WINC Watchlist: Toni Storm’s Greatest Matches

“Timeless” Toni Storm has achieved so much already in her career, despite the fact that she has only recently turned 30 years of age. She is one of the last truly great gimmicks in the business, fully believing that she is a Hollywood starlet from a bygone era while also having more confidence than most of the AEW roster combined. Storm’s unique character has made her not just one of the most popular women’s wrestlers in the world, but genuinely one of the most popular wrestlers in AEW itself.

Already a four-time AEW Women’s World Champion, Storm has won gold all over the world as she originally got her big breaks in companies like STARDOM in Japan, wXw in Germany, and PROGRESS in the United Kingdom. Her international success throughout the 2010s landed her a WWE which resulted in Storm winning the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament, and having an eight month run as the WWE NXT UK Women’s Champion, but while her run on the WWE main roster didn’t exactly go to plan, everyone knew that she had a lot of success waiting for her in the future.

Storm has now been in AEW for four years and has done almost everything there is to do in All Elite Wrestling. She’s one of the many wrestlers to make the jump from WWE to AEW and have a lot more success in her new environment, to the point where she ranks alongside the likes of Jon Moxley and Swerve Strickland as one of the most important signings in AEW’s short history. 

We are already deep into International Women’s Month and we’ve been detailing some of the best matches from the careers of the most popular females in the business. Toni Storm already has a rich catalogue of classics under her belt, and it’s very likely that a list like this will be outdated in a few years time as Storm will give us many more nights to remember. So without further ado, here are some of the greatest matches from the weird and wonderful career of “Timeless” Toni Storm!

Having recently rewatched WWE NXT TakeOver: Vengeance Day from 2021, one of the things that I found myself thinking coming out of that show was that Toni Storm and Io Shirai should have really had a singles match instead of a Triple Threat Match featuring Mercedes Martinez for the WWE NXT Women’s Championship. The makings of a great match were in there when Storm and Shirai shared the ring, but there was just something missing. However, these two women had a number of battles before they both arrived in WWE, and this bout from the Spring of 2017 is one of their finest. 

Heading into this match, Storm and Shirai had a pair of matches against each other in 2016 where they fought over the SWA Undisputed World Women’s Championship. Both women picked up one win each but were mainly kept apart after their second bout. It was clear that STARDOM saw big things in Storm as the next major foreign ace of the company, but could she be the one to end Shirai’s near 17 month reign as the World of STARDOM Champion? The “Genius of the Sky” was already being linked away from STARDOM despite carrying the red belt around for nearly a year-and-a-half, so when the rubber match between Storm and Shirai took place, a lot of people thought they would see a changing of the guard, but that’s not happened.

Instead, these two women beat the hell out of each other for 30 straight minutes, with Shirai barely escaping with her title. In fact, this was the match that prevented Shirai from competing in the inaugural Mae Young Classic tournament in WWE. The Storm Zero she took in the closing moments legitimately injured her neck to the point where the match looked like it was going to be stopped, which was probably the lowest point of the match. Shirai was down for nearly 40 seconds but Storm never ended up winning because she wanted the pinfall win and kept interrupting the referee’s count. The referee would then restart the count each time which was a bit annoying, but if it was going to a 30 minute time limit draw, they needed an excuse to keep the clock ticking over. 

Outside of that down time, this match is fantastic. Genuinely one of the best matches Storm ever had in Japan, and it was capped off with a brilliant final few minutes. Despite her injury, Shirai threw everything into her Moonsaults, one of which was countered by Storm who got her boots up in a moment that looked truly nasty. Storm thought she had the win by having Shirai locked in a submission, but the time limit expired which kept both women strong. If you ever wondered where the hype surrounding both Storm and Shirai came from, go and watch their STARDOM matches and marvel at how impressive both women were so early in their careers.

By the summer of 2019, Toni Storm was a name known the world over. She had finally made it to WWE and won the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament, but Storm wasn’t a full-time member of the “WWE NXT” roster, instead wrestling in “WWE NXT UK” until after the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the plus points for Storm and the rest of the “NXT UK” roster was that when they were still allowed to wrestle on the independent scene and internationally if they chose to. This allowed Storm to have one more match with a woman many considered to be the final boss of Joshi wrestling.

