My Favorite Wrestling Feuds: Honorable Mentions (Part 1)

While modern wrestling can be a blast to watch for the athletecism and gymnastic abilities of its biggest stars, for decades the actual grappling took the backseat to soap opera storytelling disguised as a sport. One of America's biggest con-man, carny rapist, sex trafficer, and someone in contention for one of the worst profiteering dirtbags ever born: Vince McMahon didn't even want his WWE (then WWF) referred to as wrestling, he wanted it known as sports entertainment. The 1980s were one of wrestling's biggest boom times behind the personality of Hulk Hogan: a guy who could do four of five moves in the ring and was, without his storylines, boring to watch, as he just put on the same basic match for thirty years.

I loved the stories. I'm in the midst of a weekly watchthrough with friends we're were currently enjoying the 1990s WWE, WCW, and ECW. I'm editing future seasons of our watchthrough, which now involves putting together supercards from 2022 Impact and AEW. I feel absolutely drenched in great storylines, as well as some epic missed opportunities.

For the next few weeks, I"ll be writing about my ten favorite wrestling feuds based on match qualilty, storytelling, and generally how much fun it was to experience. It will be completely North American based wrestling because I'm not as familiar with other products. I've seen my fair share of Americans wrestling in Japan, and I've been privileged enough to see most of the well-known battles between Japanese wrestlers but I've never been knowledgable enough to speak about best feuds in New Japan, All Japan, Noah, Stardom, Dragongate, FMA, or other organizations.

When coming up with this list, I tried not to repeat too many wrestlers. I also didn't include great storytelling feuds where the matches weren't actually very good, so no Flair/Hogan, no Million Dollar Man vs Virgil, no Shawn Michaels vs Marty Janetti, nothing with Jeff Jarrett or his spritual soulmate, The Honkey Tonk Man. There aren't a ton of Impact, Ring Of Honor, WCW, or AEW feuds (though there are at least one from each) because those companies tended to put more emphasis on actual wrestling than storytelling or else they put Vince "Car Crash" Russo in charge and none of the stories made any logical sense or had any compelling characters.

Before I get to my favorite ten feuds, though, here are the first five of my ten Honorable Mentions, and why they didn't make the list:

20: Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair. These were the two best women wrestling in the 2010s. And while I was less enamored of Charlotte each time she won a title, I still love every moment that Becky Lynch steps in the ring (apart from the squash of Bianca Belair). These two had some incredible matches, including the first ever all-woman headlining match at Wrestlemania, which had Ronda Rousey thrown into the mix. Why doesn't it make the list? Charlotte. She's extremely talented but I don't enjoy seeing her on-screen. Apart from Lynch and Flair's astounding Last Woman Standing Match at the Revolution Pay-Per-View in 2018, I have no distinct memory of any Charlotte Flair spots, apart from putting her impressive Figure Eight Leglock on several opponents. Mostly, I just think of how deflated I get every time she returns and WWE throws a belt on her.

19. Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns.​ Until their feud was turned on its head by Roman Reigns being the tyrranical champion with a supportively cheating stable, and Brock Lesnar was some sort of Viking Cowboy who flipped a wrestling ring over with a tractor, most of their interactions in the ring were boring. In fact, until the 2021 Lesnar return, the most exciting part of the Lesnar/Reigns feud was when Seth Rollins cashed in Money In The Bank in the middle of their Wrestlemania 31 headlining match. Both Lesnar and Reigns can tell incredible stories in the ring but, for some reason, when you put the two of them together, it was a snoozefest of power moves that looked more like they were action figures being smooshed together by children's hands than two athletes in a choreographed battle. It's a pity there weren't more tractors in their matches.

18. Ric Flair vs Randy Savage. If their feud had started when they were five years younger, it probably would have been in my top ten. The Flair/Savage feud in WCW wasn't interesting to me. It was too similar to Savage/Hogan's 80s storytelling. I just didn't care about two old men fighting over women who were clearly too good for them. On the other hand, Ric Flair's "Damaged Goods" promos from the 1980s were a masterpiece. Flair and Mr. Perfect used doctored photos to try and convince the world that Flair had been in a relationship with Savage's wife, Elizabeth, who was the most famous woman in the wrestling industry at the time. Savage and Flair had a pretty good blowoff match, and then a year later, Savage used babyface mind games to convince Mr. Perfect to be his tagteam partner against Ric Flair and the up-and-coming Razor Ramon. Two excellent storybeats paced well apart, made this a feud for the ages. But not one of the seventeen best feuds.

​17. Bryan Danielson vs Nigel McGuinness. There's only one feud from Ring Of Honor that makes my top ten. ROH was more about wrestling than storytelling. Bryan Danielson is simply one of the best wrestlers of his generation but, apart from his epic Yes Movement storyline in 2014, most of his storylines have been mid-card okay at best. Bryan Danielson (then wrestling as Daniel Bryan) and Kane as Team Hell No was fun. Danielson's role in AEW's Blackpool Combat Club was okay. His performance as the heel Hemp champ vs Kofi Kingston was solid storytelling. None of them were Great Stories, though. And neither was his feud with the then up-and-coming Nigel McGuinness. The storyline was pretty basic but the matches were excellent. They were both champions when they first battled in Ring Of Honor in 2006, and each of their following battles was bloodier and more violent until their titles were unified when the then Pure Champion, McGuinness, beat the ROH World Champion, Danielson, in 2011. McGuinness retired from the ring not too long after that but returned in 2024 so that he could get a shot at Danielson, who was then the AEW Heavyweight Champ.

16. Sasha Banks vs Bayley. These two frenemies were both members of The Four Horsewomen (along with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair) that elevated womens' wrestling in NXT and the WWE in the 2010s. They were the first ever womens' tag team champions, and they had solid matched whenever one of them would betray the other in order to try and win a title. While their matches against each other were always between good and great (especially their epic Hell In A Cell match in 2020), I enjoyed them more as a tag team, and was always a little bummed when they were split up and pitted against each other.