Greatest Women’s Moments In Wrestling

Today on International Women’s Day, we celebrate and recognize women’s attributions to their fields, as well as everyday life. The sport of professional wrestling is no different.

WWE has already started airing their video vignettes talking about the importance of women performers and the influence it’s left behind, but what about the rest of wrestling? Across the board you have women competing, managing, producing, creating, and funding in all departments of wrestling. Some of the biggest milestones in women’s wrestling only came in the last thirty years, but they still resonate to this day.

These are moments of triumph, heartache, ingenuity, and sometimes, old-fashioned spite. Let’s take a look at some of the greatest moments in women’s wrestling and how each helped define their generation as well as wrestling as a whole.

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The Billionaire Princess Reigns On Smackdown

There’s been a lot of General Managers and WWE Commissioners throughout the years from the likes of Mick Foley to Steve Austin to even Shawn Michaels after he stepped away from in-ring action in the late 90’s. 

However, there’s only been one female General Manager: Stephanie McMahon. 

Stephanie has come a long way from her days as the Undertaker’s bride and mousy daughter of Vince McMahon. She’s definitely come into her own in the past decade, but it was her ascension to Smackdown General Manager in 2002 that gave Raw serious competition. She is credited with the revival of the United States Championship (formerly unified with the IC title at Survivor Series the previous year) as well as the formation of the WWE Tag Team Championships to rival Raw’s World Tag Team Championships, which were renamed after the company was officially called the WWE. 

Now heading Raw alongside Mick Foley, Stephanie’s demeanor as face was a pleasant change from her McMahon-Helmsley character as she embraced the fan favorite wrestlers of the time. 

Think about it, without Stephanie, we wouldn’t have Doctor of Thugonomics John Cena and that would be an incredible shame. 

Foundation of GLOW

The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, or GLOW, was something completely different for its time. 

Compared to the beefed up mountain man and technical wrestlers of the NWA and WWE, GLOW featured concentrated on strong women and over-the-top comedy in the same way a sitcom would. It used a cast primarily made of actresses, models, and stunt women who were looking for a platform onto show business. 

The thing about the cast is that it was never exactly the same for the four seasons it ran. Unlike WWE, GLOW ran as seasons (four of them to be exact) with 26 episodes each with heavy cast rotation along the way. In addition to the performers, there were managers and commissioners as well, rounding out the cast quite nicely. Even Sylvester Stallone’s mother, Jackie Stallone, got involved and managed a face group aptly called The Good Girls. 

There were no championships involved, but GLOW created a different type of spectacle for wrestling that can be seen in the likes of CHIKARA. GLOW even inspired a documentary that received a slew of positive reviews as well as won Best Documentary at the Comic-Con International Film Festival. 

Dethroning A Legend: Wendi Richter Ends Moolah’s 28-Year Reign

The Fabulous Moolah was a wrestling legend in her own time. While the WWE doesn’t recognize a lot of her title reigns within the NWA, Moolah’s ties to the World’s Women Championship are still very important. Seen as the greatest women’s wrestler of her time, Moolah is recognized as the longest reigning women’s champion for 10,170 days. She had a number of rivalries in her time but it was her title loss that made headlines. 

At WWE’s Brawl to End It All, Moolah defended her title against up and comer Wendi Richter. The event was a cornerstone in the Rock n’ Wrestling era and followed the first WrestleMania in July of 1984 (and actually had several thousand more in attendance). While you had the likes of such legends as Hulk Hogan, Tito Santana, and the Iron Shiek, it was Richter’s historic victory over Moolah that stole the show. 

It was broadcast from Madison Square Garden, but the only match to be televised nationally was the WWE Women’s Championship match, while the rest was restricted to the Madison Square Garden Network. The roar of the crowd was deafening as Wendi and her manager, 80’s pop star Cyndi Lauper, celebrated in the ring with the newly-won championship. 

Richter might have had a difficult relationship with WWE later on in her career, she was eventually inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class 2010 by none other than the Rowdy One himself, Roddy Piper. 

Chyna Makes Royal Rumble History

You can be assured you’re going to see Chyna’s name mentioned more than once here, but this was just the first of her historic accomplishments. 

For almost eleven years the Royal Rumble event has helped shape superstars’ careers and mold the landscape of the company. Originally seen as a grander addition to the battle royal concept, in 1993 it was given an added stipulation that the winner would be given a guaranteed title opportunity at WrestleMania that year. 

