Outside Interference — Rob Sklarz
What Happened to WWE Women’s Wrestling?
Our newest columnist, Rob Sklarz, examines the current state of women’s wrestling in the WWE and how the Diva Search has negatively effected the women’s division.
On June 12, 2004, the main event of Monday Night Raw was a WWE Women’s Championship match between champion Trish Stratus and challenger Lita. This was a physical, hard-hitting match that featured a backdrop over top rope to the outside, a Suicide Dive that nearly broke Lita’s neck, a Superplex and a Powerbomb off the top rope. The match was won when Lita hit an Inverted Twist of Fate followed by a Moonsault from the top turnbuckle. This was a great match and a perfectly viable <,i>Raw main event. Today it is rare to see a quality women’s match from the WWE. Even at Wrestlemania, the biggest show of the year, women’s title matches have become more about promoting the latest Playboy cover girl than anything resembling an athletic competition. My question is what happened? Today I’d like to delve into that subject and try to answer that question.
The Problem
Women’s wrestling in the WWE has gone through many transformations. The ‘80’s featured the likes of Wendi Richter, Rockin’ Robin, Velvet McIntire, The Glamour Girls (Lielani Kai and Judy Martin) and, of course, the Fabulous Moolah. These ladies didn’t always delivered spectacular action, but they were committed and threw each other around likes the men did.
The Women’s title laid dormant for most of the early to mid ‘90’s, except for a brief run featuring Alundra Blayze (Medusa), Bull Nakano and Bertha Faye that delivered a few quality matches. After Medusa took the WWE Women’s title to WCW’s Monday Nitro and threw it in the trash, WWE’s womens division again went into hibernation.
Finally, in the late nineties, the attitude era revived women’s wrestling in the WWE. At that time, the division featured many trained wrestlers such as Jacqueline (TNA’s Jackie), Ivory (GLOW’s Tina Ferrari), Luna Vachon, Molly Holly and Lita and a few ladies like Trish Stratus, Terri Runnels and Sable, whom WWE converted into wrestlers with varying results.
The next several years were a mixed bag of credible wrestling and exploitative events like Bra and Panties and Evening Gown matches. Nowadays, Divas, as opposed to trained workers, dominate the WWE women’s division.
What Happened?
Two words: Diva Search. The Raw Diva Search has killed women’s wrestling in the WWE. The reason is the fundamentally flawed method of finding new Divas.
Their primary concern is looks, with athletic ability is a distant second. Wrestling skilln doesn’t even factor into it. Instead of finding committed, trained female competitors who have the right look, as they do with the males, they essentially run a beauty pageant!
The decision is based on looks, since none of these women hit the ring during the competition. If the WWE only took one winner from the competition every year it might be okay, but as many as half the field every year eventually ends up on WWE programming. This process has seriously watered down the WWE’s women’s division which only features a handful of truly competent competitors.
The much-discussed recent TNA Knockout title match between Awesome Kong and Gail Kim featured solid wrestling. They took it outside the ring, smashed through barricades and took stiff shots. I watched how Gail Kim kicked out of one high impact move after another and how it eventually took a succession of Powerbombs to take that title from her.
It was believable, it was credible and the TNA Knockout Title seemed important. It made me long for WWE women’s matches like that.
Maria will soon be gracing the cover of Playboy. If recent history holds true, she will be involved in a high-profile women’s match at WrestleMania. The match will follow a physically intense, emotionally charged match to let the fans catch their breath, because the WWE knows the fans will not be invested in the women’s match.
Here’s hoping the WWE will start moving in a different direction and restore credibility to their women’s division. A guy can dream can’t he?
– Rob Sklarz
Sklarz@aol.com
(1/30/2008)
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