By Laura Mauro @lauranmauro
I’m old enough to remember – back when WWE was WWF, and WCW was still a thing – the days when WWE’s idea of women’s wrestling consisted almost entirely of ‘bra and panties’ matches, with the occasional pillow fight thrown in for variety’s sake. The days prior to the Attitude Era, when women could fulfil such widely varied roles as ‘valet’ and ‘love interest’; then the Attitude Era itself, where women received a dubious upgrade to in-ring action, provided the action involved clothes being ripped off, or perhaps gravy, if they really wanted to push the boat out. I was an adolescent girl otherwise completely drawn in to wrestling, and yet even at that age I knew there was something egregious about the way WWE’s women were portrayed. I didn’t know that, in Japan, an entirely different kind of women’s wrestling existed, where women were taken seriously as competitors; I only knew that, in WWE, the criteria for a spot in the women’s division had nothing to do with wrestling ability, and everything to do with looking good in a bikini.
Throughout it all, there were hints of something better. Molly Holly and Lita showed they had the ability to actually wrestle, albeit only on those rare occasions when they were permitted to. Trish Stratus, formerly of the ‘glamorous valet’ role, learned how to put on matches. In 2004, Lita and Trish main evented an episode of Raw, and it was good. And yes, fine, it wasn’t Joshi-good. But I was seventeen, and I’d never seen anything like it on WWE programming, and at that time it felt like a revelation: superplexes and suicide dives, powerbombs from the top rope, Lita’s famous moonsault. Trish and Lita were allowed to actually wrestle, in a time where slapping and hair-pulling were still mainstays of most women’s matches. WWE would go on to drop the ball spectacularly over the next decade or so; the ‘Divas Era’ did little to further the development of the women’s division, and while it was all perhaps a step up from the era of evening gown matches (and the absolute nadir of WWE women’s wrestling – Trish Stratus on all fours, barking like a dog at Vince McMahon’s behest) women’s matches nonetheless remained the designated ‘toilet break’, rarely running for more than five minutes. ‘Diva Search’ ran alongside ‘Tough Enough’, exposing – if it weren’t already abundantly clear – the differing priorities WWE had in searching for male and female talent. It was around this time that WWE lost me as a viewer. It wasn’t just the treatment of the women’s division that put paid to my enjoyment, but it was a huge factor. Seeing progress made and then dashed was just too disheartening. I didn’t watch WWE again until 2016, a decade later.
I mention all of this because, with the announcement of WWE’s first women-only PPV, there have been an astonishing range of takes on the internet which I feel miss the point entirely. A toss-up between the people fawning over WWE’s progressiveness, as though they’re not essentially fixing their own decades’-worth of screw-ups (whilst conveniently failing to acknowledge those screw-ups) and those decrying WWE for reasons ranging from ‘it’s sexist to have a women’s-only PPV!’ (I refer you here to reddit, where a poster has compiled a list of every male-only PPV WWE has ever held – the sheer number – over 100 – is eye opening) to ‘this event doesn’t matter because it’s just corporate cash-grab’.
The truth, I feel, is somewhere in between, and as is often the case with online discourse, there is a significant lack of nuance. Because, look: everything I’ve mentioned above is part of the fabric of WWE’s women’s division; it cannot be erased, and it cannot be denied, and it’s galling to say the least when WWE bring out the trumpets and parade floats and self-aggrandise in the most aggressively corporate way over how progressive they’re being, how they are at the forefront of the women’s revolution when, in fact, the only reason there even needed to be a ‘revolution’ was because the company dragged women’s wrestling along the bottom for over a decade. It’s a point that needs to be made, because while WWE’s women were posing in Playboy and engaging in such deep and interesting storylines as calling one another ‘fat’, an entirely different world of women’s wrestling was flourishing not just in Japan, but in Mexico, where women have been competing for the Mexican National Women’s Championship since 1955, and the CMLL World Women’s Championship since 1992. In the US, women’s-only promotion Shimmer has been in operation since 2005. Ring of Honor, Chikara and CZW have hosted intergender matches since the early 2000’s; in 2015 Kimber Lee became the first woman to win Chikara’s Grand Championship, while Heidi Lovelace (now WWE’s Ruby Riot) won the Chikara Young Lions Cup in 2014. The point is, WWE didn’t revolutionise women’s wrestling; they were busy selling eye candy while women across the world fought for legitimacy, to be recognised as equal to their male counterparts. And let’s pause for a moment here to acknowledge that while the Diva’s era was no high point, the performers did the best with what they were given – it’s not their fault WWE couldn’t be bothered to do the work required to make the women’s division matter. It’s fair to say that the revisionist history on display is frustrating, and watching Vince McMahon and co pat themselves on the back after everything that has gone before leaves a sour taste.
