The 10 best WWE matches of 2019

#8 Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Kay Lee Ray, and Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley, Candice LeRae, Dakota Kai, and Tegan Nox (NXT TakeOver: War Games III)

I didn't have high hopes for this match, but it turned into something else. It's not every day that a brutal weapons match stands out both for its spots and its story, but this one did. Everyone stepped up here.

There were, of course, those great spots, obviously culminating in Io's moonsault off the cage, but what vaulted this match into the top 10 were two of its storytelling aspects.

The first came with Dakota Kai's heel turn which took everyone by complete surprise. That doesn't happen every day in today's wrestling climate, but it did here, and it was brilliantly executed with her attack on Tegan Nox.

That left Rhea Ripley's team with only two combatants against Shayna's four. Yet, somehow, Rhea overcame those odds. As an aid to Rhea Ripley's incredible rise, this was brilliant and did its job to such perfection that it should be a textbook study in the art of getting over for years to come. Rhea looked like a billion bucks in this match, and she rode that wave to finally dethroning Shayna Baszler only a few weeks later.