Then, Now, Forever: The Evolution of WWE’s Women’s Division
June 26, 2018
A different sort of review. This DVD is set to be released at the end of the month, but to see if this DVD is potentially worth checking out, I’ll be reviewing the individual matches, whether that means taking old match reviews or covering the matches for the first time.
Disc One
The Fabulous Moolah © w/Capt. Lou vs Wendi Richter w/Cyndi Lauper - WWE Women’s Title - The Brawl to End It All
A gigantic match in WWE Women’s history. Like...legitimately. Based on WWE history (Which you should never buy into), Moolah had been champion since 1956 going into this match. Although this match took place at MSG and naturally aired on the MSG Network as a full show, this show was also shown as part of the MTV Special, The Brawl to End it All. Drawing a huge 9.0 rating, it was, at the time, the most watched program in MTV’s very short history, and I would have to think it’s still one of the most watched WWE program ever. Thank-you WM 26 Blu-Ray for easily allowing me to watch this match in HD quality. Admittedly, it’s not a good match. The women matches at this point were already garbage, part of which made the arrival of the Jumping Bomb Angels so amazing, but to make matters worse, Moolah just celebrated her 61st (!!!) birthday the day before. The result is Moolah can’t even properly work the simple formula that these women matches were having at the time. This age creating difficulty really shined when Moolah attempted a hair grab monkey flip, but has to start on her back and let Richter on her back where she’d grab Wendi’s hair at the very last moment of the spot. The match was back and forth with both women locking in sloppy looking full nelsons. Lauper got involved, punching Moolah out to get a bit of revenge for all of the smack talking Moolah and Capt. Lou had been doing in the build-up to the match. When Capt. Lou tried to return the favor to Richter, he completely missed, falling over the top rope. The finish came off as incredibly lame to me. Moolah goes for a back suplex with a bridge, which looked like a botch until I realized she was intending to perform that move, but Richter gets her shoulder up during the double pin. With that, we have a NEW WWE Women’s Champion. Imagine it, according to the WWE’s version of history, Moolah’s historic twenty-eight year title reign came to an end solely because she pinned herself. After all of this time, Moolah couldn’t even be bothered to job. Besides a count-out loss, this would be Moolah’s only loss ever at MSG. It’s a good thing they were so mindful of protecting the sixty year old elderly woman rather than the hot new star that was gaining a ton of attention at this point. As a match and booking, it’s pretty awful, but you can’t deny that it isn’t a big match. Besides the Hogan/Piper program, it was this problem that helped bring attention to the eventual first Wrestlemania. * ¼
Team Fabulous Moolah vs Team Sherri Martel - Survivor Series 1987
Team Moolah has The Jumping Bomb Angels (w00t), Rockin' Robin and Velvet McIntyre. Meanwhile, Sherri's team has the lady tag champions, The Glamour Girls, Dawn Marie (Not that one) and Donna Christanello. The problems started when Sherri defeated Moolah for the Women's Title back in the summer. Since then, Martel had had fights with pretty much every babyface woman wrestler. Other than that, the only backstory is just the fact that The Jumping Bomb Angels and Glamour Girls had already began wrestling matches against each other. To be honest, this is just a match to build up the Jumping Bomb Angels as the WWE begins to invest some time in them. They're the sole survivors and they're the ones that leave the greatest impressions thanks to their series of moves that is so before their time for women's wrestling. Hell, they hit moves that you won't even see in women wrestling today. I fucking love the Bomb Angels. The fact that the match came down to the Bomb Angels vs The Glamour Girls was a sign of things to come with so many more tag matches to come. I suppose you can say it was also necessary so that their match at the '88 Royal Rumble had enough hype. However, the awesomeness of the Bomb Angels isn't the only appeal of the match. Velvet McIntyre really looked good with all of her leverage moves (Particularly the head scissors, victory roll and monkey flip). It's her eliminating Sherri with a victory roll that gives the Women's Title a little direction as we move into 1988. Velvet may have been eliminated by Kai after Kai countered a victory roll into an electric chair, but Velvet still scored eliminations over Donna and Sherri. If there was a December PPV, Sherri vs Velvet would be an obvious addition. For a women's WWE match, it's really entertaining, although it was a little longer than it needed to be. Considering my undying love for the Bomb Angels in the WWE, it's a must see match. Folks, you don't need to watch terrible women wrestlers like AJ, Kaitlyn and Layla. THESE women and their aggressive style was actually entertaining. ***
Bull Nakano © vs Alundra Blayze - WWE Women’s Title - Raw - April 3, 1995
