WINC Watchlist: Mercedes Mone's Greatest Matches

As Black History Month becomes Women's History Month, and her absence from AEW continues into the year, it feels like the right time to look at the lengthy match catalog of Mercedes Mone. 

One of the vaunted Four Horsewoman of "WWE NXT" and later what WWE stylized as the "Women's Revolution," Mone – or rather Sasha Banks – held gold as NXT Women's Champion, six-time WWE Women's Champion, and three-time Women's Tag Team Champion during a ten-year stint with the company. All that success came, rarely, during a time when she was in her 20s, and in leaving she has since continued to collect titles and marquee matches. 

"Ultimo Mone" first held the IWGP Women's Championship during a stint with NJPW, eventually going on to sign for AEW and dial up the belt-collecting with the TBS Championship followed up with titles in CMLL, NJPW, RevPro, and several other promotions scattered across the world. Holding titles is one thing, but the spotlight that comes with that gold has also delivered a plethora of excellent matches, some having made this very Watchlist, and others deserving of an honorable mention. The following list is an attempt to comprise a playlist of sorts, for those either unaware or wanting to see the best of Mone across the years. 

Honorable mentions go out to effectively all of her matches – aside from those mentioned later – with Charlotte Flair or Bayley, her Hell in a Cell match with Becky Lynch in 2019, her match against Toni Storm at last year's AEW All In Texas, against Persephone at CMLL in October last year, against Willow Nightingale at AEW New Year's Smash last January, and against Hazuki at NJPW Strong Style Evolved 2024. 

It took four years for AEW to book a Women's variant of the Blood & Guts match, the company's own derivative of WCW – and later WWE's – WarGames. Which in itself was ironic, considering the name was originally a riff on WWE's dig at the 'excessive gore' in the tag team match between The Bunny and Penelope Ford against Anna Jay and Tay Melo. 

Either way, when it did happen for the first time last year, Mone joined Megan Bayne, Marina Shafir, Julia Hart, Skye Blue, and Thekla in defeating Harley Cameron, Willow Nightingale, Jamie Hayter, Kris Statlander, Mina Shirakawa, and Toni Storm after 46 minutes of blood-soaked, weaponized violence. 

Everyone involved in the match, including Mone, went above and beyond to cement the decision to book a Women's Blood & Guts match as a good one. She made good use of her several title belts by bringing them into the cage, handing them to each of her teammates for a group beating with the belts, after having dropped Statlander onto her own Women's World title belt. 

While undoubtedly this was a group effort, with Blue putting the blood in Blood & Guts with a gnarly blade-job in the early goings specifically, Mone was undoubtedly core to the storyline aspect of the bout. Her history with Shirakawa, Storm, Statlander, Nightingale, and Cameron, as well as an intriguing first-time meeting between her and Hayter, made for her presence in the match being paramount. And it gave her opponents a villain to chase through the various levels of enforcers on her team. 

All in all, the first Women's Blood & Guts could easily be argued among the best of the match type, even in its relative infancy, and remains one of the best viewing experiences featuring Mone in her career.

Another first, but this time during her run in "WWE NXT." Takeover: Respect in 2015 saw Mone, as Sasha Banks, challenging for the NXT Women's Championship held by Bayley in the first-ever Iron Woman match. 

Thus ensued 30 minutes of action from two in-ring soulmates, with Bayley working as the plucky underdog even with the newfound confidence of her title reign. 

Banks resorted to underhanded tactics early on, trying to pin Bayley with a leveraged pin after eight minutes, only for the referee to catch her. She used that opportunity to block the referee's eyes in the corner, delivering an eye poke and rolling Bayley up for the first fall. 

Bayley leveled the score with a Bayley-to-Belly, before Banks pushed her into the electronic board on the entrance stage, causing her to be counted out to make it 2-1. But once more, Bayley pulled back a fall in one fell swoop after being continuously beaten down by Banks. 

The score remained deadlocked for the rest of the match, despite another Bayley-to-Belly followed by yet another, this time off the middle rope, both resulting in near-falls. Banks adopted the Bayley-to-Belly for herself for a near-fall, immediately applying the Bank Statement and seemingly having the match won in the middle of the ring. 

Bayley attempted the Bank Statement for herself once she had gotten out of it, only to once again get caught in the submission. She eventually reversed that into an armbar, getting the fateful submission with seconds to go and retaining the title.

