The History of Women's Wrestling in America

The History of Women’s Wrestling in America
(My take on sexism in pro wrestling)

I have always been a fan of women in or around pro wrestling, but now finally after 17 years as a wrestling fan I can proudly say I’m both interested and invested in women’s wrestling from a competitive and storyline driven standpoint rather than the standpoint of being solely used as eye candy. Now more than ever the women are being given the time, effort, and promotion to perform quality matches and pull off compelling storylines to entertain the fans and actually get them invested. There are still issues that need to be fixed in order for women to truly be equal to the men, but we are a hell of a lot closer to that happening than we have ever been before especially in America. In this article I will take you back in time on a journey to show you the history of the role of women in pro wrestling in America and how sexism has been a constant factor ever since women’s wrestling’s earliest days. I will also be sharing my personal thoughts and opinions as a red blooded American male in his 20s on how I see women’s wrestling. Due to the length of this article I will be releasing it in 2 parts. The first part will cover the classic era up to the end of the Attitude Era. The second part will cover everything post Attitude era up until present day.

The Classic Era (pre 1980s)

When I say we are closer than we’ve ever been to the women being equal to the men I truly do mean EVER as even in it’s earliest days women’s wrestling in America has always been more about the sex appeal rather than actual in ring competition and up until the past two years all of the times women’s wrestling reached peak popularity it’s because the sex appeal was the primary focus. In the 1900s women’s wrestling was looked at as nothing more than a sideshow and a special attraction lumped into the same category as the midgets and the wrestling bear, they would even compete in matches at burlesque bars where they would place each other in provocative holds to show off their sex appeal and entice the audience which goes to show that even at the earliest of times society only wanted to see scantily clad women wrestle against each other and thus the sexism in pro wrestling begins.There would be a period of time between 1912-1925 when Cora Livingston was the women’s world champion that women’s pro wrestling was seen as a legit sport and allowed the elite women wrestlers at the time to receive more lucrative work and compete in more high class venues, but as soon as Cora retired women’s wrestling faded out of the spotlight as did pro wrestling in general due to the great depression.

Women’s pro wrestling would not return to relevance until the emergence of a lady by the name of Mildred Burke. Mildred in some ways was like the Ric Flair of women’s pro wrestling in her day as when she wasn’t in the ring she was always seen wearing expensive fur coats and large diamonds as she loved to show off her feminine side outside the ring. Burke was married to women’s wrestling promoter Billy Wolfe, the two of them came to the conclusion that even though the male fanbase liked watching the women wrestle, what they really wanted was to see was women wearing next to nothing grinding on each other as at that time it was still taboo and society was very uptight about this kind of thing except for when it happened in a wrestling ring, because of this women’s wrestling would not be granted licenses from numerous state athletic commissions for many years. Burke would continue to reign through the 50s where she used her combination of good looks and the fact that she looked like she could kick anyone’s ass to make lots of money. After Mildred’s reign at the top ended women’s pro wrestling once again faded into the background as none of the girls after her could capture the mainstream audience’s attention. In the 1960’s and 1970’s Mildred Burke would rear her head again except this time she was trying to sell a concept that featured both partial and fully nude wrestling with women vs women and men vs women. I’m really surprised especially in this time that a woman would come up with this idea as this sounds more like something a sleazy male promoter would come up with.

I can’t move on from the classic era without talking about a woman who is most likely the best known and most popular women’s wrestler of that time The Fabulous Moolah. Most people know all about her WWF career so I will only focus on pre WWF career. The Fabulous Moolah also had Billy Wolfe as her promoter, but unlike Mildred Burke her and Wolfe’s association with each other wouldn’t go as smooth, the reason for this was because Wolfe encouraged all the women he promoted to engage in sexual relationships with either himself or other promoters in order to get more bookings, needless to say Moolah being the prideful woman she was refused to engage in such degrading antics. Moolah would become one of the first known valets in pro wrestling as she would accompany Buddy Rogers to the ring, this would be done so she could serve as eye candy for the male audiences, unfortunately just like with Wolfe Moolah would break away from Rogers due to him wanting to have a sexual relationship with her. These are two early examples of how not only was the sexism in front of the audience, but was also rampant behind the scenes as the men expected more from the women than just a business association. I would like to say that would be something that would soon change, but unfortunately it wouldn’t as those kind of antics would be a common issue for women in the business for many years to come and probably still happens at times to this very day, but I will get more into these kind of horrible expectations and treatment of women later as I will dedicate a whole section to it. After breaking away from Rogers she would move on to be the valet for the Elephant Boy. Her role as his valet would come with much controversy as he was mexican, but had very dark skin so many fans thought he was an African American and during their entrance Moolah would kiss him on the cheek and being the way society was back then it would get major heat even to the point where a man attempted to stab Moolah just for kissing him. Moolah would go on to win multiple world titles the first in which lasted for 10 years. On July 1, 1972 Moolah made a huge breakthrough for women’s wrestling as she was the first woman to ever be allowed to wrestle in Madison Square Garden who up until then had banned women’s wrestling, furthermore she would go on to to help overturn the ban on women’s wrestling in the entire state of New York.

The 80s

Once the 1980’s came around there was still women’s wrestling, but it was put way way back on the backburner as now the role of women in wrestling was to stand at ringside in the role of a valet or manager. In my opinion if you look at it the role of valet/manager is more sexist than being in the ring as their role is to stand by the ring for the sole reason of allowing the male fans to whistle, catcall, and stare at them for the duration of the match while occasionally getting involved during a match or being used as a tool to further a feud between the male wrestlers, who were most likely feuding over the valet/manager in the first place like she is some sort of material object. While the women in USA were being used as valets/managers at this time, the women over in Japan were working their butts off and starting to get the attention of the diehard American fans who wanted to see the women in a different and more competitive role and that’s exactly what they got when they watched the tapes of some of the greatest Joshi workers of the time like Jaguar Yokota & Devil Masami in the early 80’s and the feud between The Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka) and Dump Matsumoto’s stable in the mid-late 80’s. This love for Joshi puroresu from American fans would only grow as the 90’s approached as they were looking to watch  women who could kick ass in the ring not just show their ass off.

In 1986 the first ever all women’s promotion premiered and it was named the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (G.L.O.W.). Glow was created by Matt Cimber who took the concept from David B. McLane and evolved it into something different. Glow would be run completely different than all other wrestling promotions as it was filmed more like a tv show rather than a sporting event. GLOW would hold casting calls for actresses and have them trained by Mando Guerrero and once cast they would undergo six weeks of further training before the pilot. GLOW’s original run lasted 4 seasons from 1986-1990 with each season lasting 26 episodes. During those 4 seasons girls would be added or dropped from the show before the next season would start. Every girl on GLOW had an over the top stereotypical gimmick. While it was short lived GLOW was a big breakthrough for the women’s wrestling to get it’s own spotlight and not have to be worried about being overshadowed by the men. Once GLOW’s initial run was over several similar women’s only promotions would spring up, but none of them had the success or notoriety that G.L.O.W. had.

