
22. Lita & Trish Stratus
Hereās my first cop-out. But seriously, you try and include one without including the other. With all of the other names that HAD to be included on this list, I couldnāt justify putting one in and not the other, so here we are.
The current state of womenās wrestling is probably better than itās ever been. The first womenās Royal Rumble is about to take place. There has now been a womenās Hell in a Cell match, a womenās Money in the Bank Ladder Match, a pay-per-view that featured three womenās matches and multiple main events onĀ Monday Night RAWĀ andĀ SmackDown.Ā However, there can only ever be one āfirstā in sports and/or sports entertainment, and Trish Stratus and Lita hold the distinction of being the first women to ever compete in the main event onĀ Monday Night RAW. Whatās better is that they were given nothing. They earned that spot and ran with it.
The fact is that these two women will forever be linked. They inducted one another into the WWE Hall of Fame and their careers mirrored one another for years. Both debuted as valets, with Trish starting off with T&A (Test and Albert) and Lita with cruiserweight Essa Rios. After leaving Rios, Lita joined up with The Hardy Boyz to form Team Xtreme and her career skyrocketed from there. Team Xtreme soon feuded with T&A, sparking the rivalry between Trish and Lita that would last for years.
Lita was the first to gain the WWE Womenās Championship, winning the title onĀ RAWĀ during the Aug. 21, 2000 episode by defeating Stephanie McMahon. She held the title for more than two months before dropping it to Ivory that November. From there, she actually got into a feud with Dean Malenko, even defeating him in a singles match and would challenge for the WWE Light Heavyweight Championship at one point.
Trish and Lita teamed up for a while as part of the Invasion storyline in 2001, defeating multiple teams in the process in different types of matches. Trish was still honing her craft at this point and wasnāt nearly as athletic as Lita, but she continued to work and work and finally won her first title later that year in a Six-Pack Challenge at Survivor Series, a match that also involved Lita.
Over the next few years, both women won multiple titles (Lita won four and Trish won a record-breaking seven) and put on some of the most entertaining matches in the history of the womenās division, including that main event onĀ Monday Night RAWĀ on Dec. 6, 2004, a match that not only broke barriers but also almost broke Litaās neck after a crazy suicide dive to the outside.
Both retired from in-ring competition in WWE in 2006, and their rivalry will go down as one of the best in WWE history. See, you try picking just one.