12 Days of WWE’s Best: Everything About Mae Young Classic 2

Today on my list of WWE’s Best of 2018, WWE’s second annual Mae Young Classic tournament reminded us of the depth and unbelievable talent of women’s wrestling around the world and the tremendous amount of passion we have for it.

Since its inception last summer, WWE’s all-women’s Mae Young Classic tournament had all the potential in the world to showcase the vast amount of talent and character that the realm of women’s wrestling has to offer outside of the WWE.

Here we are, a couple of months after of the finale of Mae Young Classic 2, culminating in a match against Toni Storm and Io Shirai at the first all-women’s pay-per-view Evolution, and that’s exactly what WWE has turn the Mae Young Classic into – the perfect opportunity to celebrate the sheer greatness of women’s wrestling.

Mae Young Classic 2 turned it up a notch from last year’s competition, however.

Firstly, the roster on this tournament was absolutely unheard of, un-freakin’-real, from the extreme swag that is Aerial Monroe, to the unbridled, youthful enthusiasm of Toni Storm, Tegan Nox, and Xia Brookside, the ruthlessness and brutality of Mercedes Martinez, and the legend that is Meiko Satomura. This tournament was absolutely saturated with with such a wide range of talent.

Secondly, the commentary team on this tournament was some of the most passionate and excitable that I’ve heard in my entire career as a WWE fan. Michael Cole, Renee Young, and Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix truly had a ball doing commentary on the MYC 2; it showed clearly by how expressive and how above-and-beyond the team was allowed to be in their comments.

I don’t have to go into how Renee Young made her own waves this year by becoming the first woman appointed full-time to Raw commentary, but her appearance on commentary in the Mae Young Classic honestly was most important to me.

Renee Young’s energy at MYC 2, plus all of the research and statistics she had ready to give all these women as much credit as she could (if I remember correctly, Hiroyo Matsumoto was her favorite to win) by and far proved that she had what it takes to light up a commentary panel.

As far as stand-out matches, ugh, jeez… can I say all of them?

For real though – I’d say one of the highlights for me was the match against Meiko Satomura and Lacey Lane in the Quartfinals, mostly because it was such a testament now only the spectrum of styles included on this card (which I’ve said a thousand times by now), but it was a match between two women with vastly different styles who played off the other’s and played into each other’s so cohesively that they both made each other look like complete experts.

That is of course not to say they aren’t, but needless to say, wrestling is equal parts how good you look and how good you make your opponent. You gave these women an opportunity to empower themselves and empower one another, so that’s exactly what they did.

Here’s hoping that the 2019 addition of the Mae Young Classic finds even bigger and better ways to celebrate the wonderful world of women’s wrestling.