Women's Wrestling: A Critique

[Loki]

I am SO fucking glad you two have come out with this, because ODB is one of my favourite acts, and favourite women wrestlers - I'm quite enjoying her feud building up with Velvet.

[Cobra1000]

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.

 

whoa whoa, Jay Lethal is cool.

 

I don't mind ODB tbh, I thought the brawl she had with Velvet that opened Impact a few weeks ago was great. Her character isn't for me though, she is kinda scary and intimidating, but I can definately see why people think she is good.

 

Mickie James is properly shit though. Discuss...

[Vito]

Mickie James is properly shit though. Discuss...

They should never have taken the strap off of Madison, but then again there wasn't much of a choice with all the stipulations they'd made going in to the match. Madison is another great female who understands her character, her queen bee schtick with the oversized tiara was great stuff.

[Allstar69]

gets on my nerves that she doesnt seem to own a proper pair of denim jeans and has shitty matches

[Dirty Eddie]

I can't stand OBD, personally.

 

She does have a very distinct character, but I find it to be embarrassing and unpleasant to watch. At no point in the real world or the wrestling world do I want to see some ropey bird slapping her own tits or grabbing her crotch. I imagine the reaction would be the same if it was a bloke doing it. She's like Rikishi and Big Dick Johnson, I just don't want to see that shit and it makes wrestling look like crap.

[Loki]

She's nothing like Rikishi and Big Dick Johnson! She's not stick thin, but she's not some blubbering fat hulk who wrestles practically naked covered in baby oil. They are worlds apart.

 

You don't like the girl, fine, but she's not an embarrassment. Nor was Kishi either, in the interests of fairness.

[Green]

She's nothing like Rikishi and Big Dick Johnson! She's not stick thin, but she's not some blubbering fat hulk who wrestles practically naked covered in baby oil. They are worlds apart.

 

You don't like the girl, fine, but she's not an embarrassment. Nor was Kishi either, in the interests of fairness.

Got to be honest, I'm with Eddie on this. She has skip-segment heat from me.

[Allstar69]

I can't stand OBD, personally.

 

She does have a very distinct character, but I find it to be embarrassing and unpleasant to watch. At no point in the real world or the wrestling world do I want to see some ropey bird slapping her own tits or grabbing her crotch. I imagine the reaction would be the same if it was a bloke doing it. She's like Rikishi and Big Dick Johnson, I just don't want to see that shit and it makes wrestling look like crap.

she isnt as bad as some but her voice really grates on me

[Dirty Eddie]

She's nothing like Rikishi and Big Dick Johnson! She's not stick thin, but she's not some blubbering fat hulk who wrestles practically naked covered in baby oil. They are worlds apart.

 

You don't like the girl, fine, but she's not an embarrassment. Nor was Kishi either, in the interests of fairness.

 

It wasn't the frame of the individuals I was thinking of really, just the general way they were presented;

 

Rikishi was a big fat bloke with his arse hanging out who liked to rub it in peoples faces.

 

ODB is a beefy woman with her arse hanging out that shows loads of cleavage who's main trademark gestures are slapping her tits and grabbing her clunge.

 

 

 

I have no interest in seeing either of these things. I did state quite clearly it was a personal thing. It's not a knock on her abilities. Rikishi was a great worker for a big guy for a few years (he slowed down and got very stale later on), but that doesn't mean I enjoyed his act.

[Kenny McBride]

The problem is that the main audience for wrestling is men, and it would take a very smart marketing effort to get women to watch enough to the point where women could be a focal point of a show without being sex symbols. It worked for AJW in the 1980s - the company and the Crush Gals in particular were a major cultural phenomenon, like the Spice Girls only good, and so the pool they had to draw from to fill their dojo was HYOOOOGE. Literally thousands of girls showed up to the tryouts and they got weeded down to about ten each year. When one class can produce Mita, Shimoda, Toyota and I think Takako Inoue, you know you're doing something right. Unfortunately at that point, they got so obsessed with being taken seriously at the same level as the men that they lost sight of the tween girl audience and focussed on the same Korakuen Hall geeks that were going to the All Japan shows. That lost them their talent pool and created a generation of stars who couldn't easily be replaced. It's a bit like having a Bret Hart replace a Hulk Hogan. He might be good at what he does, but the change is so drastic and the supporting cast is so greatly reduced that there was no way to compete with history.

