The following article was originally published with RealSport on July 7, 2017.
After a brief hiatus, Wrestling Today returns with a look at the landscape of women’s wrestling in the industry. Much has been said about the WWE’s Divas Revolution and the evolution of their women’s division. The switch back to a Women’s Championship and choice to refer to female competitors simply as superstars, the same as the male competitors, instead of separating the women by referring to them as divas. Several milestones have been praised for breaking down the barriers and leveling the playing field for women in the wrestling world, but how much progress has WWE truly made?
The Attitude Era: the dark ages of women’s wrestling
Before we get to the more recent shifts in WWE, it’s important to remember where the company used to be. While there were glory days decades ago when The Fabulous Moolah was at her peak and even a push in the 1990s in the WWE, women’s wrestling, in general, continued to be a bit of a novelty.
The Attitude Era cranked that novelty concept up in the worst way possible. As WCW started to gain traction with the nWo, it eventually led to the WWE pushing the envelope as much as possible. Their content got edgier to try and draw in ratings, and this affected the women greatly. As many great moments as there were in the era as a whole, in many ways it was the dark ages of women’s wrestling.
It’s hard to fathom with the way much of society has evolved in 2017, but wrestling didn’t really understand the definitions of “feminism” or “misogyny” in the late 1990s. Women were seen almost exclusively as sex objects, and most of the segments they were featured in highlighted this. This was the time of bra and panties matches, where a woman could only win by stripping her opponent to her bra and panties. This was the time when The Godfather was at his peak while playing a pimp surrounded by his “hoes.”
No segment could go by without Jerry Lawler saying the creepiest snide remark possible or shouting out puppies like a porn-obsessed teenager. Even the latter end of the Attitude Era wasn’t great, as Eric Bischoff liked to hype “HLA” occurring on Raw. This “Hot Lesbian Action” becomes equally offensive on prior viewings when considering how far things have come for members of the LGBT community.
Perhaps the worst example of things during this period was the stable Pretty Mean Sisters, which included Terri, Jacqueline, and Ryan Shamrock. Yes, they’re…PMS. The group eventually added a “love slave” named Meat. The most notable storyline that involved PMS had Terri faking a pregnancy and ultimately faking a miscarriage to lay the blame on her ex for causing the supposed miscarriage.
Trish and Lita form the foundation of an era
For women’s wrestling, the night was certainly darkest before the dawn. Through the ashes of the Attitude Era came Trish Stratus and Lita pioneering the push for women’s wrestling. Despite both having entered the WWE as valets, their eventual longtime rivalry still stands as a highlight in the grand history of women’s wrestling. Along with a strong supporting cast of competitors including Ivory, Jacqueline, Jazz, Molly Holly, Gail Kim, Victoria, and others, women’s wrestling started to gain a true foothold in WWE from 2001 to 2006.
While there were still struggles during this period and the playing field wasn’t quite level, it was helped by a strong and experienced roster of female talent doing the best with what they were given. While many competitors were trying to keep the focus on the wrestling, WWE put an emphasis on featuring a diva in Playboy every year around WrestleMania starting in 2003. Torrie Wilson, Sable, Christy Hemme, Candice Michelle, Ashley, and Maria were all featured in the magazine from 2003 to 2008.
The division struggled during this period, and unfortunately, it ran into a monumental roadblock in 2006. As instrumental as Trish and Lita were to this period, the lack of commitment by WWE was revealed as soon as these two cornerstones left the company.
In September of 2006, Trish Stratus retired after winning the Women’s Championship for a record-setting seventh time by defeating Lita at Unforgiven. The championship was vacated following Stratus’ retirement, and Lita ended up recapturing it on November 5, 2006. Her title reign only lasted three weeks, as she lost the title in her own retirement match at Survivor Series on November 26, 2006.
In the blink of an eye, the foundation of WWE’s women’s division had completely vanished. While competent competitors like Beth Phoenix, Mickie James, Melina, Layla, Michelle McCool, Maryse, and Natalya tried to keep things alive, the division was starting to become an afterthought again.