Early - Mid 90s (1990-1995)
As the 90s came along women were still in the same role of being valets for the most part and the ones who did wrestle were still not spotlighted or respected. In 1993 this would take a change when WWF wanted to try and rejuvenate their women’s division the first step in doing this was to bring in Alundra Blayze who had previously been known as Madusa Miceli in both WCW and the AWA. Blayze had previously trained in Japan and wrestled for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW) and due to the lack of quality American women’s wrestlers at that time Blayze asked that the WWF bring in some of the women from AJW for her to wrestle which they did in the form of Bull Nakano. Nakano and Blayze would feud throughout 1994 and into 1995. Blayze would then go on to feud with seasoned veteran female wrestler Rhonda Sing who was renamed Bertha Faye in the WWF and was nothing more than a stupid comedy act . It should also be noted that during this era of women’s wrestling in the WWF although the in ring action was mostly hard hitting and serious the announcing for the matches were far from it as this would be  the beginning of Jerry Lawler’s sexist and adolescent minded schtick on commentary that would last for at least the next 10 years and would get much much worse.  Blayze would later leave the WWF due to financial reasons and would go to WCW and drop the WWF women’s championship in the garbage can. This would be an infamous scene shown over and over through the years to elaborate on the Monday Night War between WWF and WCW, but if you really think about it her throwing the title in the trash was the end of legit, competitive, and respectable mainstream women’s pro wrestling in America for at least the next 7 years and even after those 7 years mainstream women’s wrestling wouldn’t be held in reverence like it deserved for many years to come. Once Blayze went back to WCW they only used her sparingly as they tried to create their own women’s division, but it died a very quick death.

Late 90s - Early 00s (1996 - 2001)

Once Alundra left we would go from a semi-positive treatment and regard for the women to what would be looking back the absolute lowest of the lows. Now when I say it was the lowest of lows I don’t mean because they would fade back into the background once again, oh no it was the complete opposite as more women than ever were being featured on WWF television, the problem came in how they were portrayed as the sexism would be at an all time high. From 1996-2001 it was never more blatant and in your face that the women were sex objects and were being used as a tool to bring in the 18-34 male demographic. This 18-34 demographic would be a big factor that was responsible for WWF reaching the highest peak of mainstream popularity they would ever reach. The concept of taking the WWF from a more family friendly product to a raunchy product where anything goes and the violence, foul language, and explicit sexual behavior was turned up to the max was that of new WWF writers at the time Vince Russo & Ed Ferrara. Russo & Ferrara thought that the only way to beat WCW in the ratings at the time was to go the complete opposite direction of what WWF had been doing which Vince would comply with as he was willing to do anything at the time to get back on top over WCW who were slaughtering them in the ratings and to their credit it would pay off in the long run, but that is still no excuse for how the women were treated and portrayed during this time. Russo & Ferrara would write storylines that were made for episodes of Jerry Springer and most of them were so far fetched and over the top that they were not even used to build up to a match that would culminate the storyline and would only serve to amuse themselves. Some of the over the top and distasteful storylines they came up with at the time for women were Terri Runnels faking a miscarriage for the sole purpose of having D’Lo Brown be at her every beck and call as he was the one that supposedly caused it. They would also have Shawn Stasiak play the role of Meat a guy who would be so exhausted before his matches due to being oversexed by Terri Runnels. The story most remembered from this time would be legendary female wrestler Mae Young who at the time was in her late 70s getting into a sexual relationship with Mark Henry and eventually giving birth to a hand? WTF that doesn’t even make sense and did nothing to further any story going on. At this time there was more violence against women than ever before and most of it didn’t lead anywhere. Let me be clear I’m not against intergender wrestling when it’s done right in the confines of a competitive match, but that would not be what we would get here instead women would just get laid out for the hell of it and never lead to anything. In late 1999 Jeff Jarret’s entire character was based around beating on women and saying that they only belong in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant, at least this would finally lead to Chyna standing up to him for the women and going on to beat him in his last match in the WWF at No Mercy in a “Good Housekeeping” match. These are just a few examples I could name more, but I would be here all day. I must note that it was during this time when I first started to get into watching wrestling, but due to the vulgar and sexual content on WWF tv I was only allowed to watch WCW at first and my parents weren’t the only ones at this time who didn’t agree with the WWF product at the time as Parent’s Television Council were hot on the WWF’s tail as they would try to get companies to withdraw sponsorship from the WWF. WWF would eventually sue the PTC for defamation which would eventually end with them settling out of court.

I said before that at times in the past in ring competition would be put on the back burner and this was never more evident during this time as nobody cared about what happened from bell to bell from an athletic standpoint and for good reason as majority of the matches around this time were gimmick matches to further flaunt to sexuality of its participants, matches such as bra and panties, lingerie, mud, pudding, etc were majority of what would be featured on WWF tv. This would be when WWF would start hiring models for their looks rather than actual classically trained professional wrestlers and for the few who were there that were trained it wasn’t like they got a chance to show off what they could do as they too were thrown in these ridiculous gimmick matches and in the rare times they did get an opportunity to actually have a traditional wrestling match they weren’t given any time to tell a story in the match. The actual trained women were always the heels at this time. As I mentioned I was just getting into wrestling at this time and being the horny teen I was at the time I had no problem with it, but looking back I shake my head in disgust and think that I would’ve rather had no women on WWF television at all rather than them be subjected to this ridicule and embarrassment. If what was happening in the ring and in the storylines wasn’t bad enough this was the period of time when Jerry Lawler was at his absolute worst and most obnoxious as he would lose all sense of control when a woman would come on the screen and the entire time they were being shown it was sexual remark after sexual remark by Lawler, the most famous of these being him referring to women’s breasts as puppies which you would hear him yell out as least 50 times over the course of a 2 hour episode of Raw especially when Debra McMichael would be featured in a segment or match. It amazes me when I hear or read wrestling fans today who get the treat of these amazing matches and stories from the women every week say that they want the Attitude Era to come back and I have to ask why, I mean I get nostalgia, but trust me this era of the WWF does not hold up on re-watch especially if you're a supporter of women’s wrestling.

The face of the women’s division in the WWF at the time was Sable. Sable came into the WWF as the valet to her then real life husband Marc Mero in 1996. She would be his valet up until he got injured in 1997, during this time her popularity would grow and would eventually get a big push due to Vince Russo being head over heels for her and thinking she was the most beautiful thing to ever set foot on Earth a sentiment he still feels strong about to this very day. I personally have never found anything appealing or that attractive about her and always thought she was very overrated. Sable would go on to win the WWF Women’s Championship when it was reinstated in September of 1998. In 1999 she would also be the first woman from the WWF to be featured on the cover of Playboy and the first woman ever to make the cover twice in one year, this would be a yearly tradition for the WWE for the next 9 years (the other girls to be featured would be Chyna, Torrie Wilson, Christy Hemme, Candice Michelle, Ashley Massaro, & Maria Kanellis). Sable would leave the WWF in June of 1999 and file a lawsuit against the WWF for sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions, but Vince McMahon would counter sue over her control of the name Sable. The two parties would eventually settle out of court in August of 1999. At her peak in the WWF Sable had become a pop culture icon and was toe to toe with the likes of Steve Austin and The Rock in terms of popularity.