It’s the night after Wrestlemania 11. These two women have been wrestling nonstop since the start of August 1994. After a pair of impressive matches at Summerslam and on Raw, Nakano finally defeated Blayze for the title in Japan at the Egg Dome in November. Considering the fact that WM 11 was so short (Not even two and a half hours on the WWE Network), I don’t know why this match didn’t just take place at that PPV. Since this is Bull’s final night with the WWE, they don’t even bother giving her an entrance. Even though the handling of this match is disappointing, these two were incapable of having a bad match together in the WWE. The story of the match is simply Bull is a fucking beast and Blayze needs to keep moving and figure out a way to wear Nakano down. Blayze accomplished this by flying around some, moving out of the way when Bull attempted a suicide dive to the outside, and spamming the hell out of her finishing move - the German Suplex. Blayze realizes that in order to beat Bull, it’s going to take a lot, so rather than get frustrated when her bridging German Suplex doesn’t get the pinfall, she instead opts to hit it for a second time. When Bull misses the dive to the outside, Blayze sees that as a chance to hit a third German Suplex on the outside. Finally, back in the ring, Blayze hits a fourth German Suplex, this time finally keeping Bull down for the three count to crown a NEW WWE Women’s Champion. This is a rare example of being able to hit a finisher multiple times in a match without it being overkill. It wasn’t kick outs for the sake of kick outs, but rather a story of a monster being slayed by a hero’s favorite weapon. Bull may have only been in the WWE for nine months, but she was legitimately one of the best parts about the second half of 1994/early 1995 WWE. *** ¼
After the match, a large unknown woman attacked the new champion from behind, laying Blayze out. With that, Bertha Faye has made her WWE debut. It’s worth noting Faye debuted wearing her normal Rhonda Sing gear, which was all black tights and face paint. Very similar look to the old tag team of the Headhunters. The next time Faye would be on WWE TV, she’d be with Harvey Wippleman and wearing her bright colors. It’s a shame, I would have liked to have seen a monster Rhonda Sing rather than the comedy figure that we got with Faye.
Ivory (c) vs Chyna - WWE Women's Title - Wrestlemania 17
A rematch from Royal Rumble 2001 where Chyna nearly had the title won, but her neck injury allowed Ivory to quickly win the match. On one hand, Chyna winning the Women's Title here created a lot more possibilities in the division since she was seen as such a bigger star than the rest. However, putting Chyna in the Women's Division really devalued her. This is a woman who made a career wrestling the men and dismissed the idea of working the women's division. Now she's just a regular diva. It's no wonder the WWE laughed at her request to be paid the same as Austin, Rock and Taker when her contract came up in the summer. Match was really short and saw Ivory hit some really terrible looking punches to Chyna's back/neck. There were a few points I was concerned that Chyna was legitimately going to injury Ivory due to her carelessness. After hitting a power bomb, Chyna pulled Ivory up to force the match to keep going. That led to Chyna pressing Ivory and nonchalantly covering Ivory to become the NEW WWE Women's Champion. Thus, the beginning of the end of third era of WWE women's wrestling begins. Not good at all. * ¼
Victoria © vs Trish Stratus - WWE Women’s Title - Raw - November 25, 2002
From the week after Survivor Series where Victoria won the title. Much to my surprise, this was really decent. Unlike nearly all 2002 WWE women matches, this was botch free. There wasn’t any clear story, but instead it was just a physical match-up that was back and forth. Especially at this point in her WWE career, Victoria is trying so hard. She may not have much to work with with the lackluster roster at the time, but she stands out as the best worker at this point. Even more surprising to me, besides the match being okay, is that it received a good amount of time and it featured a clean finish. Stevie Richards was not spotted until after the match and the closest Victoria got to cheating is shoving Trish throat first into the top rope and then delivering the Widow’s Peak to get the pinfall. Better than both No Mercy and Survivor Series 2002 matches. ** ¾
Lita vs Victoria - Cage Match - Raw - November 24, 2003
From Raw Roulette. This would be the first ever women’s cage match in WWE history. The most praise I can give this match is that Victoria went into it fully willing to take as hard of bumps into the cage as needed. The bumps through or over the top rope into the cage is just as good as the bumps that the guys take. So while Victoria came with her working boots on, then there was...Lita. The most memorable thing Lita did in the match is when Victoria was selling on the mat and Lita attempted to scale the cage only to lose her grip and fall off. Well, that’s one way to ensure it’ll be years before the WWE ever does a women’s cage match again. One of the worst botches I’ve seen in a cage match. Lita managed to recover though and nailed a moonsault to a standing Victoria. That allowed Lita to crawl to the open door, but before she can escape, Matt Hardy runs out and slams the door in Lita’s face. With Lita hurt, Victoria crawls out of the open door to win the match. After the match, Christian ran out to ensure Hardy wouldn’t do anything else to Lita as a step in Christian’s plot to con Lita into thinking he cared about her. The fact that the first ever women’s cage match was wasted on Lita is a real shame. Any praise for this match should go directly to Victoria only. * ¾
Victoria © vs Molly Holly - Title vs Hair - WWE Women’s Title - Wrestlemania 20
