Heartbreaker
King Koopa
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Post by Heartbreaker on Feb 24, 2019 22:24:27 GMT -5
Let's see. Mildred Burke pioneers women's wrestling, becoming a big star in Japan too and kicking off the Joshi scene. The WWE instead back Moolah who couldn't work at all, but did have lots of women she was all too happy to pimp and exploit. Wendi Witcher was one of the main draws of Wrestlemania and the second biggest face. She ends up getting screwed over by the WWE and Moolah. The Jumping Bomb Angels being very over. The WWE axe them and drop women's wrestling altogether. Japan meanwhile are able to sell out massive stadiums full of nothing but women's wrestling, for several different companies. The Crush Girls become massive mainstream stars, even getting pop records. They also get so many five star match reviews, put on possibly the greatest wrestling show of all time too. Alundra Blaze who had been working Japan is brought in and with her feuds with fellow Joshi stars Bull Nakano and Aja Kong becomes massively over with fans, getting a great reaction and a great match at Summerslam 94. Despite being the top female star they release her due to financial troubles deeming her expendable. Even though she's the champion. They axe the entire division then get angry when she drops the title they deemed worthless in a bin on WCW TV. Idiots. Then they treat women like crap from here on out. Luna makes Sable look great at Wrestlemania so they decide to push Sable instead. Then they hire women like Kat, Terri, BB and other models and focus on T&A. They do get another huge female star in Chyna, but she leaves not wanting to be part of a women's division that has been treated like crap. In 2002-2003 they have eight women who range from either great to good - Molly, Ivory, Jazz, Trish, Lita, Jacqueline, Victoria and Gail. They could have built a great division around those eight but instead they focused on bra and panties matches, models like Stacey and Torrie and gave the latter a feud with valet Dawn Marie so they could do a tasteless lesbian angle. Then Dawn went and got pregnant and was congratulated by being shown the exit. The commentators mocked Molly for being fat, even though she wasn't, Victoria had her character changed because they didn't want to pay the rights to get her music and she devolved into part of Torrie's harem, Lita was slut shamed and the rest besides Trish were slowly phased out. Even with those eight wrestlers and a couple more decent ones like Mickie and Melina they were still treated like two minute bathroom break segments and made to wrestle in gravy and pudding. The feuds also focused on bitchy highschool drama crap and and more fat shaming and lesbian pollen crap. Playboy then became a thing with the Wrestlemania feuds becoming about who's starring in Playboy that year. Johnny Ace said once that if the women aren't hot enough for Playboy they aren't hot enough for WWE. And he was in charge of hiring for God's sake. So rather then hire actual wrestlers they did Diva Search contests to find models or just skipped the middle man altogether and hired models off the TV like Candice Michelle, who while like some of the Diva Search girls she became competent it was still far poorer than what was going on outside WWE. While the Japan scene had long fallen from what it once was there was still several companies putting on great women's wrestling. A lot of the big names were still there like Aja Kong, Toyota, the Inoues, Ozaki, Kansai etc and the new generation of Ayako Hamada, Momoe Nakanishi, Nanae Takahashi, Emi Sakura and the gaijin Amazing Kong were giving fantastic matches and proving that Joshi was still alive and well. Meanwhile there was quite a few women in the US and Canada that had been inspired by the Joshi scene and had started to get very good. Sara Del Rey, Allion Danger, MsChif, Cheerleader Melissa, Beth Phoenix, Lacey and Rain, Ariel, Nikki Roxx, Tiana Ringer, Shantelle Taylor and Mercedes Martinez amongst others were putting on really good matches on various small companies here and there. Promoter Dave Praazak gathered several of them under one roof for his Volcano Girls shows and after they were deemed a success he launched Shimmer. Shimmer Volumes 1 and 2, filmed on the same day in 2005, sent out a statement of intent. Allison Danger cuts a fiery promo in direct response to the WWE's misuse of women wrestling and says that on that night they proved that American Wrestling was possible. Volume 1 proved that with three great matches between Mellissa/MsChif, Lacey/Haze and especially the excellent twenty minute draw between Sara Del Rey and Mercedes Martinez that put Shimmer on the map. The WWE then hired Krissy Vaine and Beth Phoenix, the two Shimmer stars who best fitted their blonde, big breastfed template. Phoenix went on to have a great HOF career but she was never allowed to show as much character as she did in her two Shimmer matches. Vaine briefly made TV before being released. Shimmer responded to that loss by hiring a new wrestler from Ireland- Rebecca Knox or as you know her as- Becky Lynch. She nearly didn't make it though as Volumes 3 and 4 were unwisely taped in the winter (for the first and last time) and a snowstorm meant that Lacey, Martinez and Ariel couldn't make it and Becky only arrived when Volume 4 was underway and quickly had to do two matches for the show. Nonetheless Becky stole the show over these Volumes. Here we are 14 years later and she's now the biggest star in the WWE. I think it's kind of sad that it took Becky so long to make it as an injury briefly retired her for eight years or so. But then look at how WWE