Another woman who had a very important role during this time in a completely different way than Sable did would be Chyna. Chyna was discovered by Triple H & Shawn Michaels at a bar one night after a show in 1996, upon watching tapes of her earlier matches they decided they wanted her to come into the WWF and be a bodyguard for Triple H. At first Vince didn’t want to bring her in as he didn’t think a woman beating up men would connect with the audience, at the same time she was approached by WCW and was at first going to accept an offer which would see her be the sole female member of the NWO, but she would later decline as she was informed by Shane McMahon that WWF was about to hire her after Triple H & Shawn Michaels’s persistency to Vince McMahon and him finally giving in. Chyna would debut in the WWF in February of 1997 and would become Triple H’s bodyguard and later Shawn Michaels as a part of D-Generation X. It should be said that due to some of the male wrestlers having massive egos they would either refuse to job to her or if they did job to her it was like pulling teeth getting them to agree to. In January of 1999 she would make history as she would be the first woman to ever compete in the Royal Rumble match as she would enter at number 30. In June of 1999 she would be the first woman to be in the King of the Ring Tournament and later be the first female to become a number 1 contender for the WWF championship. She would then enter into a feud with Jeff Jarrett where she would become the first woman to ever win the Intercontinental Championship. It was around this time that Triple H who Chyna was not only paired with on tv, but was also in a relationship with behind the scenes started a storyline with Stephanie McMahon and as those two started working more with each other on screen they started getting closer behind the scenes and began a relationship with each other. As Triple H and Stephanie grew closer his relationship with Chyna grew further apart until they were no longer together, this would turn both Chyna’s personal and professional life upside down and it’s safe to say after this she was never the same again. She would begin an on air feud that would turn into a romance with Eddie Guerrero. The chemistry between Eddie & Chyna was so fun to watch on screen, their partnership would last until November 2000. Chyna would then feud with the Right to Censor over Chyna posing for Playboy. This would lead to an injury angle at the Royal Rumble where Chyna would “re-injure” her neck that had originally been “injured” due to a spike piledriver from Val Venis and Ivory. Chyna would come back from injury to capture her first women’s championship at WrestleMania X-Seven. She would defend the title at Judgement Day 2001 against Lita in what would be her last match, she would later vacate the women’s championship. During her career Chyna broke down many barriers for women and left a lasting legacy that none have surpassed yet when it came to competing in the ring against the men. Chyna’s post WWF life was pretty sad as she battled many demons which included turning to drugs and alcoholism. She would also have a short career in porn. Chyna would pass away in April 2016 due to a drug overdose.

You may be wondering with all of this sexism and lewd activity happening in the WWF what were the women over in WCW doing at this time? WCW took the high road and went a bit more classy, they would still use women such as Elizabeth as valets, but one thing WCW did was they took a page from the sports world and created their own dancing team who would basically serve as the cheerleaders for Monday Nitro called the Nitro Girls (my favorite Nitro Girl was Spice). The Nitro Girls were trained dancers who were led by the then wife of DDP, Kimberly Page and would perform dance routines during commercial breaks for the live audience to keep them entertained, they would usually be shown on tv when coming back from commercial or at times when they needed to take up a few minutes of time on the broadcast. While it still wasn’t in ring competition at least it was portraying women in a way more positive light than what the WWF were doing as they were able come out and show their athleticism through dance and that’s better than trying to disguise blatant sexism as sports entertainment. This however would change in October of 1999 when Russo & Ferrara left the WWF and went south to WCW. They would have the Nitro Girls break up and actually get into catfights that nobody cared about, they would take a talented wrestler like Madusa and make her into Red White and Blue barbie would become a cougar and prey on young up and comer Evan Karagias. They basically turned WCW into WWF lite, but this time it didn’t work as WWF was so far ahead that nothing they could do would work, and these decisions on top of tons of others from Russo pretty much killed WCW.

2002-2006

Once WCW folded up and WWF would take over the wrestling industry, you would think there would be no need to rely on the sex appeal of the women as they didn’t need it to bring in more viewers for ratings, but there was one guy who after Russo left was still with WWF that had no problem with they way the women were portrayed on their television and never wanted the women to have a serious role and that man was executive producer and Vince McMahon’s right hand man Kevin Dunn. I will say it was dialed back a bit from when Russo was around, but we would still get our fair share of bra & panties matches and the worst part about these years is unlike years prior the quantity of women they had on the roster that were very talented and were capable of great matches was much higher. In March of 2002 WWE would have their brand split and it was at this time WWE pretty much separated their women into two groups, Raw would have the actual wrestlers as they would compete for the Women’s Championship (Trish, Lita, Jazz, Molly, etc)  and Smackdown would have more of the models and non experienced wrestlers who were used as eye candy (Torrie Wilson, Stacy Keibler, etc).

In the fall of 2002 WWE would do things involving women that were some of their real last attempts at truly shocking moments. The first would be Hot Lesbian Action (HLA) where on Raw Eric Bischoff would try to counter Smackdown’s Billy & Chuck homosexual storyline with homosexual activity on Raw with women the big difference here is the Billy & Chuck thing was a thing that built over time and was telling a story, despite what your opinion may be on the whole angle it was the first time WWE had ever attempted to talk about homosexuality in a somewhat positive manner (yes I know some will say they were the stereotypical gay couple and that WWE baited the LGBT community in believing it was a real thing, but for WWE this truly was a big step for them). The entire HLA concept completely crapped on everything that was going on over on Smackdown, as over on Raw they would have beautiful women come out to the ring and make out just for the hell of it to be edgy and it did nothing to further any long term stories and the only thing that ever came of it was a match between Billy & Chuck v.s. 3 Minute Warning where if 3MW won Stephanie McMahon (who was the Smackdown GM at the time) would have to perform HLA, this all would lead to Eric Bischoff getting a stinkface from Rikishi dressed in drag. Over on Smackdown around this time we had the story of Dawn Marie being a gold digger and an evil stepmother as she would marry Torrie Wilson’s real life elderly father Al Wilson and ended up killing him on their honeymoon by giving him a heart attack after having too much sex. It was also around this time that it came out that Vince McMahon was wanting to do an incest angle with his own daughter Stephanie, but thankfully was shot down by everyone around him (Triple H, Stephanie, Linda, & Shane). The fall of 2002 was a sickening time in the WWE as they were still trying to find the direction they needed to go in after the Attitude Era and with the overt sexualization of the women being the only thing they knew that ever worked to get ratings as well as having Kevin Dunn there who was never going to actually give women the respect they deserved it was still rough waters for the women in the WWE, but with all this negative there would be one great thing to come out of this era.

