Women's Wrestling: A Critique

[Allstar69]

womens wrestling is amazing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlrzMttROA

[Jaffa]

Benny, don't suppose you know any of the matches that received the 5* rating? I wouldn't mind checking a few matches out.

All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling

08/15/92 Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada

04/02/93 Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori

04/02/93 Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs. Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki

04/11/93 Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada

12/06/93 Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki

08/24/94 Manami Toyota vs. Kyoko Inoue

11/20/94 Aja Kong vs. Manami Toyota

 

Japan Women's Pro Wrestling

07/31/93 Dynamite Kansai & Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki & Hikari Fukuoka vs. Aja Kong & Sakie Hasegawa & Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue

If you are only going to check out one, make it the Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori match from Dream Slam I.

Cheers for the recommendation. I tried really hard to get into Japanese wrestling about 3 years ago and I just couldn't warm to it. I'll give some of these a go this evening.

[Carbomb]

its like all sport involving women you dont have to be doing it very long to get to the top.

 

Holy fucking Christ.

ok maybe sport was the wrong word but i still stand by what i said

 

You think that in "all sports involving women", the participants don't have to be doing it very long to get to the top?

no since I been involved Ice Hockey all my life made semi pro but never fully pro. But a women who never played before could start training with a pro womens team and play for them with ought much training and its the same in a lot of other sports.But i have met some women who are good two women play for my team both England internationals but also on the womens England team are four players that only started playing in the past yr

 

Maybe they're just that good?

 

Besides, how you can say that for all female sports just because you've had a bad experience is pretty odd. I don't imagine the Williams sisters, Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf would appreciate that sentiment, nor would Dame Kelly Holmes or Cyborg Whatsherface from the UFC.

for all the top level women sports stars there is some shit look at the Olympics you get your elite athletes then you get the shit that aint been training long. Gb women have a lot like that im sure one of the gold medal womens cyclists changed sports and won gold after bout a yrs training, You dont get stuff like that in male sport

 

Please provide examples, because I'm finding that hard to believe.

 

Also, even if that was the case, what does length of training time have to do with anything, really? This is real sport, not wrestling - the results speak for themselves. If they've done a year's training following switching to another sport, doesn't that just make them exceptional athletes? It's not like the talent pool for women is that much smaller than the men's, if at all. They've still got to be better than hundreds, if not thousands, of other entrants if they want to win gold.

[AndyUK]

Yeah, the majority of the womens wrestling that I've seen really hasn't been that good despite what SHIMMER fans and the like might say. A lot of the time, they're praised simply because they're women that haven't managed to botch anything badly and that is just patronising.

[iamtheman]

its like all sport involving women you dont have to be doing it very long to get to the top.

 

Holy fucking Christ.

ok maybe sport was the wrong word but i still stand by what i said

 

You think that in "all sports involving women", the participants don't have to be doing it very long to get to the top?

no since I been involved Ice Hockey all my life made semi pro but never fully pro. But a women who never played before could start training with a pro womens team and play for them with ought much training and its the same in a lot of other sports.But i have met some women who are good two women play for my team both England internationals but also on the womens England team are four players that only started playing in the past yr

 

Maybe they're just that good?

 

Besides, how you can say that for all female sports just because you've had a bad experience is pretty odd. I don't imagine the Williams sisters, Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf would appreciate that sentiment, nor would Dame Kelly Holmes or Cyborg Whatsherface from the UFC.

for all the top level women sports stars there is some shit look at the Olympics you get your elite athletes then you get the shit that aint been training long. Gb women have a lot like that im sure one of the gold medal womens cyclists changed sports and won gold after bout a yrs training, You dont get stuff like that in male sport

 

Please provide examples, because I'm finding that hard to believe.

 

Also, even if that was the case, what does length of training time have to do with anything, really? This is real sport, not wrestling - the results speak for themselves. If they've done a year's training following switching to another sport, doesn't that just make them exceptional athletes? It's not like the talent pool for women is that much smaller than the men's, if at all. They've still got to be better than hundreds, if not thousands, of other entrants if they want to win gold.

 

who he's highlighting is rebecca romero

 

Wikipedia page

 

to win gold medals in two seperate sports is an incredible acheivment regardless of what anyone thinks

[Kenny McBride]

Yeah, but she was already an elite level athlete. Switching to another sport and achieving similarly high levels of success is incredible, but it's far from the implied problem - that any woman can get into a sport and be at the top in no time because they're all shit. Rebecca Romero is clearly a great athlete with pretty spectacular drive.