At WrestleMania 23 in 2007, Melina defended her Women’s Championship against Ashley, but the match only lasted three minutes and forty seconds. This match coincided with Ashley being featured in the April 2007 issue of Playboy. This would be the last time that era’s WWE Women’s Championship was defended at WrestleMania. The shift to the Divas Championship would come soon, and that title wasn’t defended at WrestleMania until seven years later at WrestleMania 30.
Two years later, at WrestleMania 25, things hit a new low when they held a “Miss WrestleMania” Battle Royal. On the surface, it looked like a great way to feature so many competitors. The twenty-five diva match showed the depth of the female roster at a time when the division was struggling.
Beth Phoenix, now a WWE Hall of Famer, dominated the match by eliminating 12 of the other competitors. Unfortunately, she was foiled at the last second when “Santina Marella” eliminated her to take the win. In a moment when WWE could have featured the vast talent pool in the division, the match instead had a male superstar cross-dressing as his fictitious female relative and winning the match himself.
The Divas Championship & WrestleMania 29’s depressing last-minute cut
In July of 2008, in response to the WWE Women’s Championship becoming exclusive to Monday Night Raw, the WWE Divas Championship was established. Michelle McCool became the inaugural champion by defeating Natalya in less than five minutes at The Great American Bash. In many ways, this one night would be representative of the next several years.
The match between Natalya and Michelle McCool was actually quite good, but it could only do so much with such a short time frame. In the years that followed, there were gems of quality women’s wrestling from time to time. Unfortunately, much of it got buried by bad writing and a plain lack of screen time.
Within a few years, the eventual breakdown of the brand split caused the Women’s Championship to be unified with the Divas Championship and retired. The division remained a relative afterthought on the grand scheme of things, and this was never more evident than at WrestleMania 29.
Only one match that included women was scheduled for WrestleMania 29. It was set to pit Cameron, Naomi, Tensai, and Brodus Clay against The Bella Twins, Cody Rhodes, and Damien Sandow. The match was, obviously, not for the Divas Championship, and didn’t exactly scream “instant classic.” The WWE’s decision to include male competitors in the only divas match on the card just worsened the look. Unfortunately, the match never took place. At the last minute, it was completely scrapped due to time constraints.
Back in 2014, Brie Bella spoke about WrestleMania 29 while on Chris Jericho’s Talk is Jericho podcast. “It was heartbreaking. We were in gorilla, and we started to realize [Undertaker vs CM Punk] was going over [time]. We’re all sitting in there glued to the screen because it was an insane match. It’s such mixed emotions,” Brie said.
She later said the group was informed that if the match continued to go over its allotted time, their segment would end up being scrapped. As the match continued, that terrible possibility came true. Brie continued, “Vince literally got out of his seat and he looked at all of us and was like, “I am so sorry guys, I didn’t think this was going to happen. You’re not going out there. We have to cut your [segment].”
It was a tough moment, but much like the darkness before the dawn of the post-Attitude Era’s resurgence, things would start to turn around within the next year and put the WWE on the path to the Divas Revolution.
Total Divas and AJ Lee’s pipe bomb
After Total Divas premiered in July of 2013, a clear divide started to form within the women’s division in WWE. The issues had been bubbling underneath, but in August of 2013 they finally came bursting onto the surface. In order to hype their involvement with Total Divas, Brie Bella and Natalya squared off. Brie and her sister Nikki as well as Eva Marie at ringside with her while Natalya had Cameron and Naomi at ringside.
Brie Bella picked up the win after a minute and a half of “wrestling,” and what followed was pure magic. AJ Lee, the reigning Divas Champion at the time, had no interest in the cliche reality show drama of Total Divas. Fans that wanted to see quality wrestling out of the women clung to AJ Lee at the time as one of the few beacons of that hope. Paying homage to her now husband CM Punk, AJ dropped a pipe bomb of her own on her “Total Divas” colleagues.
The scathing speech lasted more than twice the length of the match that preceded it, and AJ Lee vented her frustrations in as real a way as possible. As she berated the cast of Total Divas for being lesser than her when it comes to in-ring skill and having accomplished less in their collective careers than she had in her short time in WWE, AJ gave voice to a frustration that had been bubbling up from fans for years. We wanted wrestling, not a sideshow.
