Current Column
Women's Wrestling Is Back! (For Now)(01/12/02)
For this week's column, I've decided to take a look at the WWE's Women's division and see how far it's come in the last year. Thanks to Fit Finlay (the trainer of the women) and the ladies themselves (Trish in particular has taken great strides in improving her ring work) the division is now competitive and entertaining. While nobody will get the matches confused with a main event calibre match, the division is still an important part of WWE programming in my opinion and it's great to see people giving it alot more interest than before. But before I look at the current state of the division, I thought I'd give a little history lesson.
The Women's Title came into existence in 1963 when the World Wide Wrestling Federation (as it was then known) was formed. The Fabulous Moolah was the first WWWF Women's champion and amazingly held onto the belt for 20 years!
During the Rock N' Wrestling era, Moolah dropped the belt to Wendi Richter on a live MTV special (Richter had singer Cyndi Lauper in her corner, which gave the match crucial mainstream interest), which is still the third most watched match in US cable tv history. Like many women who came after her, Richter got greedy and Vince Mcmahon showed her who was boss when he pulled off a Montreal-like double-cross, with Moolah under the mask of Spider Lady, getting the quick pin on the champ (Spider Lady was usually played by Penny Mitchell). After the loss, Richter left the WWF and never returned.
The Women's division soon developed into a farce, with Velvet McIntyre, Sensational Sherri and Rockin' Robin (Jake Robert's sister) having forgettable runs with the belt. In 1990, the plug was pulled on the division altogether. However as with many belts in wrestling, the title was revived in 1993 and given to Alundra Blaze (Madusa from WCW), who won a tournament for the vacant belt on December 13, 1993.
Blaze was a good worker, but she had little competition. Fortunately, that changed with the arrival of Bull Nakano, a great female wrestler from All Japan. Unfortunately, there was no storyline build up to their matches, which was a shame because the matches themselves were rather good. The title was tarnished further with the arrival of Bertha Faye, who was a positively bad choice for Blaze's opponent. On December 18th 1995, Alundra appeared on Nitro and (at the request of Eric Bischoff) dumped the Women's belt into a bin.
The title was revived again in 1998, but as Sable and Jacqueline were the main in-ring competitors in the WWF, the decision was rather pointless. Add to that the fact that many of the title matches were Evening Gown Matches, and it's not hard to see why the division turned into a joke. There was also the problem that Sable was inexperienced and many of her title defences were poor.
Then Sable had a big falling out with the WWF, and got a contract release (however, not before dropping the belt to Debra, of all people, in another Evening Gown Match). Fortunately, Debra's reign only lasted a month (but by that time, it was too late anyway, as the belt had been demeaned and tarnished seemingly for good), she dropped it to Ivory in June. Unfortunately, Ivory's matches were also forgettable, especially with Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young as her title contenders (could this division really get any worse?)
The belt was made to look useless again when The Kat (a female definitely not born to be a wrestler) won a Four Corners Evening Gown Match in a swimming pool at Armageddon 99'. Seemingly intent on keeping the title as a comedy piece, the WWF had Harvey Wippleman dress up as a woman and beat Kat for it in a Snow Bunny Match (?) on January 31 2000. Jacqueline won the belt a day later, but her reign was a short one, as Stephanie Mcamhon (then Helmsley) beat her for the strap on March 31st.
Many people will argue that Stephanie's reign was pointless, as she rarely defended the belt. However, I would disagree. By putting the belt on her, and keeping it away from T and A gimmicks for a while, gave the belt a fresh start of sorts. I mean, if Steph wasn't the champion, how many more meaningless title changes and poor title matches would we have seen?
Things were definitely looking up for women's wrestling when Lita arrived in February 2000, and by August 21, her popularity had sky-rocketed, so the decision was made to put the belt around her waist. In a decent match with The Rock as the special referee, Lita put Steph away and enjoyed a two month reign, before dropping the belt to Right To Censor Ivory in a Four Corners Match on October 31. Unfortunately, Ivory's new RTC attire caused problems for Lita at Survivor Series, when the heel of her boot caught poor Lita in the eye and busted her open.
While Ivory was decent in the ring, she was not the best female performer the WWF had to offer. Nora Greenwald (Miss Madness/Mona) from WCW came on board in November as Hardcore and Crash Holly's cousin, Molly and as a former gymnast she was super smooth in the ring. Even Lita and Jacqueline deserved a title reign more than Ivory IMO.
Soon a feud began developing between RTC and Chyna, which led to some awful angles and matches. Chyna slaughtered Ivory in a poor, one-sided and short match at Wrestlemania X7, and made it damn obvious from day one as champion that she wouldn't sell for the other women or make them look competitive in her matches (with the exception of her match with Lita at Judgement Day), as she thought the division was beneath her. Fortunately, Chyna was gone by June after having her demands for more money and a program with The Rock and HHH (seriously!) turned down.
After a 5-month hiatus, the title returned at Survivor Series 2001. Trish Stratus (the least likely out of all the women in the match) won an entertaining six-way match over Jazz (who on her first night in, must have wondered why she bothered), Ivory, Jacqueline, Mighty Molly and Lita. Trish was indeed a surprise choice for the new Women's champion, but in her title defences she proved that she spent her ankle rehabbing time very well by training and improving her in-ring skills. This was especially evident when she retained the belt against Jazz (who had returned earlier in the month) at Royal Rumble 2002 in a match that was alot better than many people were expecting.
Soon the division was built around Trish and Jazz who were having some fine, competitive matches. Jazz beat Trish on Feb 4, and retained the belt in a commendable Triple Threat Match featuring Lita at Wrestlemania X8. The Trish/Jazz rivalry continued until May, when Jazz was forced out of action with a knee injury, which meant dropping the belt to Trish. Lita was also knocked out of action when she suffered a devasting neck injury whilst filming a scene for Dark Angel. Fortunately, the new-look Molly Holly was on hand to compensate for the loss of two key players in the Women's division. She had some interesting matches with Trish and enjoyed a title reign of her own, although the WWE used overkill with their rivalry.
Which brings us to today. Currently, Victoria is the champ, feuding with Trish. At Survivor Series they had a physical, entertaining Hardcore Match, in which Victoria won the belt. But while Trish and Victoria are are having good matches and are having an interesting feud, I really hope that the WWE doesn't use overkill as they did with Trish and Molly. This is true of any feud: if it's done to death, week after week, month after month, the fans will tire of it, even if the matches are still good (remember Undertaker and Kane in 98'?). With Ivory, Jacqueline and Molly also on the Raw roster, the WWE should mix it up and have Ivory VS Trish, Trish VS Jacqueline, Victoria VS Molly etc (they should keep Trish apart from Molly for a while), and when Jazz returns they should have her mix it up with some fresh opponents too.
Although a women's match will never headline a pay-per-view or produce Match Of The Year calibre matches, the division is definitely in a better position now than it ever was before, and it brings something different to WWE shows. What's more, the women involved are willing to giving it their all and make the Women's tile mean something. And I think it does mean something. I could continue for ages about this topic, but I'll leave it for now. Next week, I'll give some ideas of how to keep the Women's division a success and ways to allow it to be taken seriously.