WWF Womens Championship Tournament (1993)

[auph10imitated]

Does any footage or photos exist of this, its such a bizarre one. I understand it was just to get the belt on Madusa but its not as fictitious as some people think.



I have no idea why it was just 6 women and there was no explanation to why Blayze/Royal got byes. But I believe it was announced on the 27th November episode of Superstars that the tournament would begin the following week in Memphis (USWA) then the only match they did do in Memphis was with the woman intending to win it.

You then have these:

USWA @ Memphis, TN - Mid-South Coliseum - November 29, 1993
WWF Women's Championship Tournament First Round: Madusa defeated Alison Royal

WWF @ Springfield, MA - Civic Center - November 30, 1993 (4,000; papered)
Wrestling Challenge taping:
WWF Women's Championship Tournament First Round: Heidi Lee Morgan defeated Black Venus
WWF Women's Championship Tournament First Round: Rusty Thomas defeated Angie Marino

WWF @ Utica, NY - War Memorial - December 1, 1993 (4,500)
WWF Women's Championship Tournament Semi-Finals: Heidi Lee Morgan defeated Rusty Thomas

WWF @ Poughkeepsie, NY - Mid-Hudson Civic Center - December 13, 1993
Monday Night Raw taping:
All American Wrestling - 12/26/93: WWF Women's Title Tournament Finals: Alundra Blayze pinned Heidi Lee Morgan with a German suplex into a bridge at 6:29 after avoiding a clothesline (Blayze's TV debut)


Surely they could have got two women to fill out the final two spots? Luna Vachon was already on the roster. Debbie Combs? Candi Devine? They both did matches with Blayze...Jacqueline? She was in the USWA and had wrestled Luna and Sherri that year... Malia Hosaka was doing indies with Blayze at the same time too and worked . All very odd. Id be interested to see footage or photos of the matches at the tapings though, they should release stuff like this on the Network.

[Deleted]

Given the timing of this, the first thing that comes to mind was Lawler's legal problems that got him booted (short term) from the WWF not long before Survivor Series '93, and the McMahon vs. Lawler feud in USWA being so abruptly cut off. Maybe that factored into the other matches (which would've been held in either USWA or Memphis territory) being cancelled, since the other part of the tourney were all held up in McMahon territory...

[auph10imitated]

Thats a really good point, Lawler pleaded guilty on the 22nd November 1993 and the next and last USWA showing was the one above with Madusa vs Alison Royal

[James Fabiano]

I am forwarding this thread to Heidi Lee herself to see what she remembers.

[Big Bad Kahuna]

Rusty Thomas? Hehehheehehehhe

What a shitshow of a tournament. Started off Alundra's reign right on the wrong foot

[lws]

I'm pretty sure Heidi Lee and Alundra were the only ones to even appear on TV. The WWE women's division was really, really sad for those two years between Alundra's debut and when she threw the belt in the trash. It was very clear Vince and company didn't care about it in the slightest, as there were rarely more than two women signed to the company. Then what they did to Rhonda Sing, oof. They kind of tried at the end by bringing in all the Japanese women, but that lasted all of a week before even Alundra was fired and thus jumped to WCW.

There were definitely other women around at the time. GLOW had pretty much just gone out of business, and there were several other women's feds. I know Ivory/Tina Ferrari was definitely wrestling around this time already, Candi Devine, they could've had Rhonda be Monster Ripper and not made her a joke. But nah. They just didn't care about the women. The tournament was a joke, and I think trying to find anymore answers about it will just keep giving that result. Vince figured he might as well sign Alundra because WCW probably would if he didn't, but then he put absolutely no thought into making her or women's wrestling important on his show.

[lildude8218]

I feel like there was a mindset at the time Women's wrestling was a lot like Midget wrestling. Something you bring out every few years as an attraction just to change things up a bit.

[DiBiase is Good]

Aug 15, 2016 11:02:08 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

Thats a really good point, Lawler pleaded guilty on the 22nd November 1993 and the next and last USWA showing was the one above with Madusa vs Alison Royal

He plead guilty? I never knew that.

[lws]

Aug 15, 2016 18:57:46 GMT -5 lildude8218 said:

I feel like there was a mindset at the time Women's wrestling was a lot like Midget wrestling. Something you bring out every few years as an attraction just to change things up a bit.

Maaaaybe, but more of the problem is that women's wrestling, especially in WWE, had almost 100% been controlled by The Fabulous Moolah until an incident around the first Royal Rumble involving Moolah trying to seriously f*** over the Glamour Girls on their pay kind of had people realizing how shitty she was and not trusting her for a while, and thus Vince was basically at square one with women's wrestling since he couldn't just go with whoever Moolah gave her.