treated another great Shimmer wrestler from the British Isles Nikita/Katie Lea with Vince finally starting his dream incest gimmick with her or how they gave Natalya a farting gimmick. Becky, despite being one of the best female talents in the world (her 2005-2006 stuff still blows me away) would have been ruined had she gone to the WWE so early. Thankfully she was young enough to wait for the WWE to take women seriously unlike many of the greats that retired first like Haze, Lacey and MsChif. Paige can blabber all she wants about the fans being to blame but even TNA were doing women's wrestling right in 2008 and 9 and they were getting great reactions from the fans and getting the highest ratings. Gail Kim proved she deserved more than the WWE gave her and TNA turned to Shimmer to build their roster hiring Kong, Nikki Roxx/Roxxi, Shantelle Taylor, Josie/Bolt (hey, not all Shimmer girls were good!), Hamada, Sarita/Sarah Stock, Ashley Lane/Madison Rayne, Cheerleader Melissa, Daffney and a few more indie girls like ODB and The Beautiful People. It was great for a while, but TNA TNA'd it. Daffney was injured and screwed over, Roxxi was fired on live TV and Taylor was getting paid so little she had to get a retail job. Meanwhile in WWE Trish retired in a beautiful send off, Lita followed the next month but was slutshamed out the door. Brilliant. Victoria meanwhile retired on Smackdown and had her farewell speech cut out off the broadcast. Jazz meanwhile was back on the indies having an excellent feud with Mercedes Martinez culminating in a sixty+ minute ironwoman match. Sigh. What could have been. Shimmer was still gong strong now hiring women from around the world with fans likewise flying to Chicago from Germany, the UK, Canada and the Netherlands twice a year to see the best women in the world. From Japan they had the new breed of Joshi stars like Ayumi Kurihara, Tomoko Nakagawa, Hiroyo Matsumoto, Misaki Ohata and later Kana/WWE's Asuka. From Australia we had Madison Eagles, who like Becky Lynch and Sarah Stock before her completely raised the standard of wrestling on the show with the Joshi girls doing the same. The Ilconics, Tenille/Emma and Kellie Skater also arrived around the same time to Shimmer from Australia, Evie/Dakota Kai came from NZ, Wesna Busic from Croatia The Canadian Ninjas, Lufisto, Sarah Stock, Mia Yim and Courtney Rush/TNA's Rosemary from Canada and Paige and Saraya Knight arrived from the UK like a tornado complete with a shocking return of their manager Becky Lynch. Combine them with the American women like Athena/Ember Moon, Kimber Lee, Davina Rose/Bayley and Hailey Hatred on the rise and this was peak Shimmer. The WWE in one of the best decisions they ever made hired Sara Del Rey as a road agent. It sadly ended a legendary in ring career and killed one of the best angles in Shimmer history, but oh well, it was a good move. Former indie worker AJ Lee had become a breakout star in the WWE around this time and she was actually a great worker also. The WWE had tried to make her more of an an authority figure or a valet than a wrestler and focus on the Bella twins but it was around this time that the fans had enough. The WWE had hired Paige unsurprisingly but also Becky Lynch who seemingly announced she was unretiring and immediately got signed and Bayley who I think we can thank Del Rey's hiring or Johnny Ace's departure for as she didn't fit their usual blonde barbie type. Long-time wrestling fan Sasha Banks and Ric Flair's daughter Charlotte also got signed and were about to blow up. Maybe it was non-WWE wrestling getting more popular, maybe it was TNA's KO division, indie companies doing intergender matches very well, maybe it was the rise of female MMA fighters or perhaps the NXT matches with Paige, Emma, Charlotte and Nattie but the fans made it clear they weren't satisfied with what they had been given for the last decade. #GiveDivasaChance started trending and the tide changed completely. AJ Lee publicly mocked Stephanie McMahon on Twitter and the WWE listened, but they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do so and it was only with the rise of Charlotte, Sasha, Bayley and Becky that they did. Paige and Stephanie may try to paint the fans as the enemy, but no. The WWE, Vince and Steph had zero respect for women. They could have started this revolution a decade ago with Daizee Haze, Lacey, Melissa, MsChif etc etc but instead we have a whole forgotten generation of women who paved the way for this revolution that the WWE missed out on. That wasn't on the fans, that was because of the WWE. The only reason Shimmer started was as a rebuttal to the WWE's mistreatment of women, a way to say "despite what you see on TV, we can wrestle too." For my money it is one of the most influential companies of modern times, but it wouldn't have needed to start in the first place and we wouldn't have needed a revolution if the WWE hadn't poisoned fans minds so much that the idea of women wrestling well became such a shock. You book women as real humans now, well done WWE, pat yourself on the back, but that doesn't absolve you of your disgusting past. This post... Yeah, there's some male fans that had and still have a toxic view on women's wrestling. The whole Lita fiasco for example. She did something wrong in her personal life which led to fans harassing her, hypocritical too as Edge didn't get harassed and his career benefited greatly from this incident. But who decided to turn her heel and bring real life into kayfabe? The WWE. If I remember correctly, her heel turn happened when Trish (the champion) was out injured, leaving the division to have only Christy Hemme and Victoria... who they