I used to be a fan of womens wrestling, and it wasn’t even that long ago. I would get excited to see Trish Stratus, or Lita, or Mickie James, or Victoria, any number of female performers that had been active in the last ten years. The storylines were great, the work was commendable, and they were great at making you care. It was an exciting part of the show every week, and it was worth tuning in to. There was a lot of trial and error that let into what I would call the golden age of the WWE women’s division, and there were plenty of things that were groan inducing, or just all around not worth it, but they tried and it was fun.
When I first became a wrestling fan the women’s division was made up of Sable, Jacqueline, and Luna Vachon. Ivory, Victoria, Trish, Lita, they were all on the way, but I remember the Sable days. I remember when Evening Gown matches were on Raw to boost ratings, and I remember when they were used so that women like Debra McMichael could be considered in title contention, because aside from getting stripped there wasn’t much else she was good for in the ring. Actually, and this may be the thirteen year old in me with fond memories, the majority of women’s wrestling in the late 90’s seemed to be made up of busty chicks going out of their way to flaunt the goods on camera, I mean, Sable’s hand prints from Fully Loaded ’98 anyone? At least three different occasions of Jackie winding up with her tits broadcast to a live audience on cable? Evening Gown matches, Bra and Panties matches, Miss Kitty flashing the crowd after a four woman evening gown match in a POOL OF WATER, the entire division was built on T&A!
When Trish Stratus showed up on WWF TV there was no immediate reason to think anything was going to change; I mean, she managed a tag team called T&A! She walked around in a low cut top with a push-up bra to make her giant chest look like it was going to pop through your TV and poke out your eyes. Then you have her whole storyline with Vince where she stripped down and walked around the ring barking like a dog, and let’s be honest, they made no attempt to have her taken seriously as anything other than eye candy. They were content with that for a while, I mean, hot chick with a giant rack, that’s all Sable was, why would Trish be any different? She was a fitness model! A model! Professional eye candy is professional eye candy and there is no obvious reason to think anything otherwise.
That is until they gave her a chance in the ring and she showed everyone that she was so much more than a pretty face.
When Lita debuted she was teamed with Essa Rios and nobody gave a damn about him, but there was a lot of buzz around the chick that was with him with her tattoos and her moonsault and her huricanrana. Enough buzz that when the Essa Rios experiment failed (lesson to foreign talents, if you can’t speak a word of English, don’t seek employment at the WWE, you need to be able to communicate with your employers as well as fellow workers) she was placed with her real life friends; Matt and Jeff Hardy. The original Team Xteme, and they were great together. She feuded with Trish, she feuded with Stephanie, and she even (to my knowledge) participated, and won, the first ever main event of Raw with the Women’s title on the line against Stephanie. She also is the only woman in WWF/WWE history to have competed or taken part in a TLC match, due to her association with the Hardy Boys.
And if you get past the fact that she cheated on Matt with Edge it’s very easy to list her as one of the better female workers they’d seen.
Victoria debuted as one of the Godfather’s hos, during a time when “The Goodfather” had turned his back on his past profession, and after getting some mic time and being bumped through a table, the woman who would be Victoria was sent to development for training purposes. She eventually returned to the main roster to feud with Trish, before going on to establish herself as the psycho diva. The violent sadist that wanted nothing less than to hurt her opponents on the way to victory, she loved hardcore brutal matches and she made them work. They even packaged her with Stevie Richards, giving the ECW alumni something to do on the card on a regular basis.
Her ability kept her in constant contention for the Women’s title for years, and she became the kind of worker who could make anyone look good, and who seemed immune to losing her heat no matter how much she lost.
The women’s division was important, as important as most of the male midcard, and they were booked to be as such. There was actually a reason to pay attention and look forward to their matches, when they were on PPV you weren’t dreading the precious minutes being siphoned off of other matches, no, you were dreading the thought that maybe the women’s match would get rushed in favor of some undercard match up. It was an incredibly exciting and competitive divison that had some of the best all around talent on the roster, though that’s a testament to Fit Finlay and his whipping everyone into shape.
So what happened? How did it go from must-see-TV to the bathroom break of any show? What changed?
Quite a few things, actually, but I think I’ll start by blaming the Diva Search.
Pro-wrestling is a male soap opera, and thus the women should be hot so as to appeal to their target audience, I won’t fault that. I had no interest in watching Luna work either. But women like Trish, Ivory, Victoria, and Mickie James (among others, not to discount anyone) managed to look great and work great and bring not only positive attention but legitimacy to the division. It’s not enough for two attractive women to work, believe me, if you’ve ever watched a women’s wrestling match you already know. There’s a reason people take their bathroom breaks during Bella Twins matches, and that Jackie Gayda is still razzed for her botched move eight years later.
The Diva Search meant bringing in women with no formal training based solely on appearance, and then voted on by appearance, and then expected to learn how to work a decent match. Sure, some of them manage to do it, I mean, wasn’t Maryse a Diva Search girl? Weren’t Layla and Michelle McCool? But at the same time, we have girls like Rosa Mendes and Tiffany. Not to mention all of the other girls who came in, did nothing, and left either quietly and forgettably, or obnoxiously and forgettably.
Sometimes there is such a thing as too much emphasis on a pretty face. I was at a house show not too long ago and the Women’s match was Layla vs Tiffany, and all I could think while watching it is that one of them seems to know enough of what to do to at least use rest holds. Seriously, Tiffany was lost inside of two minutes, and they gave them around twelve. Layla was great at getting heat, and she just kept locking Tiffany down on the mat to drag out the clock, which only got her more heat. It was like Randy Orton before he really turned into a good worker…..only not really the same thing.
The point is they threw a match together and one of the workers involved was not at all ready for it, and given that it was a house show, this must have happened a half a dozen times before, and another half a dozen since. Yes, this is the best way for her to learn, but Layla is hardly a technical master herself. Had the match been Layla against Kelly Kelly, herself a tremendously improved talent from the train wreck in every possible way that she debuted as, then I probably would have enjoyed it. Two mediocre workers can do a lot more than a mediocre one with a terrible one.
There are plenty of talented women working on the indy scene, and sure, they don’t all have the “Diva” look, but they can work a match. Victoria, Ivory, and Lita didn’t fit perfectly into the mold and each of them will go down as cornerstones of a division when it mattered.
That’s all I’m saying, make the Women’s Division matter again, make people want to see it. Make people pay to see it. Give us something we want, and I don’t mean lingerie pillow fights. I mean two girls who can put on an entertaining match without relying entirely on sex appeal.
Find us the next Trish Stratus.
Find us the next Lita.
Or even better, find us the first somebody else.
