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Women's Wrestling: A Critique


Mr. Seven

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Therefore, I'd get rid of almost all of the divas in WWE and use the small amount of TV time they currently take up on something more worthwhile.

Like what? Even just the Bellas and Maryse doing their entrances then leaving is more worthwhile than adding four minutes onto the latest Swagger/McIntyre/Kofi/Ziggler/Bourne match. Cena doesn't need four more minutes a week either. None of the WWE shows suffer from trying to cram too much into too little TV time.

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As a long time fan of Women's Wrestling I personally find the more "extreme" side of it's fanbase do more damage then good for the the image of Women's Wrestling, I have watched a number of SHIMMER shows and personally I wouldn't want to be seen dead amongst that crowd and I sometimes wonder how the company stays in business at all especially with the amount of international talent the promotion uses.

 

Last I watched the Joshi scene was in a tragic state yet you still have people acting like it's the be all end oll of Women's wrestling yet imho SHIMMER is putting the Joshi stars to better use then anywhere else in the World right now.

 

On the subject of Women's Wrestling in general I watched a couple of SMASH shows for the first time last night and it has a suprisingly strong Women's roster which mostly consists of people I had never heard of until now and also features a lot of mixed/inter-gender match ups.

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The knockouts suffer from the same porblem some of the other talent in tna has. They've got little time to lay out a match and the devision is headed by women who aren't the safest pair of hands. That's not to say "Ugh, she's got ropey tits, so she's crap" but they're not being helped by being booked into convaluted match finishes, that they continue to screw up. Bare in mind, Scott D'More (not the right spelling, I know) who is an experienced trainer and booker. And helped shape the knockouts into a watchable part of tna. Likewise, the steady hand of Fit Finaly was mentioned when the divas devision at least had competitive matches a few years ago.

I guess I am a fan of womens wrestling. In that I can derive enjoyment from two females having a match and can appreciate the match quality. I'm also straight, and am attracted to some of the women wrestlers, some of whom I like to see wrestle. The whole "this girl is hired only for her looks" is similar to the "they only hire body builders" one. Except, because there's more spots for the men, law of averages means we'll get some quality on the male leagues. So, I think there is an arguement for the fair treatment of female wrestlers. But I don't think every female worker is amazing (I think the smaller girls just should throw punches, it just looks pointless) and should proove her talent, like every other wrestler I watch for the first time. But I don't see female matches as masturbation break, during impact. For some reason the subject of women's wrestling totally polarises this forum into people either being accused of trainee rapists or nutless zealots. Which is why I almost never comment in threads about female wrestlers here.

If you think Ringbelles is blind zealotry, then fair enough. It's your opinion. But plenty male wrestlers have fan sites/forums that can see no wrong

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I was thinking of starting a thread about the current state of womens wrestling this morning but couldn't be bothered, so thanks Seven for starting this thread. People absolutely are unfairly forgiving when it comes to judging womens matches, sub-standard matches involving women are routinely considered "good, for a womens match" while sub-standard matches involving men are torn to shreds. I don't want to get into a debate about equality but surely matches should be judged objectively regardless of the gender of the combatants, you don't hear people commenting on the performances of other types of entertainers (actors, musicians, etc) in the same way we routinely discuss female wrestlers.

 

In my view the WWE, the industry standard, considers the looks of its female performance to be of a higher priority than their talent, Divas generally tend to be slim and lack the physiques suited for taking bumps and delivering a believable performance, a lot of Divas come from non-athletic backgrounds and lack the understanding of wrestling and what it involves. Too many Divas lack the most basic of in-ring skills, most of them can't run the ropes, throw punches or forearms or even bump, but who's to blame? Is it really fair to blame Kelly Kelly for having the most ludicrous Lou Thesz Press/Punch routine in the history of the industry, or should we be blaming the people who put these clueless girls out there every week and pretend that the Divas are best in the world.

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As pretty much everyone has alluded to, women's matches are graded on a curve of sorts. In WWE anyway, wrestling is so secondary to entertainment in men's matches, and it's tenfold for women. Even the commentators treat it as a joke half the time. I know Michael Cole is still kinda heel, but the underlying message in his response to Booker saying, "Get them in the ring!" on Raw this week was cringe inducing- he patronisingly says, "Don't you want to watch the entrances a little longer?" in a tone that conveys, "Who the fuck would want to watch women WRESTLE?" Having matches end in a minute is counter productive; let's assume that all women's wrestling is complete shit. How will they get better without the in-ring experience? I know they sometimes get longer on house shows, but that isn't always the case. Also, if WWE are going to parade these hot chicks out to pander to a certain section of their fanbase, they want to watch them for a bit more time than is given. Thirdly, even if WWE didn't change the amount of in-ring time, the least they could do is give the Divas a little character development and integration into storylines. Putting that focus on them would help people care about them, and why wouldn't WWE want fans to care about their stars? Trish and Lita got over through association with big name stars like Stone Cold, The Rock, Vince McMahon and Edge.