While the new reality show gave some fans a much-appreciated insight into the lives of the divas they loved to watch compete, it also emphasized WWE’s unwillingness to put the focus for divas on the actual wrestling. It took two years for the fans to have a breakthrough and spark the Divas Revolution, but the groundwork for that revolution was being laid through the reinvention of WWE’s developmental system.
NXT changes the game for women’s wrestling
While there was an ongoing struggle within WWE to change the perception and usage of female talent, the introduction of NXT started to plant seeds for the eventual revolution. In February of 2014, NXT went live on the WWE Network for the very first time with NXT Arrival. The card featured an NXT Women’s Championship Match that last nearly thirteen minutes, practically a marathon by the match length standards being used on the main roster at the time.
Paige defended her NXT Women’s Championship against Emma in a memorable contest that set the tone for NXT’s women’s division going forward. At the first NXT TakeOver, Charlotte challenged Natalya for the vacant NXT Women’s Championship. Bret Hart and Ric Flair were both at ringside supporting their family, but on this night the spotlight was not on those legends.
Instead, the focus was on Charlotte and Natalya who went at it for nearly 17 minutes before Charlotte was able to emerge victorious. This trend continued, and NXT consistently churned out quality women’s wrestling. One notable difference was the fact that NXT’s matches were being given the time needed to develop a full story, rather than trying to restrict women to shorter segments.
For comparison, the following two lists both comprise the same time period in wrestling. The NXT list is shorter only because NXT has fewer specials than WWE has pay-per-views. Despite the difference in the size of both lists, both include all title matches at pay-per-views/NXT specials from February of 2014 to February of 2015.
Length of NXT Women’s Championship Matches at NXT Specials
- NXT Arrival – Paige (c) def. Emma (12m54s)
- NXT TakeOver – Charlotte def. Natalya (16m49s)
- NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way – Charlotte (c) def. Bayley (10m40s)
- NXT TakeOver: R-Evolution – Charlotte (c) def. Sasha Banks (12m12s)
- NXT TakeOver: Rival – Sasha Banks def. Charlotte (c), Bayley, and Becky Lynch (12m28s)
- Total Cumulative Time: 65m3s
- Average Match Length: 13m
Length of WWE Divas Championship Matches at WWE Pay-Per-View Events
- Elimination Chamber 2014: Cameron def. AJ Lee (c) by disqualification (4m30s)
- WrestleMania 30: AJ Lee (c) def. Aksana, Alicia Fox, Brie Bella, Cameron, Emma, Eva Marie, Layla, Naomi, Natalya, Nikki Bella, Rosa Mendes, Summer Rae, and Tamina Snuka in a Vickie Guerrero Invitational Match (6m48s)
- Extreme Rules 2014: Paige (c) def. Tamina Snuka (6m18s)
- Payback 2014: Paige (c) def. Alicia Fox (6m37s)
- Money in the Bank 2014: Paige (c) def. Naomi (7m2s)
- Battleground 2014: AJ Lee (c) def. Paige (7m10s)
- SummerSlam 2014: Paige def. AJ Lee (c) (4m55s)
- Night of Champions 2014: AJ Lee def. Paige (c) and Nikki Bella (8m41s)
- Hell in a Cell 2014: AJ Lee (c) def. Paige (6m50s)
- Survivor Series 2014: Nikki Bella def. AJ Lee (c) (0m33s)
- TLC 2014: Nikki Bella (c) def. AJ Lee (7m38s)
- Fastlane 2015: Nikki Bella (c) def. Paige (5m34s)
- Total Cumulative Time: 72m36s
- Average Match Length: 6m3s
Over that one year, NXT gave us almost as much women’s wrestling in five matches as the main roster had provided in twelve matches. NXT was average more than double the length of time being given to their female competitors, and the frustration was building from all angles. The divas themselves were frustrated, and the fans finally hit their breaking point one night after Fastlane in 2015.
Trending Worldwide: #GiveDivasAChance
On February 23, 2015, Monday Night Raw came to the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. One night before, Nikki Bella had successfully defended her Divas Championship against Paige in roughly five and a half minutes. Two weeks before, the Four Horsewomen of NXT had given us twelve and a half minutes of pure magic at NXT TakeOver: Rival.
This night on Raw went like any other, at the start. During one match, R-Truth was on commentary and tried to get a hashtag trending. Truth claimed he hadn’t been given enough opportunities throughout his career, so he wanted #GiveTruthAChance to start trending on Twitter. The hashtag didn’t get much traction, and the night continued without missing a beat.