In 2004 WWE would launch the Diva Search where they would go across the country holding casting calls for women to become a WWE Diva (this was absolutely something Kevin Dunn was all in on and up for) Each week on Raw the women would compete in some sort of challenge none of which had anything to do with actually learning to wrestle, and the WWE fans would vote on who they would want to eliminate. The Diva search would last from 2004-2007. I will say that although the concept itself was completely sexist as they were pitting girls against each other in the ultimate popularity contest, the Diva Search did produce a lot of the women we still see to this day. Some of these girls that came from the Diva Search would eventually improve and actually find success while others just relied on their looks alone and never did anything meaningful. Looking at the list of participants that were in these diva searches I forgot some of the girls that I enjoy watching now were originally diva search girls. Notable girls that came from the diva search who stuck around in the business for a while are Christy Hemme (2004 winner), Maria Kanellis-Bennett, Michelle McCool-Calaway, Ashley Massaro (2005 Winner), Layla El (2006 Winner), Milena Rouchka aka Rosa Mendes, Maryse Ouellet-Mizanin, The Bella Twins, Brooke Adams aka Brooke Tessmacher, Eve Torres (2007 Winner), & Taryn Terrell. For a concept that was based solely on finding the next piece of eye candy it ended up launching the careers of many talented women.

One bright shining star that came out of the women’s division at this time that actually made watching the women on WWE television exciting was Trish Stratus. Trish Stratus was a former fitness model who caught the attention of the WWF and was quickly signed to a multi year deal in November 1999. Trish would make her debut in March 2000 as the manager of the tag team of Test & Albert together known as T&A (get it T&A haha it has a double meaning..oh WWE you silly perverted fools), she also would soon go on to manage Val Venis because you can’t have the T&A without the V I guess. It wouldn’t take long at all before the feud that would last off and on her entire would begin as in June 2000 Trish Stratus had her first match that also involved her arch rival Lita.. As 2000 came to a close Trish would be involved in one of the main stories of early 2001 as she would become the mistress of Vince McMahon (while Vince’s wife Linda was in a storyline medication induced coma), because God forbid there be an attractive woman come into WWE at this time and not have an on air make out session with Vince. As part of the mistress storyline Trish would get into a rivalry with Stephanie which led to the two having a match at the No Way Out 2001 PPV which would be a much better match than anyone had expected it to be. Finally Vince would side with his daughter over his mistress and on an episode of Raw Trish would be apart of a segment that would be one of the most degrading and disgusting acts of sexism ever on WWF TV as Vince would make Trish strip down to her bra and panties, get on all fours, and bark like a dog. Stratus would later get her revenge on both Stephanie and Vince at WrestleMania X-Seven to end this storyline.

At this time Trish was still green in the ring, but was picking things up very quickly and at Survivor Series 2001 after coming back off an ankle injury Trish would win her first WWF Women’s Championship. Up until she won her first title I was never that high on Trish like everyone else was (although everyone else was high on her for different reasons than her ability in the ring) and thought all she was going to be was just another Sable and was going to get over on her looks alone and didn’t care about trying to get any better, thankfully I would be proven very wrong. Throughout 2002 she would feud with the likes of Jazz, Molly Holly, and Victoria over the championship. In fall 2003 Trish and Lita would team up to face Chris Jericho and Christian after both had been fooled to thinking the two men were really falling for them, when in reality they had made a bet on who could get the other in bed first and yet again women are being used and referred to as sex objects. This wouldn’t have been as bad if the women wouldn’t have lost the match against the men as they never got their revenge for being made to look like complete idiots. In December 2004 Trish and Lita made history as they were the first women’s match to ever main event Raw.

Other than the long running feud with Lita the other feud that Trish is probably most remembered for is the one with Mickie James in the fall of 2005 into the spring of 2006. Mickie would debut in the WWE as an obsessed Trish Stratus fan who at first was satisfied just being in the presence of her idol, but after a while being an admirer from a distance wasn’t enough as she wanted to be as close as she could to Trish and there is no other way to be closer to someone than to become their lover, unfortunately Trish wouldn’t feel the same as she would resist Mickie’s repeated advances toward her. Mickie was so delusional that she would twist everything Trish did and said into it being a show of love toward her. At Royal Rumble 2006 she would even tell Trish right out that she loved her which both shocked and confused Trish. Over the next couple of months Mickie would keep on with her antics trying to get Trish to feel the same way about her, until finally Trish had to finally confront her and tell her she needed space. Once Trish confronted Mickie and told her how she felt this would be the last straw and Mickie would completely snap, her mentality would then turn to if I can’t have you then nobody else can as she would attack Ashley Massaro who was Trish’s on air friend at the time. Then she decided she would set her sights on taking the most important thing to Trish which was the WWE Women’s Championship, this would lead to a match at WrestleMania 22 which would become the best women’s match in WrestleMania history up until this year. Mickie would end up taking the title from Trish at WrestleMania. The two would have a rematch at the following Backlash PPV where during the match Trish would suffer an injury as she dislocated her shoulder and was out for six weeks. Up until the past two years this was my favorite women’s feud of all time for several reasons, first off I am a big fan of Mickie and have been since the first night she debuted in WWE. This feud was the first that I can think of where over several consecutive months a women’s story built and had a beginning middle and end, yes the Trish vs Lita feud lasted for 6 years but it was off and on and never lasted more than a month consecutively. Some might say this was another stereotypical portrayal of lesbians and another example of sexism in the WWE while I will say the kissing scene under the mistletoe as well as MIckie going up to Trish while she was in the shower could be viewed as stereotypical and going the same way of the HLA segments the rest of the story I feel was very very well done. Mickie and Trish’s acting during all of this was really great and it was interesting to see where it went each week. As I said before it had a well defined beginning, middle, & end and it was able to lead up to and culminate in the way every story in pro wrestling should which is by settling it in the ring and in the end it became about who would become the WWE Women’s Champion so it gave meaning to the belt. I read an interview with a former writer and he said that if Kevin Dunn would have had it his way Trish would’ve accepted Mickie’s advances and if that had happened the entire story would have been completely ruined and would have been in the same category as HLA with no story and I would not have praised it as high as I did.

In September 2006 she would have her final (at the time) match in her hometown of Toronto against who else but her rival Lita where she would get the win to win her seventh women’s championship. It should be noted that Lita would retire two months later at Survivor Series and unfortunately she wouldn’t get as classy of a farewell as Trish did as during the moment when she should be getting a standing ovation Crime Tyme would come out selling her personal items they had stole from her dressing room, they would sell her worn panties and a vibrator among other things. This was such a terrible way for Lita to finish out her WWE in ring career after everything she had gave to that company she deserved just as classy a farewell as Trish received. Trish would make sporadic appearances post 2006, She would return in 2011 to team with John Morrison and MTV Jersey Shore star Snooki to face LayCool & Dolph Ziggler at WrestleMania 27. In 2013 she would be inducted by Stephanie McMahon into the WWE Hall of Fame and the following year would induct Lita into the Hall of Fame.

