Women in wrestling 2016

A year on from a "Women's Revolution"

Over the last two years mainstream professional wrestling has been introduced to something arguably more important but certainly equally as organic as the attitude era of the late 90s. This recent movement has seen competitors reach heights previously believed to be unattainable, get genuine interest where it was thought to be impossible and most of all, go against the trend of previous generations of wrestling. I am of course talking about the surge of women’s wrestling in the past two years. As a self confessed pessimist I feel obligated to say how refreshing it is to see focus given to women’s wrestling recently but with all the focus that’s been given towards the women in WWE lately one must ask-are things in a better state than they were? On paper the answer seems like a straightforward yes but just because quality and presentation has improved in the division, it doesn’t necessarily mean things are in a better state. To help explain, I’ll be using three women in WWE right now as examples of the developments but one or two more will pop up where relevant. To start off, I’m going to highlight the two women who’ve done more than anyone else for women’s wrestling the last two years-and it’s not the pair you’re expecting.

August 9 2016

Let’s begin with a resounding positive. The former WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte has not only been vital to putting women’s wrestling on the map but she’s also the greatest success story. The daughter of “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair came into wrestling through heartbreaking circumstance. The tragic story of the death of her brother Reid inspiring her to carry out his dream and become a wrestler is a noble, loving tale that in reality should make her the most beloved woman in the division. Instead, Charlotte plays the most captivating villain the women’s division has to offer. “Genetically superior”, Charlotte emulates her father by pulling every dirty trick in the book to one up her opponents and get the win. She was NXT Women’s champion at the height of its quality, the final WWE Divas champion and the first WWE Women’s Champion (at least in this belts incarnation). Charlotte is one of the pillars of women’s wrestling today and only grew from strength to strength after an albeit rocky start in NXT. Pairing up with Sasha Banks she captured the NXT Women’s championship before ultimately dropping it to Banks.

Charlotte as WWE Women's champion alongside her father Ric Flair

Upon being called up to the main roster she was aligned with Paige and Becky Lynch in “Team PCB” (after the unfortunately named “Submission Sorority” lead to an embarrassing Googling situation). Here is where the majority of fans were exposed to Charlotte and just what she’s capable of inside a ring. Playing the face against “Team Bella”, PCB had a good run that culminated with Charlotte winning the then Divas championship. It wouldn’t be long before she turned heel, aligned herself with her father and walked into Wrestlemania as the final Divas champion and first Women’s champion. She has since split from her father (presumably before she slipped into his shadow) and now has a prodigy of her own in Dana Brooke. One of the few women who can consistently get herself booed out of any arena and put on actual quality matches, Charlotte is absolutely the shining example of why women’s wrestling deserves to be a focal point of all wrestling programming. She’s one of WWE developmental best original stars (nobody’s counting her once off appearance on WCW Thunder as anything noteworthy) and proof that WWE is actually capable of creating new stars instead of importing them.

However for every success there’s always failures and in this case it’s none other than the boss herself….

Stephanie McMahon slapping Dave "Batista" Bautista

In the last few years I can’t think of a performer who has garnered more hatred and negativity from me than this woman. Sloppy and hellbent and just getting herself over, Stephanie McMahon is an absolute failure on screen and in some cases off screen too (she loves to claim that the percentage of women watching weekly programming is growing but fails to mention that it’s due to certain areas of the male demographic dropping off, not increasing the female demographic). When WWE launched the “Diva’s revolution” in 2015 it should have been a celebration of the fantastic work going on in NXT and bringing it to the main roster. Instead, the inaugural moments were nothing more than a platform for Stephanie McMahon to appear as some sort of magnanimous genious.

Instead of celebrating these women, it felt as though it was nothing more than an angle where we, the viewer, should be giving Stephanie credit for putting these women on main roster television. This is hardly the first time she’s used something to put herself over and it certainly won’t be the last. Both “Connor’s Cure” and the WWE’s “Warrior Award” are exploitative PR stunts disguised as charity. That’s not to say that the death of Connor and Warrior weren't tragic and I’m certainly not attempting to discredit Connor's Cure as a charitable organization, but the WWE’s involvement with these things (along with Susan G Komen's sponsorship, of which only 11% on average goes to cancer research), is certainly far more beneficial for WWE’s PR than anybody else. If there’s any doubt in your mind I recommend you rewatch Daniel Bryan’s heartfelt eulogy to Connor at 2015’s Hall of Fame ceremony where amidst all the genuine emotion, the company got hung up on the fact that Bryan referred to “wrestling” as “fake” and not the remainder of a touching tribute to a young fan who tragically lost his life.

