With the introduction of Ring Of Honor, I needed to make a decision: Do I include ROH as a part of this AEW Women’s Division Blog? Pretty quickly, it became apparent that ROH, for now anyway, feels like very much an extension of AEW. The inclusion of ROH brought 12 additional televised women’s matches under the AEW umbrella.
Honourable Mentions
It was tough competition to make the Top 5 in March. Taya Valkyrie went 3-0, with all three matches being on Rampage and she was dominant in all of them so from a “kayfabe power-ranking” way, she was a consideration but looking at match quality and quality of competition, she was #6 for me.
Marina Shafir was my #7, narrowly missing her first appearance in the Top 5. Marina was 0-1 in her only match on TV (to Taya Valkyrie) but she was 5-0 on Dark/Elevation. While her quality of competition wasn’t high her match quality just gets better and better. She continually shows me something new, including a short match against Steph De Lander on Dark that was low-key the perfect 3:22 match. If I could include Josh Barnett’s Blood Sport I would’ve squeezed Marina into the Top 5 for her beautifully violent contest with Impact’s Killer Kelly.
So who made the Top 5?
#5: Skye Blue (NR)
| Venue | Record |
|---|---|
| AEW | 6-2-0 |
| Dynamite/Rampage/PPV | 0-2-0 |
| Dark/Elevation | 4-0-0 |
| Ring Of Honor | 2-0-0 |
Summary
Skye Blue got featured twice this month on Dynamite against very high quality opponents (Ruby Soho and Toni Storm) losing both but scoring visual wins . Skye went undefeated on Dark/Elevation which included wins over Leila Grey and Queen Aminata. But her biggest win and best match of the month in my opinion came in ROH (where she went 2-0) where she defeated Lady Frost in 8:20.
#4: Emi Sakura (3)
| Venue | Record |
|---|---|
| AEW | 2-2-0 |
| Dynamite/Rampage/PPV | 0-1-0 |
| Dark/Elevation | 2-0-0 |
| Ring Of Honor | 0-1-0 |
Summary
Emi Sakura stays in the Top 5 for March, not due to her record, but for pure match quality. She did manage to win half her matches, winning both her matches on Dark Elevation but she bookended March losing a great match against Riho in 9:31 on Rampage and ended it with an incredible match against Athena on ROH, losing in 8:29. AEW’s lucky to have Emi on the roster, just going around giving everyone their best match.
#3: Willow Nightingale (NR)
| Venue | Record |
|---|---|
| AEW | 5-2-0 |
| Dynamite/Rampage/PPV | 1-1-0 |
| Dark/Elevation | 3-0-0 |
| Ring Of Honor | 1-1-0 |
Summary
Willow dropped her only matches on Dynamite losing to Ruby Soho but, like Skye Blue, she didn’t lose without controversy at the hands of The Outsiders. Willow racked up some wins on YouTube but we really saw how important of a fixture she was for Ring Of Honor. She kicked off her ROH tenure with an incredible match against Athena. And then picked up wins against Lady Frost and Miranda Alize on the Zero Hour of Supercard Of Honor.
#2: Riho (NR)
| Venue | Record |
|---|---|
| AEW | 5-0-0 |
| Dynamite/Rampage/PPV | 3-0-0 |
| Dark/Elevation | 2-0-0 |
| Ring Of Honor | 0-0-0 |
Summary
It’s a Riho-surgence™ for Demo God, Riho! Riho only had quality competition, including three televised matches, and won them all including Toni Storm, Nyla Rose, Emi Sakura, and Diamanté twice. We also saw the debut of the pipe wielding Riho-variant, which was a funny/cool development. More seriously though, Riho never has a bad match. It’s so great to see her back in AEW!
#1: Athena (NR)
| Venue | Record |
|---|---|
| AEW | 8-0-0 |
| Dynamite/Rampage/PPV | 1-0-0 |
| Dark/Elevation | 4-0-0 |
| Ring Of Honor | 3-0-0 |
Summary
Athena easily takes home the #1 spot. Despite not having any televised matches, Athena consistently delivers, it doesn’t matter how much or how little time she has. Athena had a 1:00 match against Tootie Lynn that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. So simple but so brilliant. And on the longer end of things, she had two 4+ Star matches against Willow Nightingale and Emi Sakura, ending March with a win over Yuka Sakazaki on Supercard Of Honor. I’ve said for some time that you can put the entire division on Athena’s shoulders at any point and Tony Khan seems to have done that with ROH. Long may she reign.
So what do you think? Would you shift around these 5 women? Is there someone else you’d place in the Top 5? And if so, who do you take out? You can let me know in the comment section or hit me up on Twitter at @aew_one.
Thanks for reading and, as always, make sure you let the women in your life know how much you appreciate them!
