Women in the WWE

[jcmmnx]

I've been seeing a lot of Bayley and Sasha Banks shirts in the NXT audience lately. I wonder how well their merch is doing compared to the men in NXT. I would guess they're in the second tier right behind Balor, Owens, and maybe Zayn.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

You would think that Vince, in general, would want everyone on his roster, male and female, to reach their full potential to make him money, but apparently he doesn't. He's the most successful wrestling promoter ever, but he's left so much money on the table (be it through pettiness, short-sightedness, misreading his audience, or whatever) it's ridiculous.

 

I'm not gonna claim sexism against anyone who doesn't think a diva match could headline a ppv, but it does seem an awfully old-fashioned point of view, particularly in a post-Rousey world, a world where Jennifer Lawrence is a huge action star, where Peter Jackson created a female character to draw in the female demo for the Hobbit franchise, where Serena and Maria are bigger draws than most of the men in tennis, etc.

 

Even with its reputation for booking women like shit/as filler, WWE has still had some really over female wrestlers in the recent past. I'm rewatching all the B ppvs, and am up to 2002. Trish is getting pops on a par with most but the upper-tier guys. Lita is consistently one of the most over acts in the company, and has been since she first hooked up with Hardys. Shit, I watched Lita challenge Chyna for the women's title, and the crowd reaction was unlike anything I've heard before. It was like the fans were getting angry at Lita for not making more of the few windows of offence she was allowed. Really weird dynamic, but certainly a very visceral genuine connection between performer and crowd. In fact, if you put the Lita from 2001 into modern WWE, she might just be the most over act in the company, and certainly wouldn't look out of place at the top of the card. More recently you had AJ Lee who was consistently getting pops on par with most of the guys. There was a tonne of buzz around Kharma, and I think she could have easily been a top of the card attraction.

 

I don't think anyone is suggesting you could headline a show with Natalya Vs Alicia Fox (and those are two of the more well-thought of females, work-wise) anymore than you could headline a show with Tyson Kidd Vs Damien Sandow, but I think it's clear that there is a bunch of room for growth in the divas division, and I see no reason why that couldn't result in a couple of the girls working on top one day.

[goc]

Now that I mention it, that's something that hasn't even been mentioned in this thread yet, which speaks to just how irrelevant TNA has become. The women's division was always treated decently in TNA, and at the height of their reach in terms of viewers - 2008-2010 or so - the women were almost always the highest rated segment of the shows, and really the only aspect of TNA that delivered consistent results. So there's another answer for the question of "What happens when women are put in a position to draw?"

 

I brought up the Knockouts in TNA a little. I don't know that pointing to them having the highest rated iMPACT segments for a period of time really is that much of an argument because they never actually monetized that audience. They might have had a higher than average rating for their segments but the house shows still weren't drawing and the PPVs were still getting around 10,000 buys.

 

 

[Steenalized]

"You would think Vince, in general, would want everyone on his roster, male and female, to reach their full potential and make him money, but apparently he doesn't."

 

The part in just italics I agree with. The thing is, Vince likely doesn't think that the divas, small guys, and foreigners have much potential to fulfill or much money to draw. Some of these reasons are more foolish than others, but JvK has done a good job explaining why Vince thinks this way. The bolded part I disagree with. I sincerely doubt Vince sees someone, anyone, that is on his roster and says "screw it, I hope he doesn't draw a dime for me." If he wanted that, he would just cut the guy or gal.

[Slasher]

It is not that Vince doesn't see them as draws. It is that he doesn't want someone to transcend the WWE brand name. It doesn't matter if you're a male heavyweight, male lightweight, woman, white, black, giant or midget-Vince wants it to be "WWE", not the Steve Austin and Dwayne Johnson show or the Sasha Banks show or whatever.

 

This point isn't really what this thread is about obviously but it is a waste of time IMO to debate anything relating to creating draws for the company when that philosophy is pretty blatant. John Cena is likely the last ever "Ace"/draw for the WWE. After he goes I don't think they are interested in developing someone on that level again.

[Loss]

Of course WWE could get women over as headliners as they wanted. Just like they could get junior heavyweights, minis, tag teams or anything else over at the main event level if they wanted. Fan conditioning is the most artful thing about pro wrestling. If they give a few women a fair opportunity to draw on top and they don't, it doesn't mean that women can't draw on top. It means they picked the wrong women, or they picked the right ones at the wrong time.

[donsem43]

The biggest problem that the WWE has with women is their inability to consistently develop solid characters and give them good storylines. Over the last decade they show flashes of some of the women having good characters and had them in feuds that got decent TV/PPV time. The problem is there clear gaps in between those feuds that showed that they had clearly no idea or interest in the women and that, more than anything that had to do with match quality, ended up being reflected by the audience.

 

While I'm a big Sasha Banks fan, I don't think the current women's roster is really any better than what they had in the late 2000's. You could take 6 women from that time and build just as good if not better women's division than what you could at this moment. So talent has never been an issue.

 

 

Do you think a total female bad ass could get over with the male fans? Trouble is, that you need good competition which means a whole roster of good talent for her to roll over .... or (and this wasn't good when Chyna was around) have her take on men.

 

Didn't they do this with Beth Phoenix?

[Zoo Enthusiast]

It was too bad the Kharma thing went the way it did, or they could have had a more featured feud.