Meiko Satomura is one of the most legendary wrestlers to ever come out of Japan, and in the late 2010s, she was finally getting her well overdue flowers as her Sendai Girls promotion was gaining momentum, and the fact that she had also been featured regularly on WWE TV. She had crossed paths with Storm multiple times by the time Sendai Girls arrived in the United Kingdom, including in the semi-finals of the Mae Young Classic that Storm would go on and win, but would the outcome be different when Satomura is on home turf?

The first thing to note when you watch this match is the crowd, they’ve had a lot to drink. The sound of “LET’S GO TONI/LET’S GO MEIKO!” will be scorched into your eardrums as the crowd do not let up in letting both women know how much they love both of them. It does get to the point where you can tell the crowd are just trying to get themselves over rather than enjoying the match, but Storm and Satomura don’t rush things to keep everyone engaged. They work at their own pace, and through their work just being that good, the crowd go from cheering drunkenly at both women to actively cheering both of them on as the match reaches different gears.

Satomura was always a fantastic striker even at this stage of her career and that was on full display here, with her Step Up Axe Kick really being a thing of beauty. However, Storm is more than capable of throwing some nasty Lariats to show that she isn’t going to be taken lightly. The match does try and be technical in the early going, but this is a match where the bombs start falling and all hell breaks loose. Storm is able to keep up with the physicality of Satomura, while Satomura is able to keep up with the speed of Storm. That is until the final moments where Satomura gets caught and takes three Storm Zero Piledrivers, and a Tiger Bomb (which is was also known as a Storm Zero in WWE), which finally puts Satomura away. Now that Satomura is retired, this is the final match these two women will ever have together, but what a fun time it was.

After her run with WWE didn’t go according to plan, Toni Storm was able to have a fresh start in 2022 when she officially signed with All Elite Wrestling. The women’s division in AEW had always been (and to an extent still is) the weakest point of the company as the female roster just weren’t given the same level of opportunities that their male counterparts did. However, when you bring someone with the pedigree of Storm on board, it helps everyone as she helps every woman she faces get better.

Take this match with Jamie Hayter from Full Gear 2022 for example. Hayter had quietly become one of the most consistent performers in the company at the time, and with the fans clamoring for some fresh blood at the top of the card, it was down to Storm to do the honors and give Hayter her crowning moment. What helped between these two was that Storm and Hayter were so close outside of the ring, they even lived together during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they both had similar career paths of taking their talents to Japan while calling the European indie scene their homes.

Unless my memory is failing me, which is very plausible as age catches up with me, this was the best AEW women’s match on pay-per-view up to this point. There had been a number of great matches on TV, but the pay-per-view offerings always seemed to fall a little short of the mark as they were just left to do a good/very good TV style match amongst the pay-per-view epics that surrounded them. This was a glorious exception, just a hard-hitting fight between two women who knew each other so well. Hayter is the fan favorite despite playing the heel role, which leads her to come across as arrogantly cool rather than obnoxious. For example, she gets into it with referee Paul Turner but ends up shaking his hand apologizing for her behavior, all while she is booting Storm in the back of the head.

The inclusion of Rebel and Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. to help Hayter get over the line actually benefits the match rather than hindering it because it leads to some great false finishes, like if Baker and Rebel can’t help her then is this just not going to be her night? The crowd are alive for the near falls and it changes from politely enjoying the match to being actually engaged, making the whole match feel more exciting as well. This is more of a Jamie Hayter match than a Toni Storm match if we’re being honest, but Storm does so well in making everything feel as nerve-wrecking as it becomes by the end of it. Hayter gets her moment, Storm is kept strong, and the AEW women’s division finally after three years has a pay-per-view classic under their belts.

Well who didn’t see this one coming?

