Ricochet's Top 5 WWE Matches

Aside from the devoted viewership of "WWE Speed," WWE fans may have seen the last of Ricochet following the June 10 edition of "WWE Raw," where he was loaded into an ambulance after a brutal beatdown by Bron Breakker. The former WWE Intercontinental Champion has reportedly informed the company that he intends to leave at the end of his contract, with the beating he took from Breakker seen by many as WWE creative writing him off TV for good. While it's unclear exactly when Ricochet's deal ends, it seems very possible that "The One and Only" might be working elsewhere in the near future. As a result, many people have been looking back on his best and brightest moments as part of World Wrestling Entertainment, and we here at Wrestling Inc. are no exception.

According to his Cagematch profile, Ricochet has wrestled a total of 260 televised matches in WWE, with another 290 taking place at live events and in dark segments. We combed through everything Ricochet has done since his televised debut for WWE in 2018 to produce a list of the five best matches he has had while working for the company (in chronological order). Some may have wanted him to be a world champion, others might have pictured him main eventing WrestleMania, but even though he didn't get those moments, he at least gave his fans all of these.

As the old saying goes, you never forget your first.

After signing with WWE in January 2018, Ricochet appeared at live events and in dark matches for nearly two months before arriving in "WWE NXT" and entering a six-way ladder match to determine the inaugural NXT North American Champion. Fans of companies like New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Dragon Gate, and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla were already familiar with what Ricochet could do, but many WWE fans might not have understood the hype — which is why having his first official bout be a ladder match was a stroke of genius. Ricochet's first real move in this entire match was a springboard shooting star press to the outside, and from that moment on, fans came to their feet every time "The One and Only" entered the ring. 

With this being a six-person match, Ricochet doesn't get all of the spotlight, but he makes the most of it when it falls on him. Whether it's bumping around Lars Sullivan and Killian Dain to make them look like two unstoppable juggernauts or moonsaulting out of the ring while being tipped off a ladder, Ricochet made sure that whatever time he had on camera, he was the one the fans were following. 

The match ends with Ricochet nearly getting his hands on the title before Adam Cole tips him off the ladder to claim the gold for himself. It's dangerous, it goes at 100 miles per hour, and at times it can almost feel like too much. However, this is one of the best ladder matches of all time, and Ricochet is a big reason why.

At NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn 4, Ricochet managed to survive Adam Cole's upside-down superkick and become the second-ever NXT North American Champion, a title he would hold until the end of 2018 and into 2019. He successfully defended his crown against Cole, Pete Dunne, and Tyler Breeze, but the NXT TakeOver: Phoenix event in January 2019 saw him face Johnny Gargano, the man many fans remember as "Mr. NXT."

By this point in "NXT's" so-called "'Black and Gold" era, the brand had surpassed the lofty heights of the mid-2010s in large part thanks to Gargano's feud with Tommaso Ciampa, which had left Gargano in a dark space that was only going to get darker. Manipulated by Ciampa into pursuing gold other than Ciampa's NXT Championship, Gargano decided to win the only "NXT" belt he hadn't held, Ricochet's NXT North American title. Gargano also became obsessed with living up to the "Johnny Takeover" nickname he'd been given by the fans.

Gargano and Ricochet had impeccable chemistry together thanks to their matches against each other for companies like EVOLVE, Dragon Gate USA, and PWG, but with the WWE style of storytelling anchoring the match, it became more than just a mid-2010s workrate spotfest. Gargano tried to ground the high-flying, but once that strategy became ineffective, he went full guns blazing on the outside with German suplexes, DDTs, and brainbusters. This might have been the end of Ricochet's run with the NXT North American Championship, but it took everything Gargano had to keep him down for the three — and he had to go to an even darker place to do so, his mannerisms during the finishing sequence mimicking those of Ciampa, with whom Gargano celebrated at the end of the show.

Shortly after losing the North American Championship, Ricochet teamed up with fellow singles star Aleister Black to win the 2019 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, earning a shot at the War Raiders (now known as the Viking Raiders) at NXT TakeOver: New York. Black and Ricochet had actually had the chance to walk out of WrestleMania 35 weekend as triple champions — they had challenged for the Raw Tag Team Championship four days earlier, and two days later they would challenge for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, becoming the first team to ever challenge for all three sets of tag title in a single week (unfortunately, they ended up losing all three times).

While Hanson and Rowe (now Ivar and Erik) aren't the smallest of men, they were able to match the athleticism of both Black and Ricochet, with Hanson in particular pulling things out of his bag of tricks that would make Ricochet proud. The match might not be a favorite of those who dislike the "more is more" style of match construction, but the chemistry between the four men was fantastic, Ricochet has a knack for selling for big men to make them look absolutely terrifying, and the match ended up being a fitting swan song for both Black and Ricochet's time in "NXT," as they moved to the main roster immediately after WrestleMania.

Speaking of making big men look terrifying, Ricochet didn't need to put in much extra effort in that regard while wrestling GUNTHER, because the Austrian superstar is terrifying in general. However, Ricochet felt as if he was up for the task when he decided to try and right a wrong from earlier in 2022.

Everyone knows about GUNTHER's 666-day reign as WWE Intercontinental Champion, but some forget that it was Ricochet who GUNTHER initially dethroned. Towards the end of the year, Ricochet got his chance at becoming the No. 1 contender to GUNTHER's title as he entered the "SmackDown" World Cup tournament (the FIFA World Cup was taking place at the same time, for those wondering about the name). Unlike the football/soccer tournament that took place in Qatar, however, the United States actually won, with Ricochet beating Santos Escobar in the final, setting up a rematch with "The Ring General."

Ricochet had actually beaten GUNTHER at a PWG event several years earlier, but this version of GUNTHER was leaner, meaner, and knew that his striking abilities would be enough to floor the former champion. After trying some technical wrestling that didn't work, Ricochet took to the air to gain the advantage, but as fans came to learn in the months following this match, one mistake can end a GUNTHER match. Ricochet was resilient, but it was no use — GUNTHER emerged victorious, forcing Ricochet to get back in line and try and earn a shot at the title some other way. However, Ricochet would never get another televised shot at the Intercontinental Championship, instead turning his attention to his unlikely partnership with Braun Strowman heading into 2023.

Rounding out our list is the most recent and last great match that Ricochet had in WWE. "The One and Only" had just been crowned the first-ever WWE Speed Champion, and as we've learned from the previous two entries, he can fair well in a tournament setting — which is why many had high hopes for Ricochet heading into the 2024 King of the Ring tournament. Unfortunately, Ricochet drew former NXT Champion Ilja Dragunov in the first round, who was riding a wave of momentum after spending over 200 days atop the "NXT" brand.

While Ricochet can work well against virtually anyone, putting him against someone as intense as Dragunov particularly plays to his strengths. We've discussed how good Ricochet is at bumping to make everyone he works with look better, but wrestling someone who constantly looks like he's about to perform the last move of his entire life added sometime special to a ferocious 14-minute match. It didn't overstay its welcome, it did everything it needed to do, and it was arguably the best match of the entire tournament, proving to everyone why Ricochet is still one of the best performers in the world in 2024, even in defeat.

For many WWE fans, it will be a shame to see "The One and Only" move on to a new phase in his career — not just because he's talented, but because it feels like we never got to see the best of him on the WWE main roster. However, when you consider that Ricochet lost every match on this list, it's not hard to see why he's moving on.