also turned heel. I'm a female wrestling fan whose been watching wrestling for pretty much my whole life (I'm 24), so I've seen so much shit through the years. When I was about 7/8, the women's division was full of these women: Trish, Lita, Victoria, Molly Holly, Ivory, Jazz. They were all talented, but on Smackdown was all the eye candy happened. Torrie Wilson wanted to wrestle like the girls on Raw, instead she was involved in many T&A Wrestlecrap angles. In 2004, they fired most of their good female wrestlers and went balls deep into the Diva Search, leading to even more crap on TV. During the years, you had a few of the women signed from the Diva Search improve, but told not to look better than the men. Michelle McCool and Melina got in trouble for this. NXT Season 3... oh boy. A one hour show featuring all women with the commentators shitting all over it. Some of the women clearly weren't even ready for TV, Kaitlyn being notable for having only ONE MATCH before this. She would win this competition despite AJ Lee winning the most matches and challenges. AJ was told that despite being a good wrestler, nobody wanted to f*** her. Because that was the most important thing to the WWE, despite now being a family friendly company, their focus when it came to women's wrestling is if the fans (or really Johnny Ace) wanted to sleep with them. In Kaitlyn's shoot interview, she talked about how she and AJ weren't allowed to have their own style because they wanted them to be girly wearing sparkly dresses. I mean, how dare a female wear Chuck Taylors? They might make her stand out! Don't forget that period when all the women were zig-zagging between face and heel cause Creative thought women were crazy and their booking didn't have to make sense.
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schma
El Dandy
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Post by schma on Feb 24, 2019 23:22:38 GMT -5
I've been watching wrestling for most of my 35 years of life. I was the perfect age for the attitude era, in high school. Did it give me a thrill to see bra and panty matches? At first yeah it did. However, I grew tired of that and the swimsuit contests pretty damn fast and began to take notice of the women who could actually wrestle as opposed to jumping on each other and pulling hair. For about 2 decades I have wanted the women to be given a real chance because they have had strong wrestlers through all of those years though some years were skimpier than others. Certainly there are fans who couldn't be paid to care about women's wrestling but I'm sure I'm not the only one.
A lot of what is taken seriously in WWE is based on presentation. The 205 guys were never really treated as being the same as the regular guys and so people were rarely interested. When they were on Raw it was almost always six man tags where everyone had to get their moves in and end it (much like the infamous multi-diva matches). Now we're seeing some of those guys interact with the regular roster and actually get over. Imagine that.
During the Monday Night Wars few people gave a crap about the Light Heavyweight division but the WCW cruiserweight division was one of the hottest things going in wrestling at the time. Largely this was due to presentation.
My point at the end of all this is that women's wrestling could have been successful in WWE long before it was but the people in charge genuinely couldn't be bothered. The fact that there are numerous women who begged for more training but were told no, that numerous women were told not to wrestle like men or wrestle too good says a lot about the people in charge. Are the majority of fans blameless? No. However, to absolve WWE of the blame for women being undervalued when they've been the biggest name in wrestling for decades and had the ability to do something about it would be silly.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Feb 24, 2019 23:35:23 GMT -5
I’m glad Heartbreaker brought up NXT season 3, because I remember years ago having a massive blowup on here about it... Not many things make me angry, but NXT Season 3 did. I hated the fact that this season was treated as nothing more as Mystery Wrestling Theater 3000 just because the participants happened to be women. Come on, they tried their best given that they had worse challenges and seemingly everyone wanted them gone. Seriously, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan and Jim Ross had to put over a lot more worse stuff than this, so why did Michael Cole and CM Punk get away with it? Because they made a few zingers? Because they were right? I don't care how bad they may be, you NEVER BURY THE TALENT ON-AIR. EVER. You know, it wouldn't have been as bad if they decided to carry the joke on for Season 4, but they decided to treat NXT seriously again. Thus confirming my opinion that WWE and some of their fans see Divas as nothing more than sub-human wastes of flesh not worthy of basic dignity and respect. Honestly, I think that if the men were treated this exact same way, there would be a lot less positive opinion about this show. Hell, even now whenever AJ and Kaitlyn are on SmackDown, Cole still mocks them about NXT Season 3. You know, because it's their fault that they wanted to be in WWE. It sickens me that this went to air the way it did and, with all due respect to these people, it makes me sad that so many people enjoyed the joke and laughed along. Now, this WAS nearly eight years ago, and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed out since then (as the other mods say “LOL NO”), but the facts still stood that WWE made it OK to treat them as a joke, and some of us laughed along with them.
