Welcome to the very first edition of WINC Match Spotlight, where we look at a single match in-depth to determine its strengths, its weaknesses, and its place in wrestling history. We are kicking things off with a match that already seems destined for the history books despite the fact that it only happened two months ago!
In the aftermath of IYO SKY's victory at WrestleMania 41, as the highlights packages begin to play, Wade Barrett comments that it's difficult to pick out even a handful of the most impressive moments from the match that had just occurred. "Where do you choose the replays from?" he asked. "There's so many options!"
At first glance, that's what IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley is a series of increasingly impressive, perfectly timed, supremely executed wrestling sequences. And in one sense, that perspective does explain why the match was such an instant classic: we just haven't seen a ton of women's matches that look like this. After the historical nadir that was the Divas Era, it took years for mainstream American women's wrestling just to reclaim moves like powerbombs. The Four Horsewomen, in part, drove women's wrestling back into respectability by re-emphasizing technical wrestling, but there are still numerous other frontiers that have gone functionally unexplored since then. AEW proved that by successfully pushing women's wrestling to new heights in the hardcore/death match genre; at WrestleMania, SKY, Belair, and Ripley brought women's wrestling (forever running behind) up to date on the modern big match style, while also perfecting that style using the tools provided by the triple threat format.
The biggest weakness of the modern big match style is that it relies on an increasingly ridiculous escalation of finishers and finisher kick-outs, a structure that goes hand-in-hand with things like tiered finishers, one-count kickouts, and excessive runtime. The triple threat format (like the tag team format) relieves the need for any of these things, because there's someone else in the match who can break up pinfalls. This doesn't just inform the finish it actually informs the entire match.
See, the other thing that's different about SKY vs. Belair vs. Ripley is the sheer extent to which they're all athletic freaks of nature, and they spent the entire match throwing absolute bombs at one another. In a singles match, this could work the match's detriment after all, if two guys spend the whole match throwing bombs at each other, why didn't any of the bombs keep either of them down? In a triple threat, you can get away with the succession of huge spots the women pulled out on WrestleMania Sunday, because one person can sell the impact of taking the spot while the other two continue to fight. There's no need for tiered finishers; they do everything they need to do with one finisher each. For example, while you might not remember because of Michael Cole completely butchering and no-selling the call, but Belair kicks out of the Riptide in this match, while Ripley is never shown kicking out of the KOD. However, Belair takes the pinfall, not Ripley, balancing the scales between them. Choices like that allow everyone involved to stay protected without an endless succession of "fighting spirit" spots that strain believability more and more each time they're performed.
And they do all of this in less than 15 minutes. In other words, they use the strength of the triple threat format and their own athletic prowess to deliver all the action of a 30-minute match in half the time, and at no point does it feel unbelievable or artificially extended. That's a massive accomplishment a spotfest that feels like a marathon. Offhand, the only other woman who might be pushing wrestling in this direction in 2025 is Mercedes Mone, and that's not a coincidence. It could just be because it's still new (and thus not overplayed) for women's wrestling, but SKY vs. Belair vs. Ripley feels like the kind of match we'd never seen before.
The main reason it actually works, however, has really nothing to do with athleticism. Despite all the amazing physical feats these three women performed, the best part of this match is the fact that it tells an extraordinarily clear story and follows through on the promise of the booking that led up to it. It helps that there's a metatextual thread running through the whole thing ever since it was teased at the notorious "Raw" after WrestleMania 39, Rhea Ripley vs. Bianca Belair had been a highly-anticipated dream match, and after two years of delays, WrestleMania 41 finally seemed like the place to do it. The problem was that since the initial tease, many fans had started to drift away from Belair who was stuck in the tag division for a borderline criminal amount of time and gravitate toward her longtime rival, SKY, who was getting over the only way she knows how: great match after great match.
To their credit, WWE folded this external context into the storyline, having SKY disrupt the planned WrestleMania match between Ripley and Belair by unexpectedly winning the belt from Ripley. From that point on, the story was that Ripley and Belair were focused on each other and overlooking SKY, and that idea informs the entire match, from its opening moments (Ripley and Belair facing off, ignoring SKY until she physically gets in their faces) to the final sequence (Belair finally hitting the match-winning KOD on Ripley, only for SKY to come flying out of the air with a moonsault and take the pin instead). The match returns to this theme over and over, but that last moonsault really is the most important part.
Just as a concept, this match only works if SKY wins, and there were significant reasons to doubt that would happen the most notable one being that she's Japanese. By winning at WrestleMania, SKY became the first Japanese star to win a main card WrestleMania match in 27 years, and the first female Japanese wrestler to win a WrestleMania match, period (Asuka is 0-5, in case you were wondering). Her victory is a big deal, and it was far from a guarantee. In the moment, that fact lent the match a critical sense of suspense. Would they really do it? Would they end the story the right way? Would they give SKY the title? Now, looking back, it just makes the entire thing so incredibly satisfying. Fifteen minutes of damn near perfectly-executed pro wrestling, built on the foundation of a clear story, with the right ending? Five stars isn't even close to being enough.