[Carbomb]

So he's taking an elite example as proof that most other women athletes don't have to train for a long time to win gold?

 

Wow.

[Dirty Eddie]

So, we have established the following things about female pro wrestling...

 

1) It's not as good as "proper wrestling", just as Cruiserweight wrestling isn't as good as "proper wrestling". (I can only assume that "proper wrestling" involves being John Cena and selling merch)

 

2) Just like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan, people only like female wrestling because "Da meltz" tells them to. Not because the talents in question might actually be good, or entertaining to a particular individual.

 

3) Women in all sports can rise to the top in a matter of weeks. Many of the top sportswomen of the world are "fucking shit".

 

 

Well, that's cleared a lot up folks. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only joking, of course (well, a bit). There have been plenty of really good points in here, many that I agree with.

 

I think that the backstage work of Finlay and D'Amore in years past have shown that with a decent, small crew of women who have a fucking clue, it is perfectly reasonable to expect a half-decent division. If you get lucky and find that perfect, sweet combination (Kim/Kong) it can be very, very good.

 

Problem is, neither WWE nor TNA give a toss about that at the moment. So we have blando nobodies, with nothing to fight over in WWE, and in TNA we have the worst storyline anywhere taking up most of the Knockout time (drugged up Ricky Morton Angelina Love).

 

It actually pains me to watch super-slim girls like Kelly Kelly taking nasty bumps. That's not fucking sexy. All I can think of is how much she's ruining her back by taking awkward bumps on her fatless body.

 

I am of the firm belief that super hot women who can't wrestle should be valets. Let the ones who can work, work. Let the smoking hot ones look smoking hot at ringside, while contributing to someone else's act.

[Vito]

I am of the firm belief that super hot women who can't wrestle should be valets. Let the ones who can work, work. Let the smoking hot ones look smoking hot at ringside, while contributing to someone else's act.

Totally agree, nobody should ever forced to wrestle. I cringe whenever I see Angelina Love booked to wrestle on a show, she looks like she could snap in half at any moment. I'd like to take her home and make her eat fry-ups.

[Allstar69]

The ending to the Angelina Mickey match was a fucking joke.

[Vito]

Considering how many years and matches both women have under their belts they should never have allowed the match end like it did.

[Loki]

womens wrestling is amazing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlrzMttROA

 

See, that video shows up one of the big problems with women's wrestling - always trying to do over-complicated moves, chain wrestling, a different move every week, and therefore botching them up good and proper.

 

I know ODB is far from the most popular wrestler around here, but she has a simple moveset that she can do right, and she does that plus throws punches. It's a bit like Austin post-neck injury. Generally speaking the TNA girls are a bit better at this than the WWE, where they laden these poor anorexic models with the most bizarre moves that look like they've come out of Sonjay Dutt's playbook.

[Dirty Eddie]

Considering how many years and matches both women have under their belts they should never have allowed the match end like it did.

 

 

The worst bit was Taz going "ah, she missed that one.... missed it there..."

 

"One, Two, Three.. DING DING"

 

oh?

 

 

Can't really blame Taz though. As you said, you'd think they'd realise they needed to do something else at the end there. Bloody useless.

[Carbomb]

womens wrestling is amazing! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKlrzMttROA

 

See, that video shows up one of the big problems with women's wrestling - always trying to do over-complicated moves, chain wrestling, a different move every week, and therefore botching them up good and proper.

 

I know ODB is far from the most popular wrestler around here, but she has a simple moveset that she can do right, and she does that plus throws punches. It's a bit like Austin post-neck injury. Generally speaking the TNA girls are a bit better at this than the WWE, where they laden these poor anorexic models with the most bizarre moves that look like they've come out of Sonjay Dutt's playbook.

 

Dunno why people slag off ODB. She's one of the few examples of a wrestler who "gets it", and I'm not even talking about "for a woman". She's got a strong, memorable character, she's got signature spots, she's gotten a good reaction every time she's been in TNA, and she's decent enough at playing a heel or a face. Also, she doesn't try and do stupid shit - her moveset largely fits with her character.

 

I'd much rather see her on my TV than Jay sodding Lethal, that's for sure.

[Vito]

I'll probably get crucified for saying this but I've always enjoyed ODB's work, as Carbomb said she's one of the few female performers who truly understands her character and understands how to put herself out there. She may be crude and unfeminine, or whatever, but at least she's memorable.