Since the start of 2004, Victoria has been getting the best of Molly. Pinning Molly (When she was champion) in non-title matches and tag matches. After Victoria won the title in February on Raw in a fatal four-way, her streak of beating Molly only continued. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but somehow Steve Austin convinced Molly Holly to put her hair on the line for this match. In reality, the Women’s Title was originally not set to be defended on Wrestlemania. Instead, Molly had to go to the WWE officials, offering to lose her hair in order to get a match. That’s some serious dedication. Imagine the disrespect Molly and Victoria likely felt, not originally being booked, but the WWE did find time to book an evening gown match? Yet, even when this match finally happens, the disrespect continues as JR and The King spend nearly the entire match talking about panties. WTF? I can’t imagine how frustrated Molly likely was afterward, when she learns what the commentary did. Here she is, willing to lose her hair, yet the commentators can’t be bothered to focus on the match? Unfortunately, the match isn’t overly exciting. I know I prefer their non-title match on Heat before Royal Rumble. The finish comes off as pretty abrupt too as Molly attempts to steal Victoria’s own Widow Peak, but Victoria counters it into a backslide for the surprise pinfall. Still, this was better than the other women’s match. * ¾
After the match, the real fun begins as the two battles up the ramp with Molly trying to force Victoria into the barber’s chair to shave Victoria’s hair, but Victoria manages to spray Molly in the face with hair spray. That allows Victoria to strap Molly to the chair and start using the clippers on her. Due to time restraints, they only go as far as giving Molly an awful looking mullet, but it’s still a far more memorable segment than maybe any other Diva moment in WM history. The next night on Raw, we’d be able to see Molly bald.
Lita vs Trish Stratus - RAW - December 6, 2004
The historic match that had a woman's match in the main event. This is one of a handful of Attitude Era+ women matches that actually mattered. However, it doesn't take away from the fact that it was still another lame woman's match. For what it counts, it sucks less than most diva matches and the big match feel helps it as well. However, good crap is still crap. * ¾
*Slow clap*
Great in-depth review there, Jim. Reading it, it really feels as if I was there. Let’s re-do this review so that it clearly shows that I watched the match.
Trish Stratus © vs Lita - WWE Women’s Title - Raw - December 6, 2004
At this stage, this frenemy relationship was back to being enemies with things really heating up due to Trish relishing the emotional turmoil that Lita had been going through due to her unwilling relationship with Kane. They recently had a match at Survivor Series that prematurely ended due to Lita being too aggressive from the start, breaking Trish’s nose and causing the referee to quickly stop it. The surprising thing about this match is that despite having a good amount of praise and acceptance as a historic match, it’s only seven minutes long. The story of the match was built around what Lita did best - botch. Her suicide dive to the outside caused Lita to fall so awkwardly that you can’t help but to grimace when watching the screen. The fact that this is the same woman who was out of action with a broken neck a year and a half ago makes the spot even more sick to watch. Yet, this botch allows for Trish to focus on the head/neck for the remainder of the match while Lita gets to show heart by refusing to be beaten. Trish stoops to pulling off her protective mask to knock Lita out for a nearfall. When that doesn’t work, Stratus hits her Chick Kick (Without even coming close to Lita’s head) for another nearfall. Then Trish tries to use the ropes for the unfair advantage, but that still won’t give her the victory. Lita proves to be unbeatable on this night and after hitting a Reverse of Fate, she’s able to finish Trish off with a moonsault to become the NEW WWE Women’s Champion. Naturally, Lita’s title reign would be cut short the following month after sustaining a new injury...from a botch. The story was pretty decent, but this match gets overhyped. Did it actually do anything for women’s wrestling in the WWE? No. It’s just one main event. A main event slot that the women would not get on Raw again until 2016. It isn’t any different from that random Smackdown in 2003 that was headlined with Rey Mysterio’s Cruiserweight Title victory over Matt Hardy. One main event doesn’t mean anything has changed. Still, I will admit that the match had a special feel to it while you’re watching. Very slightly better than I remember it being. **
Trish Stratus (c) vs Mickie James - Women's Championship - Wrestlemania 22
