-time women’s champion on both brands. Bliss is everything you want in a sports entertainer, and she toes the line between being a heel and being popular quite well.
1. Asuka
When Asuka is in the ring, I just sit there mesmerized by how good she is. The quality of her strikes are almost unparalleled in WWE, and she has some absolutely sick submission holds in her arsenal. The WWE kept Asuka’s undefeated streak intact, and regardless of what the final plan is, I couldn’t be happier. And this is coming from somebody who initially wanted Asuka to lose to Ember Moon at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn III before moving up to the main roster.
“The Empress of Tomorrow” hasn’t been pushed too hard in matches on the main roster, but she’s still come off like an absolute beast. Her initial matches with Emma were solid, and she’s even managed to make easy matches with Dana Brooke and Alicia Fox entertaining. That takes some skill, but Asuka has that rare ability to make squash matches interesting.
Her crowning moment on the main roster was her work in the Survivor Series five-on-five match. Everyone knew Team Raw would win due to Asuka’s work, but we were ecstatic to see it unfold before our very eyes. Everything she did was, as usual, equal parts devastating and slick, and she thankfully came out looking like a million bucks afterwards.
In NXT, she was even better. As I said earlier, her matches with Ember Moon were brilliant, and I still get a kick out of her, “Ember who? Does she even work here?” promo. Her “Last Woman Standing” match with Nikki Cross on NXT TV was one of the most brutal this year, and the WWE should have honored it with a top 25 ranking on their list of best matches of 2017.
Next: What Are The Greatest Characters In Pro Wrestling?
Asuka is also absolute money on Twitter, in case you take social media seriously enough that you need to use it as the icing on the cake (but seriously, you should consider following her if you aren’t already).