Several segments later, it was time for tag team action and the divas would be on display. Paige teamed up with Emma to take on The Bella Twins. The match lasted all of thirty seconds, and what followed would change women’s wrestling forever. I was unable to locate the exact user who started this, but shortly after the match aired #GiveDivasAChance started trending on Twitter.
The hashtag started to pick up steam, and once it was released there was no putting that genie back in the bottle. Not only did it trend worldwide on Twitter during Raw, but the hashtag was still trending three whole days later. The excitement of WWE actually using their women’s division spread like wildfire. Big names from all over the industry were chiming in with their support for the movement, but it was one former champion who really put things on edge.
@StephMcMahon Your female wrestlers have record selling merchandise & have starred in the highest rated segment of the show several times,
— AJ (@TheAJMendez) February 25, 2015
@StephMcMahon And yet they receive a fraction of the wages & screen time of the majority of the male roster. #UseYourVoice
— AJ (@TheAJMendez) February 25, 2015
AJ Lee sent the clapback heard round the world, and WWE could no longer just ignore it. Stephanie McMahon replied later with a professional, but bland, thank you. Even Vince McMahon took a moment to fire up the old Twitter machine to simply say, “We hear you. Keep Watching. #GiveDivasAChance”
It was a powerful moment not only to see WWE taking notice of this push, but having their own talent putting them on blast about equality. Of course, the context of the following weeks makes AJ’s decision to speak up all the more interesting. AJ Lee married former superstar CM Punk back in June of 2014.
Only four days before #GiveDivasAChance started trending worldwide, a WWE ringside doctor named Christopher Amann filed a lawsuit against CM Punk, AJ Lee’s husband. Amann alleged that CM Punk defamed him with statements made in an interview on Colt Cabana’s “The Art of Wrestling” podcast about Punk’s treatment while in WWE. Amann sought over $1 million in damages, and that lawsuit is still unresolved to this day. PWTorch reported in June of 2016 that the lawsuit may not be resolved until 2018, and there haven’t been any updates since that time.
While AJ Lee was voicing a legitimate gripe with WWE, it was undoubtedly viewed with the lawsuit in mind by higher ups such as Stephanie and Vince McMahon. Despite this, AJ Lee returned to in-ring competition after a lengthy injury only a few weeks later on March 2nd. This set up a match at WrestleMania 31 where AJ Lee teamed with Paige to take on The Bella Twins. One report at the time indicated WWE considered moving the match to the pre-show, but they chose not because they feared it would trigger another #GiveDivasAChance backlash from fans.
Only five days after competing at WrestleMania 31, AJ Lee announced her retirement from in-ring competition. WWE made the news official with a succinct post on WWE.com that simply read, “AJ Lee (April Mendez) has decided to retire from in-ring competition with WWE. We wish AJ the very best.” While WWE chose not to use their cliche “future endeavors” remark, the tone was clear.
According to a report on Gerweck.com, it was believed at the time that AJ Lee had already made the decision to retire prior to WrestleMania 31. The report indicated that AJ Lee chose not to inform WWE officials because it would have resulted in her losing the match at WrestleMania 31. Considering WWE’s general willingness to be petty about situations like this, it’s not that farfetched of an idea.
Women demand recognition around the world
It took a few months for the Divas Revolution to finally form into something and gain traction within WWE. While the #GiveDivasAChance movement was the catalyst, the timing was calculated. In August of 2016, ABC News looked back on the Divas Revolution and highlighted some of the sports milestones that were taking place outside of the WWE.
“The timing of their debut was no accident — July 2015 was arguably the most notable month in the history of women in sports. The U.S. women’s national soccer team not only won the World Cup, but did so in front of an average TV audience of 25.4 million viewers in the final. It was the largest viewership ever for a soccer game in the United States, men’s or women’s, and it was also a larger number than any NBA Finals game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors drew that year. Ronda Rousey became the first woman and MMA athlete to win the ESPY for best fighter during a run in which she was headlining UFC pay-per-views that were garnering almost double the buys of shows she wasn’t on.