You would be forgiven, then, for asking why it matters at all that WWE are holding an all-female PPV, given that women’s wrestling has been in rude health outside of that promotion. It’s a fair question. But consider this: whether you like it or not, WWE is by far the biggest wrestling promotion in the world, with the biggest audience in the world – wrestling devotees and casual fans alike. And while the seeds of change are being sown with All In and Ring of Honor at Madison Square Garden, the smart money says this is going to remain the status quo for a while to come. So what matters is this: for every ‘historic first’ the company puts out – from the first women’s Hell in a Cell match to the first women’s Royal Rumble – there is a generation of girls who really are seeing this for the first time. I think back to when I was that age, watching Lita – who I pretty much idolised at the time – competing in her own ‘first’, the ‘first ever tag team bra and panties match’, and the difference is stark. These girls (and indeed boys) are getting to see women compete, not as glamour models but as athletes, who are increasingly offered the same opportunities as their male counterparts. There is work still to be done, certainly; the women’s division is not yet on par with the men’s in many respects. But for all WWE’s numerous sins, this is a big step in the right direction.
There is the question of ability. Is the women’s roster good enough (and big enough) to make this work? Well, that depends. If you’re comparing the women of WWE to the women of Stardom, possibly not. But that’s a comparison which lacks context: WWE’s women’s division is not Stardom. For the most part, its performers lack the level of training and experience that joshi wrestlers, or even women indie wrestlers tend to have. Nonetheless, there are plenty of good and even great female wrestlers: Charlotte, Asuka, Sasha Banks, Kairi Sane, Ruby Riott, Shayna Baszler, Ember Moon, Naomi (yes, Naomi), Candice LeRae, Becky Lynch, even relative newcomers like Lacey Evans and Dakota Kai have a ton of promise. And frankly, when we ask this question of the women’s division, we should ask ourselves why we don’t ask the same of WWE’s men; it is without question that for every Lana or Carmella there is an equivalent mediocre-to-poor wrestler on the men’s roster (hello, Mojo Rawley). The women’s Royal Rumble was a little wonky on the first attempt, but no moreso than the first ever men’s Royal Rumble back in 1987, described by Dave Meltzer as ‘a flop’ – the Rumble has since gone on to become one of the biggest events of the wrestling calendar, and the women’s Rumble was enjoyable even despite its teething problems. The second women’s Money in the Bank match was far better than the first. You can’t expect WWE’s women’s division ever to improve if they are not given the chances and opportunities to prove themselves, and I remain convinced that, taking NXT and potential acquisitions from the Mae Young Classic into account, there is enough of a foundation here to build a potentially very good show. At the very least, it won’t be any worse than any of the other, decidedly more male-centric events WWE have put on lately.
Yes, it sticks in the throat to think that WWE are basically undoing the mess they themselves created and plastering the word ‘revolution’ as though they invented women’s wrestling. But at the very least, they are undoing it. It’s late in the day for WWE to take this step, and there’ll be no small amount of teeth-gritting over the coming months as they flog the ‘women’s revolution’ dead horse for all it’s worth. Nonetheless, it still matters; it is a legitimately big deal that the biggest pro-wrestling promotion in the world is showcasing women’s wrestling on a huge scale. We’re only a few months removed from the Greatest Royal Rumble, an event at which WWE willingly threw its women’s division under the bus for the sake of turning a profit. An all-women’s PPV, then, is good PR. And while I’m being cynical: yes, it almost certainly is a corporate cash-grab. But then again, everything WWE does is a corporate cash-grab, and this one at the very least has the positive side-effect of boosting the profile of women’s wrestling to a wider audience. It’s simply not realistic to expect young female fans (or any young fans, for that matter) to readily have access to Stardom or Sendai Girls, so to see women’s wrestling given legitimacy on this scale is important, not just in terms of making amends for WWE’s frankly awful history, but in terms of showing young female fans what they can achieve and aspire to. I live in constant hope of WWE doing better; small victories like make me feel almost as though that’s not such a distant possibility.