Banks was playing the supporting role here, with Bayley needing the win to cement herself as champion, but that helped to inform the story. And it was that story that anchored all of the action and emotion into one cohesive experience for those watching. After all this time, one of her earliest matches still ranks among the best. But there was a match that came before...

The co-main event of Takeover: Brooklyn saw the roles reversed as Bayley was making her long-awaited challenge for the Women's title held by Banks, the culmination of a two-year story for the duo of best friends-turned-rivals. 

After years of struggling with coming second best to all of her fellow Four Horsewomen, Bayley had finally beaten Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch to secure her title opportunity, with Banks having found her success through several screwjob moments at the expense of Bayley. 

So this was the perfect moment for her to finally mark herself as more than second best, and Banks put in the work to ensure that her challenger was given her crowning moment. 

Like the aforementioned, albeit later, match, the Bank Statement became central to the 'Do or Die' element of the match. When Banks applied it, it also felt like the room had been asphyxiated and pressurized, with the crowd tensely rallying Bayley to get to the ropes or find some way out of it. 

She did find a way out of it, and applied it herself to the pop of the crowd, only for Banks to then find the rope and create some space. Bayley continued to rally and it was the Bank Statement exchange that really marked the turning of the tide. She continued to hit her Bayley-to-Belly for a near-fall, following that up with an inverted Frankensteiner from the top rope, and another Bayley-to-Belly to secure her eventual win. 

But it wasn't just the match that made this what it was; it was the moment. Bayley had finally overcame the best of her peers to capture the title, and Banks was passing the baton onto her legitimate best friend. That was shown as Lynch and Flair emerged to celebrate with Bayley, followed by Banks hugging Bayley and the Four Horsewoman posing together to wrap it all up.

When Banks left WWE in 2022 it provoked questions over where her future would lie, and whether "The Mandalorian" star would even remain in professional wrestling altogether. 

That question was finally answered in January 2023 as Mercedes Mone emerged for the first time at Wrestle Kingdom 17, confronting the inaugural IWGP Women's Champion in Kairi Sane and marking her arrival in NJPW. 

They met for the title one month later at NJPW Battle in the Valley in San Jose, and thus ensued 26 minutes of action purely dedicated to announcing her arrival. Again, the quality of her opponent here played a huge part in the finished product, with Kairi legitimately one of the best workers on the planet and entirely in her element having only relatively recently returned to wrestling. 

Mone shouted out Bayley by adopting her finisher in the bout, getting a huge pop from the San Jose crowd, but also wrestled an exceptionally fast-paced bout that immediately set her NJPW run apart from what she had done before. 

Mone escaped Kairi's signature Ikari submission, catching her into the newly named Boss Statement, but never found the finish that way. Instead, she debuted easily the worst thing about this match after hitting that Bayley-to-Belly, hitting the Mone Maker to secure the winning pinfall and the title. 

Finisher aside, the match itself stands out as a milestone in the career of Mone, an excellent match driven by the hype of her first bout since leaving WWE. A first major title since leaving WWE. And in all honesty, a love letter from Mone to her wrestling career after such uncertainty over it. 

No matter how many excellent matches and moments she will enjoy in years to come, there is an argument to be made that Mone's match as Sasha Banks against Bianca Belair at WrestleMania 37 was the biggest of her career. 

It was only the second time that women were main eventing WrestleMania, following Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania 35, but was also the first time that two black wrestlers headlined the "Show of Shows." 

There was history upon history baked into the match, with Belair having won her first Royal Rumble to secure her first opportunity at her first Women's Championship. And Banks was the A-side in all of that, the at-time "Blueprint" of the brand and champion for 167 days, as well as the objective veteran of the bout. 

Like she had done with Bayley before, this was a match that demonstrated Banks' ability to make a star of her opponent, taking one of the loudest Belair hair whips in the history of Belair hair whips, and still continuing to take a picture-perfect KOD for the eventual finish. 

It wasn't a bout characterized by action or drama, it was one that acknowledged the history and the moment in time that it was. It was one that recognized that a star could be born, and that one delivered on that potential. Because Belair is now legitimately one of the top names on the WWE roster, men's or women's. 

Any match that can evoke the emotion, of both the competitors and onlookers, that this match did deserves to go down in history. And it always makes for good watching, at least in this writer's opinion.