The biggest thing to happen outside of the WWE would come in 2005 when Dave Prazak who was an announcer for Ring of Honor would open Shimmer Women Athletes which would be a women only indy promotion out of Chicago, IL and run by Prazak and Allison Danger. Shimmer runs on average one major show every three months and at each of these shows two DVDs worth of content is filmed and are sold as single volumes. Shimmer works very closely with Ring of Honor as it helps promote Shimmer by having their talent booked on ROH shows. In 2012 Shine which is Shimmer’s sister promotion was created out of Florida it is apart of the World Wrestling Network (WWN) along with Evolve & Full Impact Pro. Shimmer has been a platform for the who’s who in women wrestling to show off their talents and actually be respected as competitive athletes rather than only sex objects. Around this time I started watching ROH and a bit of Shimmer and one girl I really became a fan of was Lacey (not Von Erich). She played such an excellent bitchy heel character, I absolutely loved the whole “Ballad of Lacey” story where Jimmy Jacobs who was one of Lacey’s Angels fell madly in love with her and at first she would play it off like Jimmy was crazy for feeling the way he was feeling and at the same time his infatuation with her was causing problems as he cared more about winning Lacey over than he did about winning matches. Eventually Lacey would go from thinking Jimmy was crazy to playing into it and using him to get what she wanted. The reason the storyline is called the Ballad of Lacey is because Jacobs would show his love for her by writing her songs and making music videos for her. Lacey and Jimmy would go on a date in Chicago where Lacey would take Jimmy back to her hotel where it was assumed they had sex. After this the roles would switch as Jimmy would finally get his head straight and now Lacey was the one going crazy for Jimmy. There are more aspects to this story, but I would be here all day. I highly suggest people finding this stuff and watching it. In addition to all of this going on in Ring of Honor Lacey also would be apart of the tag team known as the Minnesota Home Wrecking Crew with Rain and these two were one of the best American heel women’s tag teams I’ve ever seen.

It was while watching all the stuff with Shimmer and ROH that I realized what WWE needed to do to get their women’s division where it needed to be, instead of going for the models that had zero wrestling experience and trying to get them to learn to wrestle,  instead go to these indy and hire those girls because there are very attractive girls on the indys who already have training and experience. If they had went with that method of finding new female talent then they would have the best of both worlds. WWE didn’t need for all of their girls to be models and look like perfect 10s, instead why not hire females that the fans can relate to, because it’s much easier for the fans to invest in a talent if they can relate to them in some way, because let’s face it majority of the men who are wrestling fans (including myself) are never going to be able to relate to someone like a Torrie Wilson or Stacy Keibler who in real life would never give most wrestling fans the time of day, but if you have girls like Lacey, Allison Danger, AJ Lee, or even a  Mickie James who the fans could actually see themselves being approached by and having a conversation about wrestling with, then it’s easier to invest in them as they are attractive, but also relatable. If you can’t find a reason to invest in the women and get into the story they are telling then you will never be able to see them as anything other than just eye candy. The same goes for the guys where it’s easier for wrestling fans to relate to the guys who look like normal everyday people like a Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, or Colt Cabana who look like people they could kick back and watch wrestling with. I hope the readers can understand the point I’m trying to make as I find it hard to explain what in my mind is a simple concept.

2007- 2011

The years of 2007-2011 for women in the WWE aren’t that memorable, not because they were necessarily bad years as much as they were status quo years where nothing changed that much and nothing really happened to catch anyone’s attention. I wouldn’t even say there wasn’t one girl or feud that stood out (except one, but it stood out for all the wrong reasons as I will get to later) among the others like in previous eras. In June 2008 the WWE would change to TV PG so at least we never had to worry about the women being degraded by having to be in bra & panties and other gimmick matches that were utilized to showcase the women for their assets rather than their talent, however this didn’t mean everything was suddenly going to be sunshine and rainbows for the women of WWE as they would still be treated unfairly by not being given enough time in their matches and now that they couldn’t be praised for their assets they would be criticized and bullied for whatever flaws the powers that be in the back thought they had. In June 2008 the WWE would also introduce the WWE Divas Championship so that the women on both brands had something to fight for. Michelle McCool would become the inaugural Divas Champion when she beat Natalya at the Great American Bash. In the 2009 edition of the WWE Draft Maryse would be drafted to Raw and then Women’s Champion Melina would be drafted to Smackdown causing the belts to switch brands. At the Bash in 2009 Michelle McCool would become the first woman to have reigns as both the Women’s and Divas Champion.

In mid to late 2009 Michelle McCool & Layla would form LayCool who were mean girls that would bully the other girls and criticize their looks. In late 2009 and early 2010 LayCool would begin feuding with Mickie James who had just recently been traded to Smackdown, they vowed to make Mickie’s life miserable unless she left Smackdown, this would lead to LayCool bullying and mocking Mickie by talking about her weight and calling her fat. This would lead them to calling her “Piggie James” and making a video where they would parody Old MacDonald Had a Farm. I can not tell you how much this infuriated me as this was the most petty and childish thing I had ever seen and made me change the channel every time the segment came on and for me to turn a Mickie James segment off was a big deal as I was a huge fan and supporter of hers. It was clear as day that this was nothing more than Mickie falling out of favor with someone in the back and them being butt hurt about it and trying to humiliate her any way they could. It goes without saying that Mickie wasn’t fat in fact if you ask me at the time she was perfect size. What makes this even more sickening is that this would be Mickie’s last storyline before she left, so the last thing everyone remembers about her before she left was her being humiliated and embarrassed. I will go on record and say that after Trish and Lita left the WWE in 2006 Mickie was the most popular woman in the company that the crowds would connect to and get invested in and for her to have to go out like that is just sickening.

In September 2010 at Night of Champions the Women’s Championship would be unified with Divas Championship to create the Unified WWE Divas Championship. This unification would make the Women’s Championship defunct as the unified title would follow the lineage of the Divas Championship. I always hate when WWE unify titles and then keep the title with less history and prestige as it makes the hard work and dedication of building that title up and everyone that held it feel forgotten and unimportant, but that’s just me. In this case it was even worse as now the term diva wasn’t going away anytime soon and that sucked as I always hated that they called the women divas. I don’t care what lines of bs WWE tried to shoot at people, for me the word diva was always a negative term to call or describe a woman as. I have to talk about Beth Phoenix as she was somewhat of a missed opportunity as she should’ve been as big of a star as Chyna as she was the girl who was suppose to be so badass that she could hang in the ring with the men if she ever had to, instead she became part of a comedy act with Santino Marella. She would be the second woman to ever enter a Royal Rumble match, but other than that she was nowhere as big of a deal as she could and should have been.