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Having spent so long educating the fanbase that womens wrestling isnt something to take too seriously i cant see this particular mindset of ''wow its 2 hot women man theyre hot..whos wrestling??'' ''i dont know and i dont care cos theyre hot'' that they've helped instil on the male section of the fanbase is one thats going to change and i dont think either of the companies want it too, its why companies like shimmer will never be huge names and womens wrestling wont draw as well as mens because at the end of the day its just 2 hot women and theres no reason to care about the results or storylines theyre involved in its all about the calenders and dvds they release of them on a beach.

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In my opinion womens wrestling is hindered mostly by the powers that be. If they are not given time to be able to wrestle proper matches, not built correctly and treated as a joke ofcourse it's shit. To add to that 90% of WWE's female wrestlers are simply eye candy, this creates a negative connotation of women's wrestling. It perpetuates the whole "being used as wank material" opinion and creates disrespect, disinterest and damages the way that people see female wrestlers.

 

Fair point, women will probably never be equal to men in a physical business such as wrestling. It is harder for women to build muscle and pull off the moves by their very nature. But, it seems to me women's wrestling is more something WWE and TNA do to fufil a requirement to be seen as 'being equal' whilst actually exploiting those women as a sexual object.

 

Ofcourse there are good female wrestlers about, TNA knockout division was extremely promising under Scott D'amore as several others have mentioned. But it seems to me that a lot of wrestling fans give the females that are actually entertaining a hard time because of their looks. This does not happen with male wrestlers and in my opinion is a double standard. TNA have even pandered to this since with their knockout division becoming littered with WWE 'model types' with much less focus on the wrestling. The knockout division was brilliantly entertaining (moreso than half of the male roster at the time) in 2009/10 because they didn't come across as female wrestlers, they were just wrestlers and the storyline's were great and entertaining.

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The KO Division was dead the moment the Title changed hands in a game of Deal or no Deal.

 

Precisely, can you imagine the same scenario with the world heavyweight title. Women's wrestling is often crap because it is sold as crap. I don't think the women are necessarily to blame here, but the business has a lot to answer for.

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The KO Division was dead the moment the Title changed hands in a game of Deal or no Deal.

 

Precisely, can you imagine the same scenario with the world heavyweight title.

 

Well, Andre the Giant gave the WWF title to the Deal Or No Deal presenter in 1988.

 

The circumstances around the Dolph Ziggler title reign this year weren't much better, either.

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The KO Division was dead the moment the Title changed hands in a game of Deal or no Deal.

 

Precisely, can you imagine the same scenario with the world heavyweight title.

 

Well, Andre the Giant gave the WWF title to the Deal Or No Deal presenter in 1988.

 

Jeff Jarrett hadn't grown his beard yet by that point, so I think that's wrong.

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I am not a huge fan of women's wrestling but I do think that part of the blame lies with their lack of experience on screen. It's the same for the current crop of bland mid-carders WWE have, if they're not given any time to establish a decent character or at least give people a reason to cheer them then they're not going to get any better. Women wrestlers need the practice just as much as the men. I'm not saying they should be forgiven because of this, and neither should the mid-card talent, but there should be some degree of sympathy and patience with it. Lay-Cool is a good recent example of giving the women's division some purpose.

 

It is ridiculously the amount of praise some of them get though. Much too forgiving are people like SBA. Gail Kim, since being in the WWE, has done nothing of interest nor shown any other reason to give her the TV time. Her work in TNA, after being a bland valet for AMW, was great but it doesn't justify her a push nowadays. All she's done since then is basically botch any TV match she's had.

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So, we're all agreed women's wrestling is graded on an unfair curve then?

 

If anything, I'd argue women's wrestling is being put backwards by the fact that diehards will be blind to weaknesses in women's wrestling. I've downloaded some shimmer, and frankly several of the matches would get a load of shite if they had male combatants. Shouldn't women's wrestling be graded the same as men's? If anything it's sexist not to.

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So, we're all agreed women's wrestling is graded on an unfair curve then?

 

If anything, I'd argue women's wrestling is being put backwards by the fact that diehards will be blind to weaknesses in women's wrestling. I've downloaded some shimmer, and frankly several of the matches would get a load of shite if they had male combatants. Shouldn't women's wrestling be graded the same as men's? If anything it's sexist not to.

 

Agreed, it's exactly what I was saying near the beginning of this thread, only better put.

 

I still maintain, though, that there's the physicality factor to consider: if you expect female wrestlers to be Divas/wank fodder, it's unreasonable to expect said females to be of a standard by which to judge them equal to men. They can either be sexually alluring or competent in their grappling; very rarely will their physiologies allow them to do both.

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