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Post by "Trickster Dogg" James Jesse on Feb 24, 2019 23:49:08 GMT -5
Don't forget that period when all the women were zig-zagging between face and heel cause Creative thought women were crazy and their booking didn't have to make sense. It's kind of working for Charlotte at the moment?
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Heartbreaker
King Koopa
Is actually Bindi Irwin
RIP Punk's media scrum, Page 54, Muffins, Biting People Bad™ (2022 - 2022)
Posts: 11,846
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Post by Heartbreaker on Feb 24, 2019 23:57:11 GMT -5
Don't forget that period when all the women were zig-zagging between face and heel cause Creative thought women were crazy and their booking didn't have to make sense. It's kind of working for Charlotte at the moment? Well, she does seem to be a full-fledged heel now. But WWE themselves thought their writing didn't have to make sense for the women, meanwhile they thought their writing for the men made sense when it clearly didn't.
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Post by Mister Pigwell on Feb 25, 2019 0:21:22 GMT -5
I’m glad Heartbreaker brought up NXT season 3, because I remember years ago having a massive blowup on here about it... Not many things make me angry, but NXT Season 3 did. I hated the fact that this season was treated as nothing more as Mystery Wrestling Theater 3000 just because the participants happened to be women. Come on, they tried their best given that they had worse challenges and seemingly everyone wanted them gone. Seriously, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan and Jim Ross had to put over a lot more worse stuff than this, so why did Michael Cole and CM Punk get away with it? Because they made a few zingers? Because they were right? I don't care how bad they may be, you NEVER BURY THE TALENT ON-AIR. EVER. You know, it wouldn't have been as bad if they decided to carry the joke on for Season 4, but they decided to treat NXT seriously again. Thus confirming my opinion that WWE and some of their fans see Divas as nothing more than sub-human wastes of flesh not worthy of basic dignity and respect. Honestly, I think that if the men were treated this exact same way, there would be a lot less positive opinion about this show. Hell, even now whenever AJ and Kaitlyn are on SmackDown, Cole still mocks them about NXT Season 3. You know, because it's their fault that they wanted to be in WWE. It sickens me that this went to air the way it did and, with all due respect to these people, it makes me sad that so many people enjoyed the joke and laughed along. Now, this WAS nearly eight years ago, and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed out since then (as the other mods say “LOL NO”), but the facts still stood that WWE made it OK to treat them as a joke, and some of us laughed along with them. Man you can remember your rants from 8 years ago? I can't even remember my ranting from 8 days ago.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Feb 25, 2019 0:25:00 GMT -5
I’m glad Heartbreaker brought up NXT season 3, because I remember years ago having a massive blowup on here about it... Now, this WAS nearly eight years ago, and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed out since then (as the other mods say “LOL NO”), but the facts still stood that WWE made it OK to treat them as a joke, and some of us laughed along with them. Man you can remember your rants from 8 years ago? I can't even remember my ranting from 8 days ago. It’s less memory and more that the search function actually WORKS when I search my post history for “NXT season 3”.
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xxshoyuweeniexx
King Koopa
Going Big and Saying That
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Post by xxshoyuweeniexx on Feb 25, 2019 0:45:49 GMT -5
I mean they told the f***ing Undertaker’s wife to stop wrestling better than the men and rewarded her by giving her loads of screen time in LayCool..in skits and backstages segments while her actual matches were 5 minutes long.
Hell they f***ing love Nikki “Total Divas/Bellas E Network” Bella and while actively being the girlfriend of the top guy in the company asked to be trained better..they told her no and gave her a 40 second match that started a the GiveDivasAChance hashtag. Shit the only reason she got as good as she did before her neck f***ed her up is because she asked her boyfriend and brother-in-law to retrain her.