While the WWE was settling for status quo in its women’s division everywhere else was going strong as Shimmer was still doing great as were other women’s only indy promotions. The biggest development outside of WWE though would come in October of 2007  when TNA finally decided to really invest in their women’s division and created the TNA Knockouts Championship. First off I have to say unlike the term Diva I actually like TNA referring to the women as Knockouts as I like how it has a double meaning of them both looking gorgeous, but also can kick butt in the ring. At Bound for Glory 2007 Gail Kim would become the inaugural TNA Knockouts Champion by defeating 9 other women in a gauntlet match. The feud that would put the division on the map was Gail Kim v.s. Awesome Kong as they were having the highest rated segments (along with the other Knockouts segments) on Impact every week. At the time TNA was the go to place for women’s wrestling if you didn’t care to seek out promotions like Shimmer. Another popular act within the division was the stable known as The Beautiful People consisting of Angelina Love, Velvet Sky, and later on Madison Rayne and Lacey Von Erich. The Beautiful People were TNA’s equivalent to LayCool except they were never as mean spirited or right out bullies like LayCool were. Mickie James would have a great feud with Tara (formerly known as Victoria in WWE) where they would have great battles that would go all over the arena. Brooke Tessmacher who in the WWE was only used as eye candy got a chance to shine in TNA  as Brooke Tessmacher and was one of the most popular women to ever set foot in TNA. TNA also gave Katie Lea Burchill who would be known as Winter a stage to shine on as all WWE cared about having her around for was to attempt to have an incest storyline with Paul Burchill (yes Vince once again tried with this whole incest idea, this man seriously has issues). Awesome Kong was unlike any other woman in the US women’s scene at the time as she had the background in Joshi and was pretty much the modern day Aja Kong or Bull Nakano the way she dominated her opponents. In 2009 TNA created the Knockouts Tag Team Championship, this would be a great idea at first due to the popularity the division had at the time, but once the hype died down and women started to leave there weren’t enough women on the roster to keep the titles interesting and the belts were deactived in June 2013. One of the biggest surprises for me to watch in the division would come in 2014 as Taryn Terrell stepped her game up and was in one of the better knockouts matches against Gail Kim at Slammiversary XI.

Treatment and Expectations of Women in Wrestling Outside the Ring.

Before I get to the final years in the timeline where things start to finally look up I have to talk a bit about how some of the women are treated behind the scenes by the guys in the locker room and by those in management.

It’s no secret that pro wrestling has always been a man’s business and that up until recently women have had to work ten times harder if they want any success in this business, they also have to put up with more crap due to the men having egos the size of Texas and being afraid these women are going to steal some of their spotlight. Those massive egos make some of those guys think they are God’s gift to women and expect every woman to fall head over heels for them which believe it or not is not always the case. When some of these guys do find out that not all the women in the business are into them it bruises their ego and then cause them to cross the line into harassment and in a man’s business if the woman complains or stands her ground she ends up on the losing end as she is either harassed to the point where she quits or she confronts that person who is harassing her and due to her being a female in a male dominated industry she is fired thus was the case for Shelly Martinez aka Ariel (I love Shelly she is a sweetheart and absolutely gorgeous, even though she had one of the worst matches ever with Rebel at TNA One Night Only earlier this year lol)  as she stood up to Batista and because he was a bigger star than her she was released from WWE. The worst cases of a guy harassing the women for not bowing to his every whim is Randy Orton, it is well known that early in his career Randy Orton was the absolute biggest douche in the company and the way he would treat the women who turned him down was terrible as he would vandalize their property. It’s one thing when the wrestlers expect something from the women and then if they don’t do it they get harassed for it, it’s another thing when the company itself who is suppose to be a big professional corporate company expects something from them and if they don’t it affects their standing in the company and their chances of getting the same opportunities and pushes that the other girls get. What I’m talking about here is WWE’s expectation of the women to look a certain way as their are more worried about the cosmetics of the superstar rather than the talent. Up until the last few years women in WWE were highly expected to get breast implants if their natural size didn’t fit WWE’s liking which is the most screwed up thing to tell someone to make a major change to their body or else they will never get to the top. They were also encouraged to stay between a certain weight and if they started getting too big (which in reality isn’t that big at all) they were criticized for it which was what happened to both Mickie James as well as Vickie Guerrero. Poor Vickie from all I’ve heard she is a sweet lady and constantly over the years she was openly made fun of on the air for being bigger than the girls on the roster which makes no sense as she was never a full time or even part time competitor in the ring so why did it matter what she looked like. I’m so glad this is starting to change and the girls are finally being seen for their talent first and what they look like isn’t as important as before as long as they can deliver in the ring.

When I talk about the men expecting women to fall for them this didn’t just pertain to the women in the business this also included innocent civilian women and the one man known to be the worst when it came to this was Ric Flair. Let me first say that I have the upmost respect for Flair and everything he has done for the business of pro wrestling, but that doesn’t excuse his antics outside of the ring. It’s no secret that Flair is a party animal, but he is also a huge womanizer and would treat stewardesses, waitresses, and random women in the bar with complete disrespect and acted like a complete perv, for some reason the people in the industry excuse this with the whole that’s just Ric being Ric line and that doesn’t sit well with me, why can he get away with this kind of stuff and have people just laugh it off when it’s blatant sexual harassment. The problem with Flair is in certain aspects of his life Flair never grew up and matured he still wants to be the partier and go after the women like he did in his 20s while he is currently in his 60s and that just comes off as him being the creepy old man and nobody wants to associate with a creepy old man (the same can be said about Mick Foley except to a somewhat lesser extent). With this kind of behavior (although I don’t know the details of the reason for each divorce) it’s no wonder he has been married so many times, because as soon as the wife he is with puts her foot down and doesn’t let Richard Fliehr freely and without consequences be Ric Flair then it’s over. While I’m on the whole Ric Flair thing I have to mention two things that really doesn’t sit well with me about him. The first has to do with how he talks about how the current guys spend their down time and criticize them on the fact they would rather play video games than go out and drink at the bar, Ric this is a new era and this generation bonds in a different way than yours did, they would rather have a quiet night in playing video games rather than going out and making a fool of themselves getting drunk and chasing after women get over it. The other problem I have with him has to do with a story he told in his shoot interview about Shawn Michaels, he talks about how when Shawn came back in 2002 he didn’t drink as he was trying to live right after finding God and instead of  Ric saying ok that’s cool I respect that like a good friend would he instead peer pressures him by saying you can drink and still be a christian and this would lead to Shawn hesitantly agreeing and going to drink with Ric.Now the reason I have a problem with this has nothing to do with the whole christianity thing, it’s the fact that a 60 something year old man is acting like a teenager peer pressuring a 40 something year old man to do something he doesn’t want to really do, come on Ric for goodness sake everyone that is your friend doesn’t have to drink, you are pathetic to peer pressure someone at your age. Of course Shawn wasn’t going to say no when Ric kept on about it as he didn’t want to turn down the man he idolized his entire career and looked up to. As great as Ric is when the camera is on he is just as pathetic when the camera is off.

2012-2016

We have finally reached our final 4 years in the timeline of women’s wrestling in America and I’m glad to say that we are finally getting to a time where women are being treated with the respect they deserve for the most part and women’s wrestling in WWE is a hotter commodity than it has ever been.

