4. Stephanie McMahon vs Brie Bella, SummerSlam, 2014.
This is far and away from her most technically proficient match, so I’m sure it’s a head-scratcher to some as to why it sits so low. In short, the match didn’t really live up to the hype, and the booking was questionable. The story going into it was The Authority targeting Daniel Bryan, and his wife, Brie, stepping into feud with Stephanie and quitting. The women traded slaps and comments, and since Brie quit, Nikki was made to be the scapegoat. The problem was, quite frankly, Nikki cut the more sympathetic figure of the two, and while Brie is the better wrestler of the two, her style does not lead itself to great storytelling, like Nikki and Stephanie.
So when they met, the trademark viciousness we expected from Stephanie was gone, she vowed to rip Brie’s heart out and make her – her bitch, but instead, we got just an ordinary match. Further adding to the confusion was how Stephanie, who had not wrestled since 2003, was able to hang and frankly, outclass Brie, who at the time was a full-time wrestler. The match did not match the supposed intensity of the story, and most people who saw the match at the time were more invested in how good Stephanie looked in the ring as opposed to the story that was supposed to be told in the ring.
