WWE's Best Women's Championship Reigns of the 2010s

The 2010s were a transformative decade for women's wrestling.

Five years in, wrestlers and fans alike expressed their distaste for shorter matches that rendered women's wrestling a sideshow and demanded equal time and opportunity for the female performers. What resulted was a revolution across both the main roster and NXT that included some extraordinary championship reigns.

From Asuka's unparalleled undefeated streak to a year-long of glass ceiling-shattering by Becky Lynch, the decade provided fans with the women's champions they craved.

But which reigns were most definitive of the 10-year stretch and why do they rank above the others?

Find out with this stroll through the evolutionary decade in which women kicked ass, captured gold and sealed their legacies.

8. Charlotte Flair (2015-16)

Charlotte Flair has had so many title reigns that it is easy for the good ones to get caught up in the shorter, less meaningful ones. Such is the case with her first, which started at the September 20, 2015 Night of Champions pay-per-view and ran all the way through the July 25, 2016 episode of Raw.

The Queen became the first of the NXT Horsewomen to capture gold on the main roster, ending Nikki Bella’s historically long reign with her trademark Figure Eight. From there, she embarked on a run that established her as the new measuring stick in women’s wrestling. 

She would successfully defend against Bella, Becky Lynch, Paige, Natalya and Sasha Banks. It was during that run that she turned heel for the first time in her career. Accompanied by her father, Ric Flair, she firmly planted herself at the top of the division.

Flair would ultimately lose the title to Banks in a memorable Raw match, but not before giving fans a taste of what they could expect out of her and a division reigned over by The Queen.

7. Nikki Bella (2014-15)

There are some who are just never going to give Nikki Bella credit for accomplishing anything that she did in wrestling, chalking her successes up to personal relationships or reality television. Their minds will never be changed, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

Case in point: Her Divas Championship run, which began on November 23, 2014 at Survivor Series and ended 301 days later at Night of Champions on September 30, 2015.

During her reign of dominance, Bella continuously elevated her in-ring game and evolved her skill set. She worked alongside everyone from AJ Lee to Paige and was the main foil for newcomers Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch as they arrived on the main roster. 

She was the centerpiece for a division finding itself. With AJ Lee gone and Paige still developing as a lead babyface, Bella made the most sense to carry the title and bring her star power and credibility to it.

Is she the best and most traditional worker on this list? Absolutely not, but she did not have to be. She had to be a star and she was just that during her lengthy title reign.

6. Ronda Rousey (2018-19)

Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Ronda Rousey captured the Raw Women’s Championship following her arrival in WWE in 2018. She had, after all, signed a big-money deal with the company and was being positioned as one of its faces.

Her reign began in August at SummerSlam, where she dismantled Alexa Bliss. From there, she would survive the challenge of Nikki Bella at Evolution and Charlotte Flair at Survivor Series, showcasing an improving in-ring skill set along the way.

She tapped out Nia Jax and survived a hellish match with Sasha Banks at the Royal Rumble in January.

Then came the historic women’s main event at WrestleMania on April 5, 2019. On that night, she dropped the title to Becky Lynch, beginning a 12-month run for The Man atop the division. A run that may not have been possible had it not been Rousey whom The Man had defeated.

As important as her abilities in the ring were, it was her reputation and star power that elevated her reign. She brought credibility to the women’s division and more attention to it. People were interested in what she would accomplish, making her a great ambassador for the business.

Without her, there almost certainly wouldn't have been a women’s WrestleMania main event nor an all-women Evolution pay-per-view.

5. AJ Lee (2013-14)

If competitors like Michelle McCool, Eve Torres and Natalya laid the groundwork for a revolution in women’s wrestling after years of tasteless gimmick matches, AJ Lee sped the process up.

A wrestling-centric performer whose abilities between the ropes were matched only by her unabashed determination to be herself, she became a trailblazer and the face of everything fans hoped women’s wrestling would become.

She could do things between the ropes that had not been seen since the Golden Age of women’s wrestling at the dawn of the Ruthless Aggression era. She championed women’s wrestling and became the antithesis of the "ready for reality TV" roster around her.

She was outspoken and won fans over with her every-girl personality. It was her WWE Divas Championship reign, though, that cemented her place in wrestling history.

After defeating Kaitlyn for the title at Payback on June 16, 2013, Lee would hold the title through WrestleMania XXX, where she beat every other woman in the division in the Vickie Guerrero Invitational Match.

She was booked as dominantly and effectively as any champion in that particular era of women’s wrestling and most of that can be attributed to the quality of her work. So credible was she that, when Paige defeated her to capture the Divas Championship in her debut, the Brit became a star instantly.