The upward turn for the women I feel started in late 2011 and majority of 2012 with AJ Lee. During this time AJ was always involved in the main event storyline whether she was paired with Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, John Cena, or Dolph Ziggler the story always revolved around her and what she was going to do next even at times to the detriment of the world title. AJ had a personality and a charisma about her that you couldn’t help but love and want to watch. I always talk about how I love wrestlers with great facial expressions who don’t even have to say a word and could tell a story, AJ was amazing at that as she had a facial expression for every emotion imaginable and when she did get on the mic she could give some of the most believable promos I’ve ever heard a female in the business give.. While the actual women contesting for the Divas Championship were still in the same status quo for the most part (although they were also starting to get better stories and more segments) the fact that WWE would consistently feature a woman in the main or semi-main event storyline was a great sign. In the spring of 2013 she would finally join the other women and contend for the Divas Championship, this would lead to one of the best women’s feuds in recent times between real life best friends AJ & Kaitlyn. AJ would capture the Divas Championship for the first time in June 2013 at the Payback PPV. AJ and Kaitlyn would have the first ever women’s contract signing for their rematch at Money in the Bank in what would be a highly talked about segment at that time.

In July 2013 Total Divas would premier on the E! Network and this would lead to the women of WWE getting the most mainstream attention since the Attitude Era. Total Divas would be the first time fans were able to go behind the scenes with the women of WWE and peek into their personal lives, while yes the storylines of the show are mostly scripted it does give you some insight on what the life of a WWE superstar is all about with the travel and how relationships are maintained while on the road. Total Divas would really begin the rise in popularity of Nikki and Brie Bella as they were thrust above the other girls on the show as the real stars of Total Divas. Total Divas would also give us the greatest gift of all “All Red Everything” Eva Marie, now anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge Eva Marie fan and Total Divas is the reason for that as she comes off as one of the kindest and most down to earth girls on that show, the story where she brought her fiance at the time Jonathan to meet her parents and their utter disapproval of him and the fact that Eva was so upset by her family hating the guy actually made me feel sorry for her and want to root for her instead of against her. As far as her not being able to wrestle yeah that’s true, but you can’t deny she has a look that screams star and she belongs on WWE tv in some capacity, she would be perfect in the role of a valet for a heel as she garners major heat from the crowd. I respect her for at least trying to get better and wants to learn which can’t be said for all women who have looks like her that have walked through the doors of the WWE.

In February 2014 the WWE would launch the WWE Network and with that came the ability for more fans than ever to be able to watch NXT and this would be when the women in WWE would really skyrocket as the women on NXT were being given the time to actually tell stories in matches and were showcasing how great women’s wrestling really could be. The first NXT women’s match on the Network was Paige v.s. Emma. The night after WrestleMania XXX Paige would debut on the main roster and beat AJ Lee for the Divas Championship in her first main roster match ending AJ’s 295 day title reign. AJ would take time off after this. AJ and Paige would go back and forth between feuding and teaming up throughout the rest of 2014 and up to AJ’s retirement in April 2015. Before AJ left she would speak out against WWE’s unfair treatment of women citing that despite having generated record selling merch, and several top rated segments on WWE tv that female wrestlers receive a fraction of the wages and screen time of the male members of the roster, both Vince and Stephanie actually thanked AJ for her comments and acknowledge the issue. I have to wonder as great as AJ was at that time with the women still not getting the screen time and respect they deserve what she would be like now, AJ was only in WWE for a short amount of time, but I feel she deserves to be acknowledged one day and put into the HOF as she really was the one that planted the seed for what we see today whether she will or not remains to be seen as her husband CM Punk could have messed that up for her as she is now guilty by association, but that's another story for another day.

Throughout 2014 and the first half of 2015 the Bellas pretty much dominated all aspects of the Women’s Division. Brie Bella would enter into a feud with Stephanie McMahon. At SummerSlam Nikki would turn heel against her sister Brie allowing Stephanie to get the win. The sisters would feud over the fall of 2014 even having Brie become Nikki’s servant for 30 days. At TLC 2014 Nikki would defeat AJ Lee with Brie’s help (so they went from feuding to being a team again out of nowhere with no reason given at all) as they would call back to when Daniel Bryan lost to Sheamus in 18 seconds at WrestleMania 28, as Brie would grab AJ and kiss her and when AJ turned around she got hit with a forearm and the rack attack from Nikki and Nikki would become the new Divas Champion.

While all the Bella nonsense was happening on the main roster, down in NXT things were really picking up and all the women’s matches were becoming must see and the women down there were learning very quickly. After Paige left for the main roster she would relinquish her NXT Women’s Championship setting up an 8 woman tournament that would lead to Charlotte defeating Natalya in the final at the first NXT Takeover in a mat classic. After her win we would see Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Bayley, & Becky Lynch all of a sudden start putting on captivating matches that would steal whichever show they were on. The four of them would pair off in feuds against each other throughout 2014 and no matter the combination you had to watch, because if you didn’t you would be missing out on some great action. The feuds amongst these 4 would culminate at NXT Takeover: Rival as they would face off in a Fatal 4 Way match where Charlotte would lose the title to Sasha. The best women’s match of 2015 would come in August at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn where Sasha would lose the title to Bayley in an emotional match that was full of drama. The two would have a rematch at NXT Takeover: Respect where they would main event the show in the first ever women’s Iron Man match where Bayley would retain the title 3-2 falls.

I have to take a minute to talk about each of the 4 Horsewomen. You remember back when I was talking about WWE needed to hire the cute girls who weren’t perfect 10s, but were cute and relatable, well there is no other better person who epitomizes that than Bayley. The way she connects with the fans especially when she was in NXT is like no other. She is able to have both men and women from every age group (especially little girls) invest in and root for her. She is probably the best role model in every single aspect of her character that WWE has ever had for little girls. You would have to be a complete idiot to mess up and ruin her character, although WWE being WWE they probably will eventually and it will probably be because some moron wants to make her a heel. You can’t help but love Bayley, from her balloon guys to her side ponytail, to her 80s inspired looking gear, to her hug life she is the ultimate babyface that the women’s division has ever had, finally we have our Ricky Steamboat of the women’s division.

Charlotte is the ultimate athlete of the women’s division as the stuff she can do in the ring as far as athleticism far surpasses anything her father ever did and she is becoming an all around great heel as her promos are great and she plays the role of being the entitled bitch perfectly, if she keeps on like she is she could be right there with her dad as the greatest female to ever grace a wrestling ring.

Sasha is the daredevil and is willing to do anything to entertain the crowd including risking her own well being, when you watch her you actually are scared for her safety as she has come close to having career ending injuries multiple times. Her feuds with both Bayley and Charlotte are things of greatness and make you happy to be a wrestling fan or more specifically a women’s wrestling fan.

Finally there is Becky Lynch she is the fire and quirky one of the group who I feel is often looked at as the 4th wheel, but she is actually the most experienced of the 4 as she has traveled across the world perfecting her craft. Her quirky personality is too cute to watch, but as shown in her feud with Alexa Bliss if she wants to get serious and cut a great promo she can and has great conviction and passion behind her words. I had never heard of the word steampunk before Becky Lynch, but she makes it work for her. I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I love her side gimmick of being the queen of puns as I find it cute and different. Separately the horsewomen each bring something different to the table, but the one thing they all have in common is greatness and with them around the women’s division is in great hands.