[pantherwagner]

 

 

 

 

Not to be a dick, but I'm gonna bow out of this argument.

 

We are just arguing opinions and you don't have anything to back up your side any more than I do. I don't think that the women's division is some great untapped draw. I think they should book it better but I don't think it's going to have much of an effect on the bottom line. You think it will. That's fine.

That's fine, but saying that women should be treated as a side show attraction (like minis) because they never drew, when they were never put into a position to draw seems ridiculous to me.

 

Ok since MY opinion is "ridiculous" exactly why are the women indisputably a better draw than minis? Kids make up a big part of the wrestling audience too and I'm more inclined to believe that trying to draw kids is a better way to make money than trying to draw women. There is a whole lot more evidence that kids will tune in to a wrestling show in large numbers than women will.

 

What can you actually bring to the table for your side of this argument other than "it works in NXT" and I "I think more women will watch"?

 

Children and minis are not the same. Minis are small men, not children.

 

It works in NXT and joshi was huge in Japan when it was a hugely pushed thing. What other reason would you need to try?

 

5 years ago, yeah, there wasn't the talent. Now, you have Sasha and Charlotte who you can build around.

 

Thank you for talking to me like I'm a fucking idiot. I did not know that kids and minis are not the same. I thought it was some slick thing Mexican promoters were doing to get around child labor laws.

 

Also why are you now bringing joshi into the argument when you dismissed SHIMMER earlier because it's "completely a women's promotion"?

 

 

Nothing to do with the subject of the thread but actually kids and minis are sometimes the same, especially at the lower levels. Not so much the top minis that we all know - these are all men - but it's quite common for children to start out as minis when they are 14 or 15.

 

And about children labor laws....... well, it's Mexico. Even in states where there are commissions a lot of stuff goes unregulated.

[goc]

Although I was being sarcastic about that, thanks for the information.

[pantherwagner]

Although I was being sarcastic about that, thanks for the information.

 

I got it by the tone of your writing, and I was being sarcastic as well on the last line but sometimes it's hard to get sarcasm through in writing.

[pantherwagner]

To JvK:
What do you think about this angle to sell the push of strong, empowered modern women to Vince?
Use the PR and sponsorships angle. Don’t think yet about the number of extra network subscriptions or live event tickets - think about using women like current action films, UFC or some regular sports do to try to raise your profile as a company. “This isn’t your old sexist wrestling from smoky arenas anymore. It’s a modern company that gives a fair chance to anybody (you’ll have to ignore all the dancing blacks and sneaky latinos though)”. If you raise your profile you could perhaps access corporate sponsorship dollars from companies that want to reach a fitness oriented female audience. All of these are extreme longshots and a very long term plan but Nike, Reebok or Adidas won’t ever consider a Bella twin - but perhaps a properly booked version of Charlotte, or somebody like her? Who would have thought a decade ago that they would consider somebody like Paige Van Zant?

 

In general lines, it would help that they start giving last names to the women, though.

 

And also, no NXT booked women will ever have a chance in the main roster if they don't get rid of the "diva" moniker (men are superstars, women are superstars, there are no distinctions) and get rid of the Bella twins. Not literally, they can be managers or do PR or whatever, but even if they start wrestling like Akira Hokuto they have the stink of the diva division. I think it's lousy booking when somebody wins a title in their debut match but have somebody from NXT (not necessarily Charlotte) go up, destroy them and do a Madusa with the title. Get a real looking title without cute wings or hearts or little ponies and rename it the Undisputed Women's CHAMPIONSHIP or whatever buzzwords they want to use, but make sure that Women is part of the title's name.

[Grimmas]

To JvK:

What do you think about this angle to sell the push of strong, empowered modern women to Vince?

Use the PR and sponsorships angle. Don’t think yet about the number of extra network subscriptions or live event tickets - think about using women like current action films, UFC or some regular sports do to try to raise your profile as a company. “This isn’t your old sexist wrestling from smoky arenas anymore. It’s a modern company that gives a fair chance to anybody (you’ll have to ignore all the dancing blacks and sneaky latinos though)”. If you raise your profile you could perhaps access corporate sponsorship dollars from companies that want to reach a fitness oriented female audience. All of these are extreme longshots and a very long term plan but Nike, Reebok or Adidas won’t ever consider a Bella twin - but perhaps a properly booked version of Charlotte, or somebody like her? Who would have thought a decade ago that they would consider somebody like Paige Van Zant?

 

In general lines, it would help that they start giving last names to the women, though.

 

And also, no NXT booked women will ever have a chance in the main roster if they don't get rid of the "diva" moniker (men are superstars, women are superstars, there are no distinctions) and get rid of the Bella twins. Not literally, they can be managers or do PR or whatever, but even if they start wrestling like Akira Hokuto they have the stink of the diva division. I think it's lousy booking when somebody wins a title in their debut match but have somebody from NXT (not necessarily Charlotte) go up, destroy them and do a Madusa with the title. Get a real looking title without cute wings or hearts or little ponies and rename it the Undisputed Women's CHAMPIONSHIP or whatever buzzwords they want to use, but make sure that Women is part of the title's name.

That's a great great post.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I realize we're in different times, but so much is said about what Cyndi Lauper brought to the table during the initial rock'n'wrestling boom. What demo did she draw in?

Normal people who didn't watch wrestling. She was a HUGE star at the time , there was no gender issue involved .