Until 1999, all the winners and participants had been male. That changed. 

Chyna found herself part of the evil Corporation and was the first woman added to the Royal Rumble match up. That year she would enter at number 30 after winning a “Corporate” Royal Rumble on Raw, eliminating McMahon for the opportunity. Chyna would be eliminated by Stone Cold, but still managed to take out Mark Henry and her place in wrestling history was cemented as soon she hit the ramp. 

There would be two other women to participate in the Royal Rumble: Beth Phoenix and Karma, but Chyna will always be the first, and you can’t take that away from her. 

Tonight’s Main Event: Trish vs Lita

On December 6th, 2004, for the first time ever,  the Women’s Championship would be on the line in the main event of WWE’s flagship Monday Night Raw, and two of their generation’s finest proved that they were more than main event material. 

Trish Stratus was the fitness model that burst onto the wrestling scene in 2000 and provided managerial services for a various number of superstars. By the end of 2001, she had claimed the vacant Women’s Championship and helped reshape the women’s division into the new millennium. 

Lita was her polar opposite. The punk rock performer cut her teeth in the independents as well as ECW and honing her skills in Memphis Championship Wrestling before signing with WWE in 1999. Starting off being the manager of luchador Essa Rios, Lita eventually carved out her own name as part of Team Xtreme with the Hardy Boyz and became the only woman involved in their famous TLC matches. 

Before their rivalry, the two already had a past together teaming up to take on members of the Alliance, but Trish’s heel turn in 2004 gave them the opening they needed to take the Women’s Division to a whole new height. 

Their match on Raw was called the greatest Women’s Championship match in WWE history and later used in training camps to outline what the WWE were expecting from their women performers. Lita tore her ACL in their rematch at the following New Year’s Revolution and their feud came to a standstill for the next few months, but this match helped define both of these competitor’s careers. 

 

One Woman’s Trash…

The Women’s Championship has hit more than its fair share of bumps and bruises in its lineage. It was deactivated just six years after its rechristening under the WWE umbrella and then deactivated again just two years after a new champion was crowned. 

It was during Alundra Blayze’s third reign as WWE Women’s Champion that she signed with rival company WCW and threw her championship belt into the trash on live television. 

That act of defiance left the WWE furious with Blayze (now renamed Madusa in WCW) and shocked the wrestling world. While WWE and WCW disrespected one another on hair since the start of the Monday Night Wars, this was one of the greatest insults at the time and left her blacklisted from WWE. 

Blayze, real name Debra Miceli, was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015 where she “returned” the once-disposed championship. Miceli has more than a few grand accomplishments in her career (being the first woman WCW Cruiserweight Champion) but this act of opposition is what most fans remember.

Chyna Makes Intercontinental Championship History

See? Told you she’d be back on here. 

Chyna’s accomplishments are truly historic. While she already made WWE history earlier in the year by being the first woman to enter the Royal Rumble, later in the year, she started a feud with Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett was on a hot streak since returning to the WWE and became the first-ever six-time Intercontinental Champion. 

However, he did not go unchallenged for that title. Jarrett’s promos and skits during his last days in the company were laced heavily with misogyny and at Unforgiven, Chyna would compete for the IC title. Though she would lose, she challenged Jarret yet again at No Mercy and won not only the title but also the services of Jarrett’s then-manager, Miss Kitty (later called The Kat).

Having faith in Chyna to become the first-ever woman IC champion is something we’ve yet to see since then. She won the title on one more occasion in 2000, but it’s this first victory that helped supplement her lasting legacy. 

 

Sexy Star Becomes Lucha Underground Champion

For those unfamiliar with Lucha Underground, it takes a lot of production cues from the likes of GLOW and the short-lived Wrestling Society X where they actually have television seasons and filmed more as a serial drama than an actual wrestling promotion. 

Though it’s only in it’s still in its infancy, they’re considered a more progressive company than most wrestling promotions because they’ve already had a female World Champion. 

The aptly called Sexy Star became the first woman Lucha Underground Champion back in April of last year (though due to tape delay as they were filming new seasons had it air in November) and while her reign as champion didn’t last all but a day (a week in kayfabe time) that’s still a huge accomplishment. 

LU doesn’t have really have any weight class qualifications for championships and mixed wrestling action is fairly common, but in the short time she’s been there Sexy Star not only won their World Champion, but their only woman Gift Of The Gods Champion as well.