“Serena Williams won her sixth Wimbledon and 21st career Grand Slam singles trophy. Becky Hammon, the first full-time female assistant coach in NBA history, became the first female head coach in the NBA Summer League and went on to win the summer league title with the San Antonio Spurs in Las Vegas. And the Arizona Cardinals hired Jen Welter as an assistant coaching intern for training camp and the preseason, making her the first female coach of any kind in the NFL.”
Women were making their mark all over the sports world, and there was a renewed societal push for gender equality. As AJ Lee pointed out, wage inequality was still very real within WWE and remains a very real struggle throughout the United States. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings in the United States, women earned 83% of what men earned in 2015.
While the gap is narrowing, the existence of it and the resistance to legislation requiring women and men to be paid equally in the United States illustrate how much more work there is to be done. As has often been the case, the WWE slowly responded to the changes the rest of the world had already been making.
The beginning of the Divas Revolution
Writer’s Note: The following section previously included graphics that I have been unable to locate because of the time that has passed.
As AJ Lee departed from WWE, the seeds had already been planted for the Divas Revolution to squeeze new life into WWE’s women’s division. While WWE was still struggling to pull the trigger on something the fans clearly wanted, there were no struggles in NXT. At NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable, there were two women’s matches on the same card. One was a tag team match that pitted Charlotte and Bayley against Emma and Dana Brooke.
That tag team match lasted just under seven minutes, which was slightly longer than the only women’s match at Payback only three days before. At Payback, Naomi and Tamina squared off against The Bella Twins for only six minutes. At this point, TakeOver: Unstoppable had already outperformed Payback. When Sasha Banks successfully defended her NXT Women’s Championship against Becky Lynch that same night in a fifteen and a half minute long classic, it was clear that NXT was still head and shoulders above WWE.
Less than a month later, WWE finally played their hand as Stephanie McMahon introduced Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Sasha Banks on Raw. They were officially called up and the Divas Revolution started to get rolling. As monumental as their debut was, the Divas Revolution had a rocky start as WWE continuously crammed the same three teams of three women in variations of the same matches. More women were being featured, but it didn’t feel special yet.
On August 22, 2015, Sasha Banks and Bayley competed for the NXT Women’s Championship at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn. Their nearly nineteen-minute match was absolute magic, and it still stands as one of the greatest women’s matches of the modern era. Sasha and Bayley reminded fans that women could create the same in-ring magic a fan’s favorite male competitors could. All those women needed was the right platform and the opportunity to showcase their skills.
As the revolution was heating up, one of the most noticeable changes was WWE’s willingness to provide more time on Monday Night Raw to the women. Around the time that #GiveDivasAChance started to gain traction, graphic designer Kate Foray started tracking the amount of television time that the women were getting each week on Raw. She did a breakdown four weeks after the Divas Revolution began, and the change was staggering.
The numbers don’t lie. WWE was taking notice, and the women were getting more time to be featured on Monday Night Raw. Unfortunately, the wonders of them getting an average of 12.25% of the airtime on Raw quickly diminished. Another breakdown near the end of 2015 showed that the average had already been cut to just under 10%. Still a positive, but not moving in the proper direction.
By the time a third breakdown was completed just before WrestleMania 32, the average had sunk down and gotten quite a bit closer to the old days.
Note: Special thanks go out to Kate Foray for the Raw Breakdown Project and her permission to feature the project and her graphics in this article. If you would like to support Kate’s work or keep up with her, you can visit her website or follow her on Twitter @makeitloud.
While seeing the Divas Revolution struggle was difficult, it was undeniable that the female competitors were finding a more prominent role within WWE. Several milestones in late 2015 illustrated WWE’s efforts to feature their women better, but not all of them were executed as well as they should have been.
With Charlotte’s win over Nikki Bella at Night of Champions in September of 2015, the start of the new era was as official as WWE could make it. Only a few weeks later, Bayley and Sasha Banks headlined NXT TakeOver: Respect in a 30-Minute Iron Man Match, the first of its kind.
In the following months, WWE made huge strides when it came to match length at pay-per-views. Championship matches were regularly getting ten to fifteen minutes, something that would’ve been unheard of only months before. However, it was WrestleMania 32 that proved to be potentially the most important moment in the evolution of women’s wrestling.