“WWE never held women back”? They had you be fake lesbians with AJ Lee and you were apart of that 40 second match for crying out loud!
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Feb 25, 2019 0:56:43 GMT -5
I think that WrestleMania 25 diva legends battle Royale a few years ago is the perfect summary of the WWE's attitude toward their female talent. Some of the biggest names from their past got back into ring shape, including Sunny of all prople... And they got no entrances, the WWE used most of the time for a Kid Rock concert nobody wanted, and the winner? A msn doing a comedy gimmick.
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Post by A Platypus Rave is Correct on Feb 25, 2019 1:05:53 GMT -5
I’m glad Heartbreaker brought up NXT season 3, because I remember years ago having a massive blowup on here about it... Not many things make me angry, but NXT Season 3 did. I hated the fact that this season was treated as nothing more as Mystery Wrestling Theater 3000 just because the participants happened to be women. Come on, they tried their best given that they had worse challenges and seemingly everyone wanted them gone. Seriously, Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan and Jim Ross had to put over a lot more worse stuff than this, so why did Michael Cole and CM Punk get away with it? Because they made a few zingers? Because they were right? I don't care how bad they may be, you NEVER BURY THE TALENT ON-AIR. EVER. You know, it wouldn't have been as bad if they decided to carry the joke on for Season 4, but they decided to treat NXT seriously again. Thus confirming my opinion that WWE and some of their fans see Divas as nothing more than sub-human wastes of flesh not worthy of basic dignity and respect. Honestly, I think that if the men were treated this exact same way, there would be a lot less positive opinion about this show. Hell, even now whenever AJ and Kaitlyn are on SmackDown, Cole still mocks them about NXT Season 3. You know, because it's their fault that they wanted to be in WWE. It sickens me that this went to air the way it did and, with all due respect to these people, it makes me sad that so many people enjoyed the joke and laughed along. Now, this WAS nearly eight years ago, and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed out since then (as the other mods say “LOL NO”), but the facts still stood that WWE made it OK to treat them as a joke, and some of us laughed along with them. Pretty sure I said something similar at the time. It's especially baffling when you consider it as... it was a "We hired them and we are burying them for being terrible" which also makes the company look like f***ing idiots...
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schma
El Dandy
Who are you to doubt me?
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Post by schma on Feb 25, 2019 3:04:05 GMT -5
I’m glad Heartbreaker brought up NXT season 3, because I remember years ago having a massive blowup on here about it... Now, this WAS nearly eight years ago, and I’d like to think I’ve mellowed out since then (as the other mods say “LOL NO”), but the facts still stood that WWE made it OK to treat them as a joke, and some of us laughed along with them. Pretty sure I said something similar at the time. It's especially baffling when you consider it as... it was a "We hired them and we are burying them for being terrible" which also makes the company look like f***ing idiots... It pissed me off, though I don't think I was here yet. Some try to shrug it off as this was when Michael Cole was heel but there's a difference between being a heel and interrupting a title match to tell the participants no one cares.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Feb 25, 2019 3:56:52 GMT -5
That's just flat out but true. Go back in time to 2005 and hire Rain, Lacey, MsChif, Daizee Haze, Cheerleader Melissa, Sarah Stock, Becky Lynch and Nikki Roxx. All of them far more talented than what they had. They could have hired them and done a Divas revolution a decade earlier. Haze could have been a proto-Bayley, Lacey and Rain could have easily filled the beautiful bitchy girl hell gimmicks they love so much and we're far superior to LayCool and the Bella Twins. MsChif could have gotten over just like Lita. The gimmick is a licence to print money and of you want more women with unique look then you hire Awesome Kong in the mid 00's. You want to appeal to the latina crowd then hire Mercedes Martinez, you want the best all round female in the US then Sara Del Rey is right there and Madison Eagles is incredible. Later on you have Portia Perez who can wrestle, who can commentate, who can be a booker and who can talk circles around everyone and is a great magnet and you don't hire her? Nicole Matthews can do everything too and she has the look, yet they don't hire her either. So no, they could have hired visually appealing talented women fifteen years ago. I gave full credit to Ronda Rousey opening up the door for women by showing they could draw money in a similar environment. And as sexist as it may sound, you skipped over the "roster full," statement by pointing to two women with the "beautiful and bitchy comment." You use a lot of hypotheticals about who could have done what (MsChif getting over like Lita) but the reality none of the people you listed have ever sold out a venue on American soil that held 500 people. Could they have? Sure maybe. But you're doing a hell of a lot of assuming that they could have come close to building the interest that Charotte Flair and Sasha Banks did. What the "reality" is, is that WWE put forward a product that nobody was ever supposed to take seriously or as anything other than titillation when it came to the women. They decided not to give chances to many if any strong wrestlers because they decided they could teach models how to "work like divas". Charlotte and Sasha are a fun little situation to bring up, because they came up through the developmental system under Sara Del Rey, and explicitly credit her decision to train them properly instead of teaching them how to have "diva matches" as a big deal. All the women who come up from the system praise her as a big part of their training and therein lies the entire point; WWE never presented a chance for women to be anything serious, never let