I know what you mean in that it was nowhere near the focus on the same level it is today until perhaps the late 90s, or even a little after that. Women would just pop up once every few shows and get a minor spotlight. But that was mostly because Moolah wouldn't let it become any bigger, and then because Vince didn't know what to do with women after Moolah briefly fell from prominence. Alundra actually had some name value, so Vince hired her, but then he had no one to feud her and not really enough time to build a whole division and actually make the women's division work during the New Generation.

I admit I can't remember the full story on the Moolah/Glamour Girls thing, but I'm pretty sure I at least got the basics right. Anyone who remembers better can fill in the blanks.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Aug 15, 2016 19:01:19 GMT -5 DiBiase is Good said:

Aug 15, 2016 11:02:08 GMT -5 auph10imitated said:

Thats a really good point, Lawler pleaded guilty on the 22nd November 1993 and the next and last USWA showing was the one above with Madusa vs Alison Royal

He plead guilty? I never knew that.

As far as I know, all the charges were dropped, which you wouldn't do if he plead guilty.

[DiBiase is Good]

Aug 15, 2016 23:17:44 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

Aug 15, 2016 19:01:19 GMT -5 DiBiase is Good said:

He plead guilty? I never knew that.

As far as I know, all the charges were dropped, which you wouldn't do if he plead guilty.

That's how I recall it all ending up too, just didn't know if there was another case of something around that time that he plead guilty to.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Aug 16, 2016 0:27:03 GMT -5 DiBiase is Good said:

Aug 15, 2016 23:17:44 GMT -5 Cranjis McBasketball said:

As far as I know, all the charges were dropped, which you wouldn't do if he plead guilty.

That's how I recall it all ending up too, just didn't know if there was another case of something around that time that he plead guilty to.

Maybe, but that's the kind of thing you go to jail for, so I'm guessing not.

[auph10imitated]

Apologies I actually meant plead not guilty! Oops.

But back to the subject, by reading the Observers during this time they were in talks with Madusa in September 1993 and the plan was to feud immediately with Luna Vachon, which is basically taking over from Sherri who was gone in August. Its a few issues on before she accepts the offer and it says she starts in November, Luna/Bigelow had began the Doink feud by that point which is why they perhaps left her out of it. But it just goes to show no thought was put in it.

Leilani Kai then says that the original plans were to use Fabulous Moolah in the Wrestlemania 10 match as a guest referee so again it seemed they had another angled planned, but Kai refused to take part if Moolah was involved and this explains why they announced Debbie Combs at first. Then by the time Kai agreed the match was just a throw away with no build.

The Observer also states from early 1994 that the plan all along was for Madusa to eventually use the Japanese girls starting later in the year, it said that Noriyo Tateno of the Bomb Angels would be first but also Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto had expressed interest too. Later on it says Bull would be starting in around November 1994, but she came in earlier eventually.

Then of course Rhonda Singh was suppose to fued with Bull but Bull got caught in possesion with cocaine and that was nixed so they ran with Bertha Faye.

So it seems like the ideas and plans were there but nixed in some way or another, and they just tread water all the way through it because they encountered problems, but the annoying thing is was there was women wrestling they could have used to feature Blayze on TV like Tina Ferrari, Malia Hosaka, Molly McShane, Candi Devine, Miss Texas and a bunch of women who were working in USWA too.

[segaz]

Aug 15, 2016 17:31:36 GMT -5 lws said:

I'm pretty sure Heidi Lee and Alundra were the only ones to even appear on TV. The WWE women's division was really, really sad for those two years between Alundra's debut and when she threw the belt in the trash. It was very clear Vince and company didn't care about it in the slightest, as there were rarely more than two women signed to the company. Then what they did to Rhonda Sing, oof. They kind of tried at the end by bringing in all the Japanese women, but that lasted all of a week before even Alundra was fired and thus jumped to WCW.

There were definitely other women around at the time. GLOW had pretty much just gone out of business, and there were several other women's feds. I know Ivory/Tina Ferrari was definitely wrestling around this time already, Candi Devine, they could've had Rhonda be Monster Ripper and not made her a joke. But nah. They just didn't care about the women. The tournament was a joke, and I think trying to find anymore answers about it will just keep giving that result. Vince figured he might as well sign Alundra because WCW probably would if he didn't, but then he put absolutely no thought into making her or women's wrestling important on his show.

Why did she leave anyway? sorry, I'm just realising my wrestling knowledge is full of holes and today I'm, asking questions everywhere.