Upon her debut in early October, Mickie James became Trish Stratus' biggest fan. It started off as just annoying, but then Mickie kept upping the psycho level. Finally, Trish had enough and told Mickie that she wanted a break. With Torrie Wilson being injured or whatever, Trish needed a partner for SNME against Victoria and Candice. Mickie volunteered and Trish reluctantly agreed, but only for it to be their last time together. Trish won the match without tagging in Mickie. After the match, Mickie wanted a handshake, but when she hugged Trish, Trish shoved her off. Mickie would give her a Chick Kick (Redubbed as the Mick Kick) thus finally turning heel. Things only got better as Mickie James kidnapped Ashley and lured Trish to the ring. Once in the ring, Mickie delivered a sick looking jumping DDT. In other words, they were having the best feud thus far in 2006. Violent tie-up to start. Mickie just slaps Trish until Trish gives a elbow in return. Lou Thesz Press by Trish. Terrible chop by Trish. Second one is a bit better. Third ends up being the worst. Just stop doing chops Trish, you suck at them. Trish kicks Mickie to the outside. Stratus misses Mickie and gives the ring post a chick kick. Mickie works over the knee by slamming it into the post. Trade of punches back in the ring. Mickie goes low with a drop kick. Loud 'Let's Go Mickie' chant. She might be the heel, but she's finally a woman wrestler doing something creative and fun. More working on the knee of Trish. Half Boston Crab, Lance Storm would be proud. Mickie pulls the hair of Trish and slams her face first back down to the mat. Sick looking kick to the back of Trish's knee while it was caught up in the ropes. Mickie poses for the fans and gets a great reaction. Spinning head scissors by Trish. The fans begins to boo whenever Trish is on offense. Ha...that's awesome. JR tries to say the fans just feels like being defiant. Trish goes to splash Mickie in the corner, but James gets the boots up to block. Mickie avoids the head scissors in the corner and slams Trish down to the mat. The fans are loving anything Mickie does. Hurricanrana is countered and reversed into a power bomb by Trish. Awkward spot where Trish tries to go for the Matrix move, but she ducks down too quickly. Trish gets in the side head lock for the Stratusfaction, but Mickie grabs Trish's crotch. The WWE edits out Mickie licking her fans while laughing. The WWE also edits out the Stratusfaction by Mickie botch. Cut to Mickie nailing the Mick Kick to pin Trish and become the new Women's Champion. Mickie was damn near perfect at this time. She had the psycho gimmick down to perfection and was easily the best women's wrestler the WWE had at the time. She even managed to take a sub par worker in Trish and get a good match out of Trish. In fact, this is the only match of Trish's that I would consider good. The match did have the typical awkward moments that women matches are known for, largely due to Trish. However, the intensity and the crowd reaction easily made it a non issue. While I'm normally not a fan of the WWE (Or any company editing matches) the edit of the botch at the very end needed to be done. They had built up a pretty good match, but the botch really hurt the lasting feeling the match gave me. So without the botch, there was nothing to hurt the match greatly. I can't help, but miss this Mickie. Much like 2002-2003 Victoria, she was so much different than all of the other divas. I actually had a reason to care about her, unlike today. This feud (Mickie mainly), was my main reason to watch Raw around this time. I'm not the typical diva's fan who thinks it's a good match even though it can't even compare to the quality of the other matches on a card. This was a good wrestling match and it didn't need any BS curve for women wrestling. *** ¼
Kaitlyn © vs AJ Lee w/Big E - WWE Divas Title - Payback 2013
It was in the build-up to this match that Kaitlyn found out that she had a secret admirer. That admirer ended up being Big E. In his big reveal, Big E lulled Kaitlyn into a false sense of security before dropping the bombshell that it was all a ruse created by AJ. Being humiliated on live TV has seemingly driven Kaitlyn to insanity. If you ask me, all this did for Kaitlyn is make her out to be the most cringeworthy WWE wrestler at this point. She’s acting like a child for something that wasn’t even a good prank. On one hand, this allows Kaitlyn to be more aggressive, which is perfectly fine, but on the other hand, she does a lot of idiotic things. The best example of that is late in the match after AJ had done a lot of cheating, including knocking Kaitlyn out with AJ’s own street clothes belt for a nearfall. In a nice spot, AJ attempts a top rope crossbody, but Kaitlyn catches her, attempting a spinning slam, only for Lee to counter THAT into her Black Widow. Kaitlyn is able to power out of it and deliver a backbreaker. One spear later and it looks as if Kaitlyn has the match won...only to fuck around with mind games. Instead of going for the cover, Kaitlyn takes forever, crawling on AJ, pulling Lee up in a seated position to blow a kiss at her, before finally attempting the cover. Naturally, all of this stalling gave AJ time to kick out. The match only goes a couple of minutes more before Kaitlyn misses a charge in the corner, goes face first into a turnbuckle pad, and is locked in the Black Widow for a second time, being forced to submit to crown a NEW WWE Divas Champion. That was a really good potential ending with the spear, but instead that stupid stalling had to happen. Kaitlyn flat out fucked up and it cost her the belt. She’s supposed to be the babyface, but how are you supposed to sympathize towards her when she’s not wrestling smart? Match would have been better had it ended with the spear. **
After the match, Kaitlyn is a pathetic mess as the crowd chants “You gave up”. She breaks down crying, only to be comforted by Layla. That garners boos from the crowd. Layla brings Kaitlyn to the back where they’re joined by Natalya and Alicia Fox, but Kaitlyn is far too distraught to listen to any of the kind words from her friends. Kaitlyn runs off to be a sad, pathetic fuck alone. The WWE might has well just fired Kaitlyn after this PPV because they’ve ruined her with this booking.