On July 13, 2015 Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Charlotte would make their main roster debuts where they would be arranged into a feud where they were apart of three women’s trios. Team PCB (Paige, Charlotte, & Becky), Team B.A.D. (Sasha Banks, Naomi, & Tamina), and Team Bella (The Bella Twins & Alicia Fox). This way of debuting the girls would be an absolute mess as it didn’t give the girls any time to shine on their own. Thankfully this wouldn’t last long as Paige would turn on Charlotte and Becky. In September of 2015 Charlotte would defeat Nikki Bella to end her reign as Divas Champion. Charlotte would keep the Divas Championship until WrestleMania 32 where it was deactivated as the WWE would finally drop the term diva when referring to the women as they would now be known as superstars they would also bring back the WWE Women’s Championship, unfortunately this Women’s Championship wouldn’t share the lineage of the previous one as Charlotte would be recognized as the first one. At WrestleMania the women had the match of the night which when talking about having the best match on WrestleMania it is a very high honor.

In July 2016 WWE would once again split the brands and just like before in the first brand split the Women’s Championship would go to Raw with Charlotte. Charlotte and Sasha have feuded all year long over the title trading the title back and forth and in the process have main evented Raw twice (both of which times Sasha won the title) as well as main eventing the Hell in a Cell PPV in the first ever women’s Hell in a Cell match and as I’m writing this it’s two days prior to the first women’s iron man match on the main roster. To counter Raw, Smackdown would introduce their own Smackdown Women’s Championship which would be won by Becky Lynch in September after defeating 5 other women in a 6 pack challenge.

The biggest star for me personally to come out of the Smackdown women’s division is Alexa Bliss. I have been an Alexa fan since the first time she debuted in NXT, When Alexa first debuted in NXT with her blue glitter and little tutu I looked at her and knew she was going to be a star because just looking at her she had the natural looks and charisma I knew the higher ups in WWE would love. She came in pretty green, but she had natural athleticism that allowed her to perform flashy moves, but still needed to learn how to work a good match between those flashy moves as well as the art of the promo.In May 2015 is when the Alexa Bliss that we know (and I love) of today was born as she joined Blake & Murphy which at the time I thought was a strange pairing, but it was the best thing to happen to all 3 of them. Alexa being added to the team made two guys who are otherwise completely vanilla, compelling to watch. She created this snobby brat with a Napoleon complex persona and has never looked back since. This summer when they did the brand split I was one of the only people to suggest that Alexa might be one brought up from NXT as she still isn't the greatest in ring, but I knew she learns fast just from watching her progression in NXT and that she would get over massively even if she isn't at the level of a Charlotte, Becky, Bayley, or Sasha work rate wise just by her charisma and promo ability and turns out I was right. I'm a big fan of facial expressions telling how a person is feeling and using them to subtly further storylines Alexa is the best at this, when she is not cutting her awesome promos if you just watch how she responds by facial expressions and body language it's great as she does these faces that further her snobby brat persona even more to the point where even if she has a night where maybe her promo material isn't the best she is still fun to watch just to see how she reacts to stuff. The reasons I stated above along with her being the Harley Quinn of the WWE which I love me some Harley Quinn and also her being so freaking cute are the reasons why I love the little "5ft of Fury" Alexa Bliss.

Another woman I enjoy watching on Smackdown as well as Smackdown’s post show Talking Smack is not even an actual competitor, but rather is an announcer. Renee Young is such a fun and lively breath of fresh air to the WWE announce team and has been since she debuted in 2013. Renee Young is another one where I can’t see how anyone can not like her, she has such a fun and bubbly personality and comes off as one of the coolest most down to earth people that you could imagine sitting down with and feeling comfortable enough with to tell everything about yourself. I love her chemistry with Daniel Bryan on Talking Smack as they pick at each other and she can take the jokes just as good as she can give them. I also think her fashion sense is the cutest and this is coming from a guy who knows nothing about fashion. If you don’t like Renee Young then I don’t think I can like you as you are a bad person.

With the Horsewomen, Alexa Bliss, Naomi, Nikki Bella, Carmella, Emmalina, Dana Brooke, Nia Jax, and even Eva Marie as our current women’s division we may have the most talented and diverse roster of women to ever be in the WWE and looking into the future we still have the likes of Asuka, Nikki Cross, Ember Moon and others still down in NXT and if the Horsewomen are a sign of things to come for the women that come up from NXT then the women’s division is going to thrive for quite a while and that's not even counting the women that could come from the rumored Women’s tournament that is suppose to take place in January.

Well there it is the complete history of women’s wrestling in America from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows and thankfully ending our journey with the highest of all highs with women finally closer than ever to being complete equals to the men and finally getting the respect that is so long overdue. I hope you enjoyed this journey through history as much as I have as I tried to cover as much as I could and I know with as much as I covered I left a lot out, but this is an article after all and if I kept on going too much longer it would have become a small book.

I feel that with me writing this article on women’s wrestling and the sexism in it that I have to go ahead and defend myself as I could understand how I could come off as a complete hypocrite, if you read this and then go on my twitter or listen to me on The Wrestling Fans Podcast. Here’s the thing I’m a single guy in his 20s and I love looking at and talking about beautiful women and sometimes that consists of talking about their beautiful bodies, but when it comes to the women of wrestling you will never hear me talk about their bodies without first and foremost talking about how talented they are in the ring and in promos and I will never ever look at them only as eye candy or sex objects, while I will talk about their bodies and perhaps go over the line sometimes I also back that up with how they contribute to the WWE in every other way also, so I do my best to balance it out. For example I think Alexa Bliss is absolutely gorgeous and has a nice backside, but before I say that I will talk about how great she is at cutting promos and portraying the character of the snobby brat. I’m one of few people who will say positive stuff about Eva Marie other than how beautiful she is as I see potential in her. So to sum it up no I’m not a feminist, I’m just a guy who has the same likes and desires as any other guy, but at the same time I try to have some respect for women as I see all women as beautiful in their own different special ways. I follow adult film stars on twitter and I’m never one of these people who even look at them as only sex objects and talk to them degradingly, I talk to them and compliment them on how beautiful they are just as if they were any other woman on twitter. There is one girl who while every other guy is drooling over her body I’m like her beautiful smile and face is enough to melt my heart  If there is ever a girl I don’t like or care for whether it be in wrestling or anywhere else you will never hear me call them things such as bitch or whore or any other degrading comments as even if I don’t like them they still don’t deserve to be called those things.  Also as far as my twitter goes yes it is NSFW as I do retweet adult xxx material, b/c just as I said before I love looking at beautiful women, I can look at and be a fan of that stuff and still be respectable and a gentleman and stand up for equal treatment and rights for women.

I know this probably isn’t at the same quality that some are used to when it comes to articles on wrestling, but it’s my first real attempt, but I’m going to try and write more and get my name out there and start sharing my opinions on the one thing I have loved for the last 17 years and that’s pro wrestling. Feel free to follow me on twitter @MTW3589 and tell me what you liked, didn’t like, or just to give constructive criticism. Also feel free to follow @TWF_Podcast to hear me and my co-hosts thoughts on everything happening in the world of wrestling every week.

Trent