Connor sharing a moment with his hero Daniel Bryan

The face at the centre of all these complaints is Stephanie McMahon. It’s a popular thing at the moment to dislike the woman but I do feel the need to be clear, this is deserved and absolutely not bandwagoning. Be it the fact that she spent a year on screen emasculating men on the roster and receiving NO comeuppance in return, her increasingly awkward cutting across of people’s lines on television (look at the 2016 Draft night for some cringy examples) or quite simply her new favourite phrase…”lady balls” (which are much bigger than testicles, something she’ll remind you of). Now I understand that Stephanie is a woman in a male dominated medium and that she probably feels the need to go above and beyond to stand out. She’s also the Chairman’s daughter so she clearly has something to prove that she’s her own woman and not living in her father’s shadow-or her husband's, but the problem with Stephanie is that she goes above and beyond to be hated at anyone’s expense. It’s this toxic approach she takes to interacting with stars that is just beyond redemption and ultimately what has made her a corrosive force on Monday nights. Anyone involved with this woman ends up in a worse scenario than when they began with very few exemptions (and even then, I fail to think of a time when it benefited the other person). While it’s good to have a female performer in a position of power on screen, especially in the context of a female “revolution” in the company, if the overall result is others being sacrificed at the expense of one character surviving then clearly it’s a failure.

So far we’ve got one clear success and one large failure. On to who can only be considered something in between the two-Becky Lynch.

Becky and Sasha as "Team BAE"

Becky Lynch made her NXT debut in perhaps one of the most awkward manners of recent years. Somebody on the booking committee took a look at Becky and thought “she’s Irish, we’ve got our eyes on other Irish talent along with one on our main roster who’s booked as a proper brawler, Conor McGregor is becoming a name in UFC. We should ignore any ideas of treating her as a legitimate fighter and have this girl Riverdance”. Perhaps what worse is that Becky agreed to this idea and lo and behold, she was introduced on screen jigging away to everyone's embarrassment. Thankfully for everyone involved (and the viewers at home) this was dropped quickly enough for a more serious character with her facing Charlotte for the NXT Women’s Championship before a dastardly heel turning aligning herself with Sasha Banks to form “Team B.A.E.” (Best At Everything). Here, Becky began to finally come into her own and as well as develop a more aggressive edge, she found herself improving on the microphone once aligned with Banks.Over the next few months Becky developed her character and her in ring style before finally splitting with Sasha leading into “Takeover Rival” where she would be unsuccessful in capturing the women’s title (more on this match later).

As her time in NXT came to a close Lynch would face Sasha Banks for the title at “Takeover: Unstoppable” where she would again be unsuccessful in capturing the strap. The reception to this match was highly positive with Lynch really getting acknowledgement for being a great in ring performer and for finally coming into her own. A nice change from a horrible beginning, things seemed to be on the up and up for Becky but instead of success the reward for Lynch was a double edged sword. Arguably the successor to the NXT Women’s championship at the time Becky found herself called up to the main roster right as she was finally finding her feet in NXT. On one hand she was now getting more exposure but instead she wound up being overshadowed as she aligned with Paige and Charlotte in the “Diva’s Revolution” to form PCB and was certainly pushed aside for focus to be put on “Team Bella” and “Team B.A.D.” in many cases. For two months she became an afterthought as Charlotte challenged for the gold and when Paige turned on Charlotte then Lynch became the less important focal point of the story again. After being called up in July and floundering in throw away matches Lynch wouldn’t really become a true threat until January the following year when she had a short program with Charlotte at the Royal Rumble. Given the chance to shine Becky was actually the reason for a change to the then planned Wrestlemania 32 card with her being inserted into the WWE Women’s Championship's inaugural bout making the match a triple threat with Charlotte and Sasha.