Paige (c) vs Emma - NXT Women’s Title - NXT ArRival
With both women having video packages shown for them in addition to seeing how they prepare for this match, this feels important and the complete opposite of the piss breaks that the Diva matches are on the main roster. In my limited viewing of Emma, I don't exactly get her appeal, but she was great here. She still did her usual wacky antics, but she did it with a stern expression on her face and added a ton of aggression to the match. I can't say I expected Emma to damn near squash Paige with Emma just being too tough for Paige despite the fact that Paige kept avoiding the Emma Lock. The importance of the match increased when Emma becomes the first person to ever kick out of the Paige Turner, forcing Paige to debut her Scorpion Crosslock (Whether it is or it isn't, it's at least the impression I got from the commentary) to finally force Emma to tap out. Even in losing, Emma looked great and Paige managed to put on a better match than anything else I've seen her in. Admittedly, that isn't much. A legitimate good match without having to use the usual Diva's curve. It's no wonder the NXT's Diva division is so highly praised. *** ¼
Overall
I'd describe disc 1 as being a look at the WWE women's division before the surge in quality. Just the various big moments over the years when the division was still mostly not taken very seriously. Admittedly, I do feel as if the last two matches could have fit better on disc 2 though. Maybe you could argue that AJ Lee and Paige were the very initial start of something and then the arrival of the Four Horsewomen truly got the evolution going, but considering there's a seven year gab between the rest of the disc and the last two matches, the last two matches do feel a little different from the rest. As far as selections go, there's not much I can really gripe at. Nearly everyone significant to quality women's wrestling is represented. The match may have sucked, but Moolah/Richter, was such a big match and even to this day, an argument could be made that there's never been a bigger WWE women's match than that one. Anyone who has interacted with me for awhile knows how much I've been hyping the brief runs of both the Jumping Bomb Angels and Bull Nakano in the WWE. Perhaps neither one actually mattered to the WWE, but you can go back and watch matches from either and they hold up incredibly well. Up until the Horsewomen took over NXT, the Bomb Angels and Bull was the only consistently good women acts in WWE history. From there, we got to see a brief appearance from Chyna, although if you're looking for quality, it would have made more sense to grab one of her IC Title matches from 1999 rather than her time in the Women's Title picture. Of course, Trish and Lita are well represented. Neither one is as good as the fans or WWE makes them out to be, but there's no denying that they weren't stars. Surprisingly, Victoria is represented a good deal, which is well deserved. Then the disc wraps up with the aforementioned showcase for both AJ and Paige. I do feel as if there's a couple of omissions though. The biggest omission for me is a singles match for Beth Phoenix. She was a bright spot in an otherwise rough time period. She was important enough to get to be a part of a Royal Rumble match. She's even on the cover. Why doesn't she get a match? Her One Night Stand 2008 match against Melina would have been a worthy addition to this DVD set. Speaking of talent on the cover, but not receiving a singles match, there's Jacqueline. She's a bit harder simply because she didn't really have good matches, but the six-pack challenge from Survivor Series 2002 would have been a fine choice, particularly since it also showcased Molly Holly and Jazz, while also being the start of a new era of WWE women's action. Omissions are to be expected though and ultimately the WWE showcased the talents that mattered the most during this massive thirty year time span. A decent disc one with the quality undoubtedly getting better with the next two discs.