them be a draw. The American independent scene on the whole is not a strong indicator of anything because it is small by nature, and SHIMMER as a niche product focusing only on women is different from women wrestling in WWE's variety style product. But if you turn it around? Say you put a bunch of lingerie models and teach them to work two minute catfight matches, and put them into a venue? SHIMMER wouldn't be booked anywhere better than a trashy dive bar doing Mud Fight Saturday. Sexualizing the women stopped selling when the '90s ended, and even then the most iconic woman out of that era was Chyna, whose whole thing was that she was taken so seriously that she even fought men. It was a dead end that produced a whole slew of nothing matches and created a bad precedent that taught the fans not to pay attention to anything that involved women in it. People came around to it when they were presented with something else, but the whole conceit of #GiveDivasAChance could not have worked if there was not a strong base of fan support for people to see the women be treated better to begin with. It didn't need to take this long for things to change, that's on the system. Just like how Wonder Woman having the highest domestic box office of the whole DCEU franchise and almost doubling that of Justice League's says that the audience for female-led stuff has been there and the system has just lagged behind getting to it.
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segaz
Samurai Cop
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Post by segaz on Feb 25, 2019 4:31:24 GMT -5
I admit, I am more interested in women wrestling seriously now then I was as a kid.
I remember that Bertha Faye/Alundra Blaze match in....was it Summerslam 95? And it was atrocious. So bad, that 11 year old me couldn't have cared less at the time about women wrestling.
Then there was attitude era. Yes there was lots of TnA, but I took Chyna seriously. And in actual fact, I probably would have taken other women seriously, had they been presented as such. However, although it's easy to only blame the WWE for this, I admit popping for the women solely showing some skin. Molly and Victoria were gorgeous.
Since then I kinda tuned out of a lot of wrestling as a whole. But I got back into womens wrestling when someone introduced me to TNA Knockouts in 2008. (He then went on to marry someone similar on looks to Gail Kim).
Because they were both hot and talented, I took them seriously. It's nice to see WWE doing the same now.
Do we think things like bra and Panty matches were 100% wrong for the WWE to do? Or was it wrong only because the E never followed up or presented serious womens wrestling at the same time?
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Fauxnaki
Unicron
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Post by Fauxnaki on Feb 25, 2019 5:24:31 GMT -5
Paige out in full shill mode after wwe makes a movie about her
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Post by Ryushinku on Feb 25, 2019 5:35:57 GMT -5
Don't think I need to add much, it's pretty clear that this is a BS company line. Whether Paige was coached to say it or believes it, I don't know, but yes WWE absolutely had to be dragged kicking and screaming into this turnaround. I think that WrestleMania 25 diva legends battle Royale a few years ago is the perfect summary of the WWE's attitude toward their female talent. Some of the biggest names from their past got back into ring shape, including Sunny of all prople... And they got no entrances, the WWE used most of the time for a Kid Rock concert nobody wanted, and the winner? A msn doing a comedy gimmick. I don't think it's their biggest sin with the female wrestlers, sadly due to stiff competition, but man, I really hated everything about that.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Feb 25, 2019 6:19:41 GMT -5
I admit, I am more interested in women wrestling seriously now then I was as a kid. I remember that Bertha Faye/Alundra Blaze match in....was it Summerslam 95? And it was atrocious. So bad, that 11 year old me couldn't have cared less at the time about women wrestling. Then there was attitude era. Yes there was lots of TnA, but I took Chyna seriously. And in actual fact, I probably would have taken other women seriously, had they been presented as such. However, although it's easy to only blame the WWE for this, I admit popping for the women solely showing some skin. Molly and Victoria were gorgeous. Since then I kinda tuned out of a lot of wrestling as a whole. But I got back into womens wrestling when someone introduced me to TNA Knockouts in 2008. (He then went on to marry someone similar on looks to Gail Kim). Because they were both hot and talented, I took them seriously. It's nice to see WWE doing the same now. Do we think things like bra and Panty matches were 100% wrong for the WWE to do? Or was it wrong only because the E never followed up or presented serious womens wrestling at the same time? It's a weird line to walk given the time it happened in, but I do think that never presenting the women as worth anything and deciding to go with bra and panties matches as a focal point of the division and using it for some titillation between matches did a lot to make the bra and panties matches seem worse. In the worlds of media criticism and feminist theory, the question of whether sexuality is empowering or not is a really complicated issue there are a lot of strong academic viewpoints on and no real consensus either way. There's a point that can be argued that if the women were presented more strongly and legitimately, their sexualization would have been more acceptable during those periods when it could be argued that sexualizing the women was a draw. But WWE left zero room in that presentation for that consideration; they presented the women as sex objects first and foremost and never tried to give them legitimacy or power. Denying women chances to improve or prove themselves or be a strong part of the show meant that the lasting legacy of that era will always be defined by the decisions the office made to focus on the women as something to put in front of the crowd for the excitement I guess not even of men in the audience but literally just for the men writing the show, and let everything else be secondary at best.