Since then Becky has been slowly pushed back down the women’s pecking order but with the brand split now in full effect she should be a shoo in for Smackdown’s female champion (should they feel the need to create a second belt). While her rise from January to April is impressive and her place in a prolific match at Wrestlemania is something that can’t be taken away from her, the question should be asked-what if her call up was delayed? Becky could have had a few more months in NXT to refine her character and help establish a replacement for her in the developmental system (it’s a developmental system no matter how hard WWE tries to push it

Charlotte, Sasha and Becky at Wrestlemania 32

as a “brand”), and had she been called up in December and put in the same scenario against Charlotte one would assume Becky would have found her way into Wrestlemania just as she did. Becky is perhaps one of the best women in company but is perhaps the most inconsistently booked and always seems most likely to be lost in the shuffle at a moment's notice.

After looking and Charlotte, Becky and Stephanie we can now tackle the original question..are we in a better state than we were in before this “revolution”? I’d argue that while things have improved, it’s come at a huge expense.

Firstly, let’s take away the positives. Over the past two years Charlotte has not only advanced through NXT but proven to be a successful heel on the main roster, a great in ring talent and managed to get crowds consistently invested in booing her out of the building. The in ring improvements to the roster is fantastic but the crowd investment is something that can’t be understatement. Even three years ago women’s matches were still considered “bathroom breaks” despite the likes of AJ Lee, Paige and to an extent Eve Torres having interesting title reigns. Sasha Banks on the main roster has shown lately that as WWE Women’s champion she can carry a segment and despite her occasionally sloppy offence, the reaction she garners from the crowd is often louder than most reactions for her male counterparts. Interest is up, women’s merchandise sales are up and generally everything short term is a huge positive. Now let’s look at the negatives. Stephanie McMahon was the focal point initially for the “revolution”, is credited for everything and still continues to undermine others to get herself over more as a babyface despite being a heel. There’s no reason for any of this to happen and frankly, had the “revolution” been more organic (call ups one at a time or in pairs) then perhaps the movement would have gained steam far quicker than it did. After Charlotte, Sasha, Becky and Bayley stole the show at “NXT Takeover: Rival” (which was headlined by Sami Zayn vs Kevin Owens), a plan should have been put in place to slowly introduce these 4 women to the main roster while those who didn’t go right away could help establish replacements in NXT.

Undoubtedly the peak of NXT's women division

At writing Bayley is currently the only one left in NXT and the women’s roster there is already looking rather thin. Aside from Asuka there aren’t really many credible threats in the division. Nia Jax and Alexa Bliss showed promise as did Carmella but now that they’ve been called up before refining their craft, developmental looks like a baron wasteland of female talent with their being two over qualified performers and a bunch of rookies left.My hope was that Eva Marie would get a run with the NXT belt soon and have a cowardly heel run. It would certainly have lowered the quality of matches but it might of at least continued the buzz while the other women refined their craft and became more consistent and reliable in the ring.

Interest is booming on the main roster due to these call ups but one has to wonder how sustainable it is when you’ve taken everyone off the bench at halftime and still have another half to go. Personally I’m nervous to see where things go from a developmental perspective but as I said, I’m a pessimist.

Asuka; the new standard in NXT, but for how

long?

So it seems we’re at a proper crossroads about this revolution long term. Interest is high but is it sustainable? The present is great but how will the future hold out? It looks as though the next few years may have some peaks and valleys in terms of quality but for now, all you can really do is take that worry and put it in a box, switch off your brain and soak up some quality women’s wrestling while hoping this isn’t the latest fad in WWE. Don’t let it become a hardcore title, a cruiserweight title-let’s have a pet product that we stick with, that we can develop and can enjoy in the future with the next generation. The trainers down in NXT have a hell of a job to do but perhaps the likes of Santana Garrett, Tessa Blanchard or Sexy Starr could be tempted to come in (and I can’t be the only one who finds it odd that Amber Gallows wasn’t offered a deal when her husband was?).

Either way, hopefully the “revolution” is over and success can continue because deep down, all we need is to see those girls kick some lass and be treated properly from here on out instead of the “t&a” that they were for decades. In a world where female combat athletes are finally getting the acknowledgement they deserve, surely the world of professional wrestling should be able to create and sustain a women’s division for generations to come.