 

In the States, WWE and TNA market their women to the same crowd as their men - sexually excitable young men. That's exactly what turns off women who might watch. Even the ones who keep an eye open because Rock and Cena are HAWT don't want to see those women because they're vacuous bimbos who can't even be praised for their talent. It's no coincidence that Lita was one of the most over women they ever had. She looked like the kind of girl that 1. those guys in the crowd might be friends with and 2. might actually get off with if the stars were aligned.

 

Women's wrestling could be a success if you did several things differently. You can't market to the smark geeks because geekiness doesn't sell and smart-focussed promotions ALWAYS fail. You need to market to tween girls by giving them genuine role models, women they can identify with and heels they can really hate. Make the hot blonde bimbos the heels. Make the pretty but human looking girls the babyfaces. Train them up to a high standard. Give them meaningful gimmicks and angles to work with. Get them working with schools and girls' magazines and whatnot to sell the importance of healthy body images, exercise, healthy eating and self-confidence. Don't put everyone in bikinis. Don't panic if a girl is carrying a few extra pounds. It's all positive if you remember that marketing to guys and girls are two different things requiring very different approaches.

 

Quite honestly, there are the girls in this country to do it and do it well if someone had the marketing nous and a wee bit of money to play with. They might want to sharpen their ring skills a bit, but in terms of the looks, the marketability, the backstories and even the in-ring work (for the most part) the girls here are OK. But it's not going to work if it's pushed the same way men's wrestling is. Hell, men's wrestling isn't working by that MO.

[AJS269]

Well said Kenny

 

RE ODB, I think her character was a breath of fresh air when it first debuted as it wasn't like anything seen on WWE tv or TNA (at least in a long while). However she can only do one character, which means after a while she grows stale.

[Flatulent Dad]

By & large, the majority of comments in this thread appear to relate to current(ish) 'TV wrestling'. If that's the theme, then yeah, women's wrestling properly sucks. With a couple of exceptions, none of those women even register as a blip on the radar in Japan and that's were you need to look to find the real deal - not all of it, granted. I have no bias towards either male or female wrestling, nor am I not a great fan of AJW during the 80's (Crush Gals etc.), but many of their 90s shows, particularly the inter-promotional ones, were great by any standard. You don't pack Korakuen, Yokohama Arena or the Tokyo Dome by being the shits.

 

Meltzer doesn't dictate to me what to watch or like & as it happens, I recently 2-starred one of his 5-star AJW matches, but those 90's shows are laiden with ***(+) matches. The likes of; Hokuto, Toyota, Kyoko, Aja Kong...are true greats & did someone say Bull Nakano wasn't stiff? Bringing it more upto date, try watching Yoshiko Tamura vs. Ayumi Kurihara (NEO 31.12.10) or women's matches from Queen Bee (the female equivalent of BattlArts - worked shoots). Anyone still of the same opinion, having bothered to watch any of the above...well..can't help you.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Womens feds always seem to have such shit names.

[Carbomb]

whoa whoa, Jay Lethal is cool.

 

No, he's not. He's boring as sin, sounds lame on the mike and has a barely comprehensible gimmick (what the fuck is he supposed to be?). He's certainly not cool - during his feud with The Shore, I thought Robbie E, who's a fucking American chav, FFS, came across as being cooler and more aware than he did. Lethal just came across as a hayseed.

 

He's an incredibly frustrating wrestler, because he gave all the signs he'd learned from the Black Machismo gimmick and was going to be better to watch, and instead he's bloody regressed.

[Slapnut]

whoa whoa, Jay Lethal is cool.

 

No, he's not. He's boring as sin, sounds lame on the mike and has a barely comprehensible gimmick (what the fuck is he supposed to be?). He's certainly not cool - during his feud with The Shore, I thought Robbie E, who's a fucking American chav, FFS, came across as being cooler and more aware than he did. Lethal just came across as a hayseed.

 

He's an incredibly frustrating wrestler, because he gave all the signs he'd learned from the Black Machismo gimmick and was going to be better to watch, and instead he's bloody regressed.

 

Come on, even after that segment with Ric Flair?!

 

Nah, to be honest I agree with you somewhat. I was never a big fan of the Black Machismo gimmick and always wanted them to just drop it. Problem is, when he eventually did drop it, Lethal also seemed to drop pretty much all of his personality. It made me realise how much I actually LIKED Black Machismo in hindsight. The stuff with Ric Flair was golden, but that was mainly due to Lethal's apparent talent at impressions. Well, and Flair himself of course.

 

I always thought they should've turned him heel at the height of the Black Machismo gimmick, saying that he's sick of portraying another man's character or some shit.