The end of divas and the rebirth of women as superstars
WrestleMania 32 was important to the evolution of women’s wrestling for several reasons. The WWE Divas Championship was officially retired, and the WWE Women’s Championship was introduced to take its place. WWE Hall of Famer Lita introduced the new championship, and the design’s similarity to the WWE World Championship was clear from the start. The women were finally beginning to feel equal, and one semantic decision would be huge in helping that.
For the longest time, female competitors in WWE were referred to as divas. Even in writing this, the term feels dated to me. It’s only been out of use for a little over a year, but it stirs memories of the dark days of women’s wrestling. The word “diva” has often been accompanied by the implication of certain personality traits and aspects that weren’t always the most flattering.
As of WrestleMania 32, the word divas was officially extinct within WWE. Female competitors would be referred to simply as superstars, the same term used to describe their male counterparts. As powerful as the Divas Revolution was, it was this moment that was seen by several outlets as the breaking point in taking WWE in the right direction.
NPR featured an article that looked at this move as WWE finally embracing the women’s sports revolution. In the article, they said the following about the shift that WWE was attempting to make.
“While the WWE women are still scantily clad (so are the men) the programming is no longer geared as heavily toward the male gaze. The idea is to put less focus on the women’s bodies and more focus on their abilities, character storylines and charisma.”
Less calculated and more overt with their words, Newsweek featured an article on the topic and ran the headline “WrestleMania 32: By dumping the ‘divas’ branding, WWE makes its biggest step to gender equality.”
“It may have taken 32 years to get there, but on Sunday WWE, the world’s premier professional wrestling and entertainment company, finally achieved a semblance of parity between its male and female athletes at its biggest-ever event, WrestleMania. In front of a record crowd of 101,763 fans, WWE made its greatest stride yet towards gender equality when it gave three of its female wrestlers—Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks—the platform to not just perform, but to steal the show in a championship match.”
Once the WWE had gone all in, the rest of the unforgettable moments flowed. In July of 2016, WWE brought back the brand extension and WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte was chosen for Raw with the third overall draft pick. Becky Lynch was taken at 14th overall and had the honor of being the first woman chosen by SmackDown Live.
On August 14, 2016, WWE released their “Women’s Evolution” episode of WWE 24 on the WWE Network. The special highlighted the good and the bad of women’s wrestling within WWE and how things had changed over the years. It gave credit to fans for getting things rolling with the #GiveDivasAChance movement, but it sort of glossed over the fact that WWE was willingly not giving divas a chance for quite some time.
In the fall of 2016, the rivalry between Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair was getting hotter with every week. This all led to the milestone of Hell in a Cell. Charlotte and Sasha competed inside Hell in a Cell in the main event of a WWE pay-per-view. It was the first time women had been in the main event and the first time women had competed inside Hell in a Cell. In hindsight, it was a spectacular moment.
When it was happening, most of us were all pretty confused. WWE seemed not to have made the decision to make the women the main event until that day, as there was little to no build or advertising that indicated such. On top of that, the match itself fell flat. While it wasn’t poorly executed, the pacing was quite odd and ultimately left this powerful moment lacking.
Roughly a month later, Sasha Banks and Charlotte Flair got the chance to be in the main event of Monday Night Raw, and this clash did not disappoint. In a match that likely lasted almost half an hour if you include action that took place during commercial breaks, Sasha and Charlotte wrestled all over the arena. Ultimately, Sasha’s unique application of the Banks Statement while Charlotte was pulled through a safety railing gave fans the ending they felt these two truly deserved.
At Roadblock: End of the Line in December of 2016, Charlotte defeated Sasha in a 30-Minute Iron Man Match. After 34 minutes and 45 seconds of action, Charlotte walked out as champion by clinching victory in sudden death overtime. It’s all put things heading in the right direction, but we were reminded recently that things may not have changed as much as we’d like to think.
Money in the Bank makes history in the worst way possible
For quite some time, WWE has proven that they’re making steps to feature the women in better ways on their programming. The evolution of women’s wrestling still continues, but it is clear that there have been positive strides made when compared to the divas days. Last month at Money in the Bank, WWE was ready to hit another milestone by having the first ever Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match.