There are many who will get praise and credit for the Women’s Revolution in WWE but who really knows what division would look like today had Lee not achieved the success she did as a wrestler.

4. Bayley (2019-Date)

When Bayley stepped through the curtain on the October 11, 2019 episode of SmackDown sporting a new look and attacking her inflatable Bayley Buddies, fans recognized the start of a new era for the character. Her trademark ponytail chopped off, her interaction with fans nonexistent, she was clearly more serious and focused than at any other point in her career.

It was on that night that she defeated Charlotte Flair to begin a reign over the blue brand that continues to this day.

Bayley’s run has been unexpectedly dominant. Reteaming with Sasha Banks to form The Golden Role Models has certainly helped, but no one could have imagined a character makeover for one of the more beloved performers to come out of NXT would result in this unbroken reign that has lasted 278-plus days.

She has retained over the likes of Lacey Evans, Dana Brooke, Naomi and Tamina while teaming with Banks to become Women’s Tag Team Champions. The deeper into her reign she has gotten, she has become more confident and creative in her role as a heel, even headlining multiple episodes of Raw and SmackDown in the summer. And her run shows no signs of stopping.

The fact of the matter is that there simply aren't enough credible challengers on SmackDown for Bayley to conceivably lose the title at this point unless it is to designed to jump-start a showdown with The Boss.

In terms of quality matches, Bayley’s NXT Women’s Championship run was better, but there is no denying this current reign is the one cementing her legacy and etching her name in the history books.

3. Shayna Baszler (2018-19)

Before she was inexplicably losing high-profile matches at WrestleMania 36 and getting caught up in food fights in WWE headquarters, Shayna Baszler was the baddest woman around in NXT. She could kick the living hell out of an opponent as easily as she could choke them out. 

Most frustratingly was the fact that if her own devices of punishment weren't effective, she always had backup in the form of Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke to ensure she kept her NXT Women’s Championship run intact.

Her second reign with the gold began in October 2018 at the Evolution pay-per-view, where she relied heavily on her friends to help her defeat her greatest foe, Kairi Sane.

For 416 days, she snapped and tapped everyone in her path en route to the second-longest reign in brand history. She built a reputation for herself as the next big thing in women’s wrestling and at the 2019 Survivor Series, she beat Becky Lynch and Bayley in a battle for brand supremacy.

Baszler was the female Brock Lesnar, an unapologetic ass-kicker whose only downfall was her own hubris. 

That hubris proved her downfall on the December 18, 2019 episode of NXT, when she finally lost the title to Rhea Ripley, ending her magical run with the brand while using her credibility to launch her successor's reign.

2. Asuka (2016-17)

Arguably the most dominant reign by any woman in WWE history was Asuka’s run atop the NXT women’s division from 2016-17.

In an industry full of uncertainty and ever-changing stakes, there was one thing fans could rely on every time someone set foot in the ring with The Empress of Tomorrow: Someone would be getting kicked in the head or experiencing the unpleasantness of the Asuka Lock.

Bayley, Nia Jax, Ember Moon, Ruby Riott, Nikki Cross and Mickie James all felt the wrath of the unstoppable Asuka. So dominant was she that she never officially lost the title, instead succumbing to a broken collar bone that forced her to relinquish the gold.

For 522 days, Asuka was untouchable.

She was the best, most dominant competitor in all of WWE. She set a standard for in-ring quality and presence that has not been seen since. NXT’s presentation of Asuka was truly special and one of the last times it felt like WWE may have a legitimate star on its hands.

Of course, that all changed once Vince McMahon took over control of the character upon her main roster debut, but that's a story for another time.

1. Becky Lynch (2019-20)

The greatest title reign of the 2010s may have waited until the last year of eligibility but it catapulted women’s wrestling to a whole new level than it had ever enjoyed before.

Becky Lynch’s win over Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 35 not only marked the first time women had headlined the biggest event of the year, but it also led to a push for her as the face of WWE.

She became The Man, the top star in the industry. She was presented as equal to real-life fiancee Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns, carried women’s wrestling to new heights and proved a woman can stand alongside industry giants and not look out of place.

When she wasn’t defeating Lacey Evans in pay-per-view main events, stealing the show with Sasha Banks or warring with Asuka in a series of intensely physical battles, she was sharing the ring with The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, setting an example for every female competitor to aspire to.

Lynch's reign never got the ending it deserved, thanks to the life-altering news that she is expecting her first child with Rollins, but there is no denying how historic and influential her run was.