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Post by CMPunkyBrewster on Feb 25, 2019 6:43:51 GMT -5
There's not a single thing listed in there that has not happened to men, except the whole "this or that was TOO good", which sounds like complete horseshit and would be resoundingly laughed at if said by a man. And even then, there are stories of guys being berated for going out and being too good and making the rest of the guys look weak. Look, I'm not saying that ANY of what I said in my original post is RIGHT. I'm simply saying that it's reality. I find the way they used women for a long time as reprehensible as the next guy. But you're confusing "wrong" and "bad" with "held back". In order to hold someone back, you have to prevent them from being used to their full potential, or not allowing them to use their full potential. The fact is, they used basically every one of the women they had to their full potential, actually FAR MORE than their full potential in most cases, because many of them had basically no potential pertaining to the wrestling business anyway. They weren't hiring Alundra Blayze and Bull Nakano for pudding matches, they were hiring The Kat and Terri Runnels, two people whose only connection to the wrestling business was "I f*** a guy who does this!" They weren't hiring models and actresses to put on 5 star classics, they hired them to show their tits to a sex crazed 18-24 year old demographic growing up in the late-90s, when you could get away with almost anything. They took these women, with absolutely NO reason or business being in wrestling and made them STARS. Sable never did a single thing more impressive than her bra size, and yet she is considered a LEGEND in the business. They have literally tried to ignore her popularity and presence in the Attitude Era and simply can't. And as for stuff like "Well, we wanted to use weapons and blah blah blah..." Honestly, tell me: Would you want Torrie Wilson swinging weapons at Stacy Keibler? Those 2 could barely walk across the ring, let alone perform wrestling moves, and now they wanna swing shit at each other? That wasn't holding anybody back, that was saving everyone from injury. But still, these women became wealthy, household names in a business most of them couldn't perform the most basic of tasks in. If that's being held back, sign me up. Yes, it was wrong and did damage to the entire concept of women's wrestling that we are just now seeing repaired. It was the gratuitous use of women to boost ratings and draw attention to their product, and that's not what it should have been. I'm not defending ANY of this. It was bad, it was wrong. But it was NOT holding anyone back from what they were hired to do or what were realistically capable of doing in the business. I feel like we're discussing two different things in regards to women being held back. I'm not arguing about making money or becoming popular at an individual level and I would say to a certain extent I agree with your point in that regard. I'm talking about women's wrestling in general being treated as an afterthought by the entire company, the negative effects of that treatment, and how that has in general held women's wrestling in America back. There were talented (wrestling-wise) women back then and a lot were not hired by the company, and the ones that were hired were not afforded the same opportunities to showcase their talent as the men. It was damaging to the product as a whole and WWE has a lot of fault in that treatment. I will contend that a woman hired for her looks who then wanted to train to become at the very least a competent wrestler and was denied, was also held back however. Just become someone is hired for their looks does not mean that is the only thing they desire out of a job. If they try and fail, fair enough, but they should at least be allowed to try.