The match itself was great, but the way it ended left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Carmella’s friend/boyfriend/valet/man-slave James Ellsworth was at ringside during the contest. At one point he actually entered the ring and got involved, stopping Becky Lynch from winning the match. The match itself was no disqualifications due to being a ladder match, so this action alone could have been understandable for a heel character.
Things really got icky as James Ellsworth then took it upon himself to climb the ladder and retrieve the briefcase. He then dropped it into the hands of Carmella, and she was declared the winner. The first ever Women’s Money in the Bank Ladder Match ended with a man retrieving the briefcase. It disgusted many fans, and WWE quickly tried to remedy things.
Two nights later on SmackDown Live, Carmella was stripped of the Money in the Bank Briefcase and a rematch was made for the next week on SmackDown. That rematch took place on June 27th, and it showed once again that the women were perfectly capable of having a ladder match. Yet again, James Ellsworth inserted himself into the action. Fortunately, he was neutralized by Becky Lynch and taken out of the equation.
When the timing was finally right, Carmella climbed the ladder and pulled down the briefcase she had previously possessed. It’s unclear if WWE intended for this rematch plan when they decided to have the inaugural match end due to Ellsworth’s actions or if it was a reaction to fan outcry, but either option represents sheer stupidity on the part of WWE. Marketing a moment so heavily as something big for women’s wrestling only to tarnish the moment got people talking, but not in the way WWE wants.
The circumstances surrounding Money in the Bank represented a low point for the evolution of women’s wrestling. Only a few weeks prior, Alexa Bliss and Bayley competed in a Kendo Stick on a Pole Match at Extreme Rules. The roughly five-minute long contest was, to be perfectly honest, terrible. The match was short, rushed, and not helped by being saddled with such a horrendous stipulation.
What’s next for the evolution of women’s wrestling?
While WWE has proven they can still struggle plenty while trying to give women a more prominent role in their programming, the sentiment feels genuine. Even if WWE’s decision isn’t motivated properly, the free market is pushing them. As fans become more and more invested in women’s wrestling, the merchandise of those women will continue to sell more.
The only thing WWE truly can’t ignore is money. At the end of the day, the WWE is a business that is looking to succeed financially. As long as fans continue to demand quality women’s wrestling, the WWE will be forced to at least try to provide it to the audience. Fortunately, it looks like the numbers on airtime are moving back in the right direction.
After the rough events of recent months and dips in airtime following the initial Divas Revolution, Kate Foray’s Raw Breakdown Project shows that the women’s division is continuing to get more airtime on both brands. Meanwhile, WWE is making strides outside of the main roster.
In NXT, Asuka’s record-setting reign as NXT Women’s Champion has been one of the most dominant title reigns WWE has seen in years. Asuka recently broke Goldberg’s fabled undefeated streak, and there’s even speculation that Asuka may come to the main roster while she is still undefeated. NXT is filled with talent sure to be important to the future of women’s wrestling, such as Nikki Cross, Ember Moon, Ruby Riot, and others.
The WWE also announced the Mae Young Classic earlier this year. The 32 competitor tournament will start next week and feature women from both NXT and the independent circuit. Several big names from the independent circuit have been creating buzz, perhaps the biggest being Tessa Blanchard and Kairi Sane.
The future of WWE’s women’s division is safe in the hands of NXT, and the demand for quality women’s wrestling continues to be voiced from fans. It took several years of struggle, three days of a hashtag trending worldwide, and a massive confluence of events to trigger the divas revolution and bring us to the landscape of women’s wrestling we’re treated to in the WWE today.
The struggles for gender equality throughout society both in the United States and globally continue today, and I can only hope to see us get closer to true equality within my lifetime. Unfortunately, change takes time. Just as the evolution of perceived gender roles took time to change, it will take time for women’s wrestling to reach a fully equal footing in the WWE.
In the meantime, we should celebrate the victories and the steps that are taken to move things in the right direction. We should thank the pioneers from the past who helped push things forward in a time when doing so was much more difficult. We should make our voice heard when things aren’t going like they should.
Most importantly, we should make sure that the women putting their bodies on the line for this great sport understand how much we appreciate them. As broad and grand as much of the evolution of women’s wrestling has been, none of it is possible without the talented women who entertain us week in and week out. They deserve our thanks, recognition, and support.