{"id":104855,"date":"2021-11-22T14:00:05","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T19:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=104855"},"modified":"2021-11-22T13:53:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T18:53:46","slug":"bianca-belair-pro-wrestling-illustrated-womens-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/11\/22\/bianca-belair-pro-wrestling-illustrated-womens-150\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The EST&#8221; Bianca Belair Tops Pro Wrestling Illustrated Women\u2019s 150"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bianca Belair<\/strong> topped the <em>Pro Wrestling Illustrated<\/em>\u00a0yearly 150 name ranking of female pro wrestlers in its recently released January issue. Taking the number one spot is a boon for Belair, whose meteoric rise in <strong>World Wrestling Entertainment\u2019s<\/strong> women\u2019s division throughout 2020 was halted upon <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/08\/21\/becky-lynch-returns-summerslam-womens-championship\/\" target=\"_self\">losing the <strong>Friday Night SmackDown<\/strong> women\u2019s title<\/a> to <strong>Becky Lynch <\/strong>at <em><strong>SummerSlam<\/strong>.<\/em> Amongst the <em>Pro Wrestling Illustrated<\/em> list, alongside Bianca Belair, that spanned the scope of international and independent pro wrestling as well as major promotions like WWE and <strong>All Elite Wrestling,<\/strong> here is how some of WWE\u2019s other female performers fared:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"JquonVdJRd93GNLTyDWzPg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1328052459\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'JquonVdJRd93GNLTyDWzPg',sig:'iLFu48wgWuFUEMlkSIhFs93-N9EiW2z3df7cWwlbb0M=',w:'396px',h:'594px',items:'1328052459',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>#6: <strong>Sasha Banks: <\/strong>Sasha Banks ranked number six, on the strength of her 2020 <strong><em>Hell in a Cell<\/em><\/strong> match against <strong>Bayley, <\/strong>and <strong>Asuka <\/strong>at 2020\u2019s <em><strong>Survivor Series<\/strong>,<\/em> as well as her history-making <strong><em>WrestleMania 37<\/em><\/strong> bout facing off against Belair, for which they won an Espy in 2021. Despite an absence in summer 2021 that caused her to miss her <em>SummerSlam<\/em> rematch against Belair, Banks continues to be a pillar of WWE\u2019s women\u2019s division as her feud for the SmackDown title against <strong>Charlotte Flair<\/strong>, and animosity with newcomer <strong>Shotzi Blackheart<\/strong> both catch fire on the \u201cblue brand\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>#34: Becky Lynch: The woman who tapped in in Banks\u2019s stead at SummerSlam, Lynch, is at the top of the women\u2019s division with her new heel persona \u201cBig Time Becks\u201d. However, her 10-month absence from competition lowered her ranking considerably in the eyes of <a href=\"https:\/\/pwi-online.com\/product\/womens-150-january-2022-pwi\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PWI<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Two former <strong>NXT<\/strong> Women&#8217;s Champions, <strong>Io Shirai<\/strong> and <strong>Raquel Gonzalez, <\/strong>round out the top 10 at numbers 8 (Shirai) and 10 (Gonzalez). Shirai held the NXT women&#8217;s title for 304 days. Her aerial wiles making her seem an almost invincible opponent as she held off challengers like <strong>Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm, <\/strong>and <strong>Candice LeRae.<\/strong> She also held the NXT Women&#8217;s Tag Team Championship alongside <strong>Zoey Stark,<\/strong> until losing them to <strong>Toxic Attraction.<\/strong> Gonzalez\u2019s run with the women\u2019s belt was ended by the faction\u2019s leader <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/26\/mandy-rose-nxt-womens-championship\/\" target=\"_self\"><strong>Mandy Rose<\/strong><\/a>, but even without the gold Gonzalez\u2019s mystique as a powerhouse competitor remains mostly intact, and her feud with former best friend <strong>Dakota Kai <\/strong>rages on as NXT gears up for its <strong><em>TakeOver: WarGames<\/em><\/strong> event on December 4.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"_87n_C6rSzt5_5N17h-4nw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/960447654\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'_87n_C6rSzt5_5N17h-4nw',sig:'8AFS8ETmFaitZE4xANllI2Dh51qJ_zAzD6kExOabQuc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'960447654',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Despite being released by WWE in 2021, <strong>Nia Jax<\/strong> and <strong>Ember Moon<\/strong> made the list at numbers 69 (Jax) and 90 (Moon). Jax\u2019s release was one of the most abrupt of 2021 so far, as she had been a prominently featured main roster player for some time. As for Moon, she seemed to be rebounding nicely from whatever time and momentum that injuries whilst on the main roster had cost her with a steady NXT run. Although a challenge to Gonzalez did not result in Moon winning the NXT Women&#8217;s Championship, she was an NXT Women&#8217;s Tag Team Champion on the brand alongside Shotzi Blackheart, until Blackheart\u2019s call-up to SmackDown.<\/p>\n<p>However, the most remarkable accomplishment for WWE\u2019s female performers out of the January issue\u2019s rundown belongs to <strong>Natalya. <\/strong>The \u201cQueen of Harts\u201d clocks in at number 66, but holds the distinction of having ranked on the list every year since its inception. On November 19\u2019s SmackDown, she logged another achievement. Natalya has had a long career and has a long family history with WWE, and on November 19, she achieved her 500<sup>th<\/sup> WWE victory in a tag match paired with <strong>Shayna Baszler <\/strong>against <strong>Naomi <\/strong>and <strong>Aliyah. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bianca Belair topped the Pro Wrestling Illustrated\u00a0yearly 150 name ranking of female pro wrestlers in its recently released January issue. Taking the number one spot is a boon for Belair, whose meteoric rise in World Wrestling Entertainment\u2019s women\u2019s division throughout 2020 was halted upon losing the Friday Night SmackDown women\u2019s title to Becky Lynch at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":104892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2192,25,26,4,5],"tags":[163,1445,304,1752,404,602,6991,159,3207,7298],"class_list":["post-104855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling","category-raw","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-nxt","tag-becky-lynch","tag-bianca-belair","tag-io-shirai","tag-mandy-rose","tag-natalya","tag-nia-jax","tag-raquel-gonzalez","tag-sasha-banks","tag-shotzi-blackheart","tag-zoey-stark"],"modified_by":"Robbie Sutter","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}