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Post by CMPunkyBrewster on Feb 25, 2019 7:00:22 GMT -5
There's not a single thing listed in there that has not happened to men, except the whole "this or that was TOO good", which sounds like complete horseshit and would be resoundingly laughed at if said by a man. And even then, there are stories of guys being berated for going out and being too good and making the rest of the guys look weak. Look, I'm not saying that ANY of what I said in my original post is RIGHT. I'm simply saying that it's reality. I find the way they used women for a long time as reprehensible as the next guy. But you're confusing "wrong" and "bad" with "held back". In order to hold someone back, you have to prevent them from being used to their full potential, or not allowing them to use their full potential. The fact is, they used basically every one of the women they had to their full potential, actually FAR MORE than their full potential in most cases, because many of them had basically no potential pertaining to the wrestling business anyway. They weren't hiring Alundra Blayze and Bull Nakano for pudding matches, they were hiring The Kat and Terri Runnels, two people whose only connection to the wrestling business was "I f*** a guy who does this!" They weren't hiring models and actresses to put on 5 star classics, they hired them to show their tits to a sex crazed 18-24 year old demographic growing up in the late-90s, when you could get away with almost anything. They took these women, with absolutely NO reason or business being in wrestling and made them STARS. Sable never did a single thing more impressive than her bra size, and yet she is considered a LEGEND in the business. They have literally tried to ignore her popularity and presence in the Attitude Era and simply can't. And as for stuff like "Well, we wanted to use weapons and blah blah blah..." Honestly, tell me: Would you want Torrie Wilson swinging weapons at Stacy Keibler? Those 2 could barely walk across the ring, let alone perform wrestling moves, and now they wanna swing shit at each other? That wasn't holding anybody back, that was saving everyone from injury. But still, these women became wealthy, household names in a business most of them couldn't perform the most basic of tasks in. If that's being held back, sign me up. Yes, it was wrong and did damage to the entire concept of women's wrestling that we are just now seeing repaired. It was the gratuitous use of women to boost ratings and draw attention to their product, and that's not what it should have been. I'm not defending ANY of this. It was bad, it was wrong. But it was NOT holding anyone back from what they were hired to do or what were realistically capable of doing in the business. I feel like we're discussing two different things in regards to women being held back. I'm not arguing about making money or becoming popular at an individual level and I would say to a certain extent I agree with your point in that regard. I'm talking about women's wrestling in general being treated as an afterthought by the entire company, the negative effects of that treatment, and how that has in general held women's wrestling in America back. There were talented (wrestling-wise) women back then and a lot were not hired by the company, and the ones that were hired were not afforded the same opportunities to showcase their talent as the men. It was damaging to the product as a whole and WWE has a lot of fault in that treatment. I will contend that a woman hired for her looks who then wanted to train to become at the very least a competent wrestler and was denied, was also held back however. Just become someone is hired for their looks does not mean that is the only thing they desire out of a job. If they try and fail, fair enough, but they should at least be allowed to try. I agree with your latter point from a human perspective, but from a business standpoint, I can understand the company logic of not wanting to train these women who were hired to look good. Let's put it in a different context: You run a business that has 2 positions: maker of handcrafted furniture, and person who puts price tags on the furniture. You have all the furniture makers you need, but you hire someone to put on price tags. Then one day, the price tag person walks in and says "I want to make furniture". Now, you already have all the furniture makers you need, you have no intention or desire to use this person as a furniture maker, and to make them a furniture maker, you have to send them away for months of training (which you pay for, on top of paying their regular salary), and now either have to hire another person to put price tags on things or be without a price tagger until they come back. From a human standpoint, of course I want that person to be able to be a furniture maker and have a more valuable trade, but from a business standpoint, it makes absolutely no sense for me to spend all that time, money, and effort while KNOWING that I am not going to use that person as a furniture maker. Again, I agree with the overall point, but if they weren't hired to be wrestlers, why would the company spend all that time, money, and effort to make them wrestlers? And of course, while they're away training, they could easily be injured, thus further delaying when they will even be usable for ANY purpose. From a company standpoint, it makes no sense, and wasn't what they are there for to begin with.
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Post by RedSmile on Feb 25, 2019 7:11:13 GMT -5
Real question:
How many women, in the past 30 years, have been involved in WWE in a production capacity, as a writer, as a road agent, or as a booker (besides Stephanie)? Sara Del Ray, Sarah Stock, and I think Serena Deeb are trainers; Ivory was a trainer for Tough Enough...and it gets slim and shady after that.
I don't think it's a coincidence that the modern era of finally taking women's wrestling seriously coincides with the employment of Sara Del Ray, and people like Dusty Rhodes, William Regal, Hunter, and many others listening to her input backstage.
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Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]
FANatic
Writer, Lover of all things Wrestling. Analytical, Critical, Lovable (hopefully). Lets all have fun!
Posts: 244,181
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Post by Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-] on Feb 25, 2019 7:36:39 GMT -5
I sincerely have a hard time finding any other entity that blames the fans as much as WWE does. Like it's not a wonder why people leave and keep leaving the company. Tow the company line all you want, but when something as blatant as this is stated like it never ever happened and if it did WWE's never to blame it's the people who don't support them cause they DON'T GET IT or whatever, you come off like a shitty buncha people, shitting on the people who support you, at the same time wanting them to support your every endeavor. It's a poisonous relationship.
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