The Biggest Moments Of Paige's In-Ring Career

It was the news we knew would be coming for a number of months, but it was sad news nonetheless when Paige announced her retirement on this week's episode of Monday Night Raw. At just 25-years-old, the Anti-Diva of the WWE closed the book on what had been a short, yet successful career with the world's leading wrestling promotion, one that could have been better if not for certain misfortunes, but one that had started well before she caught the attention of WWE officials.

Even with those aforementioned disappointments in mind, Paige's run with the WWE as an active wrestler was packed with memorable moments, and we're here to look at those that stood out the most.

Having grown up in a prominent English wrestling family, Saraya-Jade Bevis made her in-ring debut at the tender age of 13, then signed with the WWE in 2011, at the age of 19, initially appearing on house shows as Saraya, but making her official debut as Paige in February of 2012. Back then, NXT was still known as Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), and the Norwich native would rapidly rise up the card, culminating in a tournament win in 2013 that saw her become the renamed -NXT’s first-ever Women’s Champion. In that eight-woman tourney, Paige defeated main roster wrestlers Tamina and Alicia Fox, then beat Emma in the final, en route to a 274-day reign that only ended when she was forced to vacate the title.

On the Raw after WrestleMania in 2014, Paige congratulated then-Divas Champion AJ Lee for her victory the night before but ended up getting slapped by the heel champion, which led to a match between both women for the Divas Championship. That’s not something your average top prospect from NXT gets to do on their first night on the main roster, but WWE clearly had a lot of faith in the Anti-Diva, as she defeated Lee for the title, becoming the first woman to win a championship in her main roster debut, and the only woman to ever hold both the NXT Women's and WWE Divas Championships simultaneously.

Although Paige lost the title back to AJ Lee less than four months after she won it, she’d win a second Divas Championship at SummerSlam 2014. Once again, it was Lee whom she was up against, but this time, the roles had been reversed, with AJ playing the babyface, and Paige being the recently-turned heel. Unfortunately, that was the last time she ever won a championship in the WWE, as Nikki Bella held the Divas Championship for a record 301 days after the belt had bounced back-and-forth between Lee and Paige for most of 2014. That was then followed by what was then known as the Divas Revolution, starting with the memorable debuts of Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks in the summer of 2015.

Initially, Paige was also a key part of this burgeoning women's wrestling movement in the WWE, as she, Charlotte, and Lynch formed Team PCB, a three-woman babyface faction that feuded with Banks' Team B.A.D., and the alliance of The Bella Twins and Alicia Fox. But Team PCB's eventual fallout led to the first major controversy in Paige's WWE career – the moment when she was scripted to tell Charlotte, whom she was facing for the Divas Championship at Survivor Series 2015, that her late brother Reid, who died in 2013 of a drug overdose, "didn't have much fight in him." This promo greatly upset Charlotte and Reid's parents – Ric Flair and his ex-wife Elizabeth – who were reportedly not forewarned of the segment before it took place.

The rivalry with Charlotte Flair was Paige's last relevant feud in the WWE before injuries, Wellness Policy violations, and an often controversial relationship with Alberto Del Rio overshadowed her immense in-ring talent, as she took most of 2016 and 2017 off recovering from said injuries. But we're not here to look back on those other controversies, as Paige's last big moment as an active WWE wrestler came in November 2017, as she made her much-awaited return as the villainous leader of the Absolution stable. Though Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville were not among the top women in NXT at the time they were called up to be part of Absolution, Paige's presence as the group's leader made them very interesting and promising, as Paige herself showed only a few noticeable signs of ring rust during her first few matches after almost a year and a half on the sidelines.

Sadly, it was a very short in-ring comeback for Paige, as a wayward kick from Sasha Banks during a WWE house show toward the end of 2017 resulted in a neck injury. That injury sparked rumors that Paige was advised she may have to retire as a wrestler, due to the similarity of her injury to the one that forced Edge to retire in 2011.

It took three months for Paige to confirm those rumors, and while we can say we're glad WWE is giving her something to do by making her SmackDown Live's new General Manager, that doesn't make it any less sad that she's been forced to hang up the boots at an age when most wrestling careers are just getting ready to take off.