[horsemen4ever]

Weren't their talks of bring Madusa back in 1998 to be Marc Mero's new vallet and feud with Sable, the role that was later giving to Jackie? If that is true, I guess McMahon had at point gotten over any ill feelings he had for the title belt dump on Nitro.

[lws]

Aug 19, 2016 17:35:52 GMT -5 segaz said:

Aug 15, 2016 17:31:36 GMT -5 lws said:

I'm pretty sure Heidi Lee and Alundra were the only ones to even appear on TV. The WWE women's division was really, really sad for those two years between Alundra's debut and when she threw the belt in the trash. It was very clear Vince and company didn't care about it in the slightest, as there were rarely more than two women signed to the company. Then what they did to Rhonda Sing, oof. They kind of tried at the end by bringing in all the Japanese women, but that lasted all of a week before even Alundra was fired and thus jumped to WCW.

There were definitely other women around at the time. GLOW had pretty much just gone out of business, and there were several other women's feds. I know Ivory/Tina Ferrari was definitely wrestling around this time already, Candi Devine, they could've had Rhonda be Monster Ripper and not made her a joke. But nah. They just didn't care about the women. The tournament was a joke, and I think trying to find anymore answers about it will just keep giving that result. Vince figured he might as well sign Alundra because WCW probably would if he didn't, but then he put absolutely no thought into making her or women's wrestling important on his show.

Why did she leave anyway? sorry, I'm just realising my wrestling knowledge is full of holes and today I'm, asking questions everywhere.

Are you asking about Alundra/Madusa? She was fired while still champion. Vince was losing money and decided he didn't need a women's division anymore, so he got rid of Alundra, Aja Kong, and any other Japanese women on short term deals all in one fell swoop. Alundra was only willing to literally trash the title cuz she felt Vince was figuratively trashing women's wrestling by firing her and all the other women.

If you're asking why she left her initial WCW run for WWE in the first place, I'm not sure. Vince probably promised to build a division around her, which WCW definitely wouldn't have done yet. So, she joined WWE on the "opportunity" promise that Vince usually sells, then was burned spectacularly when he revealed that was a lie.

I never hard anything about Madusa returning with Marc Mero, but I highly, highly doubt it was a real possibility. Maybe some random Internet rumor, sure, I buy that. But Madusa never reconciled with WWE until she was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and it seemed very unlikely she ever would up until that point.

[auph10imitated]

She left WCW in 1993 as there was changes in management and it was also about money etc, she also wanted to wrestle and they wanted to keep her as a valet. She then did indies for the rest of 1993 until she made the deal with the WWF. We all know the deal with her leaving WWF

The 1998 rumor is actually true, they were planning on bringing her back as Marc Mero's valet to feud with Sable, the role that eventually went to Jackie. The Observer was reporting it and it was going to be a kickboxer/boxer gimmick with her and Mero. Luna Vachon confirm the rumors in her shoot interview, she didnt like the idea as her and Madusa had heat, she went straight to Linda McMahon to say it wasnt a good idea with the trashing of the title and also she would be too stiff with Sable. The idea was nixed and they went with Jacqueline.

[lws]

Huh. Who knew Luna had such serious pull with the main office.

[auph10imitated]

Some interesting stuff I have been reading in the 1995 Observer's about the state of play in late 1995, the Survivor Series match caused a bit of political situation as the WWF called All Japan Women and asked for 6 workers to do the SS PPV, they specifically wanted Bull Nakano to work the show due to her history with Blayze but Bull Nakano was already booked on the WCW World War PPV (the follwoing week from SS) this left AJW in a predicament as they didnt want to upset WWF as they had better relationship with them. They even suggested Nakano work both, but under a different gimmick on the WCW one to appease both sides. Both companies also wanted Manami Toyota but as she was WWWA World Champion they didnt want to send her to either. WCW was pissed at AJW for co-operating with WWF asthey struck the deal first and was going to pull the tag match from their show all together and sever any future business relations but once they heard WWF wanted to Nakano they kept the booking to spite them. WCW also did the deal via New Japan, while WWF had gone to AJW directly. This was actually all in the plans as far back as early September 1995.

On another note, the plan for Alundra Blayze in 1996 was to have her go to AJW on a full time basis as WWF Champion and defend the title over there as a full time worker for them, and would only return to the WWF to work big PPV dates against whatever Japanese opponent she was programmed with over there at the time (assumingly Royal Rumble which she was booked against Kong, Mania, KOTR, SS and SS)

Plans clearly changed as her contract came for renewal and as they were cutting costs decided to can the whole thing and we all know what happened next.

[MrElijah]

It's always interesting to hear about how Vince, twice, tried incorporate the Joshi stars in the WWF via a working agreement with AJW.