This match only just celebrated its one year anniversary and already it’s been talked about so much. The Hollywood Ending from AEW Revolution 2025 won the Match of the Year in our own awards here at Wrestling Inc., with the Toni Storm/Mariah May feud itself also picking up Feud of the Year, so we obviously hold it in high regard. With that said, a lot of people also have a lot of love for the final chapter between Storm and May, and rewatching it again, it’s so easy to love.

This is two women being absolute bad b****** on the biggest stage available to them. Should it have been the main event? Of course it should! The fact that it wasn’t the main event is up there as one of the biggest missed opportunities in AEW’s short history. I don’t buy that Mariah leaving to go to WWE was the reason this match wasn’t the main event because she didn’t debut in “WWE NXT” until three months later, and by that point Storm had already moved on to different rivals. I do buy the idea that Adam “Cope” Copeland really wanted to main event one more pay-per-view for a world title before he inevitably drops back down to the nostalgia spot on the card, but I also buy the idea that Tony Khan is one of those guys who likes the tradition of the world title being the final match of the night, regardless of whether the feud surrounding it is the hottest on the show or any good to begin with.

Anyway, enough ranting about this match being in the middle of the card, this is an absolute riot of a match. It’s a bloodbath with a capital B so if you’re not into that sort of stuff, fair enough, but please give it a try with this match because it’s really worth it. The blood is warranted for a story this layered and deep, and there’s so much of it that you can see both women getting exhausted in the closing moments. At the time, there was a lot of talk about this being one of the shortest matches on the show, but I actually think that works to its advantage. If you want to be realistic, these two girls cannot bleed that much and wrestle for 25 minutes, they just can’t, it’s not how it works. Because of the length, it doesn’t overstay its welcome, it’s frantic, it’s wrestled at a demonic pace where you’re constantly thinking to yourself that there’s no way they can keep this sort of action up, but they do!

I get that in this day and age, some people aren’t comfortable with women bleeding all over the place, which is why the WWE women’s division might be more to their tastes and that is perfectly fine. Wrestling is subjective, not everyone has to like the same things. However, this is a match that has a strong case of being the greatest women’s match to take place in the United States, and is truly one of the greatest matches of the last decade. Essential viewing.

Another match where people believed it was worthy of headlining the show, and in this case I actually think the Texas Death Match between Jon Moxley and Hangman Page was the correct choice. But if Toni Storm and Mercedes Mone’s war over the AEW Women’s World Championship happened at any other show, yes it should have closed the show, it’s the biggest women’s match that AEW can book.

This one felt like a big deal. Mone had ran through everyone that was put in front of her since arriving in AEW back in March 2024, and at the time had a total of seven different belts to showcase her achievements. The one thing she didn’t have was the biggest prize of them all, the AEW Women’s World Championship, and after The Hollywood Ending, Storm had been able to overcome even the most surprising of odds in order to leave with the gold. They both got the grandest of entrances with Mone arriving in a low rider and having a coat displaying the list of names she had defeated, while Storm embraced being the “Lady in Red” and welcomed Mone to the “Timeless Zone.”

As for the match itself, it’s great. Had it not been for the two matches that followed it, it would have a genuine claim of being the best match on AEW’s biggest show of the year. With that said, it’s most certainly worthy of the triple main event status it was given. Mone is determined to not let Storm’s mind games come into play, but she just can’t help herself when she sees Storm doing her “CEO” dance, Luther catching Storm on the outside, and the fans relentlessly booing her despite being in control for a large portion of this match.

When Mone does let Storm into her head, there is another element of her game that’s on full display, her selling. She has always bumped with an element of “Ragdoll Physics” where she looks like all the bones in her body disappear when taking a German Suplex for example, but the selling is great. Constantly kicking out in the most limp way imaginable to sell the impact is something that would have been overused had the match been a little longer, but it felt just right with the amount of times she executed it. 

As for Storm, she was on fire here, and while her performance in The Hollywood Ending is her best, this is probably her best non-blood stipulation performance (even though her nose does get a bit bloody towards the end). I could have personally done without Mone kicking out after three Storm Zeroes and just going straight for the Avalanche version that ended the match, but that’s a nit-pick. A fantastic match fitting of the occasion, and I personally can’t wait for these two to cross paths again in the future.